sat up playing at Hazard at Almack's from Tuesday evening, the fourth, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, the fifth. An hour before, he had recovered £12,000 he had lost, and by dinner, which was at five o'clock, he had ended, losing £11,000. On the Thursday he spoke in the above debate, went to dinner at half-past eleven at night; from thence to White's, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence to Almack's, where he won £6,000; and between three and four in the afternoon set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost £10,000 two nights after, and Charles £11,000 on the thirteenth, so that in three nights the two brothers, the eldest not twenty-five, lost £23,000." Nearly everyone played, even William Wilberforce, the philanthropist took a hand once or twice when he first joined Brooke's. Lord Robert Spencer went bankrupt; George Selwyn lost more than enough; and Brummell ruined himself and had to fly to Calais. One night in 1814 Brummell lost £10,000. Ill-luck pursuing him, a few days later he had lost practically every penny of his fortune. He expressed the wish that some one would bind him never to play again. "I will," said his friend Pemberton Mills, giving him a ten-pound note, Brummell to forfeit a thousand pounds if he played during the next month. A fortnight later Mills saw the Beau at the hazard-table at White's. He did not ask for the forfeit, but said plaintively, Anyhow, Brummell, you might give me back the tenner!" Almack's Club is not to be confounded with the Assembly of the same name. The great ladies of the day founded an institution of their own, which was to them what White's was to the men of their set. This was known as Almack's Assemblycalled after the manager, whose real name, however, was William MacCall, he having transposed his surname owing perhaps to the unpopularity of the Scots in London. "There is now opened here, in three very elegent newbuilt rooms, a ten-guinea subscription, for which you have a ball and supper once a week for twelve weeks," Gilly Williams wrote to George Selwyn in 1765. “You may imagine by the sum the company is chosen. . . . The men's tickets are not transferable, so, if the ladies do not like us, they have no opportunity of changing us. Our female Almack's flourish beyond description. Almack's Scotch face, in a bag-wig, waiting at supper, would divert you as would his lady in a sack, making tea and curtseying to the duchesses.' Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynell, Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Lloyd were among the fourteen foundresses who settled the constitution and rules. "There are seventy-five chosen (the whole number is to be two hundred)," Mrs. Boscawen told Mrs. Delany. "The ladies nominate and choose the gentlemen, and vice versa, so that no lady can exclude a lady, or gentleman a gentleman! The Duchess of Bedford was at first blackballed, but is since admitted. . . . Lady Rochfort and Lady Harrington are blackballed, as are Lord March, Mr. Boothby, and one or two more who think themselves pretty gentlemen du premier ordre, but it is plain the ladies are not of their opinion. When any of the ladies dine with the society, they are to send word before, but supper comes of course, and is to be served always at eleven. Play is to be deep and constant probably." Everyone who was anyone, and also many who were no one, strove for election to this most exclusive gathering. "At the present time," Gronow recorded in 1863 of Almack's half a century earlier, "one can hardly conceive the importance which was attached to getting admittance to Almack's, the seventh heaven of the fashionable world. Of the three hundred officers of the Foot Guards, not more than half a dozen were honoured by vouchers of admission to this exclusive temple of the beau monde; the gates of which were guarded by lady patronesses whose smiles or frowns consigned men and women to happiness or despair. These lady patronesses were the Ladies Castlereagh, Jersey, Cowper, and Sefton, Mrs. Drummond Burrell, the Princess Esterhazy, and the Countess Lieven. The most popular of these grandes dames was unquestionably Lady Cowper, now Lady Palmerston. Lady Jersey's bearing, on the contrary, was that of a theatrical tragedy queen, and, whilst attempting the sublime, she frequently made herself simply ridiculous, being inconceivably rude, and in her manner often ill-bred. Lady Sefton was kind and amiable, Madame de Lieven haughty and exclusive; Princess Esterhazy was a bon enfant, Lady Castlereagh and Mrs. Burrell de très grandes dames." There was much scheming for admission, and all the resources of private diplomacy were employed to secure a voucher. No one even remotely connected with commerce could possibly succeed in such a quest. Also, to be invited to a ball it was necessary to be known as a skilful dancer. How shall the Muse, with colours faint The vainest beauty will renounce Her last imported blonde or flounce; Henry Luttrell's "Advice to Julia," from which the above lines are quoted, was only one of many attacks, more or less malicious, upon Almack's, but the lady patronesses went their way unheeding. Lady Jersey, wife of the fifth Earl, was the presiding genius, and she ruled with an iron hand. An officer in the Guards applied for a voucher, and received a refusal from Willis (who had succeeded Almack as manager), who told him that Lady Jersey, being unacquainted with him, had advised the lady patronesses not to send him a ticket for the ball. The aggrieved man challenged Lord Jersey to a duel, but Lord Jersey declined to meet him, saying sensibly and good-humouredly that, if all the persons who did not receive tickets from his wife were to call him out, he should have to make up his mind to become a target for young officers! If you were anything less than Royalty, and had left your voucher at home, you could not enter the sacred portals. What form is that, with looks so sinister? Willis, their Excellencies' minister. See where in portly pride he stands To execute their high commands; Unmoved his heart, unbribed his hands. See, where the barrier he prepares Just at the bottom of the stairs, Midst fragrant flowers and shrubs exotic : A man relentless and despotic As he of Tunis, or Algiers, Or any of their Grand Viziers. Suppose the prize by hundred miss'd In vain you flatter, scold, petition, "The rule's so strict, I dare not stretch it." Cries Willis, "Pray, my lord, go fetch it.” "Nonsense," you cry, "so late at night— This morning."-" Did they, what of that?" My lord, I dare not disobey. Your pardon." Further parley's vain; So for your ticket, in the rain, Breathless, you canter home again. So strict were the rules about dress that the Duke of Wellington was turned away one night when he was wearing trousers, and had to go to Apsley House to don the regulation knee-breeches. It was at Almack's that the quadrille was first danced, and among its sponsors was Lady Jersey. That was in 1815, but two years earlier Almack's had given its patronage to the waltz (then called the volse), which came from Germany. Before that there were only country dances, Scotch jigs, and Highland reels. In The Margravine of Anspach was not a member of Almack's, much as she would like to have been. She had to do her entertaining at her own houses. She had, however, many resources within herself. She was always fond of composing plays, short stories, and verses. fact, she was inclined to take herself seriously as an authoress, and had a very real jealousy of other women writers. She was especially pleased with her powers as a letter-writer, and so thought harshly of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose correspondence was highly praised. This also she could not tolerate. My acquaintance with Lady Bute, the daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, began in a very singular way," she mentions in her Memoirs. She sent me a very polite message on hearing that I had said, the cloven foot of the pedant was plainly to be perceived in the printed Letters of her mother; that some things might be hers, but I was |