Titius pila, Brulla talis. De Orat. lib. iii.

Quinctilian advised his pupils to avoid all sterile amusements, which,
he said, were only the resource of the ignorant.

In after-times men of merit, such as John Huss and Cardinal Cajetan,
bewailed both the time lost in the most innocent games, and the
disastrous passions which are thereby excited. Montaigne calls chess
a stupid and childish game. 'I hate and shun it,' he says, 'because
it occupies one too seriously; I am ashamed of giving it the attention
which would be sufficient for some useful purpose.' King James I., the
British Solomon, forbade chess to his son, in the famous book of royal
instruction which he wrote for him.

As to the plea of 'filling up time,' Addison has made some very
pertinent observations:--'Whether any kind of gaming has ever thus
much to say for itself, I shall not determine; but I think it is very
wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours
together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other
conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other
ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different
figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species
complaining that life is short?'

Men of intellect may rest assured that whether they win or lose at play,
it will always be at the cost of their genius; the soul cannot support
two passions together. The passion of play, although fatigued, is never
satiated, and therefore it always leaves behind protracted agitation.
The famous Roman lawyer Scaevola suffered from playing at backgammon;
his head was always affected by it, especially when he lost the game,
in fact, it seemed to craze him. One day he returned expressly from the
country merely to try and convince his opponent in a game which he had
lost, that if he had played otherwise he would have won! It seems that
on his journey home he mentally went through the game again, detected
his mistake, and could not rest until he went back and got his adversary
to admit the fact--for the sake of his _amour propre_.(113)

(113) Quinctil., _Instit. Orat_. lib. XI. cap. ii.

'It is rare,' says Rousseau, 'that thinkers take much delight in
play, which suspends the habit of thinking or diverts it upon sterile
combinations; and so one of the benefits--perhaps the only benefit
conferred by the taste for the sciences, is that it somewhat deadens
that sordid passion of pla