famous are not always illustrious. In the rage for titles the ancient lawyers in Italy were not satisfied by calling kings illustres; they went a step higher, and would have emperors to be super-illustres, a barbarous coinage of their

own.

In Spain, they published a book of titles for their kings, as well as for the Portuguese; but Selden tells us, that their Cortesias and giving of titles grew at length, through the affectation of heaping great attributes on their princes, to such an insufferable forme, that a remedie was provided against it.' This remedy was an act published by Philip III, which ordained that all the Cortesias, as they termed these strange phrases, they had so servilely and ridiculous. ly invented, should be reduced to a simple subscription, To the king our lord,' leaving out those fantastical attributes which every secretary had vied with his predecessors in increasing their number.

It would fill three columns of the present pages to transcribe the titles and attributes of the Grand Signior, which he assumes in a letter to Henry IV. Selden, in his Titles of Honour, first part, p. 140, has preserved it, This emperor of victorious emperors,' as he styles himself, at length condescended to agree with the emperor of Germany, in 1606, that in all their letters and instruments they should be only styled father and son: the emperor calling the sultan his son; and the sultan the emperor, in regard, of his years, his father.

Formerly, says Houssaie, the title of highness was only given to kings; but now it has become so common, that all the great houses assume it. All the great, says a modern, are desirous of being confounded with princes, and are ready to seize on the privileges of royal dignity. We have already come to highness. The pride of our descendants, I suspect will usurp that of majesty.

Ferdinand, king of Arragon, and his queen Isabella, of Castile, were only treated with the title of highness. Charles was the first who took that of majesty: not in his quality of king of Spain, but as emperor. St Foix informs us, that kings were usually addressed by the titles of most illustrious, or your serenity, or your grace; but that the custom of giving them that of majesty, was only established by Louis XI, a prince the least majestic in all his actions, his manners, and his exterior-a severe monarch, but no ordinary man, the Tiberius of France; whose manners were of the most sordid nature :-in public audiences he dressed like the meanest of the people, and affected to sit on an old broken chair, with a filthy dog on his knees. In an account found of his household, this majestic prince has a charge made him, for two new sleeves sewed on one of his old doublets.

Formerly kings were apostrophized by the title of your grace. Henry VIII was the first, says Houssaie, who assumed the title of highness; and at length majesty. It was Francis I, who saluted him with this last title, in their interview in the year 1520, though he called himself only the first gentleman in his kingdom!

So distinct were once the titles of highness and excellence, that, when Don Juan, the brother of Philip II, was permitted to take up the latter title, and the city of Granada saluted him by the title of highness, it occasioned such serious jealousies at court, that had he persisted in it, he would have been condemned for treason.

The usual title of cardinals, about 1600, was seignoria illustrissima; the Duke of Lerma, the Spanish minister and cardinal in his old age, assumed the title of excellencia reverendissima. The church of Rome was in its glory, and to be called reverend was then accounted a higher honour than to be styled the illustrious. But by use illustrious grew familiar, and reverend vulgar, and at last the cardinals were distinguished by the title of eminent.

After all these historical notices respecting these titles, the reader will smile when he is acquainted with the reason of an honest curate, of Montserrat, who refused to bestow the title of highness on the duke of Mantua, because he found in his breviary these words, Tu solus Dominus, tu solus Altissimus; from all which he concluded, that none but the Lord was to be honoured with the title of highness. The Titles of Honour' of Selden is a very curious volume, and as the learned Usher told Evelyn, the most valuable work of this great scholar. The best edition is a folio of about 1000 pages. Selden vindicates the right of a king of England to the title of emperor.

And never yet was title did not move; And never eke a mind, that title did not love.'

TITLES OF SOVEREIGNS.

In countries where despotism exists in all its force, and is gratified in all its caprices, either the intoxication of pow er has occasioned sovereigns to assume the most solemn and the most fantastic titles; or the royal duties and functions were considered of so high and extensive a nature, chical state, by the most energetic descriptions of oriental that the people expressed their notion of the pure monar fancy.

