the perpetual victim
of his passion for play, Fox eagerly cultivated his taste for letters,
especially the Greek and Roman historians and poets; and he found
resources in their works under the most severe depressions occasioned by
ill-successes at the gaming table. One morning, after Fox had passed the
whole night in company with Topham Beauclerc at Faro, the two friends
were about to separate.

Fox had lost throughout the night, and was in a frame of mind
approaching to desperation. Beauclerc's anxiety for the consequences
which might ensue led him to be early at Fox's lodgings; and on arriving
he inquired, not without apprehension, whether he had risen. The servant
replied that Mr Fox was in the drawing-room, when Beauclerc walked
up-stairs and cautiously opened the door, expecting to behold a frantic
gamester stretched on the floor, bewailing his losses, or plunged
in moody despair; but he was astonished to find him reading a Greek
Herodotus.

On perceiving his friend's surprise, Fox exclaimed, 'What would you have
me do? I have lost my last shilling.'

Upon other occasions, after staking and losing all that he could raise
at Faro, instead of exclaiming against fortune, or manifesting the
agitation natural under such circumstances, he would lay his head on the
table and retain his place, but, exhausted by mental and bodily fatigue,
almost immediately fall into a profound sleep.

Fox's best friends are said to have been half ruined in annuities given
by them as securities for him to the Jews. L500,000 a-year of such
annuities of Fox and his 'society' were advertised to be sold at one
time. Walpole wondered what Fox would do when he had sold the estates of
his friends. Walpole further notes that in the debate on the Thirty-nine
Articles, February 6, 1772, Fox did not shine; nor could it be wondered
at. He had sat up playing at Hazard, at Almack's, from Tuesday evening,
the 4th, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 5th. An hour
before he had recovered L12,000 that he had lost; and by dinner, which
was at five o'clock, he had ended losing L11,000! On the Thursday he
spoke in the above debate, went to dinner at past eleven at night; from
thence to White's, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence
to Almack's, where he won L6000; and between three and four in the
afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost L11,000
two nights after, and Charles L10,000 more on the 13th; so that in thre