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 tremendousconflict 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" target="_blank" title="n.赌徒">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" target="_blank" title="n.赌徒">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.

Coquillart, a poet of the 15th century, famous for his satirical
verses against women, died of grief after having ruined himself

by gaming. The great painter Guido--and a painter is certainly a
poet--was another example. By nature gentle and honourable, he

might have been the most fortunate of men if the demon of
gambling had not poisoned his existence, the end of which was

truly wretched.
Rotrou, the acknowledged master of Corneille, hurried his

poetical effusions in order to raise money for gambling. This
man of genius was but a spoilt child in the matter of play. He

once received two or three hundred _louis_, and mistrusting
himself, went and hid them under some vine-branches, in order not

to gamble all away at once. Vain precaution! On the following
night his bag was empty.

The poet Voiture was the delight of his contemporaries,
conspicuous as he was for the most exquisitepolish and

inexhaustible wit; but he was also one of the most desperate
gamesters of his time. Like Rotrou, he mistrusted his folly, and

sometimes refrained. `I have discovered,' he once wrote to a
friend, `as well as Aristotle, that there is no beatitude in

play; and in fact I have given over gambling; it is now seven
months since I played--which is very important news, and which I

forgot to tell you.' He would have died rich had he always
refrained. His relapses were terrible; one night he lost fifteen

hundred pistoles (about L750).
The list of foreign poets ruined by gambling might be extended;

whilst, on the other hand, it is impossible, I believe, to quote
a single instance of the kind among the poets of England,--

perhaps because very few of them had anything to lose. The
reader will probably remember Dr Johnson's exclamation on hearing

of the large debt left unpaid by poor Goldsmith at his death--
`Was ever poet so trusted before!' . . .

The great philosophers Montaigne and Descartes, seduced at an
early age by the allurements of gambling, managed at length to

overcome the evil, presenting examples of reformation--which
proves that this mania is not absolutely incurable.

Descartes became a gamester in his seventeenth year; but it is
said that the combinations of cards, or the doctrine of

probabilities, interested him more than his winnings.[107]
[107] Hist. des Philos. Modernes: _Descartes_.

The celebrated Cardan, one of the most universal and most
eccentricgeniuses of his age, declares in his autobiography,

that the rage for gambling long entailed upon him the loss of
reputation and fortune, and that it retarded his progress in the

sciences. `Nothing,' says he, `could justify me, unless it was
that my love of gaming was less than my horror of privation.' A

very bad excuse, indeed; but Cardan reformed and ceased to be a
gambler" target="_blank" title="n.赌徒">gambler.

Three of the greatest geniuses of England--Lords Halifax,
Anglesey, and Shaftesbury--were gambler" target="_blank" title="n.赌徒">gamblers; and Locke tells a very

funny story about one of their gambling bouts. This philosopher,
who neglected nothing, however eccentric, that had any relation

to the working of the human understanding, happened to be present
while my Lords Halifax, Anglesey, and Shaftesbury were playing,

and had the patience to write down, word for word, all their
discordant utterances during the phases of the game; the result

being a dialogue of speakers who only used exclamations--all
talking in chorus, but more to themselves than to each other.

Lord Anglesey observing Locke's occupation, asked him what he was
writing. `My Lord,' replied Locke, `I am anxious not to lose

anything you utter.' This irony made them all blush, and put an
end to the game.

M. Sallo, Counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, died, says
Vigneul de Marville, of a disease to which the children of the

Muses are rarely subject, and for which we find no remedy in
Hippocrates and Galen;--he died of a lingering disease after

having lost 100,000 crowns at the gaming table--all he possessed.
By way of diversion to his cankering grief, he started the well-

known _Journal des Savans_, but lived to write only 13 sheets of
it, for he was wounded to the death.[108]

[108] Melanges, d'Hist. et de Litt. i.
The physician Paschasius Justus was a deplorableinstance of an

incorrigible gambler" target="_blank" title="n.赌徒">gambler. This otherwise most excellent and learned
man having passed three-fourths of his life in a continual

struggle with vice, at length resolved to cure himself of
the disease by occupying his mind with a work which might be

useful to his contemporaries and posterity.[109] He began his
book, but still he gamed; he finished it, but the evil was still

in him. `I have lost everything but God!' he exclaimed. He
prayed for delivery from his soul's disease;[110] but his prayer

was not heard; he died like any gambler" target="_blank" title="n.赌徒">gambler--more wretched than
reformed.

[109] `De Alea, sive de curanda in pecuniam cupiditate,' pub. in
1560.

[110] Illum animi morbum, ut Deus tolleret, serio et
frequenter optavit.

M. Dusaulx, author of a work on Gaming, exclaims therein--`I have
gambled like you, Paschasius, perhaps with greater fury. Like

you I write against gaming. Can I say that I am stronger than
you, in more critical circumstances?'[111]

[111] La Passion du Jeu.
What, then, is that mania which can be overcome neither by the

love of glory nor the study of wisdom!
The literary men of Greece and Rome rarely played any games but

those of skill, such as tennis, backgammon, and chess; and even
in these it was considered `indecent' to appear too skilful.

Cicero stigmatizes two of his contemporaries for taking too
great a delight in such games, on account of their skill in

playing them.[112]
[112] Ast alii, quia praeclare faciunt, vehementius quam causa