The chiefs of the Natches are regarded by their people as the children of the sun, and they bear the name of their father.

The titles which some chiefs assume are not always honourable in themselves; it is sufficient if the people respect them. The king of Quiterva calls himself the great lion; and for this reason lions are there so much respected, that they are not allowed to kill them, but at certain royal hunt. ings.

The king of Monomotapa is surrounded by musicians and poets, who adulate him by such refined flatteries a: lord of the sun and moon; great magician; and great thief'

The Asiatics have bestowed what to us appear as ridi culous titles of honour on their princes. The king of Ar racan assumes the following ones; Emperor of Arracan possessor of the white elephant, and the two ear-rings, and in virtue of this possession legitimate heir of Pegu and Brama; lord of the twelve provinces of Bengal, and the twelve kings who place their heads under his feet.

His majesty of Ava is called God; when he writes to foreign sovereign he calls himself the king of kings, whon all others should obey, as he is the cause of the preservation of all animals; the regulator of the seasons, the absolute master of the ebb and flow of the sea, brother to the sun and king of the four and twenty umbrellas! These umbrellas are always carried before him as a mark of his dig.

nity.

The titles of the king of Achem are singular though vo luminous. The most striking ones are sovereign of the universe, whose body is as luminous as the sun whom God created to be as accomplished as the moon at her plenitude; whose eye glitters like the northern star; a king as spiritual as a ball is round; who when he rises shades all his people; from under whose feet a sweet odour is wafted, &c, &c.

Dr Davy, in his recent history of Ceylon, has added to this collection the authentic title of the Kandryan sovereign. He too is called Dewo (God.) In a deed of gift he proclaims his extraordinary attributes. The protector of religion, whose fame is infinite, and of surpassing excellence, exceeding the moon, the unexpanded jessaminebuds, the stars, &c; whose feet are as fragrant to the noses of other kings as flowers to bees; our most noble patron and god by custom, &c.'

After a long enumeration of the countries possessed by the king of Persia, they give him some poetical distinctions; the branch of honour; the mirror of virtue; and the rose of delight.

་

ROYAL DIVINITIES.

There is a curious dissertation in the 'Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, by the Abbé Mongault, on the divine honours which were paid to the governors of provinces during the Roman republic;' during their life-time these originally began in gratitude, and at length degenerated into flattery. These facts curiously show how far the human mind can advance, when led on by customs that operate invisibly on it, and blind us in our absurdities. One of these ceremonies was exquisitely ridiculous. When they voted a statue to a proconsul, they placed it among the statues of the gods in the festival called Lectisternium; from the ridiculous circumstances of this solemn festival. On that day the gods were invited to a repast, which was however spread in various quarters of the city, to satiate mouths more mortal. The gods were however taken down from their pedestals, laid on beds ornamented in their temples; pillows were placed under their marble heads; and while they reposed in this easy posture they were served with a magnificent repast. When Cæsar had conquered Rome, the servile senate put him to dine with the gods! Fatigued by, and ashamed of these honours, he desired the senate to erase from his statue in the capitol, the title they had given him of a demi-god!

We know that the first Remnan emperors did not want flatterers, and that the adulations they sometimes lavished were extravagant. But perhaps few know that they were

less offensive than the flatterers of the third century under the Pagan, and of the fourth under the Christian emperors. Those who are acquainted with the character of the age of Augustulus, have only to throw their eyes on the one, and the other code, to find an infinite number of passages which had not been bearable even in that age. For instance, here is a law of Arcadius and Honorius, published

in 404:

'Let the officers of the palace be warned to abstain from frequenting tumultuous meetings; and that those who, instigated by a sacrilegious temerity, dare to oppose the authority of our divinity, shall be deprived of their employments, and their estates confiscated.' The letters they write are holy. When the sons speak of their fathers, it is Their father of divine memory' or 'Their divine father.' They call their own laws oracles, and celestial oracles. So also their subjects address them by the titles of Your perpetuity, your eternity.' And it appears by a law of Theodore the Great, that the emperors at length added this to their titles. It begins, If any magistrate after having concluded a public work, put his name rather than that of our perpetuity, let him be judged guilty of high-treason. All this reminds one of the celestial empire' of the Chinese. Whenever the great Mogul made an observation, Bernier tells us that some of the first omrahs lifted up their hands, crying, Wonder! wonder! wonder!' And a proverb current in his dominions, was, 'If the king saith at noonday it is night, you are to say, behold the moon and the stars! Such adulation, however, could not alter the general condition and fortune of this unhappy being, who became a sovereign without knowing what it is to be one. He was brought out of the seraglio to be placed on the throne, and it was he rather than the spectators, who might have truly used the interjection of astonishment!

