the first thousand, as she perceived luck
ran hard against him:--she is extremely mortified;--but; as a friend,
advises him to go to _Lyons_, or some provincial town, where he may
study the language with more success, than in the hurry and noise of so
great a city as _Paris_, and apply for further credit. His _new
friends_ visit him no more; and he determines to take the Countess's
advice, and go on to _Lyons_, as he has heard the South of France is
much cheaper, and there he may see what he can do, by leaving Paris,
and an application to his friends in England. But at _Lyons_ too, some
artful knave, of one nation or the other, accosts him, who has had
notice of his _Paris_ misfortunes;--he pities him;--and, rather than
see a countryman, or a gentleman of fashion and character in distress,
he would lend him fifty or a hundred pounds. When this is done, every
art is used to debauch his principles; he is initiated into a gang of
genteel sharpers, and bullied, by the fear of a gaol, to connive at, or
to become a party in their iniquitous society. His good name gives a
sanction for a while to their suspected reputations; and, by means of
an hundred pounds so lent to this honest young man, some thousands are
won from the _birds of passage_, who are continually passing thro' that
city to the more southern parts of _France_, or to _Italy_, _Geneva_,
or _Turin_.

This is not an imaginary picture; it is a picture I have seen, nay, I
have seen the traps set, and the game caught; nor were those who set the
snares quite sure that they might not put a stop to my peregrination,
for they _risqued a supper at me_, and let me win a few guineas at the
little play which began before they sat down to table. Indeed, my dear
Sir, were I to give you the particulars of some of those unhappy young
men, who have been ruined in fortune and constitution too, at _Paris_
and _Lyons_, you would be struck with pity on one side, and horror and
detestation on the other; nor would ever risque such a _finished part_
of your son's education. Tell my Oxonian friend, from me, when he
travels, never to let either Lords or Ladies, even of his own country,
nor _Marquises_, _Counts_, or _Chevaliers_, of this, ever draw him into
play; but to remember that shrewd hint of Lord Chesterfield's to his
son;--"When you play with men (says his Lordship) know with _whom_ you
play; when with women, _for what_ you play."--But let me add, that the
only SURE WAY, is never to