the voice, no less than the memory and the reasoning faculty, should be under absolute control." The time evidently had not been lost, for that "laborious discipline in the theory and practice of elocution through which Fox was carried by the disinterested passion for the drama had gained him a command of accent and gesture which, as is always the case with the highest art, gave his marvellous rhetoric the strength and simplicity of nature."

Another lover of the theatre was Dr. Paley. He frequently attended the play—particularly Drury Lane, when Garrick was performing. He generally went into the pit, seating himself as near to the orchestra as possible. Gibbon, again, in his early life, was a theatre-goer; and Oliver Goldsmith, it may be remembered, had a passion for the stage—a taste which it would seem acted as a powerful stimulus to him in developing his literary talents.

"It has been said," writes Faraday's niece, "that my uncle liked to go to the theatre, and it has been concluded that he went very often; but really he went very seldom. He enjoyed a play most when he was tired, and when Mrs. Faraday could go with him. They walked to the theatre, and went to the pit, and it was the greatest rest to him. Sometimes, when she had a friend stay

ing with her, he would go alone to the theatre, at half-price. For many seasons he had a free admission to the opera, and that he enjoyed very much; but he went only a very few times in the year, three or four at the most."

When the opportunity for amusement came, Sir Charles Barry could always throw himself into it with all the delight of a schoolboy. In theatrical entertainments he always took the greatest pleasure, and found in them the most complete relaxation and change of idea.

James Brindley was once persuaded to see a play, but his ideas were so much confused by witnessing it that he declared it had rendered bim unfit for business, and he would on no account be present at another performance.

But, with few exceptions, the stage has always been a popular source of recreation, and, from the multiplicity of theatres in recent years, is evidently a fashionable taste much on the increase.

CHAPTER III.

CARD-PLAYING.

Samuel Johnson - Addison - Cowper - Gibbon Charles James Fox-General Scott-Dr. Parr-Dr. Paley-Sir Robert Peel-Duke of Wellington-Tippoo SmithLord Rivers-Sir Philip Francis-Augustus TopladyJohn Wesley-G. H. Drummond-Charles Lamb-Lord Raglan-Lord Lytton-W. E. Forster-Douglas Jerrold -Charles Dickens-George Grote-Lord StanhopeGeorge C. Lewis-T. H. Buckle-H. Fawcett-John Smeaton-Duke of Queensberry-Southey-Charles Lever-Captain Marryat-John Locke-Dean Milner. TALLEYRAND, whose devotion to whist was extraordinary, remarked of someone who confessed his ignorance of it, that his want of knowledge was preparing him for a miserable old age. Setting aside the evil of making card-playing the occasion for gambling rather than, as it should be, a pleasing social recreation, there can be no doubt that it has been of immense service to our great intellectual workers, as a seductive opiate in their busy life. Indeed, the hour or two spent, in this fashion, has in numerous instances been almost a necessity to many a weary brain overdone by pressure of work, besides, as Talleyrand

says of old age, being an ever pleasant enjoyment to the greatest leaders of thought when failing health and declining years compel them to "retire from business."

Dr. Johnson, it may be remembered, regretted that he had not learnt to play at cards, assigning as his reason:-"It is very useful in life; it generates kindness, and consolidates society." And yet, by one of those strange inconsistencies sometimes noticeable in eminent men, he thus writes in the tenth number of the Rambler:

My business has been to view, as opportunity has offered, every place in which mankind was to be seen; but at card-tables, however brilliant, I have always thought my visit lost; for I could know nothing of the company but their clothes and their faces." In the last century, however, the inordinate excess to which card-playing was carried in English society, " everyone-old and young, high and low-joining in this time-destroying passion," at times caused just censure even from those who did not profess to be stern moralists. Many, too, were not satisfied with playing for play's sake, forgetful of Lord Herbert's excellent advice to

Play not for gain, but sport.

Who plays for more

Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart,
Perhaps his wife's, too, and whom she hath bore.

Addison, in the Spectator, muses upon the singularity of the taste of the card-player who devotes several hours in succession to this mode of killing time, and says: "I think it very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling, and dividing, a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, or no ideas but those of black and red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear anyone of his species complaining that life is short ?"

Cowper, again, in his "Task," speaks of this widespread fashion, and tells us how

E'en misses, at whose age their mothers wore
The back-string and the bib, assume the dregs
Of womanhood, fit pupils in the school
Of card-devoted time, and night by night,
Placed at some vacant corner of the board,

Learn'd every trick, and soon play all the game.

In the course of the last century whist became a fashionable game, and as such was played by the leading men of the day. Horace Walpole writes in December, 1781, to one of his constant correspondents, thus: "I was diverted last night at Lady Lucan's. The moment I entered she set me down to whist with Lady Bute; and who do you think were the other partners ?-the Archbishopress of Canterbury and Mr. Gibbon. I