Perhaps the stern moralist who may have turned over these pages has
frowned at the facts of the preceding chapter. If so, I know not what he
will do at those which I am about to record.
If it may be said that gamesters must be madmen, or rogues, how has it
come to pass that men of genius, talent, and virtue withal, have been
gamesters?
Men of genius, 'gifted men,' as they are called, are much to be pitied.
One of them has said--'Oh! if my pillow could reveal my sufferings last
night!' His was true grief--for it had no witness.(105) The endowments
of this nature of ours are so strangely mixed--the events of our lives
are so unexpectedly ruled, that one might almost prefer to have been
fashioned after those imaginary beings who act so _CONSISTENTLY_ in the
nursery tales and other figments. Most men seem to have a double soul;
and in your men of genius--your celebrities--the battle between the two
seems like the tremendous conflict so grandly (and horribly) described
by Milton. Who loved his country more than Cato? Who cared more for his
country's honour? And yet Cato was not only unable to resist the soft
impeachments of alcohol--
Narratur et prisci Catonis Saepe mero caluisse virtus--
but he was also a dice-player, a gambler.(106)
(105) Ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet. Martial, lib. I.
(106) Plutarch, _Cato._
Julius Caesar did not drink; but what a profligate he was! And I have no
doubt that he was a gambler: it is certain that he got rid of millions
nobody knew how.
I believe, however, that the following is an undeniable fact. You may
find suspicious gamesters in every rank of life, but among men of genius
you will generally, if not always, find only victims resigned to the
caprices of fortune. The professions which imply the greatest enthusiasm
naturally furnish the greater number of gamesters. Thus, perhaps, we may
name ten poet-gamesters to one savant or philosopher who deserved the
title or infamy.
Coquillart, a poet of the 15th century, famous for his satirical verses
against women, died of grief after having ruined himself by gaming.
The great painter Guido--and a painter is certainly a poet--was another
example. By nature gentle and honourable, he might have been the
most fortunate of men if the demon of gambling had not poisoned his
existence, the end of which was truly wretched.
Rotrou, the acknowledged master of Corneille, hurried his poetical
effusions in order to raise money for gambling. This man of genius was
but a spoilt child in the matter of play. He once received two or three
hundred _louis_, and mistrusting himself, went and hid them under some
vine-branches, in order not to gamble all away at once. Vain precaution!
On the following night his bag was empty.
The poet Voiture was the delight of his contemporaries, conspicuous as
he was for the most exquisite polish and inexhaustible wit; but he was
also one of the most desperate gamesters of his time. Like Rotrou, he
mistrusted his folly, and sometimes refrained. 'I have discovered,'
he once wrote to a friend, 'as well as Aristotle, that there is no
beatitude in play; and in fact I have given over gambling; it is now
seven months since I played--which is very important news, and which I
forgot to tell you.' He would have died rich had he always refrained.
His relapses were terrible; one night he lost fifteen hundred pistoles
(about L750).
The list of foreign poets ruined by gambling might be extended; whilst,
on the other hand, it is impossible, I believe, to quote a single
instance of the kind among the poets of England,--perhaps because very
few of them had anything to lose. The reader will probably remember Dr
Johnson's exclamation on hearing of the large debt left unpaid by poor
Goldsmith at his death--'Was ever poet so trusted before!'...
The great philosophers Montaigne and Descartes, seduced at an early age
by the allurements of gambling, managed at length to overcome the evil,
presenting examples of reformation--which proves that this mania is not
absolutely incurable. Descartes became a gamester in his seventeenth
year; but it is said that the combinations of cards, or the doctrine of
probabilities, interested him more than his winnings.(107)
(107) Hist. des Philos. Modernes: _Descartes_.
The celebrated Cardan, one of the most universal and most eccentric
geniuses of his age, declares in his autobiography, that the rage for
gambling long entailed upon him the loss of reputation and fortune,
and that it retarded his progress in the sciences. 'Nothing,' says he,
'could justify me, unless it was that my love of gaming was less than my
horror of privation.' A very bad excuse, indeed; but Cardan reformed and
ceased to be a gambler.
Three of the greatest geniuses of England--Lords Halifax, Anglesey, and
Shaftesbury--were gamblers; and Locke tells a very funny story about
one of their gambling bouts. This philosopher, who neglected nothing,
however eccentric, that had any relation to the working of the human
understanding, happened to be present while my Lords Halifax, Anglesey,
and Shaftesbury were playing, and had the patience to write down, word
for word, all their discordant utterances during the phases of the game;
the result being a dialogue of speakers who only used exclamations--all
talking in chorus, but more to themselves than to each other. Lord
Anglesey observing Locke's occupation, asked him what he was writing.
'My Lord,' replied Locke, 'I am anxious not to lose anything you utter.'
This irony made them all blush, and put an end to the game.
M. Sallo, Counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, died, says Vigneul de
Marville, of a disease to which the children of the Muses are rarely
subject, and for which we find no remedy in Hippocrates and Galen;--he
died of a lingering disease after having lost 100,000 crowns at the
gaming table--all he possessed.
By way of diversion to his cankering grief, he started the well-known
_Journal des Savans_, but lived to write only 13 sheets of it, for he
was wounded to the death.(108)
(108) Melanges, d'Hist. et de Litt. i.
The physician Paschasius Justus was a deplorable instance of an
incorrigible gambler. This otherwise most excellent and learned man
having passed three-fourths of his life in a continual struggle with
vice, at length resolved to cure himself of the disease by occupying
his mind with a work which might be useful to his contemporaries and
posterity.(109) He began his book, but still he gamed; he finished it,
but the evil was still in him. 'I have lost everything but God!' he
exclaimed. He prayed for delivery from his soul's disease;(110) but
his prayer was not heard; he died like any gambler--more wretched than
reformed.
(109) 'De Alea, sive de curanda in pecuniam cupiditate,' pub. in 1560.
(110) Illum animi morbum, ut Deus tolleret, serio et frequenter optavit.
M. Dusaulx, author of a work on Gaming, exclaims therein--'I have
gambled like you, Paschasius, perhaps with greater fury. Like you I
write against gaming. Can I say that I am stronger than you, in more
critical circumstances?'(111)
(111) La Passion du Jeu.
What, then, is that mania which can be overcome neither by the love of
glory nor the study of wisdom!
The literary men of Greece and Rome rarely played any games but those of
skill, such as tennis, backgammon, and chess; and even in these it was
considered 'indecent' to appear too skilful. Cicero stigmatizes two
of his contemporaries for taking too great a delight in such games, on
account of their skill in playing them.(112)
(112) Ast alii, quia praeclare faciunt, vehementius quam causa postulat
delectantur, ut Titius pila, Brulla talis. De Orat. lib. iii.
Quinctilian advised his pupils to avoid all sterile amusements, which,
he said, were only the resource of the ignorant.
In after-times men of merit, such as John Huss and Cardinal Cajetan,
bewailed both the time lost in the most innocent games, and the
disastrous passions which are thereby excited. Montaigne calls chess
a stupid and childish game. 'I hate and shun it,' he says, 'because
it occupies one too seriously; I am ashamed of giving it the attention
which would be sufficient for some useful purpose.' King James I., the
British Solomon, forbade chess to his son, in the famous book of royal
instruction which he wrote for him.
As to the plea of 'filling up time,' Addison has made some very
pertinent observations:--'Whether any kind of gaming has ever thus
much to say for itself, I shall not determine; but I think it is very
wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours
together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other
conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other
ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different
figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species
complaining that life is short?'
Men of intellect may rest assured that whether they win or lose at play,
it will always be at the cost of their genius; the soul cannot support
two passions together. The passion of play, although fatigued, is never
satiated, and therefore it always leaves behind protracted agitation.
The famous Roman lawyer Scaevola suffered from playing at backgammon;
his head was always affected by it, especially when he lost the game,
in fact, it seemed to craze him. One day he returned expressly from the
country merely to try and convince his opponent in a game which he had
lost, that if he had played otherwise he would have won! It seems that
on his journey home he mentally went through the game again, detected
his mistake, and could not rest until he went back and got his adversary
to admit the fact--for the sake of his _amour propre_.(113)
(113) Quinctil., _Instit. Orat_. lib. XI. cap. ii.
'It is rare,' says Rousseau, 'that thinkers take much delight in
play, which suspends the habit of thinking or diverts it upon sterile
combinations; and so one of the benefits--perhaps the only benefit
conferred by the taste for the sciences, is that it somewhat deadens
that sordid passion of play.'
