'Tis sure enough to make one sick, 'Gainst player fam'd the idiot see, When mark what sad mischance befals: He makes the daring effort, silly elf! And, missing all, naught pockets but himself.† In all those games which skill require, * For a splenetic man, and a very fine player, or a crabbed old maid, that has, for the last twenty years, been glued to a whist table, and who places great reliance on her card money, to experience this circumstance, is a shock easier conceived than expressed, and productive of effects, not unlikely to set all the company present in a dreadful uproar. †This game, which solely depends on science and practice, is too often mangled by unskilful hands: and the ridiculous attitudes into which it frequently throws, not only the player, but the bye standers, is well exposed in Bunbury's caricature of the Billiard Room. To persevere, and thereby choose Their time and cash at once to lose. Nay, more they'll laugh, and think it funny, L'ENVOY OF THE POET. If thou enact's the zany, 'tis no rule, That others should be deck'd in idiot fame. 'Tis sure, enough to play thyself the fool; And not make them the partners of thy game. THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS. Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis, * This race of fools is very extensive; no card room being without some of its votaries, to the no small discomfiture of such as have to own them for partners in a game. SECTION LVII. OF FOOLS WHO PLACE THEIR TRUST IN HERI TAGE. Tho' I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; THINE uncle, fool, thou say'st, is sickly, Year after year is still succeeding, * 'Tis then thou think'st he'll sudden hop off, And end, at length, thy misery. How vain thine hope! To heritage farewel! Every day affords instances of this nature; proving the fallacy of this species of dependence in fools: an instance, however, of rather a different nature, and where the youth was greatly to be pitied, is recorded in the Lowther family, to the following effect: The uncle of that name, who was as rich as he was penurious, had a nephew, without a shilling, and whose whole dependence was on his relative's will, which would have been in the young man's favour, but for the following circumstance: Old Lowther, returning home one night, fell down, and dangerously wounded his leg; for which, however, he would not have advice, on account of the expense which would be thereby incurred: when the nephew, feeling for his relative's situation, applied to a surgeon, explaining the penurious principle of the old gentleman, and requesting that he would attend him, as if through charity, but that he should be secretly paid by himself for his trouble; which being agreed upon, the nephew informed old Lowther that he could procure advice, gratis, which greatly delighted his uncle; who, in consequence, assumed a different name, and took a mean lodg ing in the purlieus of St. Giles's, where he was attended by Or else prim aunt. Old women live long, Who rests all hope upon her will; Thus in hope's bright sunshine basking, Or treads on tabby's tail-unwilling; For which, poor youth, he finds one shilling the surgeon, who, after some weeks, saved the loss of his leg, and, in all probability, his life, by effecting a complete cure. Unfortunately for the youth, the real fact came to the uncle's ear, who had amused himself with the supposition of his cure having been completed without cost: when, in return for the kind proceedings of his nephew, he not only discountenanced him from that hour, but made a fresh will, and cut him off with a shilling. *Lady Dy afforded an instance of this kind, who literally left every shilling away from her next of kin, because he one day chanced to tear out a fly leaf from her prayer book. |