on, nor one poor cottage to shelter themselves from cold and hunger:
and yet all the while are mighty proud of their contrivances, and sing a
sweet _requiem_ to their own happiness.

To these are to be added those plodding virtuosos, that plunder the most
inward recesses of nature for the pillage of a new invention, and rake
over sea and land for the turning up some hitherto latent mystery; and
are so continually tickled with the hopes of success, that they spare
for no cost nor pains, but trudge on, and upon a defeat in one attempt,
courageously tack about to another, and fall upon new experiments, never
giving over till they have calcined their whole estate to ashes, and
have not money enough left unmelted to purchase one crucible or limbeck.
And yet after all, they are not so much discouraged, but that they
dream fine things still, and animate others what they can to the like
undertakings; nay, when their hopes come to the last gasp, after all
their disappointments, they have yet one _salvo_ for their credit,
that:--

_In great exploits our bare attempts suffice._

And so inveigh against the shortness of their life, which allows them
not time enough to bring their designs to maturity and perfection.

[Illustration: Dice Players 182]

[Illustration: Dice Players-2 186]

Whether dice-players may be so favourably dealt with as to be admitted
among the rest is scarce yet resolved upon: but sure it is hugely vain
and ridiculous, when we see some persons so devoutly addicted to this
diversion, that at the first rattle of the box their heart shakes within
them, and keeps consort with the motion of the dice: they are egg'd on
so long with the hopes of always winning, till at last, in a literal
sense, they have thrown away their whole estate, and made shipwreck of
all they have, scarce escaping to shore with their own clothes to their
backs; thinking it in the meanwhile a great piece of religion to be just
in the payment of their stakes, and will cheat any creditor sooner than
him who trusts them in play: and that poring old men, that cannot tell
their cast without the help of spectacles, should be sweating at the
same sport; nay, that such decrepit blades, as by the gout have lost
the use of their fingers, should look over, and hire others to throw for
them. This indeed is prodigiously extravagant; but the consequence of it
ends so oft in downright madness, that it seems rather to belong to the
furies than to folly.