DETHRONED MONARCHS.

FORTUNE never appears in a more extravagant humour than when she reduces monarchs to become mendicants. Half a century ago it was not imagined that our own times should have to record many such instances. After having contemplated kings raised into divinities, we see them now depressed as beggars. Our own times, in two opposite senses, may emphatically be distinguished as the age of kings.

In Candide or the Optimist, there is an admirable stroke of Voltaire's. Eight travellers meet in an obscure inn, and some of them with not sufficient money to pay for a scurvy dinner. In the course of conversation, they are discovered to be eight monarchs in Europe, who had been deprived of their crowns!

What added to this exquisite satire was, that there were eight living monarchs at that moment wanderers on the earth-a circumstance which has since occurred.

Adelaide, the widow of Lothario king of Italy, one of the most beautiful women in her age, was besieged in Pavia by Berenger, who resolved to constrain her to marry his son after Pavia was taken; she escaped from her prison with her almoner. The archbishop of Reggio had offered her an asylum: to reach it, she and her almoner travelled on foot through the country by night, concealing herself in the day-time among the corn, while the almoner begged for alms and food through the villages.

The Emperor Henry IV, after having been deposed and imprisoned by his son, Henry V, escaped from prison; poor, vagrant, and without aid, he entreated the bishop of Spires to grant him a lay prebend in his church. I have studied,' said he, and have learned to sing, and may therefore be of some service to you.' The request was denied, and he died miserably and obscurely at Liege, after having drawn the attention of Europe to his victories and his grandeur.

·

Mary of Medicis, the widow of Henry the Great, mother of Louis XIII, mother-in-law of three sovereigns, and regent of France, frequently wanted the necessaries of life, and died at Cologne in the utmost misery. The intrigues of Richelieu compelled her to exile herself, and live an unhappy fugitive. Her petition exists with this supplicatory opening: Supplie Marie, Reine de France et de Navarre, disant, que depuis le 23 Fevrier, elle aurait été arretée prisonniere au chateau de Compiegne, sans étre ni accusée ni soupçonnée, &c.' Lilly, the astrologer, in his Life and Death of King Charles the First, presents us with a melancholy picture of this unfortunate monarch. He has also described the person of the old queen mother of France.

"In the month of August, 1641, I beheld the old queen mother of France departing from London, in company of Thomas earl of Arundel. A sad spectacle of mortality it was, and produced tears from mine eyes and many other beholders, to see an aged, lean, decripit, poor quecn ready for her grave, necessitated to depart hence, having no place of residence in this world left her, but where the courtesy of her hard fortune assigned it. She had been the only stately and magnificent woman of Europe: wife to the greatest king that ever lived in France; mother unto one king and unto two queens.'

In the year 1595, died at Paris, Antonio king of Portugal. His body is interred at the Cordeliers, and his heart deposited at the Ave-Maria. Nothing on earth could compel this prince to renounce his crown. He passed over to England, and Elizabeth assisted him with troops, but at length he died in France in great poverty. This dethroned monarch was happy in one thing, which is indeed rare: in all his miseries he had a servant, who proved a tender and faithful friend, and who only desired to participate in his misfortunes, and to soften his miseries; and for the recompense of his services he only wished to be buried at the feet of his dear master. This hero in loyalty, to whom the ancient Romans would have raised altars, was Don Diego Bothei, one of the greatest lords of the court of Portugal, and who drew his origin from the kings of Bo

hemia.