Unfortunately such was not the result among the literary and scientific
men, in France or England, during the last quarter of the last century.
Many of them bitterly lamented that they ever played, and yet played
on,--going through all the grades and degradations appointed for his
votaries by the inexorable demon of gambling.
BEAU NASH.
Nature had by no means formed Nash for _beau_. His person was clumsy,
large, and awkward; his features were harsh, strong, and peculiarly
irregular; yet even with these disadvantages he made love, became an
universal admirer of the sex, and was in his turn universally admired.
The fact is, he was possessed of, at least, some requisites of a
'lover.' He had assiduity, flattery, fine clothes--and as much wit as
the ladies he addressed. Accordingly he used to say--'Wit, flattery,
and fine clothes are enough to debauch a nunnery!' This is certainly a
fouler calumny of women than Pope's
'Every woman is at heart a rake.'
Beau Nash was a barrister, and had been a remarkable, a distinguished
one in his day--although not at the bar. He had the honour to organize
and direct the last grand 'revel and pageant' before a king, in the Hall
of the Middle Temple, of which he was a member.
It had long been customary for the Inns of Court to entertain our
monarchs upon their accession to the crown with a revel and pageant, and
the last was exhibited in honour of King William, when Nash was chosen
to conduct the whole with proper decorum. He was then a very young man,
but succeeded so well in giving satisfaction, that the king offered
to give him the honour of knighthood, which, however, Nash declined,
saying:--'Please your Majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish
it may be one of your poor knights of Windsor; and then I shall have a
fortune at least able to support my title.'
In the Middle Temple he managed to rise 'to the very summit of
second-rate luxury,' and seems to have succeeded in becoming a
fashionable _recherche_, being always one of those who were called good
company--a professed dandy among the elegants.
No wonder, then, that we subsequently find him Master of the Ceremonies
at Bath, then the theatre of summer amusements for all people of
fashion. It was here that he took to gambling, and was at first classed
among the needy adventurers who went to that place; there was, however,
the great difference between him and them, that his heart was not
corrupt; and though by profession a gamester, he was generous, humane,
and honourable.
When he gave in his accounts to the Masters of the Temple, among
other items he charged was one--'For making one man happy, L10.' Being
questioned about the meaning of so strange an item, he frankly declared
that, happening to overhear a poor man declare to his wife and large
family of children that L10 would make him happy, he could not avoid
trying the experiment. He added, that, if they did not choose to
acquiesce in his charge, he was ready to refund the money. The Masters,
struck with such an uncommon instance of good nature, publicly thanked
him for his benevolence, and desired that the sum might be doubled as a
proof of their satisfaction.
'His laws were so strictly enforced that he was styled "King of Bath:"
no rank would protect the offender, nor dignity of station condone
a breach of the laws. Nash desired the Duchess of Queensberry, who
appeared at a dress ball in an apron of point-lace, said to be worth 500
guineas, to take it off, which she did, at the same time desiring his
acceptance of it; and when the Princess Amelia requested to have one
dance more after 11 o'clock, Nash replied that the laws of Bath, like
those of Lycurgus, were unalterable. Gaming ran high at Bath, and
frequently led to disputes and resort to the sword, then generally worn
by well-dressed men. Swords were, therefore, prohibited by Nash in
the public rooms; still they were worn in the streets, when Nash, in
consequence of a duel fought by torchlight, by two notorious gamesters,
made the law absolute, "That no swords should, on any account, be worn
in Bath."'(114)
(114) The Book of Days, Feb. 3.
About the year 1739 the gamblers, in order to evade the laws against
gaming, set up E O tables; and as these proved very profitable to the
proprietors at Tunbridge, Nash determined to introduce them at Bath,
having been assured by the lawyers that no law existed against them.
He therefore set up an E O table, and the speculation flourished for a
short time; but the legislature interfered in 1745, and inflicted severe
penalties on the keepers of such tables. This was the ruin of Nash's
gambling speculation; and for the remaining sixteen years of his life he
depended solely on the precarious products of the gaming table. He died
at Bath, in 1761, in greatly reduced circumstances, being represented as
'poor, old, and peevish, yet still incapable of turning from his former
manner of life.'
'He was buried in the Abbey Church with great ceremony: a solemn hymn
was sung by the charity-school children, three clergymen preceded the
coffin, the pall was supported by aldermen, and the Masters of the
Assembly-Rooms followed as chief mourners; while the streets were
filled and the housetops covered with spectators, anxious to witness the
respect paid to the venerable founder of the prosperity of the city of
Bath.'(115)
(115) The Book of Days, Feb. 3.
The following are the chief anecdotes told of Beau Nash.
A giddy youth, who had resigned his fellowship at Oxford, brought his
fortune to Bath, and, without the smallest skill, won a considerable
sum; and following it up, in the next October added four thousand pounds
to his former capital. Nash one night invited him to supper, and offered
to give him fifty guineas to forfeit twenty every time he lost two
hundred at one sitting. The young man refused, and was at last undone.
The Duke of B---- loved play to distraction. One night, chagrined at a
heavy loss, he pressed Nash to tie him up from deep play in future.
The beau accordingly gave his Grace one hundred guineas on condition to
receive ten thousand whenever he lost that amount at one sitting. The
duke soon lost eight thousand at Hazard, and was going to throw for
three thousand more, when Nash caught the dice-box, and entreated the
peer to reflect on the penalty if he lost. The duke desisted for that
time; but ere long, losing considerably at Newmarket, he willingly paid
the penalty.
When the Earl of T---- was a youth he was passionately fond of play.
Nash undertook to cure him. Conscious of his superior skill, he engaged
the earl in single play. His lordship lost his estate, equipage,
everything! Our generous gamester returned all, only stipulating for the
payment of L5000 whenever he might think proper to demand it. Some
time after his lordship's death, Nash's affairs being on the wane, he
demanded it of his heirs, _WHO PAID IT WITHOUT HESITATION_.
Nash one day complained of his ill luck to the Earl of Chesterfield,
adding that he had lost L500 the last night. The earl replied, 'I don't
wonder at your _LOSING_ money, Nash, but all the world is surprised
where you get it to lose.'
'The Corporation of Bath so highly respected Nash, that the Chamber
voted a marble statue of him, which was erected in the Pump-room,
between the busts of Newton and Pope; this gave rise to a stinging
epigram by Lord Chesterfield, concluding with these lines:
"The _STATUE_ placed these busts between Gives satire all its strength;
_WISDOM_ and _WIT_ are little seen, But _FOLLY_ at full length."'(116)
(116) The Book of Days, Feb. 3.
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.
Walpole tells us that the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield _LIVED_ at
White's Club, gaming, and uttering witticisms among the boys of quality;
'yet he says to his son, that a member of a gaming club should be a
cheat, or he will soon be a beggar;' an inconsistency which reminds
one of old Fuller's saw--'A father that whipt his son for swearing, and
swore himself whilst he whipt him, did more harm by his example than
good by his correction.'
GEORGE SELWYN.
The character of Selwyn,' says Mr Jesse, 'was in many respects
a remarkable one. With brilliant wit, a quick perception of the
ridiculous, and a thorough knowledge of the world and human nature,
he united classical knowledge and a taste for the fine arts. To these
qualities may be added others of a very contradictory nature. With
a thorough enjoyment of the pleasures of society, an imperturbable
good-humour, a kind heart, and a passionate fondness for children, he
united a morbid interest in the details of human suffering, and, more
especially, a taste for witnessing criminal executions. Not only was he
a constant frequenter of such scenes of horror, but all the details of
crime, the private history of the criminal, his demeanour at his trial,
in the dungeon, and on the scaffold, and the state of his feelings in
the hour of death and degradation, were to Selwyn matters of the deepest
and most extraordinary interest. Even the most frightful particulars
relating to suicide and murder, the investigation of the disfigured
corpse, the sight of an acquaintance lying in his shroud, seem to have
afforded him a painful and unaccountable pleasure. When the first Lord
Holland was on his death-bed he was told that Selwyn, who had lived on
terms of the closest intimacy with him, had called to inquire after his
health. "The next time Mr Selwyn calls," he said, "show him up; if I am
alive I shall be delighted to see him, and if I am dead he will be glad
to see me." When some ladies bantered him on his want of feeling in
attending to see the terrible Lord Lovat's head cut off--"Why," he said,
"I made amends by going to the undertaker's to see it sewed on again."
And yet this was the same individual who delighted in the first words
and in the sunny looks of childhood; whose friendship seems to have
partaken of all the softness of female affection; and whose heart
was never hardened against the wretched and depressed. Such was the
"original" George Selwyn.'
