Recreations for gentlemen and ladies: being, ingenious sports and pastimes. Containing, many curious inventions: pleasant tricks on the cards and dice ... and other curiosities, affording variety of entertainment / Translated from the French of Mons. Ozanam.

  • Jacques Ozanam
Date:
1759
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Recreations for gentlemen and ladies: being, ingenious sports and pastimes. Containing, many curious inventions: pleasant tricks on the cards and dice ... and other curiosities, affording variety of entertainment / Translated from the French of Mons. Ozanam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    E vi] _ œaufes them in like manner, to find delight inthings _ - which are thesobjeét of that paffion. | _. The enigmatical fentences and propofitions, fo much admired and promoted by the kings of Syria, which occafioned the continuance of the paraboli- cal ftile fo long after, were nothing elfe but paf- times of mind, and entertainments equally fitted to excite pleafure, and to. give enlargement of un- dérftanding. Perfons of higher birth and. rank were of the fame make at that time, as thofe of our own are now: what was painful and laborious did difcourage them: to engage them to ftudiouf- nefs and reflection, by pleafure and curiofity, was a piece of extraordinary {kill and dexterity. Doubt- lefs, the education Nathan, by this means, gave to . Solomon, did mightily conduce to that grandeur of foul, and to that admirable wifdom which con- — ftitutes the charaéter, and is the glory of that | prince. me : It was alfo by way of diverfion the Chaldeans © and Egyptians, the inventers of aftronomy, did . foretell to their friends the time, and other circum. {tances of eclipfes, and erected fyftems which fhew- ed the length of the days, demonftrated the courfe of the flars, and reprefented all the varieties of the celeftial motions ; being perfuaded no lefs than the Grecians, that the firft intellectual pleafures are thofe which proceed from mathematical {ciences, in which they educated their children. They were convinced, that childrens reafon, though not yet in action, was not without its ftrength, and wanted only to be put in motion, in order to its progtefs towards perfeétion ; which might be effected by exciting in them a curiouity, that would do the fame with them which a Jong train of necellities does with thofe of more advanced years. Herein . Joy the fecret of Socrates, who taught children to EX refolve >