Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers-(work of Chinese artist, unconscious of their symbol, or as profanely slighting their true application as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned out those little shrines for the goddess) — 5 exchange them for little bits of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and a slate!"

The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my logic; and to her approbation of my arguments on her favourite topic that evening, I have always fancied myself indebted 10 for the legacy of a curious cribbage-board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) brought with him from Florence: this, and a trifle of five hundred pounds, came to me at her death.

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The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have heard her say,—disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She could never 20 heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "go". or "that's

a go." She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five dollar stake), because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would have given it her, but which she must 25 have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring "two for his heels." There is something extremely genteel in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born.

Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms such 30 as pique repique- the capot- they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She would argue thus: - Cards are warfare: the ends are gain, with glory. But cards are war in disguise of a sport: when

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single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. By themselves, it is too close a fight; with spectators, it is not much bettered. No looker-on can be interested, except for a bet, and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck sympathetically, or for your play. — 5 Three are still worse; a mere naked war of every man against every man, as in cribbage, without league or alliance; or a rotation of petty and contradictory interests, a succession of. heartless leagues, and not much more hearty infractions of them, as in traydrille. But in square games (she meant whist) 10 all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common to every species- though the latter can be but very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a participator. But the parties in whist 15 are spectators and principals too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, or interests beyond its sphere. You glory in some surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold-or even an 20 interested bystander witnesses it, but because your partner sympathizes in the contingency. You win for two. triumph for two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified; which divides their disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) your glories. Two losing 25 to two are better reconciled, than one to one in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying the channels. War becomes a civil game. - By such reasonings as these the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite pastime.

You

No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where chance entered into the composition, for nothing. Chance, she would argue-and here again, admire the subtlety of her conclusion!-chance is nothing, but where something

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else depends upon it. It is obvious that cannot be glory. What rational cause of exultation could it give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself? or before spectators, where no stake was depending? — Make 5 a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number and what possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a prize?-Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, where it was Io not played for money. She called it foolish, and those people idiots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played for a stake, they were a mere system of overreaching. Played for glory, they were a mere setting of one 15 man's wit his memory, or combination-faculty rather against another's; like a mock-engagement at a review, bloodless and profitless. She could not conceive a game wanting the sprightly infusion of chance, - the handsome excuses of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a 20 room, whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire

her with insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles and Knights, the imagery of the board, she would argue (and I think in this case justly), were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard head-contests can in no 25 instance ally with the fancy. They reject form and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper arena for such combatants.

To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, she would retort that man is a gaming animal. He 30 must be always trying to get the better in something or other : that this passion can scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards: that cards are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but play at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, yet, during

the illusion, we are as mightily concerned as those whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting; much ado; great battling and little bloodshed; mighty means for disproportioned ends; quite as diverting, and a great deal more innoxious, than many of those more serious games of life, 5 which men play, without esteeming them to be such.

With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my life, when playing at cards for nothing has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes 10 call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget Bridget Elia.

I grant there is something sneaking in it but with a toothache, or a sprained ankle,—when you are subdued and humble, you are glad to put up with an inferior spring of 15 action.

There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as sick whist.

I grant it is not the highest style of man- I deprecate the manes of Sarah Battle-she lives not, alas! to whom I should 20 apologize.

At such times, those terms which my old friend objected to, come in as something admissible.—I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows of winning amuse me.

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That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her) (dare I tell thee, how foolish I am?) — I wished it might have lasted for ever, though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade of play: I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The pipkin should be ever 30 boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over : and as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. Bridget and I should be ever playing.

VIII. VALENTINE'S DAY

HAIL to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable Arch-flamen of Hymen! Immortal Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a name, typifying the restless principle which 5 impels poor humans to seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril; nor the consigner of Io undipped infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom all mothers hate; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen; nor Bishop Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is

Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings.

15 Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors; and instead of the crozier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee.

In other words, this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turning. The weary and all forespent two20 penny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so 25 common as the heart, that little three-cornered exponent of

all our hopes and fears, the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God 30 Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not