CHAPTER III.

THE PROGRESS OF CARD-PLAYING.

Having now shown at what period cards were certainly well known in Europe, and at what period card-making was a regular business in Italy and Germany, I shall proceed to lay before the reader a series of facts showing the prevalence of the game in various countries, both among great and little people.

From the repeated municipal regulations forbidding card-playing, to be found in the Burgher-books of several cities of Germany, between 1400 and 1450, it would seem that the game was extremely popular in that country in the earlier part of the fifteenth century; and that it continued to gain ground, notwithstanding the prohibitions of men in office. There are orders forbidding it in the council-books of Augsburg, dated 1400, 1403, and 1406; though in the latter year there is an exception which permits card-playing at the meeting-houses of the trades. It was forbidden at Nordlingen in 1426, 1436, and 1439; but in 1440 the magistrates, in their great wisdom, thought proper to relax in some degree the stringency of their orders by allowing the game to be played in public-houses. In the town-books of the same city there are entries, in the years 1456 and 1461, of money paid for cards at the magistrates' annual goose-feast or corporation dinner. In the books of the company of "Schuflikker"--cobblers--of Bamberg, there is a bye-law agreed to in 1491, which imposes a fine of half a pound of wax--not shoemakers', but bees' wax for the company's holy candle, to burn at the altar of the patron saint,--upon any brother who should throw the backgammon pieces, cards, or dice out of the window.[109] From this it may be concluded that the "Schuflikker" of Bamberg in 1491 were accustomed, like gamesters of a more recent period, to vent their rage, when losers, on the cards and dice.

Baptista Platina, in his treatise 'De Honesta Voluptate'--which is neither more nor less than an antique "School of Good Living," teaching how creature comforts may be best enjoyed--mentions cards as a game at which gentlemen may play, after dinner or supper, to divert their minds, as deep thinking after a hearty meal impedes digestion. There was, however, to be no cheating nor desire of gain--which is as much as to say that the stakes were to be merely nominal--lest bad passions should be excited, and the process of healthy concoction disturbed.[110]

Galeottus Martius, a contemporary of Platina, is perhaps the earliest writer who "speculated," or at least published his speculations, on the allegorical meaning of the marks of the four suits of cards. I shall give a translation of the passage, which occurs in chapter xxxvi of his treatise 'De Doctrina promiscua,' written, according to Tiraboschi, between 1488 and 1490. I leave others to divine the author's precise meaning, referring them to the original text which is given below. The topics of this chapter are: "The greater and lesser Dog Star, Orion, the Evening Star, the Pleiades, the Hyades, Bootes, the Kids, the planet Venus, and the game of Cards." Towards the conclusion, after having exhausted his astronomical topics, he thus proceeds, _apropos_ of the benign influence of Venus.

"From the excellency of this planet it is not surprising that the ancients called a happy throw at dice Venus,--not Jove, though considered of greater fortune. Thus Propertius:

"Venus I hoped with lucky dice to cast, But every time the luckless Dogs turned up."

"An unlucky cast was called the Dog--"_Canis_"--and also the Little Dog--"_Canicula_"--with reference to the Stars. Thus Persius:

"Far as the luckless little Dog-star's range."

"What kind of stars the Great and Little Dog were, has been already shown. Some persons, indeed, might laugh at the invention of such kind of games being ascribed to the learned, were it not plain from reason that the game of cards was also devised by wise men. To say nothing about the Kings, Queens, Knights, and Footmen,--for every one knows the distinction between dignity and military service,--is it not evident, when we consider the significance of swords, spears, cups, and country loaves, that the inventor of the game was a man of shrewd wit? When there is need of strength, as indicated by the Swords and Spears, many are better than few; in matters of meat and drink, however, as indicated by the Loaves and Cups, a little is better than a great deal, for it is certain that abstemious persons are of more lively wit than gluttons and drunkards, and much superior in the management of business. What I call country loaves, from their form and colour,--Pliny speaks of bread of a yellow colour--are the marks which are ignorantly supposed to signify pieces of money. The Cups are goblets, for wine."[111]

