y.'

Unfortunately such was not the result among the literary and scientific
men, in France or England, during the last quarter of the last century.
Many of them bitterly lamented that they ever played, and yet played
on,--going through all the grades and degradations appointed for his
votaries by the inexorable demon of gambling.

BEAU NASH.

Nature had by no means formed Nash for _beau_. His person was clumsy,
large, and awkward; his features were harsh, strong, and peculiarly
irregular; yet even with these disadvantages he made love, became an
universal admirer of the sex, and was in his turn universally admired.
The fact is, he was possessed of, at least, some requisites of a
'lover.' He had assiduity, flattery, fine clothes--and as much wit as
the ladies he addressed. Accordingly he used to say--'Wit, flattery,
and fine clothes are enough to debauch a nunnery!' This is certainly a
fouler calumny of women than Pope's

'Every woman is at heart a rake.'

Beau Nash was a barrister, and had been a remarkable, a distinguished
one in his day--although not at the bar. He had the honour to organize
and direct the last grand 'revel and pageant' before a king, in the Hall
of the Middle Temple, of which he was a member.

It had long been customary for the Inns of Court to entertain our
monarchs upon their accession to the crown with a revel and pageant, and
the last was exhibited in honour of King William, when Nash was chosen
to conduct the whole with proper decorum. He was then a very young man,
but succeeded so well in giving satisfaction, that the king offered
to give him the honour of knighthood, which, however, Nash declined,
saying:--'Please your Majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish
it may be one of your poor knights of Windsor; and then I shall have a
fortune at least able to support my title.'

In the Middle Temple he managed to rise 'to the very summit of
second-rate luxury,' and seems to have succeeded in becoming a
fashionable _recherche_, being always one of those who were called good
company--a professed dandy among the elegants.

No wonder, then, that we subsequently find him Master of the Ceremonies
at Bath, then the theatre of summer amusements for all people of
fashion. It was here that he took to gambling, and was at first classed
among the needy adventurers who went to that place; there was, however,
the great difference between him and them, that his heart was not
corrupt;