shoes garnished with cutting, edging, or stitching, nor other than of usual English neats' leather, or calves' leather, and no foreign stuff or dressing. Nor any girdles nor garters other than cruel, woollen, thread, or leather and that plain, without garnishing.

;

"Also, that no apprentice shall, within the liberties of this city, other than in his journey going out of the said liberties, or coming home, by his master's appointment, or in the watch, wear any sword, dagger, or other weapon, than convenient meat-knives.”

The first offence against these ordinances to be punished at the "discretion of his master;" the second, by "open whipping at the hall of his company;" and the third, by "six months longer than his years as an apprentice."

Also, that every apprentice which shall be in any dancing-school, or school of fence, or school or place of learning of instruments; or learn or use dancing or masking; or which shall, without his master's knowledge, have any chest, press, or other place, to lay up or keep any apparel or goods, saving only in his

master's house, or by his master's license and appointment; shall, upon proof, be punished" as aforesaid.

"Provided alway, that this act, for so much as concerneth resorting to schools or places of learning of instruments, or dancing, or apparel, shall not extend to any apprentice of the company of minstrels, learning, teaching, or using the same faculty as his lawful art. "Given at the said city, the 21st May, 1582.

"God save the Queen."*

The passions and propensities of human nature are the same in all ages, in every climate, and under every condition of social union; and however the modes of their manifestation may differ, according to the situation of the individual, or the degree of common civilization, the impulses themselves are still in constant operation; for ever, and with

* Stowe's Survey, book v. page 328.

uniform force, actuating the moral agent in the pursuit and promotion of his real or imaginary well-being. As a proof of the truth of this remark, adapted to our present purpose, we may mention the passion for gaming; which, whether it be identical with the desire of appropriation, (as seems to be the case in the state of civilization,) or be founded in a wish to escape from that painful dulness and vacuity of mind, which is the necessary concomitant of savage life, has been a prevalent feature of human manners from the earliest ages of the world; and is at this moment to be discovered among every people upon the face of the earth. Unfortunately for the honour and happiness of our own country, this vice has ever been incorporated with our national character; and though the good sense and moral feeling of the legislature have, of late years, strenuously discountenanced its public and barefaced indulgence, (so that no horrid scenes of legalized gaming are to be witnessed among us, as on the continent,) yet if the secret history of our fashionable clubs could be perused, or the transactions in the snug

little rooms behind the bars of our pot-houses be developed, we should find, it is to be feared, the passion for play still operating as powerfully upon the very high and the very low classes of the English nation, as it has ever done in the country heretofore, or is at this moment doing in any other kingdom of the world.

It was not always, however, that public gaming was an act contrary to the ordinances of the punitive law in England. Not only the petty and cautious play of Lord Glenvarlock at the public ordinary, (which, by the bye, almost stamps the peer with the character of a black legs, and would, unquestionably, have occasioned his being kicked out of the room at Brooks's,) but the high stakes of Buckingham* or Delgarno were sanctioned by the

*The love of play seems to have been a sort of heir-loom attached to the title of Duke of Buckingham. The friend and victim of Richard the Third was notorious for his expensiveness, of which this -destructive habit formed a feature. The Dukes of Buckingham, father and son, in the reigns of James the First and Charles the Second, followed the same practice; and John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham,

express permission of the royal authority, in the reign of James the First. The English Solomon had conceived a mortal dread of the Puritans and their sober manners; and as fear is always associated with a detestation of its object in the mind of a coward, he “hated both with the most perfect hatred." It was upon this principle that he laid the axe to the root of public religion, morality, and decency, by a proclamation, in 1617, authorising, or

in King William's time, (though no relation to the Villiers' family,) was one of the most notorious gamblers of his day. In a letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury he describes his manner of living, (see " London and its Environs ;")" but," says Mr. Pennant, "he has omitted his constant visits to the noted gaming-house at Mary bone, the place of assemblage of all the infamous sharpers of the time. His Grace always gave them a dinner at the conclusion of the season; and his parting toast was, May as many us as remain unhanged next spring, meet here again.' I remember," adds Mr. Pennant," the facetious Quin telling this story at Bath, within the hearing of Lord Chesterfield, when his lordship was surrounded by a crowd of worthies of the same stamp with the above. Lady Mary W. Montague alludes to the amusements of the duke in this line, 'Some dukes at Mary bone bowl time away."-London, p. 270.

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