Cil Chevalier jeuent as tables, Et as eschés de l’autre part, O à la _mine_, o à _hazart_. Le Grand, in his note on this passage, T. i. p. 57, Ed. 1779, writes: “Le Hasard était une sorte de jeu de dez. Je ne connais point la _Mine_; j’ai trouvé seulement ailleurs un passage qui prouve que ce jeu était tres-dangereux, et qu’on pouvait s’y ruiner en peu de tems.” It appears however from the Fabliau of _Du Prestre et des deuz Ribaus_, to have been certainly a species of _Tables_, or _Backgammon_, and to have been played with dice, on a board called _Minete_. The only passage we recollect in which any further detail of this game is given, is that of Wace, in the account of Arthur’s feast, Harl. MS. 6508, and MS. Cott. Vit. A. x., but it must be remarked, that the older copy 13 A. xxi. does not contain it, nor is it found in the translations of Laȝamon, or Robert of Gloucester. 6. _Romanz reding._ See Sir W. Scott’s note on Sir Tristrem, p. 290, [p. 306, ed. 1811]; and the Dissertations of Percy, Ritson, and Ellis. 7. _Ther mouthe men se the boles beyte, And the bores, with hundes teyte._ Cf. ll. 1838, 2438. Both these diversions are mentioned by Lucianus, in his inedited tract _De laude Cestriæ_, MS. Bodl. 672, who is supposed by Tanner to have written about A.D. 1100, but who must probably be placed near half a century later. They formed also part of the amusements of the Londoners in the 12th century, as we learn from Fitzstephen, p. 77, and are noticed in the passage above quoted from the Romance of _Kyng Alisaunder_. In later times, particularly during the 16th century, these cruel practices were in the highest estimation, as we learn from Holinshed, Stowe, Laneham, &c. See Strutt’s _Sports and Pastimes_, p. 192, and the plate from MS. Reg. 2. B. vii. Also Pegge’s Dissertation on Bull-baiting, inserted in Vol. ii. of Archæologia. 8. _Ther mouthe men se hw Grim greu._ If this is to be understood of scenic representation (and we can scarcely view it in any other light), it will present one of the earliest instances on record of any attempt to represent an historical event, or to depart from the religious performances, which until a much later period were the chief, and almost only, efforts towards the formation of the drama. Of course, the words of the writer must be understood to refer to the period in which he lived, i.e. according to our supposition, about the end of Hen. III’s reign, or beginning of Edw. I. See Le Grand’s notes to the _Lai de Courtois_, V. i. p. 329, and Strutt’s _Sports and Pastimes_, B. 3, ch. 2. 2344. _The feste fourti dawes sat._ Cf. l. 2950. This is borrowed also from Geoffrey, and is the usual term of duration fixed in the Romances. Fourty dayes hy helden feste, Ryche, ryall, and oneste. --_Octouian Imperator_, l. 73. Fourty dayes leste the feste. --_Launfal_, l. 631. And certaynly, as the story sayes, The revell lasted forty dayes. _Squyr of Lowe Degre_, l. 1113.