d,
bulls and pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private men's
loss. [1879]"And if he had been by chance crossed in his sport, or his game
not so good, he was so impatient, that he would revile and miscall many
times men of great worth with most bitter taunts, look so sour, be so angry
and waspish, so grieved and molested, that it is incredible to relate it."
But if he had good sport, and been well pleased, on the other side,
_incredibili munificentia_, with unspeakable bounty and munificence he
would reward all his fellow hunters, and deny nothing to any suitor when he
was in that mood. To say truth, 'tis the common humour of all gamesters, as
Galataeus observes, if they win, no men living are so jovial and merry, but
[1880]if they lose, though it be but a trifle, two or three games at
tables, or a dealing at cards for two pence a game, they are so choleric
and testy that no man may speak with them, and break many times into
violent passions, oaths, imprecations, and unbeseeming speeches, little
differing from mad men for the time. Generally of all gamesters and gaming,
if it be excessive, thus much we may conclude, that whether they win or
lose for the present, their winnings are not _Munera fortunae, sed
insidiae_ as that wise Seneca determines, not fortune's gifts, but baits,
the common catastrophe is [1881]beggary, [1882]_Ut pestis vitam, sic adimit
alea pecuniam_, as the plague takes away life, doth gaming goods, for
[1883] _omnes nudi, inopes et egeni_;

[1884] "Alea Scylla vorax, species certissima furti,
Non contenta bonis animum quoque perfida mergit,
Foeda, furax, infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina."

For a little pleasure they take, and some small gains and gettings now and
then, their wives and children are ringed in the meantime, and they
themselves with loss of body and soul rue it in the end. I will say nothing
of those prodigious prodigals, _perdendae pecuniae, genitos_, as he [1885]
taxed Anthony, _Qui patrimonium sine ulla fori calumnia amittunt_, saith
[1886]Cyprian, and [1887]mad sybaritical spendthrifts, _Quique una comedunt
patrimonia coena_; that eat up all at a breakfast, at a supper, or amongst
bawds, parasites, and players, consume themselves in an instant, as if they
had flung it into [1888]Tiber, with great wages, vain and idle expenses,
&c., not themselves only, but even all their friends, as a man desperately
swimming drowns him that comes to help him, by suretyshi