all its nobleness, and degenerates into the love of lucre, which ultimately predominates and becomes the ruling passion.

Avarice is always base; but the gamester's avarice is doubly so. It is avarice unmixed with any ingredient of magnanimity, or mercy. Avarice, that wears not even the guise of public spirit; that claims not even the meagre praise of hoarding up its own hard earnings. On the contrary, it is an avarice, that wholly feeds upon the losses, and only delights itself with the miseries of others. Avarice, that eyes, with covetous desire, whatever is not individually its own; that crouches to throw its fangs over that booty, by which its comrades are enriched. Avarice, that stoops to rob a traveller, that sponges a guest, and that would filch the very dust from the pocket of a friend.

But, though avarice predominates, other related passions are called into action. The bosom, that was once serene and tranquil, becomes habitually perturbed. Envy rankles; jealousy corrodes; anger rages, and hope and fear alternately convulse the system. The mildest disposition grows morose; the sweetest temper becomes fierce and fiery, and all the once amiable features of the heart assume a malignant aspect! -Features of the heart, did I say? Pardon my mistake. The finished gambler has none. Though his intellect may not be; though his soul may not be; his heart is quite annihilated.

Thus habitual gambling, consummates what habitual play commences. Sometimes its deadening influence prevails, even over female virtue, eclipsing all the loveliness, and benumbing all the sensibility of woman. In every circle, where cards, form the bond of union, frivolity and heartlessness, become alike characteristic of the mother and the daughter; devotion ceases; domestic care is shaken off, and the dearest friends, even before their burial, are consigned to oblivion.

This is not exaggeration. I appeal to fact. Madame du Deffand, was certainly not among the least accomplished, or the least interesting females, who received and imparted that exquisite tone of feeling, that pervaded the most fashionable society of modern Paris. And yet it is recorded of her, in the correspondence of the Baron De Grimm, whose veracity will not be questioned, that when her old and intimate friend and admirer, M. de Ponte de Vesle, died, this celebrated lady came rather late to a great supper, in the neighbourhood; and as it was known, that she made it a point of honour, to attend him, the catastrophe was generally suspected. She mentioned it however, herself, immediately, on entering; adding that it was lucky he had gone off so early in the evening, as she might otherwise have been prevented from appearing. She then sat down to table, and made a very hearty and merry meal of it.

Afterwards, when Mad. de Chatelet, died, Mad. du Deffand, testified her grief for the most intimate of all her female acquaintance, by circulating over Paris, the very next morning, the most libellous and venomous attack on her person, her understanding, and her morals.

This utter heartlessness, this entire extinction of native feeling, was not peculiar to Mad. du Deffand; it pervaded that accomplished, and fashionable circle, in which she moved. Hence, she herself, in her turn, experienced the same kind of sympathy, and her remembrance was consigned to the same instantaneous oblivion. During her last illness, three of her dearest friends used to come and play cards, every night, by the side of her couch-and as she chose to die in the middle of a very interesting game, they quietly played it out-and settled their accounts before leaving the apartment.*

See Quarterly Review

I do not say that such are the uniform, but I do say, that such are the natural and legitimate effects of gaming on the female character. The love of play is a Demon, which only takes possession, as it kills the heart. But, if such is the effect of gaming, on the one sex, what must be its effect on the other? Will nature long survive in bosoms invaded, not by gaming only, but also by debauchery and drunkennness, those sister Furies, which hell has let loose, to cut off our young men from, without, and our children from the streets? No, it will not. As we have said, the finished gambler has no heart. The club with which he herds, would meet, though all its members were in mourning. They would meet, though the place of rendezvous were the chamber of the dying, they would meet, though it were an apartment in the charnel-house. Not even the death of kindred can affect the gambler. He would play upon his brother's coffin ; he would play upon his father's sepulchre.

Yonder see that wretch, prematurely old in infirmity, as well as sin. He is the father of a family. The mother of his children, lovely in her tears, strives, by the tenderest assiduities, to restore his health, and with it, to restore his temperence, his love of home, and the long-lost charms of domestic life. She pursues him by her kindness, and her entreaties to his haunts of vice; she reminds him of his children; she tells him of their virtues; of their sorrows; of their wants; and she adjures him, by the love of them, and by the love of God, to repent, and to return. Vain at tempt! She might as well adjure the whirlwind; she might as well entreat the tiger.

The brute has no feeling left. He turns upon her in the spirit of the demons with which he is possessed. He curses his children and her who bare them; and as he prosecutes his game, he fills the intervals with imprecations on himself; with imprecations on his maker; imprecations bor rowed from this dialect of devils, and uttered with a tone that befits only the organs of the damned! And yet in this monster there once dwelt the spirit of a man. He had talents, he had honour, he had even faith. He might have adorned the senate, the bar, the altar. But alas! his was a faith that saveth not. The gaming table has robbed him of it, and of all things else that is worth possessing. What a frightful change of character! What a tremendous wreck, is the soul of man in ruins!

