“IF IT be true” (remarks old John Mistletoe, in his little known Life of Edmund Hoyle) “that a happy life leaves behind it little material for the biographer, and only those whose careers have been marked by the pangs of ambition and the wearinesses of achievement offer maxims for the moralist, then there is little to be said of Edmund Hoyle. And yet it is odd that a man whose name has become proverbial, who lived to the age of close upon a century (1672–1769), and who standardized and codified the chief social amusement of his age into an etiquette which remained unchanged for six generations—it is odd, I say, that this great peaceful benefactor has left so slight a trace in biographical annals. For I ask you, which of Hoyle’s contemporaries conferred a more placable and sedentary boon upon the world than he?”
“Hoyle” (continues Mr. Mistletoe) “was a man of very speechless humour. It was his wont to say that he had been lured into the study and metaphysic of whist because it was a silent game. As is well known, the game was originally called whisk; it was Mr. Hoyle who, by his continual utterance of the imperative and hushing monosyllable Whist! when gaming with those whose tongues were apt to wag irrelevantly, caused the diversion, at first only in sport, and then in genuine earnest, to be rechristened. It was a sight not to be forgotten, by contemporary account, to see the Master (as he was known) sitting down at the Three Pigeons tavern for his afternoon rubber. The mornings he spent in tutoring wealthy ladies in the rudiments of the fashionable game, this being the chief source of his income. He was very particular, moreover, as to the standing and rank of his pupils; he was much in demand, and could afford to take only such students as satisfied his fastidious taste for youth and beauty. In fact, he anticipated the doctrine announced many years later by John Keats, who remarked, ‘I intend henceforth to have nothing to do with the society of ladies unless they be handsome. You lose time to no purpose.’
“It was, I repeat, an agreeable spectacle to witness the Master driving up to the Three Pigeons about the hour of (as we would now say) luncheon, in his white hackney coach with his emblem—the Ace of Hearts—blazoned on the panel. Before the gaming began he would always take a leisurely meal; indeed, it was his habit to say that no gentleman would ever spend less than three hours at the table. One of his humours was to insist that warm weather was dangerous to his constitution, and that in summer it was desirable to eat sparingly and with deliberation. On days that had, as someone has put it, the humidity of Uriah Heep, this was an example of his menu, which I have found filed in the old papers kept in the vaults of the Three Pigeons:
Service to Mr. Edmund Hoyle, this 28th July 1730, on acct:
A capon broth, with toasted bread
A flagon of small ale
Fricassee of sweetbreads, with currant jelly
A flask of cool Canary
Rosted wild ducks, with cheesecake and parsnips
A jugg of malmsey, from the special butt
A sallet of shrimpes and candyed cherries
A hot rabbit pye, with buttered pease and a pottle of mulled claret
Rhubarbe pasty, with barley wine to ease Mr. Hoyle’s digestions
Plague water for the hott weather
“Having done suitable homage to this judicious nourishment” (Mr. Mistletoe proceeds), “Mr. Hoyle would have brought to him his own yard of clay, which he would leisurely fill with the best pure Virginia leaf, gazing about him the while upon the impatient faces of his friends who were anxious to get to the cards. ‘Never indulge the carnal appetites immoderately in hot weather,’ he would say, blowing out a long blue whiff into the cool twilight of the old taproom, panelled in magnificent dark walnut. This was the last word uttered, for when the Master took his seat at the card table no man dared speak. A sacred quiet filled the place as he reached for the pasteboards and deftly cut for the deal, tossing back his lace cuffs over his lean yellowish wrists, the colour (he was something bilious) of old piano keys. The rest was silence, with only the fall of the cards and the occasional clink of a bottle when Mr. Hoyle refilled his vase of Burgundy, which he always drank while gaming. A life of abstemious control, he said, was needful for one who must keep his wits alert.”
