[204] "The Saxons called it Akeman-ceaster, which has been interpreted the City of Valetudinarians."—Bath Guide. It is worthy of remark that most watering-places much visited by wealthy invalids, abroad as well as at home, are also the haunts of gamesters. "Where the carrion is, there are the vultures."
[205] "At this period it was the fashion for the ladies to adorn their heads, before they entered the bath, with all the lures of dress. By these means their charms were set off to such advantage, that the husband of a lady, who, with Nash and other spectators, was admiring the female dabblers, told his wife 'she looked like an angel, and he wished to be with her.' Nash seized the favorable occasion to establish his reputation as a man of gallantry and spirit, and therefore suddenly taking the gentleman by the collar and the waistband of his breeches, soused him over the parapet into the bath."—Life of Beau Nash.
[206] An analogous case, at cards, of begging for a point in order to inspire the adversary with an erroneous opinion of the beggar being weak, is thus related by Paschasius Justus of Pope Leo X. His holiness once, when playing at a game similar to Primero, held such cards as made it impossible for him to lose, except from the circumstance of his being the last player; but as his adversary, whose turn it was to declare first, proposed a heavy stake, he concluded that he held as good cards as himself. Being reluctant to yield the game, "give me a point," he cried, "and I will see you." The other, not suspecting that the Pope held such capital cards, readily assented, and consequently lost.—The narrator says that he could applaud the trick, if his holiness had returned the loser his stake.—Pasc. Justi Aleæ, lib. i, p. 50. Edit. Neapoli Nemetum [Neustadt, in the diocese of Spires], 1617.
[207] The Literary Register, or Weekly Miscellany, p. 296, Newcastle on Tyne, 1771.
[208] "Uninflammable as the times were, they carried a great mixture of superstition. Masquerades had been abolished, because there had been an earthquake at Lisbon; and when the last jubilee-masquerade was exhibited at Ranelagh, the alehouses and roads to Chelsea were crowded with drunken people, who assembled to denounce the judgments of God on persons of fashion, whose greatest sin was dressing themselves ridiculously. A more inconvenient reformation, and not a more sensible one, was set on foot by societies of tradesmen, who denounced to the magistrate all bakers that baked or sold bread on Sundays. Alum, and the variety of spurious ingredients with which bread, and, indeed, all wares, were adulterated all the week round, gave not half so much offence as the vent of the chief necessary of life on a Sunday."—Earl of Orford's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 283.
[209] The king not only allowed of gaming at the groom porter's at the Christmas holidays, but used to pay a formal visit there himself at the commencement of the "season."
[210] From an advertisement in the public papers, subsequently referred to by the author, it would appear that this compliment to the secretaries of state was ironical. It is there stated that a set of gentlemen of character and fortune had determined to enforce the acts of parliament respecting unlawful games of play, whether with cards or otherwise; and that they were firmly resolved that neither the sanctuary at White's, nor the more sacred mansion of a secretary of state, should prevent their putting their design in execution. It is not surprising that cards should be a favorite game with diplomatists, seeing that their regular vocation consists in cutting and shuffling, and that their grand game is usually won by a trick. Talleyrand was a capital player both at cards and protocols. Espartero, when Regent of Spain, is said to have played at cards with the ministers as he lay in bed. Cabral, the Portuguese minister, is also a great card-player.
[211] This collection of caricatures is contained in a small volume of a square form, like that of a pocket dictionary. In the title, the work is said to have been "digested and published by M. Darly, at the Acorn in Ryder's Court, Cranbourn Alley, Leicester Fields." Subsequently, Darly published another volume, of the same size, entitled 'A Political and Satirical History, displaying the unhappy Influence of Scotch Prevalency in the years 1761, 1762, and 1763; being a regular series of ninety-six humourous, transparent, and entertaining prints. With an explanatory Key to every print.' These two volumes contain the most numerous and interesting series of political caricatures that had hitherto appeared in England. The caricatures which appeared in the Political Register from 1767 to 1772 may be considered as a continuation of the series published by Darly.
[212] In the same volume there is another plate of the same kind, showing the coat cards for 1756.
[213] A Critical Enquiry regarding the real Author of the Letters of Junius, proving them to have been written by Lord Viscount Sackville. By George Coventry, p. 34, 1825. Copies of two of the caricatures on Lord George Sackville are given in this work.