quality for the majority to possess, since all played and most lost.
Lord Carlisle (who complained of _cette lassitude de tout et de
moi-même, qu’on appelle ennui_), General Fitzpatrick, “Old Q.,” Lord
Hertford, Lord Sefton, the Duke of York, and many others squandered
vast sums in this amusement. There were not a great many winners. The
Duke of Portland was one; and his and Canning’s father-in-law, General
Scott, won two hundred thousand pounds. It was said the success of the
latter was due not only to his knowledge of the game of whist, but also
to his notorious sobriety. General Fitzpatrick and Lord Robert Spencer
lost all their money at Brooks’s; but, the members not objecting, with
borrowed capital they kept a faro bank. The bank won, and with his
share of one hundred thousand pounds Lord Robert bought the estate of
Woolbidding, in Sussex. He had learnt his lesson, and he never played
again. There were few who had the sense to make or the strength to
keep such a resolution. Mrs Delany, however, tells of a Mr Thynne “who
has won this year so considerably that he has paid off all his debts,
bought a house and furnished it, disposed of all his horses, hounds,
etc., and struck his name out of all the expensive subscriptions.” A
fortunate man, too, was Colonel Aubrey, who had the reputation of being
the best whist and piquet player of his day. He made two fortunes in
India and lost them both, and made a third at play from a five-pound
note which he borrowed.
Another celebrated faro bank at Brooks’s was that kept by Lord
Cholmondeley, Mr Thompson of Grosvenor Square, Tom Stepney, and a
fourth. It ruined half the town; and a Mr Paul, who had come home with
a fortune from India, punting against the bank, lost ninety thousand
pounds in one night, and at once went Eastward Ho! to make another.
Lord Cholmondeley and Mr Thompson realised between three and four
hundred thousand pounds apiece; but Stepney so frequently played
against his partners that what he won on one side he lost on the other,
with the result that his gains were inconsiderable.
Foreigners were made honorary members of the clubs. The Duke of Orleans
(“Vile Égalité,” Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote him down) carried off vast
sums. During the visit of the Allied Sovereigns, Blücher, an inveterate
gambler, lost twenty thousand pounds. Count Montrond, on the other
hand, was a winner. “Who the deuce is this Montrond?” the Duke of York
asked Upton. “They say, sir, that he is the most agreeable scoundrel
and the greatest reprobate in France.” “Is he, by Jove?” cried the
Duke. “Then let us ask him to dinner immediately.” Montrond was a witty
fellow, and one of his _bon mots_ has been handed down. The Bailli de
Ferretti was always dressed in knee-breeches, with a cocked hat and a
Court sword, the slender proportions of which resembled those of his
legs. “Do tell me, my dear Bailli,” said Montrond one day, “have you
got three legs or three swords?”
Englishmen were not backward in playing abroad, and they assembled in
great numbers at the Salon des Étrangers in Paris during the stay
of the army of occupation after Waterloo. Gronow gives a long list
of habitués: Henry Baring, Tom Sowerby, Henry Broadwood, Bob Arnold,
Steer, Colonel Sowerby, were the most reckless plungers. Lord Thanet,
who had an income of fifty thousand pounds, lost every penny he had at
the _salon_. He would not stop playing when the public tables closed,
and used to invite those present to remain and play hazard or écarté.
One night he lost a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. His friends
told him he had most probably been cheated. “Then,” he said with great
coolness, “I consider myself lucky not to have lost twice as much.”
Prominent among gamblers, and as such deserving of special mention, was
William Douglas, Earl of March and Ruglen, afterwards fourth and last
Duke of Queensberry.[14] Even making liberal allowance for the spirit of
the age and for the state of morality in the days when he was young,
he was one of the worst men of his generation; and his rank and wealth
made his vices only more notorious. He was the “Degenerate Douglas” of
Wordsworth’s muse, and Burns damned him in verse for all time:
[14] Born 1724; succeeded to the Earldom of March, 1731, and, on his
mother’s death, to the Earldom of Ruglen; inherited the dukedom, 1778;
died 23rd December 1810.
“How shall I sing Drumlanrig’s Grace,
Discarded remnant of a race
Once great in martial story?
His forebears’ virtues all contrasted,
The very name of Douglas blasted--
His that inverted glory.
Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore;
But he has superadded more,
And sunk them in contempt.
Follies and crimes have stained the name;
But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim--
From aught that’s good exempt.”
