shewing my anger when she was before hand with me, and beckoning me to come near, said, that she wished to give me a treat before the concert, and that she would shew me a curious epistle which the German had just given her. Accordingly, she read to me a long letter, dated from Vienna, which contained a very circumstantial account of the flight of a certain Prince Mustapha, who was thought to be the presumptive heir to the Ottoman empire, who it was said had escaped from the seraglio. The writer pretended that the Turkish prince, having first taken refuge at Vienna, had been solicited by the Imperial court to remain incognito, not to irritate the Porte. It was added, that lately he had taken the road for Italy, in order to be baptized by the Pope; and that it was reported he would be detained at Naples until his rank and birth could be made useful. He was described to be a tall well-made man, of a dark complexion, with chesnut hair, expressive eyes, haughty and reserved manners. This picture was so much like that of the Polish nobleman 1 had met at Vienna, that I could not help perusing it a second time. I made this observation to Justina, who feigning to find some dissimilarity between the two portraits, gave rise to several questions from the German; I answered frankly, and the result was, that we agreed the one described was certainly the same I had seen at Vienna; and from this inferred that the unknown prisoner at the Castle of St. Elmo could be no other than Prince Mustapha. The ingenious manner with which Justina supported this conversation banished from my mind every doubt respecting the paper given her by the German, and I rejoiced to think I had not exposed my jealousy. But this did not last long, Justina seemed daily more occupied with the German, and her increasing coldness towards me was so marked that it was impossible I || should mistake it. The consent of her mother was no longer mentioned, it did not agree with her views, or else it was concealed from me. Tormented with inquietude, and irritated at so much attention which was no longer for me, I sought the Baron, and entreated him seriously to explain the meaning of the German's assiduities towards his niece. I did not conceal from him that they were for some time past so constant that they occasioned me much uneasiness. He told me that the German was a man of quality on his travels, and that I ought not to take umbrage at his conduct, as he was on the eve of departing; he added, with some asperity, that if his presence near his niece displeased me, there were means of getting rid of him with which I ought to be acquainted. Piqued at so strange a reply, I left him without speaking. I now repaired to the German's, and told him frankly that one of us must give up all claims to Justina, and that the fate of arms should decide between us. The stranger thought, or feigned to believe that I joked; but my looks soon cou. vinced him that he was in the wrong. "I love Justina," said I; "and I declare that you must refrain from seeing her, or one of us must die-choose." "Well," replied he, 66 you shall have ample satisfaction; I choose both the one and the other; I yield up Justina to you, but we shall not fight the less for that " "To-morrow, then," replied I, "at six o'clock, near Pazzuoli." I now returned home, and wrote to Justina the following lines: "This is the last time perhaps I shall ever importune you; if you do not behold me tomorrow, you may say that to the shame of having betrayed the most sacred vows, is now added the crime of having devoted by your inconstancy the most faithful of lovers to the sword of his rival." [To be concluded in our next.] THE GAMESTERS. At a public school of the highest charac- || world, indeed, were by no means similar, but ter and consequence in the kingdom, three youths, whom I shall distinguish by the names of Lorenzo, Lycus, and Amintor, first laid the foundation of their future intimacy. Their ages and attainments were nearly equal, and as the same pursuits would naturally unite them in the school, a similarity of dispositions continued and increased that union in their hours of relaxation. Their prospects in the No. XXXV. Vol. V. their friendship commenced at that happy period when Lorenzo's future title and hereditary wealth were matters of the same indifference to himself and his companions; their lustre never-dazzled him with a fancied supe riority above the competent expectations of Lycus, or the still more humble prospects of Amintor. Lycus, on the other hand, could discern no difference between Lorenzo and I. of friends, or the powerful influence of example, we always should be sure to manifest more real friendship to ourselves and others by stedfastly withstanding those importunities, and daring to be virtuous in spite of those examples. Amintor; and when the latter gave his schoolfellows a preference to himself, it was not that he thought them richer, but that he loved them better than himself; it was not a servile adulation of their higher birth, but an amiable species of self-gratification; it was not the tribute of an inferior, but the gift of an equal. The limited resources of Amintor's pocket Thus promising, thus happy was the morning were presently exhausted. His father was of their lives! But I must not dwell, as I a tradesman, whose fortune was but little able