, 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.

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 empt