‘Wednesday. From Eight to Ten. Drank two Dishes of Chocolate in Bed, and fell asleep after ’em.
‘From Ten to Eleven. Eat a Slice of Bread and Butter, drank a Dish of Bohea, read the Spectator.
‘From Eleven to One. At my Toilet, try’d a new Head.[7] Gave orders for Veney[8] to be combed and washed. Mem. I look best in Blue.
‘From One till Half an Hour after Two. Drove to the Change. Cheapened a couple of Fans.
‘Till Four. At Dinner. Mem. Mr. Frost passed by in his new Liveries.
‘From Four to Six. Dressed, paid a visit to old Lady Blithe and her Sister, having heard they were gone out of Town that Day.
‘From Six to Eleven. At Basset.[9] Mem. Never sit again upon the Ace of Diamond.’
Gambling was one of the curses of the Eighteenth Century. From Royalty downwards, all played Cards—the men, perhaps, preferred dice, and ‘Casting a Main’—but the women were inveterate card-players, until, in the latter part of the century, it became a national scandal, owing to the number of ladies who, from their social position, should have acted better, who kept Faro-tables, and to whom the nickname of Faro’s Daughters was applied. There were Ladies Buckinghamshire and Archer, Mrs. Concannon, Mrs. Hobart, Mrs. Sturt, and others, whose houses were neither more nor less than gaming-houses. The evil was so great, that Lord Kenyon, in delivering judgment in a trial to recover £15 won at card-playing, said that the higher classes set a bad example in this matter to the lower, and, he added, ‘They think they are too great for the law; I wish they could be punished. If any prosecutions of this kind are fairly brought before me, and the parties are justly convicted, whatever be their rank or station in the country—though they be the first ladies in the land—they shall certainly exhibit themselves in the pillory.’
The caricaturists got hold of his Lordship’s speech, and depicted Lady Archer and others in the pillory, and Lady Buckinghamshire being whipped at a cart’s-tail by Lord Kenyon. With the century this kind of play died out; but some mention of it was necessary in order to show that Swift’s description of ladies gambling was not exaggerated.