THE GAMBLER'S MANUAL. 93 



of an empty man. Dice and card-playing in a house set 

 a bad example to children and servants; and people who 

 are very respectable, says Jerome, ought not to be seen 

 at the gambling-table. To take part in games of chance 

 sullies also especially the dignity of a physician 1 . 



There is more than ordinary candour in this way of 

 opening the subject, and in the recommendation that 

 decent people should gamble in private, and then only 

 with their equals in position and in wealth 1 . There is a 

 chapter occupied in the setting forth, as upon a balance- 

 sheet, of the good and bad sides of the dice-player's ex- 

 perience 3 . In his favour, it is said : At the gaming-table 

 he forgets his cares, and can return from it with a prompt 

 spirit to the work over which his mind may happen to 

 have flagged. There, also, his friends open their souls 

 to him unwittingly, their passions and propensities break 

 out over the changes of the game, and he can see them 

 and discriminate between them as they are. The gaming- 

 table also is, for the time, as true a leveller as death; 

 over it men have hailed princes as companions, acquired 

 their favour, and obtained promotion in the state. Cardan 

 himself did in this way become acquainted with a prince 3 . 

 Then, however, turning to the dark side of the picture, 

 the philosopher dilates upon the great preponderance of 



1 Liber de Ludo Alese, cap. iii. 2 Ibid. cap. iv. 



3 " Quo etiam Francisco Sfortiaa Mediolani principi innotui et nobi- 

 liura amicitiam multorum mihicomparavi." DeVit.Propr.cap.xiii.p. 62. 