could wish to do, on the prospect now before to support even the common expences of a us; suffice it to observe in general, that na- public education; but his affection for an only ture had eudowed them, respectively, with son prevailed over all other considerations, very ample qualifications to justify the fond || and he cheerfully submitted to a temporary indulgence of parental hope; and surely if retrenchment in his own expences, from a gethe generous, however thoughtless, schoolboy nerous anxiety to forward to the utmost the could once be made sensible of the honest exwelfare of his darling child. Little did he think, poor man! how cruelly his much-loved object would soon requjte his tenderness, and terminate his fondest hopes in sorrow and disgrace! It was easy to forsee, indeed, the inevitable consequence of Amintor's imprudence; distress rapidly advancing, besieged, assaulted, and overthrew his principles; undermined, insensibly, his early virtues; and drove him to those dreadful methods of supplying his extravagance, which point with equal certainty to guilt and ruin. He was soon detected in an act of dishonesty, and publicly expelled the school. His afflicted father, after some few struggles, fell a victim to the blow; and sunk beneath a load of misery too great for him to bear! It is painful to be more particular on such a subject; nor am I willing to relate minutely the melancholy sequel of Amintor's story, or follow his ill-fated companions through the complicated scenes of iniquity and wretchedness in which, as they grew up, they gradually became involved. The regular increase of all vicious inclinations the rapid growth of indulged passions, and the absolute dominion to which they aspire, are subjects of our daily observation; I have chosen therefore to confine this narrative to the following original and authentic letters, which give us the main outline of their future lives; and furnish, in my opinion, a juster comment on the nature and effects of gaming, than any more minute detail which I might otherwise give. They were written (as will be seen) by their respective authors at a time when they had dearly purchased the knowledge and conviction of this certain truth,-" That a gamester, both in life and death, is of all men the most truly miserable." ultation, the tender transport of a parent's heart, on seeing him advancing duly in the path of knowledge, of honour, and integrity, no evil inclinations, no power of persuasion, no force of ill example, could incite him to the barbarous and complicated sacrifice of filial duty and parental happiness! In the present instances, however, reflections of this nature had no influence, and probably no existence, when the poison which embittered all their future lives was fatally imbibed. Lorenzo and Anintor had unhappily discovered and encouraged in each other a similar propensity of the most alarming nature; it insensibly betrayed itself, at first, in trivial and unguarded instances: the usual diversions of their school-fellows no longer had a charm for them, and were either disregarded entirely, or pursued for other purposes than that of healthy recreation; some stake must be proposed, some wager must depend upon their issue, to render them worth notice. The amusements which they once were fond of now ceased to be amusements, unless they were converted into some species of gaming. The hours which had hitherto been passed in innocent and wholesome exercise, or usefa ly employed in the private advancement of their studies, were now secretly devoted to the pernicious purposes of cards and dice. Lycus, amongst others, had been easily persuaded to follow the example of his giddy friends, and what he had at first engaged in from a social principle alone, was afterwards continued from a less commendable motive; ill at length the failing of misplaced good nature was grown into a habit of deliberate vice. Thus dangerous, and insensibly destructive, are the first, the slightest deviations from the line of innocence and moral duty! And however fondly we may hope in youth to palliate an improper step, by pleading the importunate solicitation Without further preface I subjoin a letter from Amintor; the date of it sufficiently prepares us for the state to which they were reduced. AMINTOR TO LORENZO. Newgate, August 25, 1758. Happy had it been for you, Lorenzo, had our intimacy ceased at the time of my expulsion; it received, indeed, a temporary interruption LORENZO! the portion of Amintor is forby your longer continuance at school, as well ever fixed! Infamy and death have seized me, as by the subsequent removal of yourself and Lycus to the university of C— Still I fear during both these periods the same infatuated spirit kept pace with your advancing years, in ample proportion to your power of indulging it. For my own part I advanced more rapidly in the same destructive course; deprived of that first happiness, the salutary guidance of a father's counsel, the kind restrictions of his just authority, the benefit of his experience, and the blessing of his friendship (deprived of it moreover, through a flagraut instance of my own unworthiness),, I yielded to the sullen dictates of despair and shame; and madly flew for refuge to that very vice which already had betrayed me in the mask of pleasure. When you left the university, Lorenzo, you