and went on playing with him. One greenhorn, who had discovered his
foul play, asked an old hand what he should do. "Do!" said the Mammon of
Unrighteousness, "_back him, you fool_." The best efforts were made to
screen him. People wrote him anonymous letters and warned him; but he
would cheat, and they were obliged to find him out. Since that day, when
my lord's shame was made public, the gaming-table has lost all its
splendour. Shabby Jews and blacklegs prowl about racecourses and tavern
parlours, and now and then inveigle silly yokels with greasy packs of
cards in railroad ears; but Play is a deposed goddess, her worshippers
bankrupt, and her table in rags.

So is another famous British institution gone to decay--the Ring: the noble
practice of British boxing, which in my youth was still almost
flourishing.

The prince, in his early days, was a great patron of this national sport,
as his grand-uncle Culloden Cumberland had been before him; but, being
present at a fight at Brighton, where one of the combatants was killed,
the prince pensioned the boxer's widow, and declared he never would attend
another battle. "But, nevertheless,"--I read in the noble language of
Pierce Egan (whose smaller work on Pugilism I have the honour to
possess),--"he thought it a manly and decided English feature, which ought
not to be destroyed. His majesty had a drawing of the sporting characters
in the Fives Court placed in his boudoir, to remind him of his former
attachment and support of true courage; and when any fight of note
occurred after he was king, accounts of it were read to him by his
desire." That gives one a fine image of a king taking his recreation;--at
ease in a royal dressing-gown;--too majestic to read himself, ordering the
prime minister to read him accounts of battles: how Cribb punched
Molyneux's eye, or Jack Randall thrashed the Game Chicken.

Where my prince _did_ actually distinguish himself was in driving. He
drove once in four hours and a half from Brighton to Carlton
House--fifty-six miles. All the young men of that day were fond of that
sport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe,
trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of
no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the
lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in
London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very
old; he was at