Hume supplies me with an anecdote of singular royal distress. He informs us that the queen of England, with her son Charles, had 'a moderate pension assigned her; but it was so ill paid, and her credit ran so low, that one morning when the Cardinal de Retz waited on her she informed him that her daughter, the princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie a-bed for want of a fire to warm her. To such a condition was reduced, in the midst of Paris, a queen of England, and daughter of Henry IV of France! We find another proof of her excessive poverty. Salmasius, after publishing his celebrated polítical book, in favour of Charles II, the Defensio Regia, was much blamed by a friend for not having sent a copy to the widowed queen of Charles, who, he writes, though poor, would yet have paid the bearer!

The daughter of James the first, who married the Elector Palatine, in her attempts to get her husband crowned, was reduced to the utmost beggary, and wandered frequently in disguise as a mere vagrant.

A strange anecdote is related of Charles VII, of France. Our Henry V had shrunk his kingdom into the town of Bourges. It is said, that having told a shoemaker after he had just tried a pair of his boots, that he had no money to pay for them, Crispin had such callous feelings that he refused his majesty the boots! It is for this reason,' says Comines, 'I praise those princes who are on good terms with the lowest of their people; for they know not at what hour they may want them.'

Many monarchs of this day have probably experienced more than once the truth of the reflection of Comines.

We may add here, that in all conquered countries the descendants of royal families have been found among the dregs of the populace. An Irish prince has been discovered in the person of a miserable peasant; and in Mexico, its faithful historian Clavigero notices, that he has known a locksmith who was a descendant of its ancient kings, and a tailor of one of its noblest families.

FEUDAL CUSTOMS.

Barbarous as the feudal customs were, they were the first attempts at organizing European society. The northern nations, in their irruptions and settlements in Europe, were barbarians independent of each other, till a sense of public safety induced these hordes to confederate. But the private individual reaped no benefit from the public union; on the contrary, he seems to have lost his wild liberty in the subjugation; he in a short time was compelled to suf fer from his chieftain: and the curiosity of the philosopher is excited by contemplating in the feudal customs a barbarous people carrying into their first social institutions their original ferocity. The institution of forming cities into communities at length gradually diminished this military and aristocratic tyranny; and the freedom of cities, origi nating in the pursuits of commerce, shook off the yoke of insolent lordships. A famous ecclesiastical writer of that day, who had imbibed the feudal prejudices, calls these communities, which were distinguished by the name of libertates (hence probably our municipal term the liberties,)

as execrable inventions, by which, contrary to law and justice, slaves withdrew themselves from that obedience which they owed to their masters.' Such was the expiring voice of aristocratic tyranny! This subject has been ingeniously discussed by Robertson in his preliminary volume to Charles V; but the following facts constitute the picture which the historian leaves to be gleaned by the minuter inquirer.

The feudal government introduced a species of servitude which till that time was unknown, and which was called the servitude of the land. The bondmen or serfs, and the villains or country servants, did not reside in the house of the lord; but they entirely depended on his caprice; and he sold them, as he did the animals, with the field where they lived, and which they cultivated.

It is difficult to conceive with what insolence the petty lords of those times tyrannized over their villains: they not only oppressed their slaves with unremitted labour, instigated by a vile cupidity; but their whim and caprice led them to inflict miseries without even any motive of in

terest.

In Scotland they had a shameful institution of maiden rights; and Malcolm the Third only abolished it, by ordering that they might be redeemed by a quitrent. The truth of this circumstance Dalrymple has attempted, with excusable patriotism, to render doubtful. There seems however to be no doubt of the existence of this custom; since it also spread through Germany, and various parts of Europe; and the French barons extended their domestic tyranny to three nights of involuntary prostitution. Montesquieu is infinitely French, when he could turn this shameful species of tyranny into a bon mot; for he coldly observes on this,' C'etoit bien ces trois nuits la, qu'il falloit choisir; car pour les autres on n'auroit pas donné beaucoup d'argent.' The legislator in the wit forgot the feelings of his heart.

