"The gamester calls fooles holy- day."

The gamester calls fooles holy- day.

What does the phrase mean?

Where is it from?

Searching for "fair and square" brings up the reference

Francis Bacon’s essay Of Prophecies, 1604 is the first known use of ‘fair and square’: “Faire, and square. The gamester calls fooles holy- day.”

But I can't find that online. It doesn't even seem to be in "Of Prophecies.

The earliest citation given by the OED in its entry for “fair and square” is this:

1604 While faire, and square, and pitch, and pay: The gamster calls fooles holy-day. ‘W. Terilo’, Piece of Friar Bacons Prophesie 331

Oxford English Dictionary.

It looks as though the author of your reference (or someone relied upon by your reference) has thoroughly misinterpreted this citation. First, “Piece of Friar Bacons Prophesie” is the title of the cited work, not a description of it. Second, “Friar Bacon” refers to Roger Bacon (1219–1292), who was a Franciscan friar, not Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who was born after the dissolution of the monasteries.

The work itself is available via the Internet Archive. It purports to be a prophecy spoken by the “brazen head”, a legendary automaton supposedly created or owned by Roger Bacon, but is actually a satire that criticizes the society and customs of the early 17th century. Here’s the context for the quotation:

Now cogge and foist that list, Who will that wit gaine say, That learnes fooles had I wist: That will and cannot play, While faire and square, and pitch, and pay: The gamster calls fooles holy-day.

William Terilo (1604). A Piece of Friar Bacons Brazen-heads Prophesie, lines 327–332. London: Arthur Iohnson.

To follow this stanza, we need the meanings of some obscure and archaic terms. “Cogge” and “foist” both mean “to cheat at dice”; “list” means “likes to”; “will” means “wants to”; “wit” means “knowledge”; “that” means “who”; “learnes” means “teaches”; a “had-I-wist” is something regretted (literally an “if-I-had-known”); “play” means “trick”; “pitch and pay” means “pay with cash”; “call” means “request”; and a “fool’s holiday” is a festival like the Roman Saturnalia or the modern April Fool where tricks and hoaxes are traditionally perpetrated.

So the rough sense of the stanza is that, in these degenerate times, anyone who wishes may cheat at dice with impunity, while any gamester who does not know how to play these tricks, and puts cash down honestly, is a fool who gets cheated out of their money.

Line by line, we can gloss the stanza like this:

These days, anyone who likes can cheat at dice; Anyone who wants to contradict that fact, They teach fools to regret: Anyone who doesn’t want to, or is unable to, cheat, When they are honest, and put down cash, That player is asking to be cheated.