LOVE AND GAMBLING.
Horace Walpole, writing to Mann, says: —
`The event that has made most noise since my
last is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two
Gunnings, two ladies of surpassing loveliness, named respectively
Mary and Elizabeth, the daughters of John Gunning, Esq., of
Castle Coote, in Ireland, whom Mrs Montague calls "those
goddesses the Gunnings.'' Lord Coventry, a grave young lord, of
the remains of the patriot breed, has long dangled after the
eldest, virtuously, with regard to her honour, not very
honourably with regard to his own credit. About six weeks ago
Duke Hamilton, the very reverse of the earl, hot, debauched,
extravagant, and equally damaged in his fortune and person, fell
in love with the youngest at the masquerade, and determined to
marry her in the spring. About a fortnight since, at an immense
assembly at my Lord Chesterfield's, made to show the house, which
is really most magnificent, Duke Hamilton made violent love at
one end of the room, while he was playing at Faro at the other
end; that is, he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which
were of three hundred pounds each: he soon lost a thousand. I
own I was so little a professor in love that I thought all this
parade looked ill for the poor girl; and could not conceive, if
he was so much
engaged with his mistress as to
disregard such sums, why he played at all. However, two nights
afterwards, being left alone with her, while her mother and
sister were at Bedford House, he found himself so impatient that
he sent for a parson. The Doctor refused to perform the ceremony
without license or ring; the duke swore he would send for the
archbishop; at last they were married with a ring of the
bed-curtain, at half-an-hour after twelve at night, at May-fair
Chapel.'
This incident occurred in 1752, and reminds us of the
marriage-scene described by Dryden in one of his tales, which was
quoted by Lord Lyndhurst on that memorable occasion when he
opposed Lord Campbell's Bill for the suppression of indecent
publications, and made a speech which was more creditable to his
wit than his taste, and perfectly horrifying to Lord Campbell,
who inflicted a most damaging verbal castigation on his very
sprightly but imprudent opponent.