Others, to preserve this privilege when they could not enjoy it in all its extent, thrust their leg booted into the bed of the new-married couple. This was called the droit de cuisse. When the bride was in bed, the esquire or lord performed this ceremony, and stood there, his thigh in the bed, with a lance in his hand in this ridiculous attitude he remained till he was tired; and the bridegroom was not suffered to enter the chamber, till his lordship had retired. Such indecent privileges must have originated in the worst of intentions; and when afterwards they advanced a step in more huniane manners, the ceremonial was preserved from avaricious motives. Others have compelled their subjects to pass the first night at the top of a tree, and there to consummate their marriage; to pass the bridal hours in a river; or to be bound naked to a cart, and to trace some furrows as they were dragged: or to leap with their feet tied over the horns of stags.

Sometimes their caprice commanded the bridegroom to appear in drawers at their castle, and plunge into a ditch of mud; and sometimes they were compelled to beat the waters of the ponds to hinder the frogs from disturbing the lord!

Wardship, or the privilege of guardianship enjoyed by some lord, was one of the barbarous inventions of the feudal ages; the guardian had both the care of the person, and for his own use the revenue of the estates. This feudal custom was so far abused in England, that the king sold these lordships to strangers; and when the guardian had fixed on a marriage for the infant, if the youth or maiden did not agree to this, they forfeited the value of the marriage; that is, the sum the guardian would have obtained by the other party had it taken place. This cruel custom was a source of domestic unhappiness, particularly in loveaffairs, and has served as the ground-work of many a pathetic play by our elder dramatists.

There was a time when the German lords reckoned amongst their privileges, that of robbing on the high ways of their territory; which ended in raising up the famous Hanseatic Union to protect their commerce against rapine and avaricious exactions of toll.

Geoffrey, lord of Coventry, compelled his wife to ride naked on a white pad through the streets of the town; that by this mode he might restore to the inhabitants those privileges of which his wantonness had deprived them. This anecdote some have suspected to be fictitious from its extreme barbarity; but the character of the middle-ages will admit of any kind of wanton barbarism.

When the abbot of Figeac makes his entry into that town, the lord of Montbrun, dressed in a harlequin's coat,

and one of his legs naked, is compelled by an ancient custom to conduct him to the door of his abbey leading his horse by the bridle.

The feudal barons frequently combined to share among themselves those children of their villains who appeared to be the most healthy and serviceable, or who were remarkable for their talents; and not unfrequently sold them in their markets.

The feudal servitude is not, even in the present enlightened times, abolished in Poland, in Germany, and in Russia. In those countries the bondmen are still entirely dependent on the caprice of their masters. The peasants of Hungary or Bohemia frequently revolt, and attempt to shake off the pressure of feudal tyranny.

An anecdote of comparatively recent date displays their unfeeling caprice. A lord or prince of the northern countries passing through one of his villages, observed a small assembly of peasants and their families amusing themselves with dancing. He commands his domestics to part the men from the women, and confine them in the houses. He orders the coats of the women to be drawn up above their heads, and tied with their garters. The men were then liberated, and those who did not recognize their wives in that state received a severe castigation.

Absolute dominion hardens the human heart; and nobles accustomed to command their bondmen will treat their domestics as slaves, as the capricious or inhuman West Indians are known to do their domestic slaves. Those of Siberia punish theirs by a free use of the cudgel or rod. The Abbé Chappe saw two Russian slaves undress a chambermaid, who had by some trifling negligence given offence to her mistress; after having uncovered as far as her waist, one placed her head betwixt his knees; the other held her by the feet: while both armed with two sharp rods, violently lashed her back till it pleased the domestic tyrant to decree it was enough!

After a perusal of these anecdotes of feudal tyranny, we may exclaim with Goldsmith

'I fly from petty tyrants-to the throne.'

Mr Hallam's recent view of the State of Europe during the Middle-ages,' renders this short article superfluous in a philosophical view.

JOAN OF ARC.