The remainder of the passage cannot be literally translated into English, as it relates chiefly to the pronunciation of the word "_Hastas_"--Spears. The substance of it, however, is as follows: "The common people say 'Hastas,' as the aspiration H, and the letter V are interchangeable, and so are B and V, both in Greek and Latin. As Bastoni [clubs] are vulgarly called Hastoni, so have they sometimes the form of spears [Hastarum], but mostly that of bills, for both are military weapons." The original passage is extremely perplexing; and the only thing in it that appears plain to me is the writer's desire to convert Bastoni--Clubs--into "Hastas," Spears. The Bastoni, which he says are called Hastoni, or the Hastoni which are called Bastoni,--for there is here an ambiguity, as in the celebrated oracular response, "Aio te, Æacida, Romanos vincere posse"--can only relate to the figures of the things as seen on cards, and not to the things themselves; for the author says that they have sometimes the shape of spears, but more frequently that of bills. The real meaning of this I take to be, that the Bastoni--Clubs--on cards were more like bills than spears, notwithstanding that H and V, and V and B, were interchangeable letters. From the account of Galeottus, it is evident that the usual marks of the suits of Italian cards were in his time, Coppe, Spadi, Danari, and Bastoni,--Cups, Swords, Money, and Clubs.

In 1463 it would appear that cards were well known in England; for, by an act of parliament passed in that year, which was the third of Edward IV, the importation of playing cards was expressly prohibited. This act, according to Anderson, was passed in consequence of the manufacturers and tradesmen of London, and other parts of England, having made heavy complaints against the importation of foreign manufactured wares which greatly obstructed their own employment.[112] If we suppose that cards were included in the prohibition for the above reason, it would follow that card-making was then a regular business in England.

Whether cards were home-manufactured or obtained from abroad, they appear about 1484 to have been, as they are at present, a common Christmas game. Margery Paston thus writes to her husband, John Paston, in a letter dated Friday, 24th Dec., 1484: "Right worshipful husband, I recommend me unto you. Please it you to weet that I sent your eldest son John to my Lady Morley, to have knowledge of what sports were used in her house in the Christmas next following after the decease of my lord her husband; and she said that there were none disguisings, nor harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud disports; but playing at the tables, and chess, and _cards_; such disports she gave her folks leave to play, and none other. Your son did his errand right well, as ye shall hear after this. I sent your younger son to the Lady Stapleton; and she said according to my Lady Morley's saying in that, and as she had seen used in places of worship thereas [where] she hath been."[113] It may not be improper here to caution the reader against confounding "places of worship," with "houses of prayer," and hence inferring that cards were then a common game in churches, with gentlemen's servants, at Christmas time. By "places of worship" are meant the dwelling-places of worshipful persons, such as lords, knights, and justices of the peace: in those days there were no stipendiary police-magistrates, and every Shallow on the bench was "a gentleman born."

Whether Richard III, in whose reign the letter above quoted was written, added dicing and card-playing to his other vices, we have no account either in public history which deals, or ought to deal, wholesale, in "great facts," or in private memoirs, which are more especially devoted to the retailing of little facts. His successor, however, Henry VII, was a card player; for Barrington observes that in his privy-purse expenses there are three several entries of money issued for his majesty's losses at cards. Of his winnings there is no entry; though his money-grubbing majesty kept his accounts so exactly as to enter even a six-and-eightpenny bribe, given to propitiate his mercy in favour of a poor criminal,--thus turning a penny by trafficking with his prerogative of pardoning:

"To have the power to forgive, Is empire and prerogative."

It would appear that cards was a common game at the court of Henry the VII, even with the royal children; for, in 1503, his daughter Margaret, aged 14, was found playing at cards by James IV of Scotland, on his first interview with her, after her arrival in Scotland for the purpose of being married to him.[114] James himself is said to have been greatly addicted to card-playing; and in the accounts of his treasurer there are several entries of money disbursed on account of the game. On Christmas night, 1496, there are delivered to the king at Melrose, to spend at cards, "thirty-five unicornis, eleven French crowns, a ducat, a ridare, and a leu"--in all forty-two pounds. On the 23d August, 1504, when the king was at Lochmaben, he appears to have lost several sums at cards to Lord Dacre, the warden of the English marches; and on the 26th of the same month, there is an entry of four French crowns given "to Cuddy, the Inglis luter, to louse his cheyne of grotis, quhilk he tint at the cartis,"--to redeem his chain of groats which he lost at cards.[115]