found me (as you well remember) in the capital, you found me at that time, unhappily for you, initiated, engaged, may hardened, in a regular and desperate indulgence of my former passion; it had gained the most absolute ascen dency over me, and was become, in a word, my profession. I was able, for the most part, to procure a competent but wretched subsistence by superior skill, or rather knavery, in the practice of it, though doubtless I have felt most bitterly the complicated horrors of distress, hunger, and despair; I experienced, no doubt, repeatedly the opposite extremes of merited poverty and numerited affluence; nor is the latter, I can truly say, productive of more real comfort than the former; perhaps it is still less conducive to our real happiness. Tormented with the fear of losing my ill-gotten gains, distracted at the real loss of them, solicitous to retrieve the past, or ambitious to increase the present, I never had an easy moment. It was thus, Lorenzo, that you found me at the period above mentioned; at the same period how different a prospect lay open to your view! you were then advancing into serious life, entitled to its highest honours, and fitted for its first enjoyments; for although you had, indeed, already entered on the same criminal and dangerous carcer, your embarrassments, as yet, were casily removable by the ample fortune which you one day would inherit; and all the imprudences, and even vices which you hitherto had been guilty of might still have been converted to your uitimate advantage, by a timely sense of their destructive tendency. The crisis of your fate was still to be decided; nor can I but reflect with the most painful anxiety how many thou You sands of our sex may be wavering at this very moment in a somewhat similar situation with yourself; still struggling, it is probable, between duty and inclination, between real happiness and false pleasures, between a virtuous and vitious conduct; when if they were apprized, like me, of the infinite importance of the choice before them, they would tremble at the dread alternative-au alternative no longer; || nor hesitate another instant to be vituous and happy. For us, Lorenzo, the choice and the result of it were of a far different description! In my own miscrable state of life I had long grown callous to all stings of conscience, and dead to every sense of honour. Abandon. ed, profligate, unprincipled as I was, no wonder that I artfully improved our intimacy to the utmost of my power; assiduous, as occasion offered, to fiatter, to encourage, to betray; attentive equally to drain your pocket and infect your principles; to render you, in short, as desperate and as worthless as myself. sce, Lorenzo, to what unlimited iniquities the progress of this fatal passion will gradually reconcile its votaries! My purpose once effected (and but little artifice was requisite to practise with complete success upon your easy confi.lence) what crime was not familiar to us! what vice was not habitual! Alas, Lorenzo, it is irksome, and it must be needless, to remind you of them in detail. The worst, if worse be possible, is still behind-1 am utterly unable to repeat it. I refer you rather to that inward monitor who registers our secret actions, and will finally report them; O my fellow-criminal, could you see me, could you read me at this awful hour, the present whisper of your conscience might possibly preserve you from its future thunder! Hear me, I intreat you with my dying breath, and trust me I am now sincere! Repent, repent, Lorenzo, as long as you have any being! Believe me, the aggregate of all iniquity is not a juster definition of ingratitude than it is of gaming. Farewel, much injured, much deluded friend! And if you have a moment unemployed in begging mercy for you own offences, forgive, compassionate, and pray for the impious, the lost too great to be described, he hurried to his chamber; the melancholy sequel may be best collected from a letter which he wrote to Lycus, the surviving partner of his vices and his guilt. LORENZO TO LYCUS. O Lycus, it is all too true-it is all too dreadful—it is insupportable! Wretch that I am to be still conscious of existence! The fate of our unhappy friend, the melancholy picture of his inward agonies, and the solemn exhortation of his dying moments, impress me with unspeakable alarm. Like him I am at length awakened from a guilty dream; like him too I awake to horrors inconceivable! They compel me, Lycus, to look back upon myself; to think upon my own past life; they rouze me, in spite of all my efforts, to a fearful sense of my condition. Yes, Lycus, it is all too true! Amintor has done weli to censure, to admonish, to condemn me. Yet why should he admonish me of deeds that are irreparable! why labour to convince me of the cause of all our sorrows, the source of all our guilt! why tell me of the precipice down which we fell! Can I be unconscious of the vice that ruined us, or hesitate to own the poison that we rashly swallowed-No; rather let me second his reproof; and forward his advice to others whom it still my save. I heartily confirm his sentence;-the gamester, or in other words, the villain that I now am, may be easily traced backward to the gambling school boy. You remember, Lycus, the first efforts of our passion, indulged, encouraged as it was continually by Amintor