ABSTRACT
Card-playing is now the constant amusement, I may say employment, of young and old, in genteel life. After all the fatigue of the toilet, blooming girls are set down to card-tables, and the most unpleasing passions called forth. Avarice does not wait for grey hairs and wrinkles, but marks a countenance where the loves and graces ought to revel. The hours that should be spent in improving the mind, or in innocent mirth, are thus thrown away; and if the stake is not considerable enough to rouse the passions, lost in insipidity, and a habit acquired / which may lead to serious mischief. Not to talk of gaming, many people play for more than they can well afford to lose, and this sours their temper. Cards are the universal refuge to which the idle and the ignorant resort,, to pass life away, and to keep their inactive souls awake, by the tumult of hope and fear.
‘Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.’
