“1 Jan. 1668. By and by I met with Mr Brisband; and having it in my mind this Christmas to do what I never can remember that I did, go to see the gaming at the Groome-Porter’s, I, having, in my coming from the playhouse, stepped into the two Temple halls, and there saw the dirty prentices and idle people playing, wherein I was mistaken in thinking to have seen gentlemen of quality playing there, as I think it was when I was a little child, that one of my father’s servants, John Bassum, I think, carried me in his arms thither, where, after staying an hour, they began to play at about eight at night; where, to see how differently one man took his losing from another, one cursing and swearing, and another only muttering and grumbling to himself, a third without any apparent discontent at all: to see how the dice will run good luck in one hand for half an hour together, and on another have no good luck at all: to see how easily here, where they play nothing but guinnys, a £100 is won or lost: to see two or three gentlemen come in there drunk, and, putting their stock of gold together, one 22 pieces, the second 4, and the third 5 pieces; and these two play one with another, and forget how much each of them brought, but he that brought the 22 thinks that he brought no more than the rest: to see the different humours of gamesters to change their luck, when it is bad, to shift their places, to alter their manner of throwing, and that with great industry, as if there was anything in it: to see how some old gamesters, that have no money now to spend as formerly, do come and sit and look on, and, among others, Sir Lewes Dives,[19] who was here, and hath been a great gamester in his time: to hear their cursing and damning to no purpose, as one man being to throw a seven, if he could; and, failing to do it after a great many throws, cried he would be damned if ever he flung seven more while he lived, his despair of throwing it being so great, while others did it, as their luck served, almost every throw: to see how persons of the best quality do here sit down, and play with people of any, though meaner; and to see how people in ordinary clothes shall come hither and play away 100, or 2, or 300 guinnys, without any kind of difficulty; and, lastly, to see the formality of the groome-porter, who is their judge of all disputes in play, and all quarrels that may arise therein, and how his under officers are there to observe true play at each table and to give new dice, is a consideration I never could have thought had been in the world had I not seen it. And mighty glad I am that I did see it, and, it may be, will find another evening before Christmas be over, to see it again, when I may stay later, for their heat of play begins not till about eleven or twelve o’clock; which did give me another pretty observation of a man that did win mighty fast when I was there. I think he won £100 at single pieces in a little time. While all the rest envied him his good fortune, he cursed it, saying, it come so early upon me, for this fortune, two hours hence, would be worth something to me, but then I shall have no such luck. This kind of prophane, mad entertainment they give themselves. And so, I, having enough for once, refusing to venture, though Brisband pressed me hard, and tempted me with saying that no man was ever known to lose the first time, the devil being too cunning to discourage a gamester, and he offered, also, to lend me 10 pieces to venture; but I did refuse, and so went away.”
We get a good account of the Gaming-house of this period in “The Nicker Nicked; or, the Cheats of Gaming Discovered” (1669), but as it closely resembles Cotton’s account of an Ordinary, I only give a portion of it.
“If what has been said, will not make you detest this abominable kind of life; will the almost certain loss of your money do it? I will undertake to demonstrate that it is ten to one you shall be a loser at the year’s end, with constant play upon the square. If, then, twenty persons bring two hundred pounds a piece, which makes four thousand pounds, and resolve to play, for example, three or four hours a day for a year; I will wager the box shall have fifteen hundred pounds of the money, and that eighteen out of the twenty persons shall be losers.
“I have seen (in a lower instance) three persons sit down at Twelvepenny In and In, and each draw forty shillings a piece; and, in little more than two hours, the box has had three pounds of the money; and all the three gamesters have been losers, and laughed at for their indiscretion.
“At an Ordinary, you shall scarce have a night pass without a quarrel, and you must either tamely put up with an affront, or else be engaged in a duel next morning, upon some trifling insignificant occasion, pretended to be a point of honour.
“Most gamesters begin at small game; and, by degrees, if their money, or estates, hold out, they rise to great sums; some have played, first of all, their money, then their rings, coach and horses, even their wearing clothes and perukes; and then, such a farm; and, at last, perhaps, a lordship. You may read, in our histories,[20] how Sir Miles Partridge played at Dice with King Henry the Eighth for Jesus Bells, so called, which were the greatest in England, and hung in a tower of St Paul’s Church; and won them; whereby he brought them to ring in his pocket; but the ropes, afterwards, catched about his neck, for, in Edward the Sixth’s days, he was hanged for some criminal offences.[21]
“Consider how many people have been ruined by play. Sir Arthur Smithouse is yet fresh in memory: he had a fair estate, which in a few years he so lost at play that he died in great want and penury. Since that Mr Ba——, who was a Clerk in the Six Clerks Office, and well cliented, fell to play, and won, by extraordinary fortune, two thousand pieces in ready gold: was not content with that; played on; lost all he had won, and almost all his own estate; sold his place in the office; and, at last marched off to a foreign plantation to begin a new world with the sweat of his brow. For that is commonly the destiny of a decayed gamester, either to go to some foreign plantation, or to be preferred to the dignity of a box-keeper.
“It is not denied, but most gamesters have, at one time or other, a considerable run of winning, but, (such is the infatuation of play) I could never hear of a man that gave over, a winner, (I mean to give over so as never to play again;) I am sure it is a rara avis: for if you once ‘break bulk,’ as they phrase it, you are in again for all. Sir Humphrey Foster had lost the greatest part of his estate, and then (playing, it is said, for a dead horse,) did, by happy fortune, recover it again, then gave over, and wisely too.
“If a man has a competent estate of his own, and plays whether himself or another man shall have it, it is extreme folly; if his estate be small, then to hazard the loss even of that and reduce himself to absolute beggary is direct madness. Besides, it has been generally observed, that the loss of one hundred pounds shall do you more prejudice in disquieting your mind than the gain of two hundred pounds shall do you good, were you sure to keep it.”
The “Groom Porter” has been more than once mentioned in these pages. He was formerly an officer of the Lord Steward’s department of the Royal Household. When the office was first appointed is unknown, but Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII. from 1526 to 1530, compiled a book containing the duties of the officers, in which is set forth “the roome and service belonging to a groome porter to do.” His business was to see the King’s lodgings furnished with tables, chairs, stools, firing, rushes for strewing the floors, to provide cards, dice, &c., and to decide disputes arising at dice, cards, bowling, &c. The Groom Porter’s is referred to as a place of excessive play in the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry VIII. (1526), when it was directed that the privy chamber shall be “kept honestly,” and that it “be not used by frequent and intemperate play, as the Groom Porter’s house.”