"Tis sure enough to make one sick, To view the fool, who then might choose it, 'Gainst player fam'd the ideot see, To strike a cannon, pocket balls; In all those games which skill require, * For a splenetic man, and a very fine player, or a crabbed old maid, that has, for the last twenty years, been glued to a whist table, and who places great reliance on her card money, to experience this circumstance, is a shock easier conceived than expressed, and productive of effects, not unlikely to set all the company present in a dreadful uproar. This game, which solely depends on science and practice, is too often mangled by unskilful hands: and the ridiculous attitudes into which it frequently throws, not only the player, but the bye standers, is well exposed in Bunbury's caricature of the Billiard Room, To persevere, and thereby choose L'ENVOY OF THE POET. If thou enact'st the zany, 'tis no rule, THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS. Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis, Crowds flock to man my Stultifera Navis. * This race of fools is very extensive; no card room being without some of its votaries, to the no small discomfiture of such as have to own them for partners in a game. SECTION LVII. OF FOOLS WHO PLACE THEIR TRUST IN HERITAGE. Tho' I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; THINE uncle, fool, thou say'st, is sickly, Year after year is still succeeding, "Tis then thou think'st he'll sudden hop off, In fit of apoplexy pop off, And end, at length, thy misery. How vain thine hope! To heritage farewell! Every day affords instances of this nature; proving the fallacy of this species of dependence in fools: an instance, however, of rather a different nature, and where the youth was greatly to be pitied, is recorded in the Lowther family, to the following effect: The uncle of that name, who was as rich as he was penurious, had a nephew, without a shilling, and whose whole dependence was on his relative's will, which would have been in the young man's favour, but for the following circumstance: Old Lowther, returning home one night, fell down, and dangerously wounded his leg; for which, however, he would not have advice, on account of the expense which would be thereby incurred: when the nephew, feeling for his relative's situation, applied to a surgeon, explaining the penurious principle of the old gentleman, and requesting that he would attend him, as if through charity, but that he should be secretly paid by himself for his trouble; which being agreed upon, the nephew informed old Lowther that he cou d procure advice, gratis, which greatly delighted his uncle; who, in consequence, assumed a different name, and took a mean Or else prim aunt. Old women live long, Who rests all hope upon her will; And heeds those morals she'll instill. Thus in hope's bright sunshine basking, lodging in the purlieus of St. Giles's, where he was attended by the surgeon, who, after some weeks, saved the loss of his leg, and, in all probability, his life, by effecting a complete cure. Unfortunately for the youth, the real fact came to the uncle's ear, who had amused himself with the supposition of his cure having been completed without cost: when, in return for the kind proceedings of his nephew, he not only discountenanced him from that hour, but made a fresh will, and cut him off with a shilling. *Lady D- -y afforded an instance of this kind, who literally left every shilling away from her next of kin, because he one day chanced to tear out a fly leaf from her prayer book. |