to her house for no other purpose than to
make an apology for not playing. My Spanish conductor, unfortunately
for himself, had not the same apology. He played and lost his money--two
circumstances which constantly follow in these houses. While my friend
was thus playing _THE FOOL_, I attentively watched the countenance and
motions of the lady of the house. Her anxiety, address, and assiduity
were equal to that of some skilful shopkeeper, who has a certain
attraction to engage all to buy, and diligence to take care that none
shall escape the net. I found out all her privy-counsellors, by her
arrangement of her parties at the different tables; and whenever she
showed an extraordinary eagerness to fix one particular person with a
stranger, the game was always decided the same way, and her good friend
was sure to win the money.

'In short, it is hardly possible to see good company at Madrid unless
you resolve to leave a purse of gold at the card-assemblies of their
nobility.'(10)

(10) 'Observations in a Tour through Spain.'

We are assured that this state of things is by no means 'obsolete' in
Spain, even at the present time. At the time in question, however, the
beginning of the present century, there was no European nation among
which gaming did not constitute one of its polite and fashionable
amusements--with the exception of the _Turks_, who, to the shame of
Christians, strictly obeyed the precepts of Mahomet, and scrupulously
avoided the 'gambling itch' of our nature.

In England gambling prevailed during the reign of Henry VIII.; indeed,
it seems that the king was himself a gamester of the most unscrupulous
sort; and there is ample evidence that the practice flourished during
the reign of Elizabeth, James I., and subsequently, especially in the
times of Charles II. Writing on the day when James II. was proclaimed
king, Evelyn says, 'I can never forget the inexpressible luxury
and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total
forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight
I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines,
Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing
love-songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great
courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large
table; a bank of at least L2000 in gold before them, upon which two
gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment. Si