34.  As to GAMING, it is always criminal, either in itself, or in its tendency.  The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent.  No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped being miserable; and, observe, to game for nothing is still gaming, and naturally leads to gaming for something.  It is sacrificing time, and that, too, for the worst of purposes.  I have kept house for nearly forty years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any implement of gaming, under my roof.  The hours that young men spend in this way are hours murdered; precious hours, that ought to be spent either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties of the dawn.  Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous flatterers, who now declare the army to be the best school for statesmen, it is certainly a school in which to learn experimentally many useful lessons; and, in this school I learned, that men, fond of gaming, are very rarely, if ever, trust-worthy.  I have known many a clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted to gaming.  Men, in that state of life, cannot ruin themselves by gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of confidence.  This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the heart.  The gambler, as pourtrayed by REGNARD, in a comedy the translation of which into English resembles the original much about as nearly as Sir JAMES GRAHAM’S plagiarisms resembled the Registers on which they had been committed, is a fine instance of the contempt and scorn to which gaming at last reduces its votaries; but, if any young man be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly lost, let him behold HOGARTH’S gambler just when he has made his last throw and when disappointment has bereft him of his senses.  If after this sight he remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name.

35.  The Theatre may be a source not only of amusement but also of instruction; but, as things now are in this country, what, that is not bad, is to be learned in this school?  In the first place not a word is allowed to be uttered on the stage, which has not been previously approved of by the Lord Chamberlain; that is to say, by a person appointed by the Ministry, who, at his pleasure, allows, or disallows, of any piece, or any words in a piece, submitted to his inspection.  In short, those who go to play-houses pay their money to hear uttered such words as the