I can tell you in a—­very few words how all work is done.  Getting up early, eating vigorously, saying “No” to intruders resolutely, doing one thing at a time, thinking over difficulties at odd times, that is, when stupid people are talking in the House of Commons, or speaking at the Bar, not indulging too much in affections of any kind which waste the time and energies, carefully changing the current of your thoughts before you go to bed, planning the work of the day in the quarter of an hour before you get up, playing with children occasionally, and avoiding fools as much as possible:  that is the way to do a great deal of work.

Milverton remarks, with justice, that some practical advices as to the way in which a working man might succeed in avoiding fools were very much to be desired, inasmuch as that brief direction contains the whole art of life; and suggests with equal justice that the taking of a daily bath should be added to Ellesmere’s catalogue of appliances which aid in working.

We cannot linger upon the remaining pages which treat of Biography, nor upon two interesting chapters concerning Proverbs.  It may be noticed, however, that Ellesmere insists that the best proverb in the world is the familiar English, one, ’Nobody knows where the shoe pinches hut the wearer;’ while Milverton tells us that the Spanish language is far richer in proverbs than that of any other nation.  But we hasten to an essay which will be extremely fresh and interesting to all readers.  We have had many essays by Milverton:  here is one by Ellesmere.  He had announced some time before his purpose of writing an essay on The Arts of Self-Advancement, and Mildred, whom Ellesmere took a pleasure in annoying by making a parade of mean, selfish, and cynical views, discerned at once that in such an essay he would have an opportunity of bringing together a crowd of these, and declared before Ellesmere began to write it that it would be a nauseous essay.’  The essay is finished at length.  The friends are now at Salzburg; and on a very warm day they assembled in a sequestered spot whence they could see the snowy peaks of the Tyrolese Alps.  Ellesmere begins by deprecating criticism of his style, declaring that anything inaccurate or ungrammatical is put in on purpose.  Then he begins to read:—­

In the first place, it is desirable to be born north of the Tweed (I like to begin at the beginning of things); and if that cannot be managed, you must at least contrive to be born in a moderately-sized town—­somewhere.  You thus get the advantage of being favoured by a small community without losing any individual force.  If I had been born in Affpuddle—­Milverton in Tolpuddle—­and Dunsford in Tollerporcorum (there are such places, at least I saw them once arranged together in a petition to the House of Commons), the men of Affpuddle, Tolpuddle, and Tollerporcorum would have been proud of us, would have been true to us, and would have helped to push our fortunes.  I