He was appointed to the Household of George III.; but when the
King’s malady declared itself in 1788, he, in common with many other
courtiers, veered round to the side of the Prince of Wales. George
recovered, and the Duke was dismissed. His profligacy was a byword,
and he pursued pleasure to the end of his days. He built a palace at
Richmond, where many orgies took place. But he tired of that residence,
as he wearied of most people and most things. “What is there to make
so much of in the Thames? I am quite tired of it. There it goes, flow,
flow, flow, always the same.” At the end of his days he sat on the
balcony of a ground-floor room of his Piccadilly mansion, and ogled the
passers-by, while a footman held a parasol over his head, and another
was ready to follow and find out the residence of any pretty girl
that passed. Yet “Old Q.” had wit in plenty, loved music, and was not
without appreciation of letters and art. One of his greatest friends
was George Selwyn; and, while both accredited themselves with the
paternity, neither knew which was the father of Maria Fagniani. This
young lady became Selwyn’s ward and the inheritrix of the greater part
of his fortune, while the Duke left her his residence in Piccadilly,
a villa at Richmond, and a hundred and fifty thousand pounds; and her
husband, Lord Yarmouth, afterwards third Marquis of Hertford, as the
Duke’s residuary legatee, came into about two hundred thousand pounds.
“Old Q.” was a dangerous man at the card-table. The turf had no
mysteries for him. He was ever ready to bet, and he preferred to bet on
something that was very nearly a certainty. He was full of resource,
and his success was due at least as much to his cleverness as to his
luck. His was the day of wagers, and at White’s a betting-book was laid
upon a table for all bets made in the building to be inserted. His name
frequently occurs therein:
“_June 1751._--Lord March wagers Captain Richard Vernon fifty guineas
to twenty that Mr St Leger is married before him.” The bet requires the
explanatory note that “him” stands for Captain Vernon.
“_March 1784._--The Duke of Queensberry bets Mr Grenville ten guineas
to five that Mr Fox does not stand a poll for Westminster if the
Parliament should be dissolved within a month from the date hereof.
_N.B._--If a coalition takes place between Mr Pitt and Mr Fox this bet
is to be off.” It is to be noticed that the Duke was not convinced of
the sincerity of politicians.
The Duke bet Sir John Lade a thousand guineas as to which could produce
a man to eat the most at one sitting. The Duke could not be present at
the contest, but he received the result from a representative. “I have
not time to state particulars, but merely to acquaint your Grace that
your man beat his antagonist by a pig and an apple-pie.” What must they
have eaten!
White’s betting-book is full of quaint wagers. “Lord Northington bets
Mr C. Fox, June 4, 1774, that he (Mr. C. F.) is not called to the Bar
before this day four years.” On 11th March 1775 is an interesting
entry: “Lord Bolingbroke gives a guinea to Mr Charles Fox, and is to
receive a thousand from him whenever the debt of this country amounts
to one hundred and seventy-one millions. Mr Fox is not to pay the
thousand pounds till he is one of his Majesty’s Cabinet.” The following
is dated 7th April 1792: “Mr Sheridan bets Lord Lauderdale and Lord
Thanet twenty-five guineas each that Parliament will not consent to
any more lotteries after the present one voted to be drawn in February
next.” Lotteries were then a regular source of revenue to the State,
the average profit being about three hundred and fifty thousand
pounds a year, besides many brokers’ annual licences at fifty pounds.
Private lotteries were forbidden by law, and required a special Act of
Parliament to enable them to be drawn. The result was that the only two
private lotteries were the Pigot Diamond in 1800 and Boydell’s pictures
five years later. Lotteries were first drawn at Guildhall and later
at the Coopers’ Hall, and the tickets were taken from the wheels by
Bluecoat boys. The last public lottery took place in October 1826, and
so Mr Sheridan lost his bet.
On 8th May 1809, “Mr G. Talbot bet Lord Charles Manners ten guineas
that the Duke of Queensberry is not alive this day two years.” Another
entry records that “Mr C. H. Bouverie bets Mr Blackford that the Duke
of Queensberry outlives the Duke of Grafton.” “Lord Mountford bets Sir
John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibber.” But the bet was
cancelled, because before either Nash or Cibber died the two wagerers
committed suicide!
Apparently no subject was thought unfit for a bet. Wagers were made as
to which of two married ladies would first give birth to a live child,
and as to which of two men would marry first. They bet with equal
heartiness on the duration of a Ministry or the life of a Minister, on
a horse, or a dog, or a prize-fight, or a cock-fight. Walpole tells the
story of a simple parson entering White’s on the morning of a severe
earthquake, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an
earthquake or the blowing up of powder mills, went away in horror,
protesting that they were such an impious set that he believed if the
Last Trump were to sound they would bet puppet-show against Judgment!
