ing--not by turns, but all at once--sportsman,
exquisite, gourmand, rake, senator, and at least a dozen other
variations of the man of fashion,--his changes of character being often
quicker than those attempted by certain actors who nightly undertake the
performance of an entire _dramatis personae_."'

(133) It will be remembered that when Fox's debts were in like manner
estimated they amounted to L140,000: the coincidence is curious. See
ante.

Tommy Duncombe was not only indefatigable at Crockford's, but at every
other rendezvous of the votaries of fortune; a skilful player withal,
and not unfrequently a winner beyond expectation. One night at
Crockford's he astonished the house by carrying off sixteen hundred
pounds. He frequently played at cards with Count D'Orsay, from whom, it
is said, he invariably managed to win--the Count persisting in playing
with his pleasant companion, although warned by others that he would
never be a match for 'Honest Tommy Duncombe.'

Tom Duncombe died poor, but, says his son, 'rich in the memory of those
who esteemed him, as Honest Tom Duncombe.'

Perhaps the best thing the son could have done was to leave his father's
memory at rest in the estimation of 'those who esteemed him;' but having
dragged his name once more, and prominently, before a censorious world,
he can scarcely resent the following estimate of Tom Duncombe, by
a well-informed reviewer in the _Times_. Alluding to the concluding
summary of the father's character and doings, this keen writer passes a
sentence which is worth preserving:--

'Much of this would do for a patriot and philanthropist of the highest
class--for a Pym, a Hampden, or a Wilberforce; or, we could fancy, a son
of Andrew Marvell, vowing over his grave "to endeavour to imitate the
virtues and emulate the self-sacrificing patriotism of so estimable a
parent, and so good a man." But we can hardly fancy, we cannot leave, a
son of Duncombe in such a frame of mind. We cannot say to _HIM_--

Macte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra. "In virtue renewed go on;
thus to the skies we go."

We are unfeignedly reluctant to check a filial effusion, or to tell
disagreeable truths; but there are occasions when a sense of public duty
imperatively requires them to be told.

'Why did this exemplary parent die poor? When did he abandon the
allurements of a patrician circle? He died poor because he wasted a fine
fortune. If he abandoned a patrician circle, it was