PREFACE 



HORACE WALPOLE in his 'Letters' tells an amusing 

 story which shows how a denouncer, unless he be 

 sufficiently careful to put the saddle on the right horse, 

 may have the tables turned upon him. Two highly 

 connected Members of Parliament, Messrs. Theobald 

 Taaffe (of the family made illustrious by several 

 Counts Taaffe before the present famous Austrian 

 statesman) and Edward Wortley Montagu (son of 

 the celebrated Lady Mary), being on a visit in Paris 

 in 1747, and being both of them addicted to gambling 

 and rioting, had been thrown into prison there for 

 ' cheating and robbing a Jew ' at play, as Walpole 

 bluntly puts it. This was, of course, a matter of 

 great trouble and concern to ' Mr. Speaker,' who, in 

 consequence, vigorously denounced White's Club, 

 which was regarded as the nursing-mother of aristo- 

 cratic gamblers and reprobates, and addressed himself 

 especially to Lord Coke, whom he apparently con- 