All other English clubs where gaming took place fade into
insignificance before Crockford’s. Crockford was originally a
fishmonger at the old Bulkshop next door to Temple Bar Without,
and later a “leg” at Newmarket. He became part-proprietor of a
gambling-house, and with his partner, at a twenty-four hours’ sitting,
he won a hundred thousand pounds from five punters, including Lord
Thanet, Lord Granville and Ball Hughes. He then built the famous palace
in St James’s Street opposite to White’s.
“No one can describe the splendour and excitement of the early days of
Crockford’s,” Gronow relates. “A supper of the most exquisite kind,
prepared by the famous Ude, and accompanied by the best wines in the
world, together with every luxury of the season, was provided gratis.
The members of the club included all the celebrities of England, from
the Duke of Wellington to the youngest ensign of the Guards; and at the
gay and festive board, which was constantly replenished from midnight
till early dawn, the most brilliant sallies of wit, the most agreeable
conversation, the most interesting anecdotes, interspersed with grave
political discussions and acute logical reasoning on every conceivable
subject, proceeded from the soldiers, scholars, statesmen, poets, and
men of pleasure, who, when the House was ‘up’ and balls and parties
at an end, delighted to finish their evenings with a little supper
and a good deal of hazard at old Crockey’s. The tone of the club was
excellent. A most gentleman-like feeling prevailed, and none of the
rudeness, familiarity, and ill-breeding which disgrace some of the
minor clubs of the present day would have been tolerated for a moment.”
The whole establishment was organised on a scale of wonderful
magnificence; and to keep it select, the election of members was
controlled by a committee. Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, General
Alava, Esterhazy, and other ambassadors belonged to it; the Duke of
Wellington, Lord Raglan, Lord Anglesea, Sir Hussey Vivian, Disraeli,
Bulwer, Croker, Horace Twiss, and, as a matter of course, Lord Alvanley
and Count D’Orsay. Though many members never touched a card, Crockford
with his hazard bank won a sum estimated at between one million two
hundred thousand and two million pounds, or, as a contemporary put
it very neatly, “the whole of the ready money of the then existing
generation.” He died worth seven hundred thousand pounds, after having
sustained heavy losses in mining and other speculations. The retirement
of Crockford marks an epoch, for after that date the craze for gambling
on a vast scale slowly but surely died out. By this time, however, it
had done as much harm to the aristocracy as the South Sea Bubble did to
the general public.
A Forgotten Satirist: “Peter Pindar”
The amusing banter of Mr E. V. Lucas and Mr C. L. Graves, and the
delightful parody of Mr Owen Seaman, are the nearest approach that
England can now show to the satirical productions for which it was once
famous. Indeed, we are becoming an amiable race, developing, or at
least feigning, the milk of human kindness to such an extent that even
modern caricature can scarcely be distinguished from portraiture, and
only Mr Max Beerbohm flings the tomahawk of pictorial satire. A study
of the lampoons and the vigorous personal onslaughts in prose and verse
of the Georgian days, however, gives us pause for reflection whether
we refrain from such practices because of our improved manners or
increasing effeminacy: though, perhaps, it may be attributed largely to
the signed review which makes it difficult, in these days of numerous
literary associations, for a sociable or a nervous scholar to gibbet
his erring brethren with an acerbity once general. Certain it is that
current criticism is for the most part the art of saying pleasant
things graciously, while our excursions into the personal element
are usually headed “Appreciations.” Whatever the cause, it is a sad
thought for militant spirits that a wave of politeness has engulfed
the heretofore blunt, outspoken John Bull, that typical figure, of
which--it is pathetic to note in these days of unsuppressed emotion--we
are still so proud.
The most casual incursion into Georgian history reveals a great mass
of almost forgotten satirical productions, all of it trenchant, most
of it coarse and not a little scurrilous, indeed, but much of it
readable and amusing. There were scores of virile pamphleteers in the
pay of Ministers and Oppositions, as well as a number of independent
writers of lampoons on all sorts and conditions of men and things.
The best of the latter class was Charles Churchill, the famous author
of “The Rosciad” and of those terrible onslaughts on Hogarth and
Sandwich, on Martin and other small fry. His mantle was in due course
assumed by Wolcot, who, though scarcely remembered to-day, was a man
of considerable talent and extensive knowledge, and, though of course
without the genius of his predecessor, was widely read, enjoyed a vast
popularity, and undoubtedly influenced a great body of people.
John Wolcot, the son of a country surgeon, was born in May 1738. He
was educated at various schools of no great repute, and in the early
twenties paid a lengthy visit to France, for the inhabitants of which
land he conceived the insular prejudice usual in his day:
“I never will put Merit on the rack:
No; yet, I own, I hate the shrugging dogs.
