mée, at Lady Molesworth's, before a distinguished audience comprising both French and English royalty.

[No date; written in the summer of 1865.]

'My dearest Hetty,-Your letter, like yourself, is charming. You do well to tell me of your triumphs—I share them. You are quite right: it is not external objects that are reflected in our mind, it is our mind that is reflected in them. Brightness within one makes all bright without.

'London is the same this year as the last, but you feel differently and see it different. Don't, however, build too much on the world's favour, nor on anything which goes and comes like the wind. One of the absurdities of the English character at the present day is that no one has an estimate of his own intrinsic value. You see the greatest people raised or debased in their own opinion by being invited or not to a ball. Rely on yourself for what you are yourself: take a modest estimate, but never let anyone have it in their power to make you think more or less of yourself than you deserve. If you make a habit of this in early life, you will be almost independent of the accidents of fortune till the day of your death.

'Accustom yourself, also, to do good things from good motives. Two people may act just alike, and one man be a villain and the other a saint. If you give in charity, let it be from the kindly feeling of helping a human creature, and not from any motive which holds out to yourself any advantage.

'If you are kind and courteous, let it be not from a selfish desire to be popular, but from a genial desire to give pleasure and not pain. All this much depends on the habit one trains one's mind to when young.

VOL. II.

'God bless you,

Ꭰ Ꭰ

'Hy.'

'My dear Hetty,-Many thanks for your letters: you have had many triumphs: they are the most difficult trials. Don't let them turn your head. A woman has to marry. It's a great bore, and there is nothing perfect in the institution; but it is like being born and buried—a necessity.

'The qualities for a husband, remember, are to be lasting. They are to tell in every hour of the day. For this, good temper is the main thing to look to. Good sense, if possible, providing there is not too much of it. Don't marry a man whom physically you dislike, but it is not necessary that you should adore him. Scanty means create a constant struggle: great wealth is not necessary, but it is quite as easy to marry a rich man as a pour one.

'Men will not marry a woman so much because they admire her as because they think she admires them. If you wish to keep well with your husband, and if you wish to get a husband, the happy individual must think you consider no man equal to him. All men will believe this, and think it quite natural. Better marry a man from ten to fifteen years older than yourself. It is like buying a riding horse that has been broken, instead of a colt. You save yourself fifteen years during which the adorable creature would be committing absurdities. A ridiculous man is a nuisance: a man much admired is a nuisance also. There is a lecture

for you.

Try and pass the winter in some fine climate where I shall be. It will be a comfort to me and I shall be a counsellor to you. God bless you,

'Hy.'

Among his many personal gifts was one which almost exceptionally distinguished him. His temper was perfect, and it was not a temper painfully formed by habits of self-restraint. It arose from genuine sweetness of disposition, from unaffected amiability, from a

kind, gentle, affectionate nature. His judgment was never disturbed by irritability; he weighed motives and conduct in exquisitely poised scales; and his estimates of character were seldom equalled for sagacity and truth. When he mingled in the polemics of diplomacy or literature, he wielded the weapon of controversy like a small-sword, and never carried a heart-stain away on the blade.' His grace, his tact, his high-bred manner, made him a general favourite in society; and what Scott says of Rashleigh Osbaldistone's conversation may be said of Bulwer's:

'He was never loud, never overbearing, never so much occupied with his own thoughts as to outrun either the patience or the comprehension of those he conversed with. His ideas succeeded each other with the gentle but unremitting flow of a plentiful and bounteous spring; while I have heard those of others, who aimed at distinction in conversation, rush along like the turbid gush from the sluice of a millpond, as hurried and as easily exhausted.'

Bulwer always talked his best, and always took up by preference the topics on which mind could meet mind and glowing thoughts or sparkling fancies might be struck out. He was near seventy when he died, but his vivacity was unabated, his vitality seemed unimpaired, and those who knew him best were so accustomed to see him overcoming matter by mind, that they were no less startled than saddened by the announcement that the most delightful of companions, the truest and most sympathising of friends, was taken from them.

404

WHIST AND WHIST-PLAYERS.

(FROM FRASER'S MAGAZINE FOR APRIL 1869.)

1. The Laws of Short Whist. Edited by J. L. Baldwin; and A Treatise on the Game. By J. C. (James Clay). London 1866.

2. The Laws and Principles of Whist, &c. By Cavendish (Jones). Ninth Edition. London: 1868.

3. Short Whist. By Major A. The Eighteenth Edition. Newly Edited, &c. By Professor P. (Pole). London : 1865.

4. The Theory of the Modern Scientific Game of Whist. By William Pole, F.R.S., Mus. Doc. Oxon. Reprinted from the Revised Edition of Short Whist by Major A. London: 1870.

5. The Whist-Player, &c. By Lieut.-Colonel B * * (Blyth). Third Edition. London: 1866.

6. Traité du Whist. Par M. Deschapelles. Paris: 1840. 7. Le Whist rendu facile, etc. Par un Amateur. 2me édition. Paris: 1855.

THE laws of whist, like those of Nature before Newton, lay hid in night, at all events were involved in most perplexing confusion and uncertainty, when the happy thought of fixing, defining, arranging and (so to speak) codifying them, occurred to a gentleman possessing the requisite amount of knowledge and experience, and

admirably qualified by social position for the task. Some years ago,' writes Mr. Baldwin in May, 1864, 'I suggested to the late Hon. George Anson (one of the most accomplished whist-players of his day) that, as the supremacy of short whist was an acknowledged fact, a revision and reformation of Hoyle's rules would confer a boon on whist-players generally, and on those especially to whom disputes and doubtful points were constantly referred. Our views coincided, but the project was, for the following reason, abandoned.

The reason was neither more nor less than what has stopped or indefinitely postponed so many other projects for the amelioration of society or improvement of mankind, namely, the difficulty and trouble to be encountered, with a very uncertain chance of success. This reason was eventually outweighed by the sense of responsibility in the face of a steadily increasing evil which a decided effort might correct; and early in 1863 the legislator of the whist-table had duly meditated his scheme and made up his mind as to the right method of executing it. When Napoleon had resolved upon a code, he began by nominating a board of the most eminent French jurists, whose sittings he was in the constant habit of attending, and by whom it was, article by article, settled and discussed. Mr. Baldwin pro

ceeded in much the same fashion. The board or committee which met at his suggestion, or (as he says) 'kindly consented to co-operate with him,' was comprised of seven members of the Arlington (now Turf) Club, who-we might take for granted, were it not notorious as a fact-were renowned for the skilful practice as well as the scientific knowledge of the game.