The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 1 Part 19

In the same year, the croupier at the Countess of Buckinghamshire's one night announced the unaccountable disappearance of the cash-box of the Faro bank. All eyes were turned towards her Ladyship. Mrs Concannon said she once lost a gold snuff-box from the table, while she went to speak to Lord C--. Another lady said she lost her purse there last winter. And a story was told that a certain lady had taken, _BY MISTAKE_, a cloak which did not belong to her, at a rout given by the Countess of ----.

Unfortunately a discovery of the cloak was made, and when the servant knocked at the door to demand it, some very valuable lace which it was trimmed with had been taken off. Some surmised that the lady who stole the cloak might also have stolen the Faro bank cash-box.

Soon after, the same Martindale, who had kept the Faro bank at Lady Buckinghamshire's, became a bankrupt, and his debts amounted to L328,000, besides 'debts of honour,' which were struck off to the amount of L150,000. His failure is said to have been owing to misplaced confidence in a subordinate, who robbed him of thousands. The first suspicion was occasioned by his purchasing an estate of L500 a year; but other purchases followed to a considerable extent; and it was soon discovered that the Faro bank had been robbed sometimes of 2000 guineas a week! On the 14th of April, 1798, other arrears, to a large amount, were submitted to, and rejected by, the Commissioners in Bankruptcy, who declared a first dividend of one shilling and five-pence in the pound.(104)

(104) Seymour Harcourt, _Gaming Calendar._

This chapter cannot be better concluded than with quoting the _Epilogue_ of 'The Oxonian in Town,' 1767, humorously painting some of the mischiefs of gambling, and expressly addressed to the ladies:--

'Lo! next, to my prophetic eye there starts A beauteous gamestress in the Queen of Hearts. The cards are dealt, the fatal pool is lost, And all her golden hopes for ever cross'd. Yet still this card-devoted fair I view--Whate'er her luck, to "_honour_" ever true. So tender there,--if debts crowd fast upon her, She'll p.a.w.n her "virtue" to preserve her "honour." Thrice happy were my art, could I foretell, Cards would be soon abjured by every belle! Yet, I p.r.o.nounce, who cherish still the vice, And the pale vigils keep of cards and dice--'Twill in their charms sad havoc make, ye fair! Which "rouge" in vain shall labour to repair.

Beauties will grow mere hags, toasts wither'd jades, Frightful and ugly as--the _QUEEN OF SPADES_.'

CHAPTER XI. GAMBLING POETS, SAVANTS, PHILOSOPHERS, WITS, AND STATESMEN.

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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.body 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 t.i.tle 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 beat.i.tude 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d!' 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 morb.u.m, 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 circ.u.mstances?'(111)

(111) La Pa.s.sion 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 t.i.tius pila, Brulla talis. De Orat. lib. iii.

Quinctilian advised his pupils to avoid all sterile amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sured that whether they win or lose at play, it will always be at the cost of their genius; the soul cannot support two pa.s.sions together. The pa.s.sion 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)