1828.J 



Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Pereons. 



intimately and reprehended him, he would 

 oppose only acknowledgments of his ill con- 

 duct, plead guilty, and even be affected to 

 tears, saying he saw to what his career must 

 lead him, but that self control was impossible ; 

 that reason pointed his path, but that irre- 

 sistible necessity ever led him to deviate. 



About the end of 1817? or beginning of 

 1818, he left Cambridge, and paid his first 

 visit to Paris, by permission of his patron. 

 A friend who met him there, told the writer 

 of this, and that he made notes of every thing 

 he saw, and spent much of his time in 

 reading, but added, with regret, " William 

 Graham has an itch for play, which he did 

 not formerly exhibit ; he visits the Palais 

 Royal; and tells me he has lost all the 

 money he brought with him. It is much 

 to me if it do not prove his ruin." This 

 was the first time he had ever been so cir- 

 cumstanced. The horrors of his situation 

 came upon him in full force would it had 

 operated in a salutary manner, and cured 

 the passion that produced it ! He went about 

 for a day or two in absolute despair of mind: 

 but all vice has been cured save that of the 

 gamester ; his alone bids defiance to the 

 kindest remonstrances, the severest penalties, 

 the tenderest supplications and duties, and 

 the most awful warnings. Graham ulti- 

 mately left Paris, having borrowed money 

 to return to London of a friend whom he 

 met, and whom he never repaid ; this spe- 

 cies of obligation he often incurred in the 

 latter part of his career, after his second 

 return from the continent, until he became 

 utterly reckless of it. It is curious to ob- 

 serve the step after step by which men go 

 down from honour to ruin. The money he 

 lost in Paris was in amount trifling, but it 

 showed the increasing fervour of his passion 

 for play. 



A singular union of study and dissipation, 

 for which he was remarkable the last year of 

 his stay at college, he exhibited in Paris. 

 He read and made notes on Crebillon, Con- 

 dillac, Pascal ( Lettres Provinciales), Fon- 

 tenelle, Helvetius, and others, which books 

 and notes he left there with a friend. With 

 a volume and pencil in his hand, among the 

 Champs Elysees, or seated in the garden of 

 the Tuileries, when the weather was fine, 

 he might be seen intently reading in the 

 day time. In the evening he exhibited a 

 strange contrast in the gaming saloons of 

 the Palais Royal. He never spoke French 

 sufficiently to support a conversation, but 

 he read it freely, and was master of its most 

 difficult and delicate intricacies and idioms 

 in print, which proves he read with great 

 attention. His losses at play in Paris then 

 were but trifling, for gambling had not yet 

 obtained that controul over him which it 

 subsequently held. 



He returned to London, and found Mr. 

 Burdon in a very declining state of health. 

 With the family of that gentleman, con,, 

 sisting, we believe, wholly of females, he 

 did not harmonize. Whether they viewed 



211 



him with distrust, or his own conduct gene- 

 rated a distance between the accomplished 

 daughters of his patron and himself, I know 

 not ; but a distaste did exist between them, 

 which Graham was at no pains to lessen. It 

 seemed as if he felt a dependence on .the 

 father, which hurt his feelings to be wit- 

 nessed by the family, and yet was so necessary 

 to him that he must sustain it. Yet of true, 

 honourable, independent feeling, he possess- 

 ed li ttle, if any, for he never snowed horror 

 of any obligation. Not that he was unkind, 

 or unwilling to befriend others, provided it 

 did not depend on pecuniary benefit, for 

 money he could never keep a moment, and 

 when he had it, like all those addicted to 

 play, he knew it was the means of fresh grati- 

 fication, and self here was above every thing, 

 human or divine. But his personal exer- 

 tions he willingly gave away, or any thing 

 else in his power. His character, too, was 

 ever free from the remotest taint of malice 

 against any human being. 



In May 1818, his kind patron died, and 

 left an estate, burthened with the payment 

 to him of about 250 a year. This annuity 

 he sold ; and soon after letting the cham- 

 bers which he held in the Temple during 

 his absence, he set out on a continental 

 tour. He visited Paris a second time, pro- 

 ceeded to Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and 

 the Low Countries, and visited many cele- 

 brated literary men. On some part of his 

 journey he fell in with Mr. Wordsworth, 

 we believe in Switzerland, who was pleased 

 with his society and who at that 

 time was not? He acquired the Italian 

 and German languages in their respective 

 countries, sufficient to translate them both 

 well, and to speak a little of the former. 

 He read the authors of both countries dili- 

 gently ; but, as usual, he haunted the gam- 

 bling houses frequently, and generally lost 

 money. He was not a calculator of chances. 

 At cards any one might cheat him ; but 

 he played generally at public tables, fling- 

 ing down a louis d'or or a five franc piece 

 with an almost mad reliance that for- 

 tune would do something extraordinary for 

 him. At Aix la Chapelle he won three 

 thousand Napoleons from the bank, by lay- 

 ing a sum down, at Rouge et Noir, which 

 came up on one colour thirteen times. This 

 money, however, and every farthing he took 

 with him, he had expended, or nearly so, 

 when he returned to London, I think in 

 1821 much richer in knowledge of the 

 world and literary acquirements than when 

 he set out, but more rooted in his perni- 

 cious habit of play, and consequently 

 morally worse. 



The circumstances in which Graham 

 found himself, on his return from the con- 

 tinent, made it necessary that he should 

 look around him for some means of liveli- 

 hood. Though he had kept his terms at the 

 Temple, he withdrew the hundred pounds, 

 lodged there according to custom ; thus cut- 

 ting himself off from being called to the 



2 E 2 



