_!

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 "State of Europe during the Middle Ages" renders this short
article superfluous in a philosophical view.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 57: Many are of the nature of "peppercorn rents." Thus a manor
was held from the king "by the service of one rose only, to be paid
yearly, at the feast of St. John the Baptist, for all services; and they
gave the king one penny for the price of the said one rose, as it was
appraised by the barons of the Exchequer." Nicholas De Mora, in the
reign of Henry III., "rendered at the Exchequer two knives, one good,
and the other a very bad one, for certain land which he held in
Shropshire." The citizens of London still pay to the Exchequer six
horseshoes with nails, for their right to a piece of ground in the
parish of St. Clement, originally granted to a farrier, as early as the
reign of Henry III.]

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, as 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 captivated by the hope of accumulating wealth without
the labours 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 placed 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 di