Lucrative
Gambling

Tom Duncombe graduated and took honours among the greatest gambling men of the day. Like Fox, he was heir to a good fortune-- ten or twelve thousand a year--the whole of which he managed to anticipate at gambling before he was thirty.

`Tom Duncombe ran Charles Fox close. When Mr Duncombe, sen., of Copgrove, caused his prodigal son's debts to be estimated with a view to their settlement, they were found to exceed L135,000;[133] and the hopeful heir went on adding to them till all possibility of extrication was at an end. But he spent his money (or other people's money), so long as he had any, like a gentleman; his heart was open like his hand; he was generous, cordial, high-spirited; and his expectations--till they were known to be discounted to the uttermost farthing--kept up his credit, improved his social and gambling position, and gained friends. "Society" (says his son) "opened its arms to the possessor of a good name and the inheritor of a good estate. Paterfamiliases and Materfamiliases rivalled each other in endeavouring to make things pleasant in their households for his particular delectation, especially if they had grown-up daughters; hospitable hosts invited him to dinner, fashionable matrons to balls; political leaders sought to secure him as a partisan; debutantes of the season endeavoured to attract him as an admirer; tradesmen thronged to his doorsteps for his custom, and his table was daily covered with written applications for his patronage." Noblesse oblige; and so does fashion. The aspirant had confessedly a hard time of it. "He must be seen at Tattersall's as well as at Almack's; be more frequent in attendance in the green-room of the theatre than at a levee in the palace; show as much readiness to enter into a pigeon-match at Battersea Red House, as into a flirtation in May Fair; distinguish himself in the hunting-field as much as at the dinner-table; and make as effective an appearance in the park as in the senate; in short, he must be everything--not by turns, but all at once--sportsman, exquisite, gourmand, rake, senator, and at least a dozen other variations of the man of fashion,--his changes of character being often quicker than those attempted by certain actors who nightly undertake the performance of an entire dramatis personae." '

[133] It will be remembered that when Fox's debts were in like manner estimated they amounted to L140,000: the coincidence is curious. See ante.

Tommy Duncombe was not only indefatigable at Crockford's, but at every other rendezvous of the votaries of fortune; a skilful player withal, and not unfrequently a winner beyond expectation. One night at Crockford's he astonished the house by carrying off sixteen hundred pounds. He frequently played at cards with Count D'Orsay, from whom, it is said, he invariably managed to win--the Count persisting in playing with his pleasant companion, although warned by others that he would never be a match for `Honest Tommy Duncombe.'

Tom Duncombe died poor, but, says his son, `rich in the memory of those who esteemed him, as Honest Tom Duncombe.'

Perhaps the best thing the son could have done was to leave his father's memory at rest in the estimation of `those who esteemed him;' but having dragged his name once more, and prominently, before a censorious world, he can scarcely resent the following estimate of Tom Duncombe, by a well-informed reviewer in the _Times_. Alluding to the concluding summary of the father's character and doings, this keen writer passes a sentence which is worth preserving:--

`Much of this would do for a patriot and philanthropist of the highest class--for a Pym, a Hampden, or a Wilberforce; or, we could fancy, a son of Andrew Marvell, vowing over his grave "to endeavour to imitate the virtues and emulate the self-sacrificing patriotism of so estimable a parent, and so good a man." But we can hardly fancy, we cannot leave, a son of Duncombe in such a frame of mind. We cannot say to _HIM_--

Macte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra.
"In virtue renewed go on; thus to the skies we go."

We are unfeignedly reluctant to check a filial effusion, or to tell disagreeable truths; but there are occasions when a sense of public duty imperatively requires them to be told.

`Why did this exemplary parent die poor? When did he abandon the allurements of a patrician circle? He died poor because he wasted a fine fortune. If he abandoned a patrician circle, it was because he was tired of it, or thought he could make a better thing of democracy. If he conquered his passions, it was, like St Evremond--by indulging them.

"Honest Tom Duncombe!" We never heard him so designated before except in pleasantry. "As honest as any man living, that is an old man, and not honester than I." We cannot go further than Verges; it is a stretch of charity to go so far when we call to mind the magnificent reversion and the French jobs. A ruined spendthrift, although he may have many good qualities, can never, strictly speaking, be termed honest. It is absurd to say of him that he is nobody's enemy but his own--with family, friends, and tradespeople paying the penalty for his self-indulgence. He must be satisfied to be called honourable--to be charged with no transgression of the law of honour; which Paley defines as "a system of rules constructed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one another, and for no other purpose."

`There was one quality of honesty, however, which "honest Tom Duncombe" did possess. He was not a hypocrite. He was not devoid of right feeling. He had plenty of good sense; and it would have given him a sickening pang on his death-bed to think that his frailties were to be perpetuated by his descendants; that he was to be pointed out as a shining star to guide, instead of a beacon-fire to warn. "No," he would have said, if he could have anticipated this most ill-chosen, however well- intentioned, tribute, "spare me this terrible irony. Do not provoke the inevitable retort. Say of me, if you must say anything, that I was not a bad man, though an erring one; that I was kindly disposed towards my fellow-creatures; that I did some good in my generation, and was able and willing to do more, but that I heedlessly wasted time, money, health, intellect, personal gifts, social advantages and opportunities; that my career was a failure, and my whole scheme of life a melancholy mistake." '[134]

[134] _Times_, Jan. 7, 1868.
This is a terrible rejoinder to a son endeavouring to raise a monument to his beloved and respected parent. But, if we will rake up rottenness from the grave--rottenness in which we are interested--we must take our chance whether we shall find a Hamlet who will say, `Alas! poor Yorick!' and say no more than the musing Dane upon the occasion.

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