rit. And more recently Zuccarelli, one of the original members
of our Royal Academy, designed and etched a pack of cards with the same
intention.

In Southern Germany we find in the last century playing cards specially
prepared for gifts at weddings and for use at the festivities attending
such events. These cards bore conventional representations of the bride,
the bridegroom, the musicians, the priest, and the guests, on horseback
or in carriages, each with a laudatory inscription. The card shown in
Fig. 33 is from a pack of this kind of about 1740, the Roman numeral I.
indicating it as the first in a series of "Tarots" numbered
consecutively from I. to XXI., the usual Tarot designs being replaced by
the wedding pictures described above. The custom of presenting guests
with a pack of cards has been followed by the Worshipful Company of
Makers of Playing Cards, who at their annual banquet give to their
guests samples of the productions of the craft with which they are
identified, which are specially designed for the occasion.

[Illustration: THE ARMS OF THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF MAKERS OF PLAYING
CARDS, 1629.]

To conclude this article--much too limited to cover so interesting a
subject--we give an illustration (Fig. 34) from a pack of fifty-two
playing cards of _silver_--every card being engraved upon a thin plate
of that metal. They are probably the work of a late sixteenth century
German goldsmith, and are exquisite examples of design and skill with
the graver. They are in the possession of a well-known collector of all
things beautiful, curious, and rare, by whose courteous permission this
unique example appears here.

_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._

LORD HOUGHTON.

BORN 1858.

[Illustration: _From a Photograph._ AGE 2.]

[Illustration: _From a Photo. by Hills & Saunders._ AGE 15.]

[Illustration: _From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._ AGE 18.]

[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. _From a Photo. by Alice Hughes, 52, Gower
Street, W.C._]

Lord Houghton, whose appointment to the post of Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland came somewhat as a surprise, is a Yorkshire landowner, and a son
of the peer so well known both in literary and social circles as Richard
Monckton Milnes, whose poems and prose writings alike will long keep his
memory alive. This literary faculty has descended to the present peer,
his recent volume of poems having been received by the best critics as
bearing evidence o