Of the Maid of Orleans I have somewhere read that a bundle of faggots was substituted for her, when she was supposed to have been burnt by the Duke of Bedford. None of our historians notice this anecdote: though some have mentioned that after her death an impostor arose, and was even married to a French gentleman, by whom she had several children. Whether she deserved to have been distinguished by the appellation of The Maid of Orleans we have great reason to suspect; and some in her days, from her fondness for man's apparel, even doubted her sex. We know little of one so celebrated as to have formed the heroine of epics. The following epitaph on her [ find in Winstanley's Historical Rarities;' and which, possessing some humour, merits to be rescued from total ob

livion.

'Here lies Joan of Arc; the which

Some count saint, and some count witch;
Some count man, and something more;
Some count maid, and some a whore.
Her life 's in question, wrong or right;
Her death 's in doubt, by laws or might.
Oh, innocence! take heed of it,
How thou too near to guilt doth sit.
(Meantime, France a wonder saw-
A woman rule, 'gainst salique law!)
But, reader, be content to stay

Thy censure till the judgment day;
Then shalt thou know, and not before,
Whether saint, witch, man, maid, or whore.'

GAMING.

Gaming appears to be an universal passion. Some have attempted to deny its universality; they have imagined that it is chiefly prevalent in cold climates, where such a passion becomes most capable of agitating and gratifying the torpid minds of their inhabitants.

The fatal propensity of gaming is to be discovered, well amongst the inhabitants of the frigid and torrid zones, as amongst those of the milder climates. The savage and the civilized, the illiterate and the learned, are alike capovated by the hope of accumulating wealth without the inbours of industry.

Barbeyrac has written an elaborate treatise on gaming, and we have two quarto volumes by C. Moore, on suicide, gaming, and duelling, which may be put on the shelf by the side of Barbeyrac. All these works are excellent sermons, but a sermon to a gambler, a duellist, or a suicide! A dice-box, a sword and pistol, are the only things that seem to have any power over these unhappy men, for ever lost in a labyrinth of their own construction.

I am much pleased with the following thought. The ancients (says the author of Amusemens serieux et comiques) assembled to see their gladiators kill one another; they classed this among their games! What barbarity! But are we less barbarous, we who call a game an assembly who meet at the faro table where the actors themselves confess they only meet to destroy one another?' In both these cases the philosopher may perhaps discover their origin in one cause, that of the listless perishing with ennui requiring an immediate impulse of the passions; and very inconsiderate on the fatal means which procures the desired agitation.

The most ancient treatise by a modern on this subject, according to Barbeyrac, was that of a French physician, one Eckeloo, who published it in 1569, entitled De Alea, sive de curanda ludendi in pecuniam cupiditate, that is, ' of games of chance, or the malady of playing for money.' The treatise itself is only worth noticing from the circumstance of the author being himself one of the most inveterate gamblers; he wrote this work to convince himself of this folly. But in spite of all his solemn vows, the prayers of his friends, and his own book perpetually quoted before his face, he was a great gamester to his last hour! The same circumstance happened to Sir John Denham. They had not the good sense of old Montaigne, who gives us the reason why he gave over gaming. I used to like formerly games of chance with cards and dice; but of that folly I have long been cured; merely because I found that whatever good countenance I put on when I lost I did not feel my vexation the less.' Goldsmith fell a victim to this madness. To play any game well requires serious study, time, and experience. If a man of letters plays deeply, he will be duped even by shallow fellows, or by professed gamblers.

Dice, and that little pugnacious animal the cock, are the chief instruments employed by the numerous nations of the East, to agitate their minds and ruin their fortunes; to which the Chinese, who are desperate gamesters, add the use of cards. When all other property is played away, the Asiatic gambler scruples not to stake his wife or his child, on the cast of a die, or courage and strength of a martial bird. If still unsuccessful, the last venture he stakes is himself.

In the island of Ceylon, cock-fighting is carried to a great height. The Sumatrans are addicted to the use of dice. A strong spirit of play characterizes a Malayan. After having resigned every thing to the good fortune of the winner, he is reduced to a horrid state of desperation; he then loosens a certain lock of hair, which indicates war and destruction to all the raving gamester meets. He intoxicates himself with opium; and working himself up into a fit of phrenzy, he bites and kills every one who comes in his way.

