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 of a true poetic gift. Lord Houghton, who served as a Lord-in-Waiting in Mr. Gladstone's Government of 1886, is a rich man and the reputed heir of Lord Crewe; he has studied and travelled, and has taken some share, though hitherto not a very prominent one, in politics. He is a widower, and his sister presides over his establishment. JOHN PETTIE, R.A. BORN 1839. [Illustration: AGE 16. _From a Sketch in Crayons by Himself._] [Illustration: AGE 30. _From a Photo. by G. W. Wilson, Aberdeen._] [Illustration: AGE 40. _From a Photo. by Fredelle & Marshall._] [Illustration: PRESENT DAY. _From a Photo. by Raymond Lynde._]