[332] "The low and profligate company which a gentleman of rank and education will frequently submit to keep, rather than lose his beloved Hazard, is such that, if he had been required to admit them simply on the ground of companions, he would certainly have looked upon it as an insufferable degradation."--A Dissertation on the pernicious effects of Gaming, published, by appointment, as having gained a Prize (June 1783) in the University of Cambridge. By Richard Hey, LL.D., Cambridge, 1784, p. 31. [333] "I know a man who cheats," said a young gentleman to Sheridan; "I do not like to expose him; what shall I do?" "Back him," was the reply. [334] "Hook's clever epitaph on a fashionable gambler then recently deceased."--The Dowagers; or, the New School for Scandal, by Mrs. Gore. 1843. [335] "Question on Gaming, Whether or no the making and providing such instruments, which usually minister to it, is by interpretation such an aid to the sin, as to involve us in the guilt?" This treatise is printed in a small work entitled 'The Life of Bishop Taylor, and the Purest Spirit of his Writings extracted and exhibited by John Whealdon, A.M.' 8vo, 1789. [336] This letter is given in the Rev. R. Polwhele's Reminiscences, vol. ii, p. 42. Edit. 1836. [337] Memoirs of Tate Wilkinson, vol. iii, p. 9-11. York, 1790. [338] Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The following anecdote respecting Locke is related by Le Clerc. Three or four men of rank met him by appointment at the house of Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, rather for the sake of mutual entertainment than for business. After mutual compliments had passed, and before there had been any time for conversation, cards were introduced, and the visitors sat down to play. Mr. Locke, after looking on a while, drew out his tablets and sat down to write. One of the company at length observing how he was employed, asked him what he was writing. "My lord," replied he, "I am endeavouring to profit as much as I can from your company; for having impatiently longed to be present at a meeting of the most sensible and most witty men of the day, and having at last that good fortune, I thought that I could not do better than write down your conversation; I have indeed here put down the substance of what has been said for the last hour or two." The satire was immediately felt; the players quitted the game, and after amusing themselves for a while in retouching and enlarging what Mr. Locke had set down, spent the remainder of the day in more worthy conversation.--Eloge de Mr. Locke dans la Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. vi, p. 357. [339] Noctes Ambrosianæ, No. 25, in Blackwood's Magazine for April, 1826. [340] The Life of St. Francis Xavier, by Father Bouhours. Translated into English by John Dryden, pp. 71, 203, 697.