' 'How odd,' says Walpole, 'that these two old
creatures, selected for their antiquities, should live to see
both their wagerers put an end to their own lives! Cibber is
within a few days of eighty-four, still hearty, and clear, and
well. I told him I was glad to see him look so well. "Faith,"
said he, "it is very well that I look at all." Lord Mountford
would have been the winner: Cibber died in 1757, Nash in 1761.'
Hogarth's scene at the gambling house is taken at White's. 'We
see the highwayman, with his pistols peeping out of his pocket,
waiting by the fireside till the heaviest winner takes his
departure, in order to "recoup" himself for his losings; and in
the Beaux' Stratagem, Aimwell asks of Gibbet--"Ha'n't I seen your
face at White's?" "Ay, and at Will's too," is the highwayman's
answer.'
According to Captain Gronow, George Harley Drummond, of the
famous banking-house, Charing Cross, only played once in his
whole life at White's Club, at Whist, on which occasion he lost
L20,000 to Brummell. This even caused him to retire from the
banking-house, of which he was a partner.
'Walpole and a party of friends (Dick Edgecumbe, George Selwyn,
and Williams), in 1756, composed a piece of heraldic satire--a
coat of arms for the two gaming clubs at White's--which was
"actually engraven from a very pretty painting of Edgecumbe, whom
Mr Chute, as Strawberry King at Arms," appointed their chief
herald-painter.
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