Some of its members were Maccaronis, the "curled darlings" of the day: they were so called from their affectation of foreign tastes and fashions, and were celebrated for their long curls and eye-glasses. Much of the deep play was removed here. "The gaming at Almack's," writes Walpole to Mann, February 2, 1770, "which has taken the _pas_ of White's, is worthy the decline of our empire, or commonwealth, which you please. The young men of the age lose ten, fifteen, twenty thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not one-and-twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it by one great hand at hazard. He swore a great oath, 'Now, if I had been playing _deep_, I might have won millions.' His cousin, Charles Fox, shines equally there, and in the House of Commons. He was twenty-one yesterday se'nnight, and is already one of our best speakers. Yesterday he was made a Lord of the Admiralty." Gibbon, the historian, was also a member, and he dates several letters from here. On June 24, 1776, he writes: "Town grows empty, and this house, where I have passed many agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the flower of the English youth. The style of living, though somewhat expensive, is exceedingly pleasant; and, notwithstanding the rage of play, I have found more entertainment and rational society than in any other club to which I belong." The play was certainly high--only for rouleaus of £50 each, and generally there was £10,000 in specie on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze greatcoats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put on pieces of leather (such as are worn by footmen when they clean the knives) to save their laced ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light and to prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons; masks to conceal their emotions when they played at quinz. Each gamester had a small neat stand by him, to hold his tea; or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold the rouleaus. Almack's was subsequently Goosetree's. In the year 1780, Pitt was then an habitual frequenter, and here his personal adherents mustered strongly. The members, we are told in the _Life of Wilberforce_, were about twenty-five in number, and included Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden), Lords Euston, Chatham, Graham, Duncannon, Althorp, Apsley, G. Cavendish, and Lennox; Messrs. Eliot, Sir Andrew St. John, Bridgeman (afterwards Lord Bradford), Morris Robinson (afterwards Lord Rokeby), R. Smith (afterwards Lord Carrington), W. Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville), Pepper Arden (afterwards Lord Alvanley), Mr. Edwards, Mr. Marsham, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Bankes, Mr. Thomas Steele, General Smith, Mr. Windham.