and the rents, in general, must be racked up as high as poflible, to fupply the annual demands of the gamingtable: and both of thefe, I fear, often in a manner, that may too fairly be called unmerciful, WHERE gaming fwallows up good part of an in-. come; as gaming debts must be paid firft, most other debts will be fuffered to ftand till too long. The true value of money in trade confifts a good deal in the circulation of it; and if tradefmen's debts are of long continuance, there must be an injuftice fomewhere. Either they charge no more than they should to a quick payer, and then you are unjust to them, in keeping them out of their money fo long; or they will charge you more than the proper value of the goods, and then you are the occafion of injuftice to yourfelf. So that all the things that I faid, I think, are true: but the point I own which grieves me the moit is, that fo excellent a turn of mind, as I know to be in you, fhould be rendered of no effect, by fuch pitiful means. 1 have just been computing, what a vait deal of good you might have done, the year laft paft; all which you have let flip out of your hands, without adding any thing, either to your character, or your happiness. I will just tranfcribe the account I have been making, and then be your very humble fervant. An Account of what might have been done by Sir CHARLES EASY. for the Benefit and Happineß of Mankind, in the Year 1743. To 'prenticing out the two fons of a soldier, that fought bravely,, and loft his life in the battle of £ Dettingen. To a poor clergyman, that had bred up a large family, on a living of 15. a year. 40 To portions for five young maids, on the day of their marriage with honelt tradefmen. To cloathing and schooling of ten boys. 200 150 *Loan Loan to poor tradefmen, without intereft, for 3 years each. £ 200 To officers children, left in diftrefs. 250 To a gentleman of birth and merit, that was fallen in the world. 300 To a gentlewoman whofe father being a gamefter left her without any fortune; to buy her 30%. a year in annuities for her life 300 To occafional charities; to persons known to be in want, and to deserve help. Sum total 2000 INSTEAD of this, as I apprehend, in your present account it must itand all under one article; thus: cation 18 AH! Sir Charles, let me intreat you to compare these two very different accounts together; and to weigh the one against the other! Had you had the happiness to follow the former, what a pleasure muft it have given you, every time you looked it over, to confider how far you had gone in one year, toward making fo many worthy diftreffed perfons happy for their whole life? What have you in the ftead of this, but the mortifiI will fay no more, but leave you to fill it up youself. Think of it a little, if it is poffible for you to fit down and think, good Sir Charles! I have always loved you, as if you were my own fon. You gave me my living, and have been ever good to me; and I could, methinks, give it all up again, to have the world fpeak well of you all round, as they do in molt things already. When I hear any thing good of you, it is the comfort of my grey hairs: and when I hear any thing ill, I feel it here, at my heart! If you should happen to fend me word, this time twelvemonth, that you had difpofed of only the half of the overplus of your your income, in doing good, inflead of facrificing it all in this wretched way, I very believe it would comfort me fo much, that it might add two or three years to the declining life of. Dear Sir CHARLES. Your most faithful, and most obliged bumble Servant to command, PHILIP DE COVERLEY On Female Gamesters. [Guard. N° 120.] I SHOULD ill deferve the name of Guardian, did I not caution all my fair wards against a practice which when it runs to excefs, is the molt i hameful, but one, that the female world can fall into. The ill confequences of it ate more than can be contained in this paper. However, that I may proceed in method, I fhall confider them. Firft, as they relate to the mind. Secondly as they relate to the body. COULD we look into the mind of a female gamester, we should fee it full of nothing but trumps and mattadores. Her flumbers are haunted with kings, queens, and knaves. The day lies heavy upon her till the playfeafon returns, when for half a dozen hours together all hér faculties are employed in fluffing, cutting, dealing, and forting out a pack of cards, and no ideas to be difcovered in a foul which calls itself rational, excepting little fquare figures of painted and spotted paper. Was the understanding, that divine part in our compofition, for fuch an uie? Is it thus that we improve the greatest talent human nature is endoved with? What would a fuperior being think, were he fhown this intellectual faculty in a female gametter, and at the fame time told, that it was by this fhe was distinguished from brutes, and allied to angels. WHEN Our women thus fill their imaginations with pips and counters, I cannot wonder at the story I have lately heard of a newborn child that was marked with the five of clubs. THEIR paffions fuffer no lefs by this practice than their understandings and imaginations. What hope and fear, joy and anger, forrow and difcontent break out all at once in a fair assembly, upon so noble an occafion as that of turning up a card? Who can confider without a fecret indignation that all thofe affections of the mind which fhould be confecrated to their children, husbands and parents, are thus vilely prostituted and thrown away upon a hand at Loo? For my own part, I cannot but be grieved when I fee a fine woman fretting and bleeding inwardly from fuch trivial motives: When 1 behold the face of an angel agitated and discomposed by the heart of a fury. OUR minds are of fuch a make, that they naturally give themfelves up to every diverfion which they are much accustomed to, and we always find that play, when followed with affiduity, engroffes the whole woman, She quickly grows uneafy in her own family, takes but little pleasure in all the domeftic innocent endearments of life, and grows more fond of Pam, than of her hufband. My friend Theophraftus, the best of huf bands and of fathers, has often complained to me, with tears in his eyes, of the late hours he is forced to keep if he would enjoy his wife's converfation. When fhe returns to me with joy in het face, it does not arife, fays he, from the fight of her husband, but from the good luck fhe has had at cards. On the contrary, fays he, if f he has been a loofer I am doubly a fufferet by it. She comes home out of humour, is angry with every body, difpleafed with all I can do or fay, and in reality for no other reafon, but becaufe fhe has been throwing away my eltate. What charming bed - fellows and companions for life are men likely to meet with that choose their wives out of fuch women of vogue and fashion? What a race of worthies, what patriots, what heroes, muft we expect from mothers of this make? I COME in the next place to confider the ill confequences which gaining has on the bodies of our female adventurers. It is fo ordered that almost every thing which corrupts the foul decays the body. The beauties of the face and mind are generally destroyed by the fame fame means. This confidetation should have a particular weight with the female world, who were defigned to pleate the eye and attract the regards of the other half of the fpecies. Now there is nothing that wears due a fine face like the vigils of the card-table, and thofe cutting paffions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, hagard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural ina dications of a female gamefter. Her morning fleeps are not able to repair her midnight watchings. I have known a woman carried off half dead from Baffette, and have many a time grieved to fee a perfon of quality gliding by me in her chair at two o'clock in the morning, and looking like a spectre amidst a glare of flambeaux. In 1hort, I never knew a thorough-paced female gamef. ter hold her beauty two winters together. BUT there is ftill another cafe in which the body is more endangered than in the former. All play-debts must be paid in ipecie, or by an equivalent. The man that plays beyond his income pawns his eftate: the woman muft find out fomething alfo to mortgage when her pinmoney is gone: the hufband has his lands to difpofe of, the wife her perfon. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, Ileave my readers to confider the confequences. Account of TIM. WILDGOOSE by himself. [Advent. N° 98.1 To the ADVENTVRER. DEAR BROTHER, THE thirft of glory is I think allowed even, by the dull dogs who can fit ftill long enough to write books, to be a noble appetite. My ambition is to be thought a man of life and spirit, who could conquer the world if he was to fet about it, but who has too much vivacity to give the neceffary attention to any scheme of length. |