and myself, while you furnished, in your own instance, one melancholy proof of the rapid contagion of a bad example! From that ill-fated period we cannot but be conscious of the altered state of all our thoughts, pursuits, and actions; our minds, you must remember, became gradually divested of those glad sensations, that amiable levity and cheerful freedom peculiar to the innocence of early life. O Lycus, is it not astonishing that we could ever render our reluctant souls so meanly obedient to each new suggestion, so utterly subservient to each fresh demand of this insatiate passion? That we ever should attach ourselves to a tyrant so iniquitous, and blindly devote ourselves to a mistress so deformed? Is it not astonishing, I say, that we ever should be reconciled to a vice so unsatisfactory, a state of villainy so painful? And yet to what an unknown length have I pursued this phantom! Yes, Lycus, I have crimes within me, suggested by this worst of vices, which even to your kindred bosom Į never yet dared to mention. Imagine to yourself a wretch who rather than resist the, impulse of a passion which had ruined him as well in health as in fortune, could meditate the secret destruction of a tender, an indulgent parent; imagine and behold that wretch. What monster but Lorenzo, what monster but a gamester could inhumanly have administered the slow but certain poison which brought him prematurely to the grave! And when I had consumed, in the same ruinous pursuits, the ample patrimony which his unsuspecting tenderness had left me, how basely was I tempted to supply the loss of it by a deed of almost equal infamy! The measure of my secret marriage with the rich and amiable heiress of the house of—, was attended with circumstances of the most refined iniquity Every tie of gratitude, every law of hospitality, every principle of houour was abused and broken; every artifice of deep dissimulation and deliberate perjury was practised without scruple to conciliate her affections to a traitor, who to save himself a short time longer from sinking in the vortex of a gaming-house, could unfeelingly involve her innocence in the punishment of his enormities; and no sooner had secured her fortune than he cast it, with her happiness, to the hazard of a die! Much injured Laura! what a bitter requital of your goodness and affection! what a cruel recompence have you constantly received for that inestimable treasure, the possession of your hand and heart! what a life of misery were you destined to experience from the moment of your first attachment.to such a monster as a gammester! And you, ye helpless innocents, the unconscious victims of a father's vices, to what wretchedness are you devoted, to what miseries are you exposed by that unfeeling hand which nature had appointed to protect and to befriend you! but I dare not follow these distracting thoughts. Whatever period I refer to, I am startled and confounded with increasing crimes; mischiefs more extensive in effect, though they cannot be more heinous in degree, unnumbered aggravations of my guilty passion (considered as the surest incitement to every other outrage on the lives, the characters, the fortunes, and the happiness of my fellow-creatures in general) are rising all around me in terrible array, and doom me, unpitied, uulamented, unforgiven, to the vengeance of offended Heaven, as the pest of society, and the d sgrace of human nature. Lorenzo could procced no further; his pen insensibly gave place to a more fatal weapon. In a few short moments his sufferings, his earthly sufferings were no more! Ah! whither was he gone? Desperate Lorenzo! to plunge into eternity by a deed which doubled every crime that rendered him unfit to go there! See, reader, the main outlines of a gamester's history! and though they may not all be driven to realise exactly this picture of iniquity, very few in fact, I will be bold to say, experience a life more happy, or a death less miserable. Perhaps it is now time to draw aside the mask still further.-Know then, it is Lycus, the unhappy surviving Lycus, who has hitherto addressed you; and though he has indeed requested me to spare him the disgrace of publishing his real name, he has suffered me to add the following short extract from a letter which he lately wrote me : "The wretched remainder of my life," says he, in speaking of his former conduct, "I shall dedicate incessantly to penitence and prayer; while the only additional consolation I can ever look for must equally arise from my hopes and my endeavours to administer a timely warning to the world at large, by pointing out the rock on which I have myself been stranded. And blessed be the father of mercies for this, even thus allowing me, as it were, to reverse my hour-glass once more (not indeed for the prolongation of my own life, but possibly for that of others) before the lingering remnants become finally exhausted." The foregoing anecdotes of real life can need no comment. In every situation we perceive the effects of gaming are the same. The advantage of birth and fortune, education and abilities, only multiply the means of our destruction, and enhance the measure of our guilt; for although the fate of Amintor may seem more disgraceful in the eyes of men, a Lorenzo will assuredly have less (if possible) to plead, in the awful presence of his maker! S. F. |