I’ve lived among them, eat their frogs,
And vomited them up, thank God, again.”
He studied medicine in London until 1764, when he went as assistant
to his uncle, John Wolcot of Fowey, taking a Scotch Degree of Doctor
of Medicine three years later, immediately after which, his distant
connection, Sir William Trelawny, going to Jamaica as Governor, he
accompanied him as physician. In that island he saw little or no
prospect of securing a paying practice, and paid a flying visit to
England in 1769 to take holy orders. On his return to Jamaica he found
that the lucrative living for which he had been destined, had, contrary
to expectation, not been vacated, whereupon, after holding a minor
clerical post for a few months, he reverted to his old profession,
and obtained the post of physician-general to the troops. Sir William
Trelawny died at Spanish Town in 1772, and Wolcot again came to
England, where he established himself as a doctor at Truro, but, after
disputes with his medical _confrères_ and the Corporation, removed in
1779 to Helstone and then to Exeter.
Wolcot abandoned the practice of medicine in 1781, when he came
to London, urged to this step partly by the desire to advance the
prospects of his _protégé_, Opie, the painter, and partly by the
desire to establish himself there as a man of letters. The last project
was not so mad as it may have appeared to his country neighbours, for
under the pseudonym of “Peter Pindar” he had already obtained some
success with the publication of a “Poetical Epistle to Reviewers” in
1778, in which he declared:
“In Sonnet, Ode, and Legendary Tale,
Soon will the press my tuneful Works display.”
He fulfilled this promise, and in 1782 issued “Lyric Odes to the Royal
Academicians for 1782,” by “Peter Pindar, Esq., a distant relative of
the Poet of Thebes and Laureat to the Academy,” which were at once so
successful, that in quick succession came from his fertile pen, “More
Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1783,” “Lyric Odes for 1785,”
and, in 1786, “Farewell Odes to Academicians.” These vigorous verses
attracted much attention, for the critic was outspoken in his dislikes,
and lashed with the utmost contempt “George’s idol,” West, and other
fashionable artists; though he showed his discrimination by praising
the works of Gainsborough, Reynolds (“Of whose fine art I own myself a
lover”), and of the unfairly neglected Richard Wilson (“By Britain left
in poverty to pine”):
“But honest Wilson, never mind;
Immortal praises thou shalt find,
And for a dinner have no cause to fear.
Thou start’st at my prophetic rhymes:
Don’t be impatient for those times;
Wait till thou hast been dead a hundred year.”
It was not because Wolcot had exhausted this vein (for he returned to
it again and again, even in 1808 having “One more Peep at the Royal
Academy”) that he looked for another theme, but that he discovered, so
long as he wrote on art and artists, let him be never so humorous, he
would have to be content with praise alone for his reward. No man cared
less for money than he, but he certainly thought the labourer worthy
of his hire, and, since he depended for his livelihood on his pen, it
behoved him to select a subject that would appeal to a larger public.
To the exceeding joy of his own and subsequent generations, he decided
to exercise his humour at the expense of the King and Queen, with an
occasional playful blow at a Minister.
No satirist could ask for better subjects for his wit than George III.
and Queen Charlotte. The slow-witted monarch and his parsimonious
consort offered every conceivable temptation to Wolcot’s nimble humour,
and he was not slow to take advantage of this rare chance. Of course,
he was not the first in the field, but he was head and shoulders over
his rivals in talent and wit, and, if he did not silence, at least he
succeeded in eclipsing them. He was especially fortunate in having
accurate information concerning the internal economy of the royal
palaces, and, though he took a poet’s licence to embroider the facts,
there was always some foundation for his lampoons. Thus, when the King
found a noxious insect in his plate at dinner and gave orders that
everyone in the kitchens, from _chef_ to scullion, should be shaved,
“Peter Pindar” wrote a “heroi-comic poem,” “The Lousiad,” in which he
gave a version of the story. “I had this (incident),” he wrote to a
friend, “from the cooks themselves, with whom I dined several times at
Buckingham House and Windsor, immediately after the ‘shave’ took place.”
“‘Some spirit whispers that to Cooks I owe
The precious Visitor that crawls below;
Yes, yes, the whispering Spirit tells me true,
And soon that vengeance all the locks pursue.
Cooks, Scourers, Scullions, too, with Tails of Pig,
Shall lose their coxcomb Curls and wear a Wig.’
Thus roared the King, not Hercules so big;
And all the Palace echoed, ‘Wear a Wig!’”