Return disconsolate mother to thy dwelling, and be submissive; thou shalt become a widow, and thy children fatherless. Further effort will be useless-the reformation of thy partner is impossible. God has forsaken him—nor will good angels weep, or watch over him any longer.

Mr. Phillips' Address to the King.

SIRE, When I presume to address you on the subject which afflicts and agi tates the country, I do so with the most profound sentiments of respect and loyalty. But I am no flatterer. I wish well to your illustrious house, and therefore address you in the tone of simple truth+the interests of the King and Queen are identified, and her majesty's advocate must be your's. The degradation of any branch of your family, must, in some degree, compromise the dignity of all, and be assured there is as much danger as discredit in familiarizing the public eye to such a spectacle. I have no doubt that the present exhibition is not your royal wish; I have no doubt it is the work of wily sycophants and slanderers, who have persuaded you of what they know to be false, in the base hope that it may turn out to be profitable. With the view, then, of warning you against interested hypocrisy, and of giving to your heart its natural humane and noble inclination, I invoke your attention to the situation of your persecuted consort! I implore of you to consider whether it would not be for the safety of the state, for the tranquillity of the country, for the honour of your house, and for the interests alike of royalty and humanity, that an helpless female should be permitted to pass in peace the few remaining years which unmerited misery has spared to her.

It is now, Sire, about five and twenty years since her majesty landed on the shores of England-a princess by birth-a queen by marriage-the relative of kings-and the daughter and the sister of a hero. She was then young-direct from the indulgence of a paternal court-the blessing of her aged parents, of whom she was the hope and stay-and happiness shone brightly o'er her; her life had been all sunshine-time for her had only trod on flowers; and if the visions which endear, and decorate and hallow home, were vanished for ever, still did she resign them for the sacred name of wife, and sworn affection of a royal husband, and the allegiance of a glorious and gallant people. She was no more to see her noble father's hand unhelm the warriors brow to fondle over his child-no more for her a mother's tongue delighted as it taught, that ear which never heard a strain, that eye which never opened on a scene, but those of careless, crimeless, cloudless infancy, was now about to change its dulcet tones and fairy visions for the accent and the country of the stranger. But she had heard the character of Britons-she knew that chivalry and courage co-existed-she knew that where the brave man and the free man dwelt, the very name of woman bore a charmed sway, and where the voice of England echoed your royal pledge, to "love and worship, and cleave to her alone," she but looked upon your Sire's example, and your nation's annals, and was satisfied.-Pause and contemplate her enviable station at the hour of these unhappy nuptials! The created world could scarcely exhibit a more interesting spectacle. There was no earthly bliss of which she was not either in the possession or the expectancy. Royal alike by birth and alliance-honoured as the choice of England's heir, reputed the most accomplished gentleman in Europe-her reputation spotless as the unfallen snow-her approach heralded by a people's prayer, and her footsteps obliterated by an obsequious nobility-her youth, like the lovely season which it typified, one crowded garland of rich and fragrant blossoms, refreshing every eye with present beauty, and filling every heart with promised benefits!-No wonder that she feared no famine in that spring tide

of her happiness-no wonder that the speech was rapture, and her step was buoyancy! She was the darling of parent's hearts; a kingdom was her dower her very glance, like the sun of heaven, diffused light, and warmth, and luxury around it-in her public hour, fortune concentrated all its rays upon her, and when she shrunk from its too radient noon, it was within the shelter of a husband's love, which God and nature, and duty and morality, assured her unreluctant faith should be eternal Such was she then, all joy and hope, and generous credulity, the credulity that springs from honour and from innocence. And who could blame it? You had a world to choose, and she was your selection-your ages were compatible--your births were equal-you had drawn her from the house where she was honourable and happy-you had a prodigal allowance showered on you by the people you had bowed your anointed head before the altar; and sworn by its majesty to cherish and protect her, and this you did in the presence of that moral nation from whom you hold the crown, and in the face of that church of which you are the guardian. The ties which bound you were of no ordinary texture—you stood not in the situation of some secluded profligate, whose brutal satiety might leave its victim to a death of solitude, where no eye could see, nor echo tell the quiverings of her agony. Your elevation was too luminous and too lofty to be overlooked, and she, who confided with a vestal's faith and a virgin's purity in your honour and your morals, had a corroborative pledge in that publicity, which could not leave her to suffer or be sinned against in secret. All the calculations of her reason, all evidence of her experience, combined their confirmation. Her own parental home was purity itself, and yours might have bound republicans to royalty; it would have been little less than treason to have doubted you; and, oh! she was right to brush away the painted vermin that infest a court, who would have withered up her youthful heart with the wild errors of your ripe minority! Oh, she was right to trust the honour of "Fair England's" heir, and weigh but as a breathblown grain of dust, a thousand follies and a thousand faults balanced against the conscience of her husband. She did confide, and what has been the consequence?