This celebrated conversational wit was a devoted frequenter of the
gaming table. Writing to Selwyn, in 1765, Lord Holland said:--'All that
I can collect from what you say on the subject of money is, that fortune
has been a little favourable lately; or may be, the last night only.
Till you leave off play entirely you must be--in earnest, and without
irony--_en verite le serviteur tres-humble des evenements_, "in truth,
the very humble servant of events."'
His friend the Lord Carlisle, although himself a great gambler, also
gave him good advice. 'I hope you have left off Hazard,' he wrote to
Selwyn; 'if you are still so foolish, and will play, the best thing I
can wish you is, that you may win and never throw crabs.(117) You do not
put it in the power of chance to make you them, as we all know; and till
the ninth miss is born I shall not be convinced to the contrary.'
(117) That is, aces, or ace and deuce, twelve, or seven. With false
dice, as will appear in the sequel, it was impossible to throw any of
these numbers, and as the caster always called the main, he was sure to
win, as he could call an impossible number: those who were in the secret
of course always took the odds.
Again:--'As you have played I am happy to hear you have won; but by this
time there may be a _triste revers de succes_.'
Selwyn had taken to gaming before his father's death--probably from
his first introduction to the clubs. His stakes were high, though not
extravagantly so, compared with the sums hazarded by his contemporaries.
In 1765 he lost L1000 to Mr Shafto, who applied for it in the language
of an 'embarrassed tradesman.'
'July 1, 1765.
'DEAR SIR,--I have this moment received the favour of your letter. I
intended to have gone out of town on Thursday, but as you shall not
receive your money before the end of this week, I must postpone my
journey till Sunday. A month would have made no difference to me, had I
not had others to pay before I leave town, and must pay; therefore must
beg that you will leave the whole before this week is out, at White's,
as it is to be paid away to others to whom I have lost, and do not
choose to leave town till that is done. Be sure you could not wish an
indulgence I should not be happy to grant, if it my power.'
Nor was this the only dun of the kind that Selwyn had 'to put up with'
on account of the gaming table. He received the following from Edward,
Earl of Derby.(118)
(118) Edward, twelfth Earl of Derby, was born September 12, 1752, and
died October 21, 1834. He married first, Elizabeth, daughter of James,
sixth Duke of Hamilton, who died in 1799, and secondly, the celebrated
actress, Miss Farren, who died April 23, 1829.
_The Earl of Derby to George Selwyn_.
'Nothing could equal what I feel at troubling you with this disagreeable
note; but having lost a very monstrous sum of money last night, I find
myself under the necessity of entreating your goodness to excuse the
liberty I am taking of applying to you for assistance. If it is not very
inconvenient to you, I should be glad of the money you owe me. If it is,
I must pay what I can, and desire Brookes to trust me for the remainder.
I repeat again my apologies, to which I shall beg leave to add how very
sincerely I have the honour to be, my dear sir,
'Your most obedient humble servant, 'DEBBY.
This is the very model of a dun, and proves how handsomely such ugly
things can be done when one has to deal with a noble instead of a
plebeian creditor.
But Selwyn had not only to endure such indignities, but also to inflict
them, as appears by the following letter to him from the Honourable
General Fitzpatrick, in answer to a dun, which, we are assured, was
'gentle and moderate.'
'I am very sorry to hear the night ended so ill; but to give you some
idea of the utter impossibility of my being useful on the occasion, I
will inform you of the state of my affairs. I won L400 last night, which
was immediately appropriated by Mr _Martindale_, to whom I still owe
L300, and I am in Brookes' book for thrice that sum. Add to all this,
that at Christmas I expect an inundation of clamorous creditors, who,
unless I somehow or other scrape together some money to satisfy them,
will overwhelm me entirely. What can be done? If I could coin my heart,
or drop my blood into drachms, I would do it, though by this time I
should probably have neither heart nor blood left. I am afraid you will
find Stephen in the same state of insolvency. Adieu! I am obliged to you
for the gentleness and moderation of your dun, considering how long I
have been your debtor.
'Yours most sincerely, 'R. F.'(119)
(119) Apud _Selwyn and his Contemporaries_ by Jesse.
Selwyn is said to have been a loser on the whole, and often pillaged.
Latterly he appears to have got the better of his propensity for play,
if we may judge from the following wise sentiment:--'It was too great
a consumer,' he said, 'of four things--time, health, fortune, and
thinking.' But a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ seems to doubt
Selwyn's reformation; for his initiation of Wilberforce occurred in
1782, when he was 63; and previously, in 1776, he underwent the process
of dunning from Lord Derby, before-mentioned, and in 1779 from Mr
Crawford ('Fish Crawford,' as he was called), each of whom, like Mr
Shafto, 'had a sum to make up'--in the infernal style so horridly
provoking, even when we are able and willing to pay. However, as Selwyn
died comparatively rich, it may be presumed that his fortune suffered to
no great extent by his indulgence in the vice of gaming.
The following are some of George Selwyn's jokes relating to gambling:--
One night, at White's, observing the Postmaster-General, Sir Everard
Fawkener, losing a large sum of money at Piquet, Selwyn, pointing to the
successful player, remarked--'See now, he is robbing the _MAIL!_'
On another occasion, in 1756, observing Mr Ponsonby, the Speaker of the
Irish House of Commons, tossing about bank-bills at a Hazard table
at Newmarket--'Look,' he said, 'how easily the Speaker passes the
money-bills!'
A few months afterwards (when the public journals were daily containing
an account of some fresh town which had conferred the freedom of its
corporation in a gold box on Mr Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham,
and the Right Honourable Henry Bilson Legge, his fellow-patriot and
colleague), Selwyn, who neither admired their politics nor respected
their principles, proposed to the old and new club at Arthur's, that
he should be deputed to present to them the freedom of each club in a
_dice-box_.
On one of the waiters at Arthur's club having been committed to prison
for a felony--'What a horrid idea,' said Selwyn, 'he will give of us to
the people in Newgate!'
When the affairs of Charles Fox were in a more than usually embarrassed
state, chiefly through his gambling, his friends raised a subscription
among themselves for his relief. One of them remarking that it would
require some delicacy in breaking the matter to him, and adding that 'he
wondered how Fox would take it.' 'Take it?' interrupted Selwyn, 'why,
_QUARTERLY_, to be sure.'(120)
(120) Jesse, _George Selwyn and his Contemporaries._
LORD CARLISLE.
This eminent statesman was regarded by his contemporaries as an able, an
influential, and occasionally a powerful speaker.
Though married to a lady for whom in his letters he ever expresses the
warmest feelings of admiration and esteem; and surrounded by a young
and increasing family, who were evidently the objects of his deepest
affection, Lord Carlisle, nevertheless, at times appears to have been
unable to extricate himself from the dangerous enticements to play
to which he was exposed. His fatal passion for play--the source
of adventitious excitement at night, and of deep distress in the
morning--seems to have led to frequent and inconvenient losses, and
eventually to have plunged him into comparative distress.
'In recording these failings of a man of otherwise strong sense, of a
high sense of honour, and of kindly affections, we have said the worst
that can be adduced to his disadvantage. Attached, indeed, as Lord
Carlisle may have been to the pleasures of society, and unfortunate
as may have been his passion for the gaming table, it is difficult
to peruse those passages in his letters in which he deeply reproaches
himself for yielding to the fatal fascination of play, and accuses
himself of having diminished the inheritance of his children, without a
feeling of commiseration for the sensations of a man of strong sense
and deep feeling, while reflecting on his moral degradation. It is
sufficient, however, to observe of Lord Carlisle, that the deep sense
which he entertained of his own folly; the almost maddening moments to
which he refers in his letters of self-condemnation and bitter regret;
and subsequently his noble victory over the siren enticements of
pleasure, and his thorough emancipation from the trammels of a
domineering passion, make adequate amends for his previous unhappy
career.'(121)
(121) Jesse, _George Selwyn and his Contemporaries_, ii.
Brave conquerors, for so ye are, Who war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires.
Lady Sarah Bunbury, writing to George Selwyn, in 1767, says:--'If you
are now at Paris with poor C. (evidently Carlisle), who I dare say is
now swearing at the French people, give my compliments to him. I call
him poor C. because I hope he is only miserable at having been such a
_PIGEON_ to Colonel Scott. I never can pity him for losing at play, and
I think of it as little as I can, because I cannot bear to be obliged to
abate the least of the good opinion I have always had of him.'
