attentively watched the countenance and motions of the lady of
the house. Her anxiety, address, and assiduity were equal to
that of some skilful shopkeeper, who has a certain attraction to
engage all to buy, and diligence to take care that none shall
escape the net. I found out all her privy-counsellors, by her
arrangement of her parties at the different tables; and whenever
she showed an extraordinary eagerness to fix one particular
person with a stranger, the game was always decided the same way,
and her good friend was sure to win the money.

`In short, it is hardly possible to see good company at Madrid
unless you resolve to leave a purse of gold at the card-
assemblies of their nobility.'[10]


[10] `Observations in a Tour through Spain.'


We are assured that this state of things is by no means
`obsolete' in Spain, even at the present time. At the time
in question, however, the beginning of the present century, there
was no European nation among which gaming did not constitute one
of its polite and fashionable amusements--with the exception of
the _Turks_, who, to the shame of Christians, strictly obeyed the
precepts of Mahomet, and scrupulously avoided the `gambling itch'
of our nature.

In England gambling prevailed during the reign of Henry VIII.;
indeed, it seems that the king was himself a gamester of the most
unscrupulous sort; and there is ample evidence that the practice