doctrine, I can assure you, that I have seen as handsome women, as men, in Hungary, and one of the prettiest women, in my opinion, at present at the court of Vienna is a Hungarian.

None of the empress's subjects are taxed so gently, or enjoy so many privileges, as the Hungarians. This is partly owing to the grateful remembrance she has of their loyalty and attachment in the days of her distress. But although this sentiment were not so strong in her breast as it really is, there are political reasons for continuing to them the same exemptions and privileges; for nothing can be more dangerous than disobliging the inhabitants of a frontier country, which borders on an inveterate enemy. Nor could any thing please the Turks more, than to find the hearts of the Hungarians alienated from the house of Austria.

I found this country, and the company of M. de Laval, so very agreeable, that I should have been happy to have extended our excursion farther; but he is obliged to set out soon for Chamberry to pay his duty to the comte d'Artois, who is expected there to wait on his future spouse, the princess of Savoy. We therefore returned by the direct road from Esterhazy to Vienna.

LETTER LXXXIX.

Vienna.

So the fate of poor is finally decided, and he now finds, that to be ruined is not a matter of so much indif ference as he once imagined. I neither see the possibility of his extricating himself from his present difficulties, nor in what manner he will be able to support them. Accustomed to every luxuriant indulgence, how can he bear the inconveniences of poverty ?-Dissipated and inattentive from his childhood, how can he make any exertion for himself?-His good-humour, genteel figure, and pliant disposition, made him well received by all.While he formed no expectations from their friendship,

his company seemed particularly acceptable to some who are at present in power: whether it will be equally so now, when he has nothing else to depend on, is to be tried. And I really think it is as well for him that it be tried now, as five or six years hence.

This calamity has been long foreseen.-There seemed to be almost a necessity that it should happen sooner or later; for he had neither caution, plan, nor object in his gaming. He continued it from habit alone. Of all mankind, he was the least covetous of excessive wealth; and exclusive of gaming, he always lived within his income, not from a desire of saving money, but merely because he had no taste for great expense.-How often have we seen him lose immense sums to those who could never have paid the half, had he happened to win it; and to some of whom he had lent the money which enabled them to stake against him?

There are many careless young men of great fortunes, who game in the same style, and from no other motives than those of our unhappy friend.-What is the consequence?-The money circulates for a while among them, but remains finally with persons of a very different character. I shall not suppose that any of the very fortunate gamesters we have been acquainted with, have used those means to correct fortune which are generally reckoned fraudulent. I am fully persuaded, they are seldomer practised in the clubs in London, than in any other gaming societies in the world.-Let all slight of hand, and every species of downright sharping, be put out of the question; but still we may suppose, that among a great number of careless inattentive people of fortune, a few wary, cool, and shrewd men are mingled, who know how to conceal real caution and design under apparent inattention and gaiety of manner;-who have a perfect command of themselves, push their luck when fortune smiles, and refrain when she changes her disposition :—who have calculated the chances, and understand every game where judgment is required.

If there are such men, is not the probability of winning

infinitely in their favour?-Does it not amount to almost as great a certainty, as if they had actually loaded the dice or packed the cards ?-I know you live in the habit of intimacy with some who answer to the above description; and I have heard you say, that however fortunate they may have been, you were fully convinced that nothing can be fairer than their manner of playing. I accuse them of taking no other advantages than those above mentioned; but I appeal to your own experience,-pray recollect, and I am greatly mistaken, if you will not find, that by far the greater part of those who have made fortunes by play, and have kept them when made, are men of cool, cautious, shrewd, and selfish characters.

If any of these very fortunate people were brought to a trial, and examined by what means they had accumulated such sums, while so many others had entirely lost, or greatly impaired their fortunes, (if the word esprit be allowed to imply that artful superiority which belongs to their characters), they might answer in the words of the wife of Concini Marechal d'Ancre, when she was asked what charm she had made use of to fascinate the mind of the queen?-De l'ascendant, she replied, qu'un esprit superieur a toujours sur des esprits foibles.-Certainly there can be no greater weakness, than for a man of independent fortune to game in a such a manner as to risk losing it, for the chance of doubling or tripling his income: because the additional happiness arising from any supposable addition of wealth, can never be within a thousand degrees so great, as the misery which would be the consequence of his being stripped of his original fortune.

This consideration alone, one would imagine, might be sufficient to deter any reasonable man from a conduct so weak and absurd: yet there are other considerations which give much additional weight to the argument:the dismal effects which the continued practice of gaming has sometimes been observed to produce in the disposition of the mind, and the most essential parts of the character, destroying every idea of economy, engrossing the whole

time, undermining the best principles, perverting the qualities of the heart, rendering men callous to the ruin of acquaintances, and partakers, with a savage insensibility, in the spoils of their unwary friends.

The peculiar instances with which you and I are acquainted, where the long-continued habit of deep play has had no such effects, are proofs of the rooted honour and integrity of certain individuals, and may serve as excep tions to a general rule, but cannot be urged as arguments against the usual tendency of gaming. If men of fortune and character adopted the practice of gaming upon any principle of reasoning, there might be a greater probability of their being reasoned out of it: but most of them begin to game, not with any view or fixed plan of increasing their wealth, but merely as a fashionable amusement, or perhaps by way of showing the liberality of their spirit, and their contempt for money.

I would not be very positive, that some of them have not mistaken for admiration that surprise which is expressed when any person has lost an immense sum. And this mistake may have given them less repugnance to the idea of becoming the objects of admiration in the same way. Afterwards endeavouring to win back what they had so idly lost, the habit has grown by degrees, and at length has become their sole resource from the weariness which those born to great fortunes, and who have not early in life acquired some faculty of amusing themselves, are more prone to fall into than others. Men born to no such expectations, whatever their natural dispositions may be, are continually roused from indolence by avocations which admit of no delay. The pursuit of that independence, for which almost every human bosom sighs, and whose value is unknown only to those who have always possessed it, is thought a necessary, and is often found an agreeable, employment to the generality of mankind. This, with the other duties of life, is sufficient to engross their time and thoughts, and guard them from the pains and penalties of idleness.

As the pursuit of wealth is superfluous in men of rank and fortune, so it would be unbecoming their situation. Being deprived of this which is so great an object and resource to the rest of mankind, they stand in more need of something to supply its place. I know of nothing which can so completely, and with so much propriety, have this effect, as a taste for letters and love of science. I therefore think these are more essentially necessary to the happiness of people of high rank and great fortune, than to those in confined circumstances.

If independence be desired with universal ardour by mankind, the road of science is neither the most certain, nor the shortest way to attain it. But those who are already in possession of this, have infinite need of the other to teach them to enjoy their independence with dignity and satisfaction, and to prevent the gifts of fortune from becoming sources of misery instead of happiness. If they are ambitious, the cultivation of letters, by adorning their minds, and enlarging their faculties, will facilitate their plans, and render them more fit for the high situations to which they aspire. If they are devoid of ambition, they have still more occasion for some of the pursuits of science, as resources against the languor of retired or inactive life. -Quod si non hic tantus fructus ostenderetur, et si ex his studiis delectatio sola peteretur; tamen, ut opinor, hanc animi remissionem, humanissimam ac liberalissimam judicaretis.

This love of letters, considered merely as an amusement, and to fill up agreeably the vacant hours of life, I believe to be more essentially necessary to men of great fortune than to those who have none;-to men without ambition, than to those who are animated by that active passion; and to the generality of Englishmen more than to the natives of either Germany or France.-The Germans require very little variety. They can bear the languid uniformity of life always with patience, and often with satisfaction. They display an equanimity under disgust that is quite astonishing.-The French, though no