Volume I Part 40 (1/2)
The case has pa.s.sed into literature. Wardle, the valorous Dowler, and Lowten, Mr. Perker's clerk, had all figured in the trial before they played their parts in 'Pickwick'. Wardle, who was a colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers (”Wynne's Lambs”) had fought at Vinegar Hill. After losing his seat, he took a farm between Tunbridge Wells and Rochester, from which he fled to escape his creditors, and died at Florence, November 30, 1834, aged seventy-two.]
[Footnote 2: Byron took his M.A. degree, July 4, 1808. In another letter to Harness, dated February, 1809, he says,
”I do not know how you and Alma Mater agree. I was but an untoward child myself, and I believe the good lady and her brat were equally rejoiced when I was weaned, and if I obtained her benediction at parting, it was, at best, equivocal.”]
[Footnote 3: George Sanders (1774-1846) painted miniatures, made watercolour copies of continental master-pieces, and afterwards became a portrait-painter in oils. He painted several portraits of Byron, two of which have been often engraved.]
119.--To William Bankes.
Twelve o'clock, Friday night.
My Dear Bankes,--I have just received your note; believe me I regret most sincerely that I was not fortunate enough to see it before, as I need not repeat to you that your conversation for half an hour would have been much more agreeable to me than gambling [1] or drinking, or any other fas.h.i.+onable mode of pa.s.sing an evening abroad or at home.--I really am very sorry that I went out previous to the arrival of your despatch: in future pray let me hear from you before six, and whatever my engagements may be, I will always postpone them.--Believe me, with that deference which I have always from my childhood paid to your _talents_, and with somewhat a better opinion of your heart than I have hitherto entertained,
Yours ever, etc.
[Footnote 1:
”I learn with delight,” writes Hobhouse from Cambridge, May 12, 1808, ”from Scrope Davies, that you have totally given up dice. To be sure you must give it up; for you to be seen every night in the very vilest company in town--could anything be more shocking, anything more unfit?
I speak feelingly on this occasion, 'non ignara mali miseris, &c'. I know of nothing that should bribe me to be present once more at such horrible scenes. Perhaps 'tis as well that we are both acquainted with the extent of the evil, that we may be the more earnest in abstaining from it. You shall henceforth be 'Diis animosus hostis'.”
Moore quotes ('Life', p. 86) the following extract from Byron's 'Journal':--
”I have a notion that gamblers are as happy as many people, being always _excited_. Women, wine, fame, the table,--even ambition, _sate_ now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. I was very fond of it when young, that is to say, of hazard, for I hate all _card_ games,--even faro.
When macco (or whatever they spell it) was introduced, I gave up the whole thing, for I loved and missed the _rattle_ and _dash_ of the box and dice, and the glorious uncertainty, not only of good luck or bad luck, but of _any luck at all_, as one had sometimes to throw _often_ to decide at all. I have thrown as many as fourteen mains running, and carried off all the cash upon the table occasionally; but I had no coolness, or judgment, or calculation. It was the delight of the thing that pleased me. Upon the whole, I left off in time, without being much a winner or loser. Since one-and-twenty years of age I played but little, and then never above a hundred, or two, or three.”]
120.--To R. C. Dallas.
April 25, 1809.
Dear Sir,--I am just arrived at Batt's Hotel, Jermyn Street, St.
James's, from Newstead, and shall be very glad to see you when convenient or agreeable. Hobhouse is on his way up to town, full of printing resolution, [1] and proof against criticism.--Believe me, with great sincerity,
Yours truly,