The Gamester | Page 3

catastrophe" on the grounds that "so
prevailing and destructive a vice as Gaming" warranted it. The
Gamester has been justly credited with superior dramatic qualities in
comparison with Hill's _Fatal Extravagance,_, but we might perhaps
note briefly certain aspects of the two plays which reflect changes in
the intellectual background. In both plays theological ideas are
involved in the treatment of the fall of the hero, partially in Moore's
play, completely In Hill's. Not recognizing ideas common to early
eighteenth century sermons, the modern reader may perhaps puzzle
over the steadily increasing moral paralysis and despondency in
Moore's hero, Beverly. Vice, preached the divines, beclouds the reason,
leaving it progressively incapable of controlling the passions:
Follies, if uncontroul'd, of every kind, Grow into passions, and subdue
the mind. (V, 4)
Further each commission of sin causes progressive loss of grace,
without which man cannot act rightly. In prison Beverly is incapable of
prayer ("I cannot pray--Despair has laid his iron hand upon me, and
seal'd me for perdition..."). However, a benevolent deity touches him
with the finger of grace, enabling him to repent ("I wish'd for ease, a
moment's ease, that cool repentance and contrition might soften
vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is

vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious--I ask'd
for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing
thro' darkness, it came and chear'd me...").
In this aspect Moore is working along the lines laid down by Hill, but
there is a significant difference, attributable perhaps to the weakening
of orthodox theology and the spreading influence of the Shaftesburian
school of ethical theorists. In the older theology, man's progressive loss
of grace correspondingly releases his natural propensity for evil, and
working in these concepts neither Hill nor Lillo hesitated to show his
hero descending to murder. Moore, influenced perhaps by the ethical
sentiments of the day, compromised his theological concepts and
permitted his hero no really evil act (excluding of course his suicide),
and stressed instead Beverly's mistaken trust in Stukely, who is, as
Elton has pointed out, a "Mandevillian man" (_Survey of English
Literature: 1730-1760_, I, 329-30).
There is another significant difference between the two plays which
reflects the development of religious thought in the first half of the
eighteenth century. Commenting on the too-late arrival of the news of
the uncle's death, Elton remarks that "this _too-lateness_... which is in
the nature of an accident, is a common and mechanical device of
Georgian tragedy" (I, 330). Hill employed the device, the good news
coming as a complete surprise, but he made it part of a carefully
ordered plot designed to reveal the direct intervention and mysterious
workings of a particular Providence, making characterization and
action consistent, and giving his play a precise theological significance.
In Moore's day, however, under the impact of deism and the developing
rationalism, the concept of a particular Providence in orthodox
theology had become so subtilized that the older idea of direct and
striking intervention in human affairs all but disappeared. By
mid-eighteenth century, deity, as Leslie Stephen points out, "appears
under the colourless shape of Providence--a word which may be taken
to imply a remote divine superintendence, without admitting an actual
divine interference" (History of English Thought In the Eighteenth
Century, II, 336). The references to Providence in Moore's play are of
this type, pious labels on prudential morality. Moore carefully avoids

the various devices employed by Hill to indicate direct divine
intervention; consequently the late arrival of the news of the uncle's
death (which was expected throughout the play) is without special
meaning, and serves only as a theatrical device intended to heighten the
emotional effect. The Gamester, then, is a clear reflection of the state of
English thought in the middle of the eighteenth century, in which a
declining theology becomes suffused with the ideas and sentiments of
the moralists of the age.
Despite the popularity of their plays, neither Lillo nor Moore inspired
any significant followers in England. On the Continent, however, their
influence was considerable. In his introduction to his edition of The
London Merchant, A.W. Ward traces Lillo's influence on the Continent,
and Caskey gives a detailed account of Moore's (119-134). The
Gamester was translated into German, French, Dutch, Spanish, and
Italian. It was first acted at Breslau in 1754 and retained its stage
popularity for more than two decades. A German translation appeared
in 1754, and for more than twenty years numerous editions and
translations continued to appear. In France, Diderot admired the play
and translated it in 1760 (not published until 1819); Saurin's translation
and adaptation (1767) proved popular on the French stage (he later
provided an alternate happy ending which was frequently played).
The Gamester is reproduced, with permission, from a copy owned