So successful was the first canto of “The Lousiad,” which appeared
in 1785, that during the next ten years four additional cantos
were written, in which members of the Household and Ministers were
introduced, scarified and dismissed; but the gem of the collection is
the lengthy “Petition of the Cooks,” which, after references to France,
the Schwellenberg and Wilkes, concludes:
“‘O King, our Wives are in the Kitchen roaring,
All ready in rebellion now to rise;
They mock our humble methods of imploring,
And bid us guard against a wig surprise:
“_Yours_ is the hair,” they cry, “th’ Almighty gave ye,
And not a King in Christendom should shave you.’”
‘Lo! on th’ event the World impatient looks,
And thinks the joke is carried much too far;
Then pray, Sir, listen to your faithful Cooks,
Nor in the Palace breed a Civil War:
Loud roar our Band; and, obstinate as Pigs,
Cry, “Locks and Liberty and damn the Wigs!”’”
Eventually the attention of the Privy Council was drawn to this poem,
and that body, according to Wolcot, decided to prosecute the author,
and refrained from doing so only when it discovered that the poem had
its foundation in fact. “Are you sure of a verdict?” it is stated
that Chancellor Thurlow inquired; “for, if not so, we shall look
like a parcel of fools.” Huish states emphatically that the idea of
prosecuting the poet did not originate with the King; and Galt says
that the effusions of the satirist produced on George “no other effect
than a smile of wonder at the perverse ingenuity of the man: and the
most serious thing he was ever known to say of them was on the occasion
of Peter’s lampooning General Carpenter, when his Majesty observed,
that ‘for himself he cared nothing; but he was hurt to see a worthy man
calumniated, because he happened to be one of his servants.’ As far as
they were capable of exciting a good-natured laugh, the King enjoyed
that laugh as much as any man; and when they were otherwise, as was
but too often the case, he observed a dignified forbearance, leaving
the author to enjoy all the triumph there might be in making a base
attack on a party whom he knew to be precluded, by his dignity, from
descending into the arena in his own defence.”
It may, however, he doubted whether Hazlitt was accurate in stating
that “the King as well as the nation delighted in the bard,” for George
had not a spark of humour in his composition, and was the last man in
the nation to take a joke at his own expense in good part.
If, however, the King suffered in silence, the Queen was determined
not to submit to similar attacks, and her solicitor warned Wolcot that
if he exercised his wit against her Majesty, proceedings would at once
be taken--representations that had the desired effect, although they
furnished the subject for one of Peter’s verses:
“Great was the Bard’s desire to sing the Queen,
Vast in her soul, majestic in her mien;
But fierce George Hardinge swore, if pens or pen
Of woman, women, man or men,
In any wise or shape, in Ode or Tale,
Dared mention that _superior_ Lady, lo!
The law should deal them _such_ a blow!
Hang, pillory, or confine for life in jail.”
When the Doctor was once reproved by an acquaintance for the liberties
he took with his sovereign, “I confess there exists this difference
between the King and me,” he replied; “the King has been a good subject
to me, but I have been a bad subject to him.” This he admitted, but
that he was guilty in any sense of serious offence he pooh-poohed:
“Such is the Song: and do not thou, severe,
With ‘Treason! Treason!’ fill a royal ear;
For gentle jokes, at times, on Queens and Kings,
Are pleasant, taking, nay, _instructive_ things.
Yet _some_ there are who relish not the sport,
That flutter in the sunshine of a Court;
Who, fearful Song might mar their high ambition,
Loose the gaunt Dogs of State, and bawl ‘Sedition.’”
Wolcot was clever enough usually to take for his verse topics in which
the public were interested, and it was to this acuteness his success
with his contemporaries must be largely attributed. He attacked Lord
Lonsdale when that nobleman showed a great disregard of his neighbour’s
rights, and “expostulated” with Hannah More, when in her “Strictures on
Female Education,” she wrote, “The Poets again, to do them justice, are
always ready to lend a helping hand when any mischief is to be done.”
He inveighed against the strict enforcement of Sunday Observance, which
to some extent resulted from Lady Huntingdon’s petition to the King,
and the Puritanism of the Methodists:
“‘No,’ roars the Huntingdonian Priest; ‘no, no:
Lovers are liars; love’s a damned trade.
Kissing is damnable; to Hell they go:
The _Devil claws_ away the rogue and jade.’”
And he gave a fanciful description of the result of the unpopular
Hair-Tax, which, according to him, evoked so much disgust that, “the
male sex have already sacrificed their favourite curls, to disappoint
the rapacity of a minister.”
[Illustration: _Peter Pindar Esq._]