And so dicing went on, unimpaired in popularity, in spite of legal fulminations, until Elizabeth’s time, when we probably hear more of it, owing to the greater dissemination of literature in that reign. In 1551 there was a famous murder, in which Mr Arden of Feversham was killed whilst playing a game of tables with one Mosbie, the paramour of his wife, who had made Mosbie a present of a pair of _silver dice_ to reconcile a disagreement that had subsisted between them. Shakespeare mentions dice and dicing thirteen times in seven plays, and in Jonson, and the early dramatists, there are many allusions to this species of gambling. In the British Museum is a little MS. book[7] called “New Passages and Jests,” which were collected by Sir Nicholas L’Estrange of Hunstanton, Bart., who died in 1669, and in one of the anecdotes we get an insight into cheating at dice. “Sir William Herbert, playing at dice with another gentleman, there arose some questions about a cast. Sir William’s antagonist declared it was a four and a five; he as positively insisted that it was a five and a six: the other then swore with a bitter imprecation that it was as he said. Sir William then replied, ‘Thou art a perjured knave; for, give me a sixpence, and if there be a four upon the dice, I will return you a thousand pounds’; at which the other was presently abashed, for, indeed, the dice were false, and of a _high cut_, without a four.” Charles Cotton, in his _Compleat Gamester_, gives us a vivid account of dicing, as it then was, at an ordinary, after dark. “The day being shut in, you may properly compare this place to those Countries which lye far in the North, where it is as clear at midnight as at noonday.... This is the time (when ravenous beasts usually seek their prey) when in comes shoals of _Huffs_, _Hectors_, _Setters_, _Gilts_, _Pads_, _Biters_, _Divers_, _Lifters_, _Filers_, _Budgies_, _Droppers_, _Crossbyters_, &c., and these may all pass under the general and common appellation of _Rooks_.... Some of these _Rooks_ will be very importunate to borrow money of you without any intention to pay you; or to go with you seven to twelve, half a crown, or more, whereby, without a very great chance (ten to one, or more), he is sure to win. If you are sensible hereof, and refuse his proposition, they will take it so ill, that, if you have not an especiall care, they will pick your pocket, nim your gold or silver buttons off your Cloak or Coat, or, it may be, draw your silver-hilted sword out of your belt, without discovery, especially if you are eager upon your Cast, which is done thus: the silver buttons are strung, or run upon Cats guts fastened at the upper and nether ends; now, by ripping both ends very ingeniously, give it the gentle pull, and so rub off with the buttons; and, if your Cloak be loose, ‘tis ten to one they have it.