A great drinker, too, was Jack Talbot of the Coldstream Guards, and it was of him, when the doctor said: “My lord, he is in a bad way, for I was obliged to make use of the lancet this morning,” that the witty Alvanley remarked: “You should have tapped him, Doctor, for I am sure he has more claret than blood in his veins.” Another was the eccentric Twistleton Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, a famous epicure, who drank large quantities of absinthe and curaçoa. Gronow recommended him a servant, who, arriving as Fiennes was going to dinner, asked his new master if he had any orders, only to receive these instructions: “Place two bottles of sherry by my bedside, and call me the day after to-morrow!”
Gambling vied with drinking as an amusement of the aristocracy, and the one was as ruinous to their purses as the other to their health. Everyone played cards in those days, and even ladies gambled with as much zest as their husbands and brothers. There was much card-playing in private houses, but more in the clubs, especially at White’s, Brooks’s and Almack’s.
“As the gambling and extravagance of the young men of fashion has arrived now at a pitch never heard of, it is worth while to give some account of it” (Walpole wrote in 1772). “They have a club at Almack’s in Pall Mall, where they played only for rouleaus of fifty pounds each rouleau; and generally there was ten thousand pounds in specie on the table. Lord Holland had paid about twenty thousand pounds for his two sons. Nor were the manners of the gamesters, or even their dresses for play, undeserving notice. They began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze great-coats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put on pieces of leather (such as is worn by footmen when they clean knives) to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light and prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons; masks to conceal their emotions when they played at quinze. Each gamester had a small, neat stand by him, with a large rim, to hold their tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu to hold their rouleaus. They borrowed great sums of the Jews at exorbitant premiums. Charles Fox called his outward room, where those Jews waited till he rose, the Jerusalem Chamber. His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them ‘pounds of flesh.’ ”
Charles James Fox
It is not exaggeration to say that during the long sittings at macao, hazard, and faro many tens of thousands exchanged hands.
Fox was a magnificent player of piquet and whist, but in the evenings, when he had dined well and wined well, he would play only games of chance, at which he was always unlucky.
“At Almack’s of pigeons I’m told there are flocks,
But it’s thought the completest is one Mr Fox.