paffions; they ftrongly recommend that all the efforts of reason fhould be employed to bridle those unruly defires but at the fame time lament that too often all refiftance is vain. Experience has proved, that Card playing extinguishes most of the paffions, or at least concentrates and contracts them to a very fmall sphere, and the Card-table and the perfons who fit round it thereby produces, if not virtues, a freedom from vices at least.

Love, or if you will, the mutual defire of the fexes which is the moft violent and irrefiflable of our paffions in unmarried perfons, and has produced the most fatal confequences both in private and public life, is totally fuppreffed by this wonderful antidote. Intrigues are never carried on, nor are affignations made at the Card-table. On the contrary I have a thou fand times obferved that a young man, with all the circumftances about him, that could make him feel and infpire the paffion of love, when feated at a Cardtable with a blooming beauty at each fide of him, and another leaning on the back of his chair, has been utterly infenfible to their charms, attentive only to his game, and amidft a difplay of killing attractions has paid his devotion only, to the goddefs of his wishes, the Queen of Trumps. The Ladies too, whofe charms have always been fatal to the peace and tranquility of mankind, upon indulging in this amufement lofe that glow of health fo dangerous to our hearts, and from a repetition of nocturnal vigils the pallid hue of 'disease overfpreads the countenance, and the little loves that infpired every feature take their flight, and leave our hearts as free as air. I expect to see shortly, (1 congratulate my fex upon it) a total fubverfion of all female empire.

Together

C Together with the natural feelings of the fair fex,« it annihilates many other little paffions, with which it is, prefumed, none but vulgar women are actuated, I mean thofe antiquated whims of affection for their hufbands or care of their children. A true Card-playeris fuppofed to be in genteel life, and therefore al ways appears divested of thofe foibles, as fhe knows that maternal fondnefs, and domeftic accomplishments would make her appear ridiculous in good company.

Some have fuppofed, very erroneously, that avarice is at the bottom of this favourite amufement, and that perfons who meet at the Card-table have a defign upon each other's pockets. I am perfuaded, those perfons cannot be influenced by that basest of paffions, but that the fole end of their meeting is a public-fpirited one, to promote a circulation of cafh, which all writers agree is fo ufeful in every community.

That it encourages œconomy I allow, as the Card money goes towards paying the fervants wages. It alfo occafions great favings in other articles. I have heard of Ladies who for a number of years won as much from their company as paid the whole expence of the fupper. It affords too a great opportunity for exercifing acts of charity, as it is to be fuppofed that at the end of a year the winnings in the card purfe are given to the poor.

It totally deftroys that paffion fo deftructive of fociety called pride, which is the imagining one's felf of higher rank in point of family, fortune or accomplifhments than those who are our equals, perhaps our fuperiors, in thefe particulars. This it eff. &ts (for pafLions well as difeafes are cured by their contraries)

as

by

by introducing an exa& equality between those who are affembled for the purpofe of card-playing. For let a man be ever so base-born, disagreeable, illiterate, in fhort any thing but a beggar, (for money he must have) if he be only poffels'd of the useful talent of making one at a party, he is upon an equal footing with every person in company, however his fuperior in rank and fortune. It is alfo exceedingly productive of benevolence and brotherly love, as it assembles together the most difcordant and incongruous individuals, and unites, for, a time at least, those who deteft each other with the most cordial hatred,

.

The card-table is a fchool of virtue to the younger part of the female fex; for though they should not partake of this moft edifying of all amufements, they have conftantly before their eyes the greatest examples of moderation, good temper, and forbearance in the matronly Ladies and Gentlemen who furroundTM it. There they learn never to repine at the unavoidable disappointments in human life, never to lose their good humour at the misconduct of their partner, but always to preferve that everlasting sweetness of temper, fo remarkable in thofe perfons, who are faid to live only when in the act of cutting and fluffling.

Upon the whole, I think it has been fully deinonftrated, that the invention of thofe painted papers,. trifling as they may feem to men of science, are of continual ufe to mankind, particularly, as they give a conftant employment to many perfons who for want. of education, or perhaps of genius, are incapable of making a figure in the world, who have not a fingle idea to call up upon any occasion; to all who are use

lefs

defs in fociety, to sharpers, old women, and old men resembling old women, in fhort to all those whom nature intended for this purpose only, that their whole life fhould be, a GAME of CARDS.

********

***

No. 45. Thursday, Auguft 30, 1770.

As the intention of the motto to every Speculation is chiefly to fhew that the writer understands Latin, it Shall for the future be omitted, whenever a fufficient quantity of that language is contained in the Speculation itself.

队 队

B

EING lately in company with fome friends

over a bottle, where we drank healths and toafted after our manner the celebrated *** beauties of this city, the subject naturally fell upon the etymology of the word, Toast. I repeated what the ingenious Mad, de Boccage mentions on this head in the account of her travels to England. This cuftom, fays fhe, owes its original to a mistress of one of their Kings, who was bathing. One of the courtiers gallantly drank a glafs of the water the nymph was bathing in; all the reft drank one after the other, till it came to the turn of the last, when he said, I'll keep the toast myself," alluding to the custom of putting a toaft into liquor.'

A Gentleman, who is a profeffed admirer of antiquity, was prefent. He faid the custom of drinking] healths and toasting was too abfurd in itself to have any meaning; that unknown to thofe paragons

No. 45. in good breeding, the ancients, and advised every perioa prefent to itudy the Symposium of Plato, and the Banquet of Xensphon, as models upon which every drinking-bout should be formed. Upon my return home I read over thɔfe remarkable productions, and was much furprized at finding, that though they abounded in good fayings, the greateft part were shocking to all modeity. I then turned over some claffics and other authors, from whence I have collected the following palages, which prove, that the custom of -toatting was not unknown to, but was conftantly prac- ̧ tiled by, the ancients.

The word propinare, in all the Latin writers, fignifies either to bob-nob, or to drink a person's health. Thus in the Curculio of Plautus,

Propino magnum poculum, ille ebibit.

And again in his Stichus,

Propina tibi falutem plenis faucibus.

I drink your health in a bumper.

i. e.

Martial mentions a curious piece of plate out of which Dide drank to Bitias, when she entertained Eneas.

Hac propinavit Bitiam pulcherrima Dido

In patera, Phrygio cum data cœna viro eft.

This cuftom may be deduced from the highest antiquity: It was used by almost all nations, and the manner of doing it was, to tafte the cup firft, and then hand it to the other. Suetonius, in his life of Tiberius, mentions it as pract:fed by the Greeks. "This custom took its rife from hence, that the Greeks,

in their more folemn compotations, called Philethefia, ⚫ ordered gold and filver goblets filled with wine to be carried