imaginary being called Fortune, who,

`----With malicious joy,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a _LOTTERY_ of life.'


The Hindoo Code--a promulgation of very high antiquity--
denounces gambling, which proves that there were desperate
gamesters among the Hindoos in the earliest times. Men gamed,
too, it would appear, after the example set them by the gods, who
had gamesters among them. The priests of Egypt assured Herodotus
that one of their kings visited alive the lower regions called
infernal, and that he there joined a gaming party, at which he
both lost and won.[3] Plutarch tells a pretty Egyptian story to
the effect, that Mercury having fallen in love with Rhea, or the
Earth, and wishing to do her a favour, gambled with the Moon, and
won from her every seventieth part of the time she illumined the
horizon--all which parts he united together, making up _FIVE
DAYS_, and added them to the Earth's year, which had previously
consisted of only 360 days.[4]


[3] Herod. 1. ii.

[4] Plutarch, _De Isid. et Osirid._


But not only did the gods play among themselves on Olympus, but
they gambled with mortals. According to Plutarch, the priest of