PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. THE INCREASING DEMAND for this little work warrants the belief that the attempt made therein to elevate the character of Whist, and to facilitate its practice in the best form, has not been without success. It is matter of notoriety that a sound knowledge. of the principles of the modern scientific game is much more frequently met with, both among club players and in private society, than it was ten or twelve years ago. to the rise of a new class of Whist literature, explaining the game in a more logical and systematic way; and the recent extended discussion of the subject in some of our best critical periodicals is sufficient to show that it has acquired an interest, in a literary and philosophical point of view, which it never had before. This result is undoubtedly owing 1 It is sometimes said that the systematic study of the game, so strongly insisted on in this work, tends to make it a matter of routine, and to discourage the freedom of individual skill. This is a great mistake. 1 See Fraser's Magazine for April 1869, and the Quarterly Review for January 1871. vi PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. It is indeed essential that the foundation of all good play should be systematic knowledge; but it is not pretended that the rules are to be considered as inflexible. In the latter portion of Chapter IV. many cases are mentioned in which strict play should be departed from; and in the present edition it has been thought desirable to enlarge at some length (in Appendix B) on one of the most important of these cases-namely, playing with a bad partner. This condition, although of such frequent occurrence, has been but little noticed hitherto in Whist books, and it is hoped that the remarks now offered will show what an important influence it may exercise on the practice of the game. W. P. ATHENÆUM CLUB: February 1873. |