Oddly enough the writer had no better account to give of her own
husband; she says, in the letter:--'Sir Charles games from morning till
night, but he has never yet lost L100 in one day.'(122)
(122) This Lady Sarah Bunbury was the wife of Sir Charles Bunbury, after
having had a chance of being Queen of England, as the wife of George
III., who was passionately in love with her, and would have married her
had it not been for the constitutional opposition of his privy council.
This charming and beautiful woman died in 1826, at the age of 82.
She was probably the last surviving great-granddaughter of Charles
II.--Jesse, _Ubi supra_.
About the year 1776 Lord Carlisle wrote the following letter to George
Selwyn:--
'MY DEAR GEORGE, 'I have undone myself, and it is to no purpose to
conceal from you my abominable madness and folly, though perhaps the
particulars may not be known to the rest of the world. I never lost so
much in five times as I have done to-night, and am in debt to the house
for the whole. You may be sure I do not tell you this with an idea that
you can be of the least assistance to me; it is a great deal more than
your abilities are equal to. Let me see you--though I shall be ashamed
to look at you after your goodness to me.'
This letter is endorsed by George Selwyn--'After the loss of L10,000.'
He tells Selwyn of a set which, at one point of the game, stood to win
L50,000.
'Lord Byron, it is almost needless to remark, was nearly related to Lord
Carlisle. The mother of Lord Carlisle was sister to John, fourth Lord
Byron, the grandfather of the poet; Lord Carlisle and Lord Byron were
consequently first cousins once removed. Had they happened to have been
contemporaries, it would be difficult to form an idea of two individuals
who, alike from tastes, feelings, and habits of life, were more likely
to form a lasting and suitable intimacy. Both were men of high rank;
both united an intimate knowledge of society and the world with the
ardent temperament of a poet; and both in youth mingled a love of frolic
and pleasure with a graver taste for literary pursuits.'
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
In the midst of the infatuated votaries of the gaming god in England,
towers the mighty intellectual giant Charles James Fox. Nature had
fashioned him to be equally an object of admiration and love. In
addition to powerful eloquence, he was distinguished by the refinement
of his taste in all matters connected with literature and art; he was
deeply read in history; had some claims to be regarded as a poet; and
possessed a thorough knowledge of the classical authors of antiquity,
a knowledge of which he so often and so happily availed himself in his
seat in the House of Commons. To these qualities was added a good-humour
which was seldom ruffled,--a peculiar fascination of manner and
address,--the most delightful powers of conversation,--a heart perfectly
free from vindictiveness, ostentation, and deceit,--a strong sense of
justice,--a thorough detestation of tyranny and oppression,--and an
almost feminine tenderness of feeling for the sufferings of others.
Unfortunately, however, his great talents and delightful qualities
in private life rendered his defects the more glaring and lamentable;
indeed, it is difficult to think or speak with common patience of those
injurious practices and habits--that abandonment to self-gratification,
and that criminal waste of the most transcendent abilities which
exhausted in social conviviality and the gaming table what were formed
to confer blessings on mankind.
So much for the character of Fox, as I have gathered from Mr Jesse;(123)
and I continue the extremely interesting subject by quoting from that
delightful book, 'The Queens of Society.'(124) 'With a father who
had made an enormous fortune, with little principle, out of a public
office--for Lord Holland owed the bulk of his wealth to his appointment
of paymaster to the forces,--and who spoiled him, in his boyhood,
Charles James Fox had begun life _AS A FOP OF THE FIRST WATER_, and
squandered L50,000 in debt before he became of age. Afterwards he
indulged recklessly and extravagantly in every course of licentiousness
which the profligate society of the day opened to him. At Brookes' and
the Thatched House Fox ate and drank to excess, threw thousands upon the
Faro table, mingled with blacklegs, and made himself notorious for his
shameless vices. Newmarket supplied another excitement. His back room
was so incessantly filled with Jew money-lenders that he called it his
Jerusalem Chamber. It was impossible that such a life should not destroy
every principle of honour; and there is nothing improbable in the story
that he appropriated to himself money which belonged to his dear friend
Mrs Crewe, as before related.
(123) George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, ii.
(124) By Grace and Philip Wharton.
'Of his talents, which were certainly great, he made an affected
display. Of his learning he was proud--but rather as adding lustre
to his celebrity for universal tastes. He was not at all ashamed, but
rather gloried in being able to describe himself as a fool, as he does
in his verses to Mrs Crewe:--
"Is't reason? No; that my whole life will belie; For, who so at variance
as reason and I? Is't ambition that fills up each chink in my heart, Nor
allows any softer sensation a part? Oh! no; for in this all the world
must agree, _ONE FOLLY WAS NEVER SUFFICIENT FOR ME_."
'Sensual and self-indulgent--with a grossness that is even patent on his
very portrait (and bust), Fox had nevertheless a manner which enchanted
the sex, and he was the only politician of the day who thoroughly
enlisted the personal sympathies of women of mind and character, as well
as of those who might be captivated by his profusion. When he visited
Paris in later days, even Madame Recamier, noted for her refinement, and
of whom he himself said, with his usual coarse ideas of the sphere
of woman, that "she was the only woman who united the attractions of
pleasure to those of modesty," delighted to be seen with him! At the
time of which we are speaking the most celebrated beauties of England
were his most ardent supporters.
'The election of 1784, in which he stood and was returned for
Westminster, was one of the most famous of the old riotous political
demonstrations..... Loving _hazard_ of all kinds for its own sake,
Fox had made party hostility a new sphere of gambling, had adopted the
character of a demagogue, and at a time when the whole of Europe was
undergoing, a great revolution in principles, was welcomed gladly as
"The Man of the People." In the beginning, of the year he had been
convicted of bribery, but in spite of this his popularity increased....
The election for Westminster, in which Fox was opposed by Sir Cecil
Wray, was the most tempestuous of all. There were 20,000 votes to be
polled, and the opposing parties resorted to any means of intimidation,
or violence, or persuasion which political enthusiasm could suggest. On
the eighth day the poll was against the popular member, and he called
upon his friends to make a great effort on his behalf. It was then that
the "ladies' canvass" began. Lady Duncannon, the Duchess of Devonshire,
Mrs Crewe, and Mrs Damer dressed themselves in blue and buff--the
colours of the American Independents, which Fox had adopted and wore in
the House of Commons--and set out to visit the purlieus of Westminster.
Here, in their enthusiasm, they shook the dirty hands of honest workmen,
expressed the greatest interest in their wives and families, and even,
as in the case of the Duchess of Devonshire and the butcher, submitted
their fair cheeks to be kissed by the possessors of votes! At the
butcher's shop, the owner, in his apron and sleeves, stoutly refused his
vote, except on one condition--"Would her Grace give him a kiss?" The
request was granted; and the vote thus purchased went to swell the
majority which finally secured the return of "The Man of the People."
'The colouring of political friends, which concealed his vices, or
rather which gave them a false hue, has long since faded away. We now
know Fox as he _WAS_. In the latest journals of Horace Walpole his
inveterate gambling, his open profligacy, his utter want of honour, is
disclosed by one of his own opinion. Corrupted ere yet he had left his
home, whilst in age a boy, there is, however, the comfort of reflecting
that he outlived his vices which seem to have "cropped out" by his
ancestral connection in the female line with the reprobate Charles II.,
whom he was thought to resemble in features. Fox, afterwards, with a
green apron tied round his waist, pruning and nailing up his fruit trees
at St Ann's Hill, or amusing himself innocently with a few friends, is
a pleasing object to remember, even whilst his early career occurs
forcibly to the mind.'
Peace, then, to the shade of Charles James Fox! The three last public
acts which he performed were worthy of the man, and should suffice to
prove that, in spite of his terrible failings, he was most useful in his
generation. By one, he laboured to repair the outrages of war--to obtain
a breathing time for our allies; and, by an extension of our commerce,
to afford, if necessary, to his country all the advantages of a
renovated contest, without the danger of drying up our resources. By
another, he attempted to remove all legal disabilities arising out of
religion--to unite more closely _THE INTERESTS OF IRELAND WITH THOSE
OF ENGLAND;_ and thus, by an extension of common rights, and a
participation of common benefits, wisely to render that which has always
been considered the weakest and most troublesome portion of our empire,
at least a useful and valuable part of England's greatness among the
nations. Queen Elizabeth's Minister, Lord Burleigh, in the presence of
the 'Irish difficulty' in his day, wished Ireland at the bottom of
the sea, and doubtless many at the present time wish the same; but Fox
endeavoured to grapple with it manfully and honestly, and it was not his
fault that he did not settle it. The vices of Fox were those of the age
in which he lived; had he been reserved for the present epoch, what a
different biography should we have to write of him! What a helmsman he
might be at the present time, when the ship of Old England is at sea and
in peril!
