Is the place where there are three things thrown away beside bowls, to
wit, time, money, and curses, and the last ten for one. The best sport
in it is the gamesters, and he enjoys it that looks on and bets not. It
is the school of wrangling, and worse than the schools, for men will
cavil here for a hair's breadth, and make a stir where a straw would end
the controversy. No antick screws men's bodies into such strange
flexures, and you would think them here senseless, to speak sense to
their bowl, and put their trust in entreaties for a good cast. The
betters are the factious noise of the alley, or the gamesters bedesmen
that pray for them. They are somewhat like those that are cheated by
great men, for they lose their money and must say nothing. It is the
best discovery of humours, especially in the losers, where you have fine
variety of impatience, whilst some fret, some rail, some swear, and
others more ridiculously comfort themselves with philosophy. To give you
the moral of it; it is the emblem of the world, or the world's ambition:
where most are short, or over, or wide or wrong-biassed, and some few
justle in to the mistress Fortune. And it is here as in the court, where
the nearest are most spited, and all blows aimed at the toucher.