upon that solemne day,
With offerings unto every one,
that so the more may play.”
CHAPTER III
Gambling, early 18th Century—Mrs Centlivre—E. Ward—Steele—Pope—Details of a gaming-house—Grub St. Journal on Gambling—Legislation on gambling—Peeresses as gaming-house keepers—A child played for at cards—Raids on gaming-houses—Fielding.
But to return to the Chronology of Gambling. From the Restoration of Charles II. to the time of Anne, gambling was common; but in the reign of this latter monarch, it either reached a much higher pitch, or else, in that Augustan Age of Literature, we hear more about it. Any way, we only know what we read about it. In the epilogue to Mrs Centlivre’s play of the Gamester, published in 1705, the audience is thus addressed:
“You Roaring Boys, who know the Midnight Cares
Of Rattling Tatts,[24] ye Sons of Hopes and Fears;
Who Labour hard to bring your Ruin on,
And diligently toil to be undone;
You’re Fortune’s sporting Footballs at the best,
Few are his Joys, and small the Gamester’s Rest:
Suppose then, Fortune only rules the Dice,
And on the Square you Play; yet, who that’s Wise
Wou’d to the Credit of a Faithless Main
Trust his good Dad’s hard-gotten hoarded Gain?
But, then, such Vultures round a Table wait,
And, hovering, watch the Bubble’s sickly State;
The young fond Gambler, covetous of more,
Like Esop’s Dog, loses his certain Store.
Then the Spung squeez’d by all, grows dry,—And, now,
Compleatly Wretched, turns a Sharper too;
These Fools, for want of Bubbles, too, play Fair,
And lose to one another on the Square.
·······