cloak; and were it not for the fear of tiring our friends, I would win a second pool for her fake. How ftands your purse, Eliza?” Shall I not pain your gentle nature by recalling the confufion with which, hanging on my bofom, you whispered that you were pennylefs?

Mrs. Clark retired with my poor Hannah and her mother; and I mildly resumed the converfation by faying that those who played at cards ought to be prepared for fortune in all her caprices.'-" Undoubtedly," replied you; "but George and Charlotte Stanley can win without being indebted to her favour."-"Not unless they cheat," anfwered I. A blush and downcaft eye was your reply. "However," continued I, "be not uneafy: Hannah fhall be no fufferer: I will engage for the cloak." You burst into tears, and faid, fobbing, "But I cannot be the donor; my folly has prevented that.... and.... more."-" It is "It neceffary, my child, that I should detail the whole of the confeffion which followed,

For

For a fortnight you had forgotten to pay for the nurfing of your protégée, John Dunning's motherless infant; and for several weeks you had feen yourself impofed upon with patience, in the vain hope of being in the iffue a match for meanness and craft with their own weapons. You will in a moment perceive my reafons for stating thus minutely that which poffibly you confider as having been thoroughly understood. It may be you are deceived: probably you have not traced in this apparently useless detail of your conduct, and that of your affociates, fome of the most striking features and hideous traits of the practifed and habitual gamefter. Many, I doubt not, of these loft and miferable men (would I could confine my obfervation to men only !) have received the first rudiments of their pernicious art, and the firft impulfe of their direful paffion, in the nursery, or at least in the earliest opening of their youth. Then it was that the first principles of rectitude were violated: then it was that the uncor

rupted

rupted heart first admitted the cruel and contaminating love of money: then was engendered that miferable and delufive preference of felf, and all the poor and base motives of exclufive intereft. There, and then, were practifed the tricks of impofition, of over-reaching the unwary or more ignorant. Thus prepared they meet the world, and, alas! exhibit paffions fatal to themselves, and to all who are connected with them. The profligate and inveterate love of gaming, my Eliza, contains in it a depravity beyond any of which you can form an idea....I would call it a destroying dæmon, if I were asked to fix to it any appropriate term. Yes, I would fay, it is a deftroying dæmon, which exults in laying wafte all the refources of the human mind, and trampling down all the fences of human prudence. It acts like an overwhelming deluge, fweeping from the heart of man all the sweet charities of human life, and leaving nothing behind but a cold indifference for the happiness of others, and for him

felf

self the horrors of cowardly despair, or the cruel triumphs of fordid interest.

With these impreffions now on my mind, with the recollection of that misery to families which has within the narrow sphere of my experience refulted from the love of gaming, and which hourly calls for pity, I have loft fight of the principal view of this letter; for I hope there can be little danger of your adding to the number of the unprincipled and daring herd of gamesters.

It may not however be amifs to inquire into your opinion of the woman, who under lefs glaring colours, and a lefs offenfive form, facrifices her health, her time, and her first duties, to the card-table. What shall we

votaries of this

fay of the infirm and aged all-fubduing incroacher? what fhall we say of those, whofe talents and time have been wafted in acquiring skill in a game at cards?

I once, when a girl, called upon an old lady of this fort, with my mother: she was far advanced in life, and had been for many years confined to her room by lameness.

We

We found her in her bed, where indeed most of her hours were paffed: fhe was propped by a number of pillows, and bufily employed in afforting a quantity of cards. The interest which she apparently took in not permitting her woman to disturb them, confirmed me in the idea that she was separating them-till fhe again cautioned the woman not to touch the cards, for fhe had just got the game. My mother fmiled, and afked. at what game she was playing. "Do you not know it?" faid fhe with wonderful vivacity. "It is called patience; and I promise it has not that name for nothing, for I am often five or fix hours getting the game. It is very amusing, however, and frequently confoles me for the delay of my party." She then deplored the desertion of her old friends, and the ingratitude of the world.

you

Young as I was, I could not help reflecting, during this lamentation, that she had entirely overlooked the beft poffible apology for the abfence of two-thirds of thofe of whom the complained,-that they were in