Gaming

LAST night I attended at Robinhood's Group,
Where five-minute-orators keep the thing up;
Where Politics, Physics, Wit, Humour, and Learning,
May hear things to wonder at past their discerning.

Quoth a Speaker, applying a pinch to his nose,
As slowly, like tragedy ghost, he arose,
The Methodist Preachers began our seduction,
And Gamesters and Gambling compleat our destruction.

Young Knowell upstarting, reply'd, with a sneer,
"Mr. President, really that gentleman's queer,
"He rails against Gamesters, yet, this may be said,
"He wou'd have been one, but he wanted a head.

"And now I am up, and my minutes go on,
"That I prove him a fool, why, I'll hold two to one.
"These fault-finders don't know the things they're abusing,
"What's all's the world after, but winning and losing?

"I forgive all he knows, and I dare him to say,
"If he wou'd, or wou'd not have the best of the lay.
"Honest people I love, but I never heard yet,
"It was thought wrong to have the right side of a Bett.

"Life's like Hazard-playing, we all wish to win,
"And he must have luck, to be sure, who throws in.
"'Tis the statesman who sets, his friends nick their places,
"And those 'gainst the court are suppos'd to throw Aces.

"On the turf we perhaps may have Cunning's assistance,
"But Westminster-hall gives Newmarket a distance.
"By crossing and jostling this land may be lost,
"And Liberty run on the wrong side the Post.

"I abjure each expression wou'd hurt Ladies fame,
"But will they not all play the best of the game?
"To be sure trade's a virtue, and gaming a vice,
"Yet fraudulent bankrupts are worse than false dice.

"If our betters will play, and playfellows esteem us,
"Cum Monitor ludit nos quoque ludemus,
"Don't blame him who wins, rather laugh at the loser.
"We only take Fortune from those who abuse her.

"If a Lord loves a Gamester's life, is it absurd
"For a Gamester to take up the life of a Lord?
"Whether Lord, or what else, 'tis a matter of mirth,
"What signify's title, Sir, What are you worth?"

The hammer went down, Knowell silent became,
And henceforth we'll honour the best of the game.
So here goes a Main, here the Caster must win,
We drink to the lucky, who hold longest in.