, than the most infamous and fraudulent practices, they
were caressed and courted by these infatuated dupes, when a man of honour, who
would not join in their excesses, would have been treated with the utmost
indignity and contempt.
    Though Peregrine, in his heart, detested those abandoned courses, and was a
professed enemy to the whole society of gamesters, whom he considered, and
always treated as the foes of human kind, he was insensibly accustomed to
licentious riot, and even led imperceptibly into play by those cormorants, who
are no less dangerous in the art of cheating, than by their consummate skill in
working upon the passions of unwary youth. They are, for the most part,
naturally cool, phlegmatic and crafty, and by a long habit of dissimulation,
have gained an absolute dominion over the hasty passions of the heart; so that
they engage with manifest advantage over the impatience and impetuosity of a
warm, undesigning temper, like that of our young gentleman, who, when he was
heated with wine, misled by example, invited on one hand, and defied on the
other, forgot all his maxims of caution and sobriety, and plunging into the
reigning folly of the place, had frequent occasions to moralize in the morning,
upon the loss of the preceding night.
    These penitential reflections were attended with many laudable resolutions
of profiting by the expence which he had so dearly purchased; but he was one of
those philosophers, who always put off, till another day, the commencement of
their reformation.
 

                                  Chapter XCIV

Peregrine receives a Letter from Hatchway, in consequence of which he repairs to
the Garison, and performs the last Offices to his Aunt. He is visited by Mr.
Gauntlet, who invites him to his Marriage
 
In this circle of amusements our hero's time was parcelled out, and few young
gentlemen of the age enjoyed life with greater relish, notwithstanding those
intervening checks of reason, which served only to whet his appetite for a
repetition of the pleasures she so prudently condemned; when he received the
following letter, by which he was determined to visit his estate in the country.
 
        Cousin Pickle,
            I hope you are in a better trim than your aunt, who hath been fast
        moored to her bed these seven weeks, by several feet of underwater
        logging in her hold and hollop, whereby I doubt her planks are rotted,
        so as she cannot chuse but fall to pieces in a short time. I have done
        all in my power to keep her tight and easy, and free from sudden squalls
        that might overstrain her. And here have been the doctors, who have
        skuttled