But as soon as this lock is seen flowing it is lawful to fire at the person, and to destroy him as fast as possible. I think it is this which our sailors call' To run a muck.' Thus Dryden writes

Frontless, and satire-proof, he scours the streets,
And runs an Indian muck at all he meets.'

Thus also Pope

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet.' Johnson could not discover the derivation of the word muck. To run a muck' is an old phrase for attacking madly and indiscriminately: and has since been ascertained to be a Malay word.

To discharge their gambling debts, the Siamese sell their possessions, their families, and at length themselves. The Chinese play night and day, till they have lost all they are worth; and then they usually go and hang themselves. Such is the propensity of the Japanese for high play, that they were compelled to make a law, that, Whoever ventures his money at play, shall be put to death.' In the newly-discovered islands of the Pacific Ocean, they venture even their hatchets, which they hold as invaluable acquisiLions, on running-matches: We saw a man,' says Cook,

beating his breast and tearing his hair in the violence o rage, for having lost three hatchets at one of these races, and which he had purchased with nearly half his property.' The ancient nations were not less addicted to gaming; Persians, Grecians, and Romans; the Goths, the Germans, &c. To notice the modern ones were a melancholy task: there is hardly a family in Europe which cannot record, from their own domestic annals, the dreadful prevalence of this passion.

Gamester and cheater were synonymous terms in the time of Shakspeare and Jonson: they have hardly lost much of their double signification in the present day.

The following is a curious picture of a gambling-house, from a contemporary account, and appears to be an establishment more systematic than the 'hells' of the present day. 'A list of the officers established in the most notorious gaming-houses,' from the Daily-Journal, Jan. 9th, 1781. 1st. A Commissioner, always a proprietor, who looks in of a night; and the week's account is audited by him and two other proprietors.

2d. A Director, who superintends the room.

3d. An Operator, who deals the cards at a cheating game, called Faro.

4th. Two Crowpees, who watch the cards, and gather the money for the bank.

5th. Two Puffs, who have money given them to decoy others to play.

6th. A Clerk, who is a check upon the Puffs, to see that they sink none of the money given them to play with. 7th. A Squib is a puff of lower rank, who serves at halfpay salary while he is learning to deal.

8th. A Flasher, to swear how often the bank has been stript.

9th. A Dunner, who goes about to recover money lost at play.

10th. A Waiter, to fill out wine, snuff candles, and attend the gaming-room.

11th. An Attorney, a Newgate solicitor.

12th. A Captain, who is to fight any gentleman who is peevish for losing his money.

13th. An Usher, who lights gentlemen up and down stairs, and gives the word to the porter.

14th. A Porter, who is generally a soldier of the Foot Guards.

15th. An Orderly Man, who walks up and down the outside of the door, to give notice to the porter, and alarm the house at the approach of the constable.

16th. A Runner, who is to get intelligence of the justice's meeting.

17th. Link-boys, Coachmen, Chairmen, or others who bring intelligence of the justices' meetings, or of the constables being out, at half a-guinea reward.

18th. Common-bail, Affidavit men, Ruffians, Bravoes, Assassins, cum multis aliis.

The Memoirs of the most famous Gamesters from the reign of Charles II to Queen Anne, by T. Lucas, Esq. 1714,' appears to be a bookseller's job, but probably a few traditional stories are preserved.

THE ARABIC CHRONICLE.

The Arabic Chronicle of Jerusalem is only valuable from the time of Mahomet. For such is the stupid superstition of the Arabs, that they pride themselves on being ignorant of whatever has passed before the mission of their Prophet. The most curious information it contains is concerning the crusades: according to Longerue, who said he had translated several portions of it, whoever would be versed in the history of the crusades should attend to this chronicle, which appears to have been written with impartiality. It renders justice to the christian heroes, and particularly dwells on the gallant actions of the Count de Saint Gilles.

Our historians chiefly write concerning Godfrey de Bouillon; only the learned know that the Count de Saint Gilles acted there so important a character. The stories of the Saracens are just the reverse: they speak little concerning Godfrey, and eminently distinguish Saint Gil

les.