History must record it, Sire, when the brightest gem in your diadem shall have mouldered, that this young, confiding, inexperienced creature had scarcely heard the last congratulatory address upon her marriage, when she was exiled from her husband's bed, banished from her husband's society, and abandoned to the pollution of every slanderous sycophant who chose to crawl over the ruin? Merciful God! was it mete to leave a human being so situated, with all her passions excited and inflamed to the impulses of such abandonment? Was it meet thus to subject her inexperienced youth to the scorpion sting of exasperated pride, and all its inci. dental natural temptations? Was it right to fling the shadow of a husband's frown upon the then unsullied snow of her reputation ? Up to the blight of that all-withering hour no human tongue dared to asperse her character. The sun of patronage was not then strong enough to quicken into life the serpent brood of slanderers: no starveling aliens, no hungry tribe of local expectants, then hoped to fatten upon the offals of the royal reputation. She was not long enough in widowhood, to give the spy and the perjurer even a colour for their inventions. The peculiarities of the foreigner, the weakness of the female-the natural vivacity of youthful innocence, could not then be tortured into "demonstrations strong;" for you, yourself, in your recorded letter, had left her purity not only unimpeached, but unsuspected. That invaluable letter, the living document of your separation, gives us the sole reason for your exile, that your “inclinations," were not in your power! That, Sire, and that alone, was the terrific reason which you gave your consort for this heart-rending

degradation. Perhaps they were not; but give me leave to ask, are not the obligations of religion independent of us? Has any man a right to square the solemnities of marriage according to his rude caprices? Am I your lowly subject, to understand that I may kneel before the throne of God, and promise conjugal fidelity till death, and self-absolve myself, whatever moment it suits my "inclination?" Not so will that mitred bench, who see her majesty arraigned before them read to you this ceremony. They will tell you it is the most solemn ordinance of man--consecrated by the approving presence of our Saviour-acknowledged by the whole civilized community-the source of life's purest pleasures, and of death's happiest consolations-the rich fountain of our life and being, whose draught not only purifies existence, but causes man to live in his posterity;-they will tell you that it cannot perish by "inclination," but by crime, and that if there is any difference between the prince and the peasant who invoke its obligation, it is the more enlarged duty entailed upon him, to whom the Almighty has vouchsafed the influence of an example.

Thus, then, within one year after her marriage, was she flung "like a loathsome weed," upon the world, no cause assigned except your loathing inclination! It mattered nothing, that for you she had surrendered all her worldly prospects-that she had left her home, her parents and her country-that she had confided in the honour of a prince, and the heart of a man, and the faith of a Christian; she had, it seems, in one little year, "outlived your liking," and the poor, abandoned, branded, heart-rent outcast, must bear it all in silence, for-she was a defenceless woman, and a stranger. Let any man of ordinary feeling think on her situation at this trying crisis, and say he does not feel his heart's blood boil within him! Poor unfortunate! who could have envied her her salaried shame, and her royal humiliation? The lowest peasant in her reversionary realm was hap py in the comparison. The parents that loved her were far, far away— the friends of her youth were in another land-she was alone, and he who should have rushed between her and the bolt of heaven, left her exposed to a rude world's caprices. And yet she lived, and lived without a murmur; her tears were silent-her sighs were lonely; and when you, perhaps, in the rich blaze of earth's magnificence, forgot that such a wretch existed, no reproach of her's awoke your slumbering memory. Perhaps she cherished the visionary hope that the babe whose "perilous infancy" she cradled, might one day be her hapless mother's advocate' How fondly did she trace each faint resemblance! Each little casual paternal smile, which played upon the features of that child, and might some distant day be her redemption! How, as it lisped the sacred name of father, did she hope its innocent infant tone might yet awake within that father's breast some fond association! Oh, sacred fancies! Oh, sweet and solemn visions of a mother-who but must hallow thee! Blest be the day-dream chat beguiles her heart, and robes each cloud that hovers o'er her child in airy colours of that heart's creation! Too soon life's wintry whirlwind must come to sweep the prismed vapour into nothing.

Thus, Sire, for many and many a heavy year did your deserted Queen beguile her solitude. Meanwhile for you a flattering world assumed its harlot smiles-the ready lie denied your errors-the villain courtier deified each act which in an humble man was merely duty, and mid the din of pomp and mirth, and revelry, if remorse spoke, 'twas inarticulate. Be lieve me Sire, when all the tongues that flattered you are mute, and all the gaudy pageants that deceived you are not even a shadow, an awful voice will ask in thunder, did your poor wife deserve this treatment, mere. ly from some distate of "inclination ?" It must be answered. Did not the altar's vow demand a strict fidelity, and was it not a solemn and a swory duty, "for better and for worse," to watch and tend her-correct her