It appears from a letter addressed by Lord Carlisle to Lady Holland
(Fox's mother) in 1773, that he had become security for Fox to the
amount of fifteen or sixteen thousand pounds; and a letter to Selwyn
in 1777, puts the ruinous character of their gaming transactions in
the strongest light. Lord Ilchester (Fox's cousin) had lost thirteen
thousand pounds at one sitting to Lord Carlisle, who offered to take
three thousand pounds down. Nothing was paid. But ten years afterwards,
when Lord Carlisle pressed for his money, he complained that an attempt
was made to construe the offer into a _remission_ of the ten thousand
pounds:--'The only way, in honour, that Lord Ilchester could have
accepted my offer, would have been by taking some steps to pay the
L3000. I remained in a state of uncertainty, I think, for nearly three
years; but his taking no notice of it during that time, convinced me
that he had no intention of availing himself of it. Charles Fox was also
at a much earlier period clear that he never meant to accept it. There
is also great injustice in the behaviour of the family in passing by the
instantaneous payment of, I believe, five thousand pounds, to Charles,
won at the same sitting, without any observations. _At one period of the
play I remember there was a balance in favour of one of these gentlemen
(but which I protest I do not remember) of about fifty thousand_.'
At the time in question Fox was hardly eighteen. The following letter
from Lord Carlisle, written in 1771, contains highly interesting
information respecting the youthful habits and already vast intellectual
pre-eminence of this memorable statesman:--'It gives me great pain to
hear that Charles begins to be unreasonably impatient at losing. I fear
it is the prologue to much fretfulness of temper, for disappointment in
raising money, and any serious reflections upon his situation, will
(in spite of his affected spirits and dissipation) occasion him many
disagreeable moments.' Lord Carlisle's fears proved groundless in this
respect. As before stated, Fox was always remarkable for his sweetness
of temper, which remained with him to the last; but it is most painful
to think how much mankind has lost through his recklessness.
Gibbon writes to Lord Sheffield in 1773, 'You know Lord Holland is
paying Charles Fox's debts. They amount to L140,000.'(125)
(125) Timbs, _Club Life in London_.
His love of play was desperate. A few evenings before he moved the
repeal of the Marriage Act, in February, 1772, he had been at Brompton
on two errands,--one to consult Justice Fielding on the penal laws, the
other to borrow L10,000, which he brought to town at the hazard of being
robbed. He played admirably both at Whist and Piquet,--with such skill,
indeed, that by the general admission of Brookes' Club, he might have
made four thousand pounds a-year, as they calculated, at these games,
if he could have confined himself to them. But his misfortune arose from
playing games of chance, particularly at Faro.
After eating and drinking plentifully, he would sit down at the Faro
table, and invariably rose a loser. Once, indeed, and once only, he won
about eight thousand pounds in the course of a single evening. Part of
the money he paid to his creditors, and the remainder he lost almost
immediately.
Before he attained his thirtieth year he had completely dissipated
everything that he could either command or could procure by the most
ruinous expedients. He had even undergone, at times, many of the
severest privations incidental to the vicissitudes that attend a
gamester's progress; frequently wanting money to defray the common daily
wants of the most pressing nature. Topham Beauclerc, who lived much
in Fox's society, declared that no man could form an idea of the
extremities to which he had been driven to raise money, often losing
his last guinea at the Faro table. The very sedan-chairmen, whom he
was unable to pay, used to dun him for arrears. In 1781, he might be
considered as an extinct volcano,--for the pecuniary aliment that had
fed the flame was long consumed. Yet he even then occupied a house or
lodgings in St James's Street, close to Brookes', where he passed almost
every hour which was not devoted to the House of Commons. Brookes' was
then the rallying point or rendezvous of the Opposition, where Faro,
Whist, and supper prolonged the night, the principal members of the
minority in both Houses met, in order to compare their information, or
to concert and mature their parliamentary measures. Great sums were then
borrowed of Jews at exorbitant premiums.
His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the
right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh.
Walpole, in 1781, walking up St James's Street, saw a cart at Fox's
door, with copper and an old chest of drawers, loading. His success at
Faro had awakened a host of creditors; but, unless his bank had
swelled to the size of the Bank of England, it could not have yielded
a half-penny apiece for each. Epsom too had been unpropitious; and one
creditor had actually seized and carried off Fox's goods, which did not
seem worth removing. Yet, shortly after this, whom should Walpole find
sauntering by his own door but Fox, who came up and talked to him at the
coach window, on the Marriage Bill, with as much _sang-froid_ as if he
knew nothing of what had happened. Doubtless this indifference was to be
attributed quite as much to the callousness of the reckless gambler as
to anything that might be called 'philosophy.'
It seems clear that the ruling passion of Fox was partly owing to the
lax training of his father, who, by his lavish allowances, not only
fostered his propensity to play, but had also been accustomed to give
him, when a mere boy, money to amuse himself at the gaming table.
According to Chesterfield, the first Lord Holland 'had no fixed
principles in religion or morality,' and he censures him to his son for
being 'too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them.' He gave full swing
to Charles in his youth. 'Let nothing be done,' said his lordship, 'to
break his spirit, the world will do that for him.' At his death, in
1774, he left him L154,000 to pay his debts; it was all 'bespoke,' and
Fox soon became as deeply pledged as before.(126)
(126) Timbs, ubi supra. There is a mistake in the anecdote respecting
Fox's duel with Mr Adam (not Adams), as related by Mr Timbs in his
amusing book of the Clubs. The challenge was in consequence of some
words uttered by Fox in parliament, and not on account of some remark
on Government powder, to which Fox wittily alluded, after the duel,
saying--'Egad, Adam, you would have killed me if it had not been
Government powder.' See Gilchrist, Ordeals, Millingen, Hist. of
Duelling, ii., and Steinmetz, Romance of Duelling, ii.
The following are authentic anecdotes of Fox, as a gambler.
Fox had a gambling debt to pay to Sir John Slade. Finding himself in
cash, after a lucky run at Faro, he sent a complimentary card to the
knight, desiring to discharge the claim. Sir John no sooner saw the
money than he called for pen and ink, and began to figure. 'What now?'
cried Fox. 'Only calculating the interest,' replied the other. 'Are you
so?' coolly rejoined Charles James, and pocketed the cash, adding--'I
thought it was a _debt of honour_. As you seem to consider it a trading
debt, and as I make it an invariable rule to pay my Jew-creditors last,
you must wait a little longer for your money.'
Fox once played cards with Fitzpatrick at Brookes' from ten o'clock at
night till near six o'clock the next morning--a waiter standing by to
tell them 'whose deal it was'--they being too sleepy to know.
On another occasion he won about L8000; and one of his bond-creditors,
who soon heard of his good luck, presented himself and asked for
payment. 'Impossible, sir,' replied Fox; 'I must first discharge my
debts of honour.' The bond-creditor remonstrated, and finding Fox
inflexible, tore the bond to pieces and flung it into the fire,
exclaiming--'Now, sir, your debt to me is a _debt of honour_.' Struck by
the creditor's witty rejoinder, Fox instantly paid the money.(127)
(127) The above is the version of this anecdote which I remember as
being current in my young days. Mr Timbs and others before him relate
the anecdote as follows:--'On another occasion he won about L8000; and
one of his bond-creditors, who soon heard of his good luck, presented
himself and asked for payment.'
'Impossible, sir,' replied Fox 'I must first discharge my debts of
honour.' The bond-creditor remonstrated. 'Well, sir, give me your bond.'
It was delivered to Fox, who tore it in pieces and threw it into the
fire. 'Now, sir,' said Fox, 'my debt to you is a debt of honour;' and
immediately paid him.
Now, it is evident that Fox could not destroy the document without
rendering himself still more 'liable' in point of law. I submit that
the version in the text is the true one, conforming with the legal
requirement of the case and influencing the debtor by the originality of
the performance of the creditor.
Amidst the wildest excesses of youth, even while the perpetual victim
of his passion for play, Fox eagerly cultivated his taste for letters,
especially the Greek and Roman historians and poets; and he found
resources in their works under the most severe depressions occasioned by
ill-successes at the gaming table. One morning, after Fox had passed the
whole night in company with Topham Beauclerc at Faro, the two friends
were about to separate.
