The Roundheads professed to despise all frivolous amusements, and considered them sinful, although the early Christians evidently did not look on Dice and such games in the same light, as recent excavations in the Catacombs show that the graves there contained various implements of sport. “Dice-counters and gambling-boards,” says a recent writer, “have been discovered in Christian tombs”; and the boards, with their gay and inspiriting inscriptions (“Victus leva te; ludere nescis; da lusori locum,” “Domine, frater hilaris semper ludere tabula”), do not differ at all from those with which the heathen had made merry. In the Domitilla Catacomb has been found the tomb of a master in the art of making Dice. After the restoration of Charles the Second the court cards resumed their sway, and from that time to the accession of Queen Victoria, reigned supreme, from court circles down to the gypsies in their encampment in the fields. The rage for play reached such a pitch during the latter years of the reign of George the Third, that the Regent, his brothers, and his friends were all deeply involved in debt. A story is related of the famous Dowager Electress of Saxony, who was devoted to the card-table and was not above taking advantage of her position and using it when opportunity offered. She one evening “committed some irregularity” (as cheating is termed when indulged in by a person of exalted rank), and excited suspicions of her honesty by her play. A courtier took notice of this, at which she expressed her surprise; thereupon he remarked, “Pardon, madame, my suspicions could not fall on you. _Sovereigns_ cheat only for _crowns_.”