'Lo! next, to my prophetic eye there starts A beauteous gamestress in the Queen of Hearts. The cards are dealt, the fatal pool is lost, And all her golden hopes for ever cross'd. Yet still this card-devoted fair I view--Whate'er her luck, to "_honour_" ever true. So tender there,--if debts crowd fast upon her, She'll pawn her "virtue" to preserve her "honour." Thrice happy were my art, could I foretell, Cards would be soon abjured by every belle! Yet, I pronounce, who cherish still the vice, And the pale vigils keep of cards and dice--'Twill in their charms sad havoc make, ye fair! Which "rouge" in vain shall labour to repair. Beauties will grow mere hags, toasts wither'd jades, Frightful and ugly as--the _QUEEN OF SPADES_.' CHAPTER XI. GAMBLING POETS, SAVANTS, PHILOSOPHERS, WITS, AND STATESMEN. Perhaps the stern moralist who may have turned over these pages has frowned at the facts of the preceding chapter. If so, I know not what he will do at those which I am about to record. If it may be said that gamesters must be madmen, or rogues, how has it come to pass that men of genius, talent, and virtue withal, have been gamesters? Men of genius, 'gifted men,' as they are called, are much to be pitied. One of them has said--'Oh! if my pillow could reveal my sufferings last night!' His was true grief--for it had no witness.(105) The endowments of this nature of ours are so strangely mixed--the events of our lives are so unexpectedly ruled, that one might almost prefer to have been fashioned after those imaginary beings who act so _CONSISTENTLY_ in the nursery tales and other figments. Most men seem to have a double soul; and in your men of genius--your celebrities--the battle between the two seems like the tremendous conflict so grandly (and horribly) described by Milton. Who loved his country more than Cato? Who cared more for his country's honour? And yet Cato was not only unable to resist the soft impeachments of alcohol-- Narratur et prisci Catonis Saepe mero caluisse virtus-- but he was also a dice-player, a gambler.(106) (105) Ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet. Martial, lib. I. (106) Plutarch, _Cato._ Julius Caesar did not drink; but what a profligate he was! And I have no doubt that he was a gambler: it is certain that he got rid of millions nobody knew how. I believe, however, that the following is an undeniable fact. You may find suspicious gamesters in every rank of life, but among men of genius you will generally, if not always, find only victims resigned to the caprices of fortune. The professions which imply the greatest enthusiasm naturally furnish the greater number of gamesters. Thus, perhaps, we may name ten poet-gamesters to one savant or philosopher who deserved the title or infamy.