habits and tastes too intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery; and,
with respect to the alleged "harams," it appears certain that one or
two suspected "_subintroductae_" (as the ancient monks of the abbey
would have styled them), and those, too, among the ordinary menials of
the establishment, were all that even scandal itself could ever fix
upon to warrant such an assumption.

That gaming was among his follies at this period he himself tells us
in the journal I have just cited:--

"I have a notion (he says) 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."

To this, and other follies of the same period, he alludes in the
following note:--

TO MR. 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 or drinking, or any other
fashionable mode of passing 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