Fox had lost throughout the night, and was in a frame of mind
approaching to desperation. Beauclerc's anxiety for the consequences
which might ensue led him to be early at Fox's lodgings; and on arriving
he inquired, not without apprehension, whether he had risen. The servant
replied that Mr Fox was in the drawing-room, when Beauclerc walked
up-stairs and cautiously opened the door, expecting to behold a frantic
gamester stretched on the floor, bewailing his losses, or plunged
in moody despair; but he was astonished to find him reading a Greek
Herodotus.
On perceiving his friend's surprise, Fox exclaimed, 'What would you have
me do? I have lost my last shilling.'
Upon other occasions, after staking and losing all that he could raise
at Faro, instead of exclaiming against fortune, or manifesting the
agitation natural under such circumstances, he would lay his head on the
table and retain his place, but, exhausted by mental and bodily fatigue,
almost immediately fall into a profound sleep.
Fox's best friends are said to have been half ruined in annuities given
by them as securities for him to the Jews. L500,000 a-year of such
annuities of Fox and his 'society' were advertised to be sold at one
time. Walpole wondered what Fox would do when he had sold the estates of
his friends. Walpole further notes that in the debate on the Thirty-nine
Articles, February 6, 1772, Fox did not shine; nor could it be wondered
at. He had sat up playing at Hazard, at Almack's, from Tuesday evening,
the 4th, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 5th. An hour
before he had recovered L12,000 that he had lost; and by dinner, which
was at five o'clock, he had ended losing L11,000! On the Thursday he
spoke in the above debate, went to dinner at past eleven at night; from
thence to White's, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence
to Almack's, where he won L6000; and between three and four in the
afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost L11,000
two nights after, and Charles L10,000 more on the 13th; so that in three
nights the two brothers--the eldest not _twenty-five_ years of age--lost
L32,000!(128)
(128) Timbs, _ubi supra._
On one occasion Stephen Fox was dreadfully fleeced at a gaming house at
the West End. He entered it with L13,000, and left without a farthing.
Assuredly these Foxes were misnamed. _Pigeons_--dupes of sharpers at
play--would have been a more appropriate cognomen.
WILBERFORCE AND PITT.
These eminent statesmen were gamesters at one period of their lives.
When Wilberforce came to London in 1780, after his return to Parliament,
his great success signalized his entry into public life, and he was at
once elected a member of the leading clubs--Miles' and Evans', Brookes',
Boodle's, White's, and Goosetree's. The latter was Wilberforce's usual
resort, where his friendship with Pitt--who played with characteristic
and intense eagerness, and whom he had slightly known at
Cambridge--greatly increased. He once lost L100 at the Faro table.
'We played a good deal at Goosetree's,' he states, and I well remember
the intense earnestness which Pitt displayed when joining in these games
of chance. He perceived their increasing fascination, and soon after
abandoned them for ever.'
Wilberforce's own case is thus recorded by his biographers, on the
authority of his private Journal:--'We can have no play to-night,'
complained some of the party at the club, 'for St Andrew is not here to
keep bank.' 'Wilberforce,' said Mr Bankes, who never joined himself, 'if
you will keep it I will give you a guinea.' The playful challenge was
accepted, but as the game grew deep he rose the winner of L600. Much of
this was lost by those who were only heirs to fortunes, and therefore
could not meet such a call without inconvenience. The pain he felt at
their annoyance cured him of a taste which seemed but too likely to
become predominant.
Goosetree's being then almost exclusively composed of incipient orators
and embryo statesmen, the call for a gambling table there may be
regarded as a decisive proof of the universal prevalence of the vice.
'The first time I was at Brookes',' says Wilberforce, 'scarcely knowing
any one, I joined, from mere shyness, in play at the Faro tables,
where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend, who knew my inexperience, and
regarded me as a victim decked out for sacrifice, called to me--"What,
Wilberforce, is that you?" Selwyn quite resented the interference,
and, turning to him, said in his most expressive tone, "Oh, sir, don't
interrupt Mr Wilberforce, he could not be better employed."
Again: 'The very first time I went to Boodle's I won twenty-five guineas
of the Duke of Norfolk. I belonged at this time to five clubs--Miles'
and Evans', Brookes', Boodle's, White's, and Goosetree's.'
SIR PHILIP FRANCIS.
Sir Philip Francis, the eminent politician and supposed author of
the celebrated 'Letters of Junius,' was a gambler, and the convivial
companion of Fox. During the short administration of that statesman he
was made a Knight of the Bath. One evening, Roger Wilbraham came up to
the Whist table, at Brookes', where Sir Philip, who for the first time
wore the ribbon of the Order, was engaged in a rubber, and thus accosted
him. Laying hold of the ribbon, and examining it for some time, he
said:--'So, this is the way they have rewarded you at last; they have
given you a little bit of red ribbon for your services, Sir Philip,
have they? A pretty bit of red ribbon to hang about your neck; and that
satisfies you, does it? Now, I wonder what I shall have. What do you
think they will give me, Sir Philip?' The newly-made knight, who had
twenty-five guineas depending on the rubber, and who was not very well
pleased at the interruption, suddenly turned round, and looking at him
fiercely, exclaimed, 'A halter, and be,' &c.
THE REV. CALEB C. COLTON.
Unquestionably this reverend gentleman was one of the most lucky of
gamesters--having died in full possession of the gifts vouchsafed to him
by the goddess of fortune.
He was educated at Eton, graduated at King's College, Cambridge, as
Bachelor of Arts in 1801, and Master of Arts in 1804, and obtained a
fellowship, having also a curacy at Tiverton, held conjointly. Some six
years after he appeared in print as a denouncer of a 'ghost story,' and
in 1812, as the author of 'Hypocrisy,' a satirical poem, and 'Napoleon,'
a poem. In 1818 he was presented by his college to the vicarage of Kew
with Petersham, in Surrey. Two years after he established a literary
reputation--lasting to the present time--by the publication of a volume
of aphorisms or maxims, under the title of 'LACON; or, Many Things in
Few Words.' This work is very far from original, being founded mainly on
Lord Bacon's celebrated Essays, and Burdon's 'Materials for Thinking,'
La Bruyiere, and De la Rochefoucault; still it is highly creditable to
the abilities of the writer. It has passed through several editions;
and even at the present time its only rival is, 'The Guesses at Truth,'
although we have numerous collections of apothegmatic extracts from
authors, a class of works which is not without its fascination, if
readers are inclined to _THINK._(129)
(129) The first work I published was of this kind, and entitled, 'Gems
of Genius; or, Words of the Wise, with extracts from the Diary of a
Young Man,' in 1838.
Two years after he returned to his 'Napoleon,' which he republished,
with extensive additions, under the new title of 'The Conflagration of
Moscow.
It would appear that Colton at this period gave in to the fashionable
gaming of the day; at any rate, he dabbled deeply in Spanish bonds,
became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and, without investigating
his affairs closely--which might have been easily arranged--he
absconded.
He subsequently made appearance, in order to retain his living; but in
1828 he lost it, a successor being appointed by his college. He then
went to the United States of America; what he did there is not on
record; but he subsequently returned to Europe, went to Paris, took up
his abode in the Palais Royal, and--devoted his talents to the mysteries
of the gaming table, by which he was so successful that in the course of
a year or two he won L25,000!
Oddly enough, one of his 'maxims' in his Lacon runs as follows: 'The
gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He
adds his soul to every other loss, and, by the act of suicide, renounces
earth, to forfeit heaven.'
It has been suggested that this was writing his own epitaph, and it
would appear so from the notices of the man in most of the biographies;
but nothing could be further from the fact. Caleb Colton managed to
_KEEP_ his gambling fortune, and what is more, devoted it to a worthy
purpose. Part of his wealth he employed in forming a picture-gallery;
and he printed at Paris, for private distribution, an ode on the death
of Lord Byron. He certainly committed suicide, but the act was not the
gamester's martyrdom. He was afflicted by a disease which necessitated
some painful surgical operation, and rather than submit to it, he
blew out his brains, at the house of a friend, at Fontainebleau, in
1832.(130)
(130) Gent. Mag. New Month. Mag. Gorton's Gen. Biograph. Dict.
BEAU BRUMMELL.
This singular man was an inveterate gambler, and for some time very
'lucky;' but the reaction came at last; the stakes were too high, and
the purses of his companions too long for him to stand against any
continued run of bad luck; indeed, the play at Wattier's, which was very
deep, eventually ruined the club, as well as Brummell and several other
members of it; a certain baronet now living, according to Captain Jesse,
is asserted to have lost ten thousand pounds there at _Ecarte_ at one
sitting.(131)
(131) Life of Beau Brummell.
The season of 1814 saw Brummell a winner, and a loser likewise--and this
time he lost not only his winnings, but 'an unfortunate ten thousand
pounds,' which, when relating the circumstance to a friend many
years afterwards, he said was all that remained at his banker's. One
night--the fifth of a most relentless run of ill-luck--his friend
Pemberton Mills heard him exclaim that he had lost every shilling, and
only wished some one would bind him never to play again:--'I will,'
said Mills; and taking out a ten-pound note he offered it to Brummell
on condition that he should forfeit a thousand if he played at White's
within a month from that evening. The Beau took it, and for a few days
discontinued coming to the club; but about a fortnight after Mills,
happening to go in, saw him hard at work. Of course the thousand pounds
was forfeited; but his friend, instead of claiming it, merely went up to
him and, touching him gently on the shoulder, said--'Well, Brummell, you
may at least give me back the ten pounds you had the other night.'
Among the members who indulged in high play at Brookes' Club was
Alderman Combe, the brewer, who is said to have made as much money in
this way as he did by brewing. One evening whilst he filled the office
of Lord Mayor, he was busy at a full Hazard table at Brookes', where the
wit and the dice-box circulated together with great glee, and where Beau
Brummell was one of the party. 'Come, Mash-tub,' said Brummell, who was
the _caster_, 'what do you _set?_' 'Twenty-five guineas,' answered the
Alderman. 'Well, then,' returned the Beau, 'have at the mare's pony' (a
gaming term for 25 guineas). He continued to throw until he drove home
the brewer's twelve ponies running; and then getting up, and making him
a low bow, whilst pocketing the cash, he said--'Thank you, Alderman;
for the future I shall never drink any porter but yours.' 'I wish, sir,'
replied the brewer, 'that every other blackguard in London would tell me
the same.'(132)
(132) Jesse, _ubi supra_.
The following occurrence must have caused a 'sensation' to poor
Brummell.
Among the members of Wattier's Club was Bligh, a notorious madman, of
whom Mr Raikes relates:--'One evening at the Macao table, when the play
was very deep, Brummell, having lost a considerable stake, affected, in
his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out--"Waiter, bring me
a flat candlestick and a pistol." Upon which Bligh, who was sitting
opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat
pocket, which he placed on the table, and said, "Mr Brummell, if you are
really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy
to offer you the means without troubling the waiter." The effect upon
those present may easily be imagined, at finding themselves in the
company of a known madman who had loaded weapons about him.'
Brummell was at last completely beggared, though for some time he
continued to hold on by the help of funds raised on the mutual security
of himself and his friends, some of whom were not in a much more
flourishing condition than himself; their names, however, and still
more, their expectations, lent a charm to their bills, in the eyes of
the usurers, and money was procured, of course at ruinous interest. It
is said that some unpleasant circumstances, connected with the division
of one of these loans, occasioned the Beau's expatriation, and that a
personal altercation took place between Brummell and a certain Mr M--,
when that gentleman accused him of taking the lion's share.
He died in utter poverty, and an idiot, at Caen, in the year 1840, aged
62 years. Brummell had a very odd way of accounting for the sad change
which took place in his affairs. He said that up to a particular period
of his life everything prospered with him, and that he attributed good
luck to the possession of a certain silver sixpence with a hole in it,
which somebody had given him years before, with an injunction to take
good care of it, as everything would go well with him so long as he
did, and the reverse if he happened to lose it. The promised prosperity
attended him for many years, whilst he held the sixpence fast; but
having at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake
to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune
ensued, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to
expatriate himself. 'On my asking him,' says the narrator, 'why he did
not advertise and offer a reward for the lost treasure; he said, "I did,
and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain
the promised reward, but mine was not amongst them!" And you never
afterwards,' said I, 'ascertained what became of it? "Oh yes," he
replied, "no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of his set, got hold
of it."' Whatever poor Brummell's supernatural tendencies may have
generally been, he had unquestionably a superstitious veneration for his
lost sixpence.
TOM DUNCOMBE.
Tom Duncombe graduated and took honours among the greatest gamblers of
the day. Like Fox, he was heir to a good fortune--ten or twelve thousand
a year--the whole of which he managed to anticipate before he was
thirty. 'Tom Duncombe ran Charles Fox close. When Mr Duncombe, sen., of
Copgrove, caused his prodigal son's debts to be estimated with a view
to their settlement, they were found to exceed L135,000;(133) and the
hopeful heir went on adding to them till all possibility of extrication
was at an end. But he spent his money (or other people's money), so long
as he had any, like a gentleman; his heart was open like his hand; he
was generous, cordial, high-spirited; and his expectations--till they
were known to be discounted to the uttermost farthing--kept up his
credit, improved his social position, and gained friends. "Society"
(says his son) "opened its arms to the possessor of a good name and the
inheritor of a good estate. Paterfamiliases and Materfamiliases rivalled
each other in endeavouring to make things pleasant in their households
for his particular delectation, especially if they had grown-up
daughters; hospitable hosts invited him to dinner, fashionable matrons
to balls; political leaders sought to secure him as a partisan;
_DEBUTANTES_ of the season endeavoured to attract him as an admirer;
_TRADESMEN THRONGED TO HIS DOORSTEPS FOR HIS CUSTOM_, and his table was
daily covered with written applications for his patronage." _Noblesse
oblige;_ and so does fashion. The aspirant had confessedly a hard time
of it. "He must be seen at Tattersall's as well as at Almack's; be
more frequent in attendance in the green-room of the theatre than at
a _levee_ in the palace; show as much readiness to enter into a
pigeon-match at Battersea Red House, as into a flirtation in May Fair;
distinguish himself in the hunting-field as much as at the dinner-table;
and make as effective an appearance in the park as in the senate; in
short, he must be everything--not by turns, but all at once--sportsman,
exquisite, gourmand, rake, senator, and at least a dozen other
variations of the man of fashion,--his changes of character being often
quicker than those attempted by certain actors who nightly undertake the
performance of an entire _dramatis personae_."'
(133) It will be remembered that when Fox's debts were in like manner
estimated they amounted to L140,000: the coincidence is curious. See
ante.
Tommy Duncombe was not only indefatigable at Crockford's, but at every
other rendezvous of the votaries of fortune; a skilful player withal,
and not unfrequently a winner beyond expectation. One night at
Crockford's he astonished the house by carrying off sixteen hundred
pounds. He frequently played at cards with Count D'Orsay, from whom, it
is said, he invariably managed to win--the Count persisting in playing
with his pleasant companion, although warned by others that he would
never be a match for 'Honest Tommy Duncombe.'
Tom Duncombe died poor, but, says his son, 'rich in the memory of those
who esteemed him, as Honest Tom Duncombe.'
Perhaps the best thing the son could have done was to leave his father's
memory at rest in the estimation of 'those who esteemed him;' but having
dragged his name once more, and prominently, before a censorious world,
he can scarcely resent the following estimate of Tom Duncombe, by
a well-informed reviewer in the _Times_. Alluding to the concluding
summary of the father's character and doings, this keen writer passes a
sentence which is worth preserving:--
'Much of this would do for a patriot and philanthropist of the highest
class--for a Pym, a Hampden, or a Wilberforce; or, we could fancy, a son
of Andrew Marvell, vowing over his grave "to endeavour to imitate the
virtues and emulate the self-sacrificing patriotism of so estimable a
parent, and so good a man." But we can hardly fancy, we cannot leave, a
son of Duncombe in such a frame of mind. We cannot say to _HIM_--
Macte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra. "In virtue renewed go on;
thus to the skies we go."
We are unfeignedly reluctant to check a filial effusion, or to tell
disagreeable truths; but there are occasions when a sense of public duty
imperatively requires them to be told.
'Why did this exemplary parent die poor? When did he abandon the
allurements of a patrician circle? He died poor because he wasted a fine
fortune. If he abandoned a patrician circle, it was because he was
tired of it, or thought he could make a better thing of democracy. If he
conquered his passions, it was, like St Evremond--by indulging them.
'"Honest Tom Duncombe!" We never heard him so designated before except
in pleasantry. "As honest as any man living, that is an old man, and not
honester than I." We cannot go further than Verges; it is a stretch of
charity to go so far when we call to mind the magnificent reversion and
the French jobs. A ruined spendthrift, although he may have many good
qualities, can never, strictly speaking, be termed honest. It is absurd
to say of him that he is nobody's enemy but his own--with family,
friends, and tradespeople paying the penalty for his self-indulgence.
He must be satisfied to be called honourable--to be charged with no
transgression of the law of honour; which Paley defines as "a system
of rules constructed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate
their intercourse with one another, _AND FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE_."
'There was one quality of honesty, however, which "honest Tom Duncombe"
did possess. He was not a hypocrite. He was not devoid of right feeling.
He had plenty of good sense; and it would have given him a sickening
pang on his death-bed to think that his frailties were to be perpetuated
by his descendants; that he was to be pointed out as a shining star to
guide, instead of a beacon-fire to warn. "No," he would have said, if he
could have anticipated this most ill-chosen, however well-intentioned,
tribute, "spare me this terrible irony. Do not provoke the inevitable
retort. Say of me, if you must say anything, that I was not a bad
man, though an erring one; that I was kindly disposed towards my
fellow-creatures; that I did some good in my generation, and was able
and willing to do more, but that I heedlessly wasted time, money,
health, intellect, personal gifts, social advantages and opportunities;
that my career was a failure, and my whole scheme of life a melancholy
mistake."'(134)
(134) _Times_, Jan. 7, 1868.
This is a terrible rejoinder to a son endeavouring to raise a monument
to his beloved and respected parent. But, if we will rake up rottenness
from the grave--rottenness in which we are interested--we must take our
chance whether we shall find a Hamlet who will say, 'Alas! poor Yorick!'
and say _NO MORE_ than the musing Dane upon the occasion.
WAS THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON A GAMESTER?
A few years after the battle of Waterloo there appeared a French
work entitled '_L'Academie des Jeux_, par Philidor,' which was soon
translated into English, and here published under the title of 'Rouge et
Noir; or, the Academies.' It was a denunciation of gambling in all its
varieties, and was, no doubt, well-intentioned. There was, however, in
the publication the following astounding statement:--
'Not long ago the carriage of the heir-apparent to the T***** of
England, in going to his B****'s levee, was arrested for debt in the
open street. That great captain, who gained, if not laurels, an immense
treasure, on the plains of Wa****oo, besides that fortune transmitted
to him by the English people, was impoverished in a few months by this
ignoble passion.'
There can be no doubt that the alleged gambling of the great warrior and
statesman was the public scandal of the day, as appears by the duke's
own letters on the subject, published in the last volume of his
_Dispatches_. Even the eminent counsel, Mr Adolphus, thought proper
to allude to the report in one of his speeches at the bar. This called
forth the following letter from the duke to Mr Adolphus:--
'17 Sept., 1823. 'The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr
Adolphus, and encloses him the "Morning Chronicle" of Friday, the 12th
instant, to which the duke's attention has just been called, in which Mr
Adolphus will observe that he is stated to have represented the duke as
a person _KNOWN SOMETIMES TO PLAY AT HAZARD, WHO MIGHT BE COMMITTED AS A
ROGUE AND VAGABOND_.
'The duke concludes that this paper contains a correct statement of what
Mr Adolphus said upon the occasion, and he assures Mr Adolphus that he
would not trouble him upon the subject if circumstances did not exist
which rendered this communication desirable.
'Some years have elapsed since the public have been informed, _FROM THE
VERY BEST AUTHORITY_, that the duke had totally ruined himself at play;
and Mr Adolphus was present upon one occasion when a witness swore that
he had heard the duke was constantly obliged to sell the offices in the
Ordnance himself, instead of allowing them to be sold by others!! The
duke has suffered some inconvenience from this report in a variety of
ways, and he is anxious that at least it should not be repeated by a
gentleman of such celebrity and authority as Mr Adolphus.
'He therefore assures Mr Adolphus that in the whole course of his
life he never won or lost L20 at any game, and that he never played at
Hazard, or any game of chance, in any public place or club, nor been for
some years at all at any such place.
'From these circumstances, Mr Adolphus will see that there is no ground
for making use of the duke's name as an example of a person _KNOWN
SOMETIMES TO PLAY AT HAZARD, WHO MIGHT BE COMMITTED AS A ROGUE AND
VAGABOND_.'
_Mr Adolphus to Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington_.
'Percy Street, 21st Sept., 1823.
'Mr Adolphus has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of a note from
his Grace the Duke of Wellington, and would have done so yesterday, but
was detained in court till a late hour in the evening. Mr Adolphus is
extremely sorry that any expression used by him should have occasioned
a moment's uneasiness to the Duke of Wellington. Mr Adolphus cannot deny
that the report in the "Chronicle" is accurate, so far as it recites his
mere words; but the scope of his argument, and the intended sense of his
expression, was, that if the Vagrant Act were to receive the extensive
construction contended for, the most illustrious subject of the realm
might be degraded to the condition of the most abject and worthless, for
an act in itself indifferent--and which, until the times had assumed a
character of affected rigour, was considered rather as a proof of good
society than as an offence against good order. Mr Adolphus is, however,
perfectly sensible that his illustration in his Grace's person was in
all respects improper, and, considering the matters to which his Grace
has adverted, peculiarly unfortunate Mr Adolphus feels with regret
that any public expression of his sentiments on this subject in the
newspapers would not abate, but much increase, the evil. Should an
opportunity ever present itself of doing it naturally and without
affectation, Mr Adolphus would most readily explain, in speaking at
the bar, the error he had committed; but it is very unlikely that there
should exist an occasion of which he can avail himself with a due regard
to delicacy. Mr Adolphus relies, however, on the Duke of Wellington's
exalted mind for credit to his assurance that he never meant to treat
his name but with the respect due to his Grace's exalted rank and
infinitely higher renown.'
_To Mr Adolphus_.
'Woolford, 23rd Sept., 1823.
'The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr Adolphus, and
assures Mr Adolphus that he is convinced that Mr Adolphus never intended
to reflect injuriously upon him. If the duke had believed that Mr
Adolphus could have entertained such an intention he would not have
addressed him. The duke troubles Mr Adolphus again upon this subject,
as, in consequence of the editor of the "Morning Chronicle" having
thought proper to advert to this subject in a paragraph published on the
18th instant, the duke has referred the paper of that date and that of
the 12th to the Attorney and Solicitor-general, his counsel, to consider
whether the editor ought not to be prosecuted.
'The duke requests, therefore, that Mr Adolphus will not notice the
subject in the way he proposes until the gentlemen above mentioned will
have decided upon the advice which they will give the duke.'(135)
(135) 'Dispatches,' vol. ii. part i.
The result was, however, that the matter was allowed to drop, as the
duke was advised by his counsel that the paragraph in the "Morning
Chronicle," though vile, was not actionable. The positive declaration of
the duke, 'that in the whole course of his life he never won or lost L20
at any game, and that he never played at Hazard, or any game of chance,
in any public place or club, nor been for some years at all at any such
place,' should set the matter at rest. Certainly the duke was afterwards
an original member of Crockford's Club, founded in 1827, but, unlike
Blucher, who repeatedly lost everything at play, 'The Great Captain,' as
Mr Timbs puts it, 'was never known to play deep at any game but war or
politics.'(136)
(136) Club Life in London.
This remarkable deference to private character and public opinion, on
the part of the Duke of Wellington, is in wonderful contrast with the
easy morality of the Old Bailey advocate, Mr Adolphus, who did not
hesitate to declare gambling 'an act in itself indifferent--and which,
until the times had assumed a character of _AFFECTED_ rigour, was
considered rather as a proof of good society than as an offence against
good order.' This averment of so distinguished a man may, perhaps,
mitigate the horror we now feel of the gambling propensities of our
ancestors; and it is a proof of some sort of advancement in morals, or
good taste, to know that no modern advocate would dare to utter such a
sentiment.
Other great names have been associated with gambling; thus Mr T. H.
Duncombe says, speaking of Crockford's soon after its foundation:--'Sir
St Vincent Cotton (Lord Combermere), Lord Fitzroy Somerset (Raglan),
the Marquis of Anglesey, Sir Hussey Vivian, Wilson Croker, _Disraeli_,
Horace Twiss, Copley, George Anson, and George Payne _WERE PRETTY SURE
OF BEING PRESENT_, many of them playing high.'
Respecting this statement the _Times'_(137) reviewer observes:--'We
do not know what the Chancellor of the Exchequer will say to this. Mr
Wilson Croker (who affected great strictness) would have fainted away.
But the authority of a writer who does not know Sir St Vincent Cotton
(the ex-driver of the Brighton coach) from Sir _Stapleton_ Cotton (the
Peninsular hero) will go for little in such matters; and as for Copley,
Lord Lyndhurst (just then promoted from the Rolls to the Woolsack), why
not say at once that he attended the nocturnal sittings at Crockford's
in his robes.'
(137) Jan. 7, 1868.