M. Duchesne, in his 'Observations sur les Cartes à jouer,' says, somewhat inconsistently, that cards are of Italian origin, and that it was either at Venice or at Florence, that the Greek refugees from Constantinople, first made them known. M. Duchesne is as incorrect in his chronology, as he is singular in his notions with respect to the Italian origin of playing cards,--first brought to Venice or Florence, by Greeks.[116] The refugees to whom he apparently alludes were the Greeks who sought an asylum in Italy, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, in 1453, which is sixty years after the time that we have positive evidence of cards being known in France. But though no evidence has been produced to show that cards were first brought into Europe from Constantinople, it is yet certain that they were known to the Greeks, before the end of the fifteenth century; for Ducange, in his Glossary of Middle-Age Greek, under the word "XAPTIA, Ludus chartarum,[117] quotes the following verse from a manuscript of Emanual Georgillas on the Plague at Rhodes:

"Και τα ταυλια, και τα χαρτια, και ζαρια κατακαυσουν"

"Burn the tables, cards, and dice."

"It appears from this," says Ducange, "that the game of cards, the origin of which is uncertain, was at least known in 1498, the year in which this mortality happened." In the 'Journal des Dames,' for the 10th April, 1828--a publication, which I have not had the fortune to see, but which is referred to by Brunet the younger, in his 'Notice Bibliographique sur les Cartes à jouer,'--there is a detailed account of the modern Greek cards manufactured at Frankfort.[118]

Towards the close of the fifteenth, and in the early part of the sixteenth century, before Luther had sounded the tocsin of religious reform, and given a new impulse to both the busy and the idle, the Germans appear to have been greatly addicted to gaming. Woodcuts of this period showing men and women playing at cards and dice are common. John Geiler of Kaisersberg, a famous preacher in his day, who, like Latimer, was accustomed to season his sermons with a little humour--not to say fun--rings a peal against gaming in his 'Speculum Fatuorum,' first printed at Strasburg about 1508. He says that there are some games at cards which are purely of chance, such as "_der offen Rusch und Schantzen_,"[119] while others, such as "_des Karnefflins_" depend on both chance and skill. In treating of the lawfulness of playing at cards, dice, and similar games "for the sake of recreation"--a saving clause which appears to have been introduced in favour of the laboriously studious and devout,--he cites authorities both _pro_ and _con_. A certain gloss says that to play at such games, whether for money, or "gratis," is a deadly sin; and Hostiensis says that to play for recreation, for money,--"to kill themselves for love, with wine"--is a deadly sin in the laity as well as the clergy. Angelus, however, says that it is lawful for both clergy and laity to play for recreation, for small stakes: "_pro modico non notabili_." Geiler's own conclusion is that, as doctors differ, there is danger. Gaming in his time, as in our own, appears to have levelled all distinctions: lords and ladies, and even clergymen, dignified or otherwise, eager to win money, and confiding in their luck, or their skill, cared but little for the rank or character of those with whom they played, provided they could but post the stakes; and felt no more compunction in winning a ruffling burgher's money, than a peer would in receiving the amount of a bet from a cab-man, or a wealthy citizen, a few years ago, in rendering bankrupt the wooden-legged manager of a thimble-rig table at Epsom or Ascot.--The "thimble-rig," however, is now numbered with the things that have been--"_fuit_." Lord Stanley brought it into political disrepute; and Sir James Graham put it down, just about the time that the railway speculation began to be the "rage" under the auspices of a knowing Yorkshireman.

Thomas Murner, a Franciscan friar, availing himself apparently of the popularity of card-playing, introduced the term "Chartiludium" as a "caption" in the title of his 'Logica Memorativa,' printed at Strasburg, in 1509.[120] The work is evidently that of a scholastic pedant, who might possibly be expert enough in ringing the changes on verbal distinctions, but who had not the least knowledge of things, nor any idea of the right use of reason. The book is adorned with numerous cuts, which represent cards, inasmuch at the top of each there is an emblem, just as there is the mark of the suit in each of our coat cards. The cuts and the text taken together, for they mutually render each other more intelligible, form such a mass of complicated nonsense as would puzzle even a fortune-teller to interpret. In his prologue, Murner asks pardon for the title of his book; and assures the studious youths, for whose instruction it was devised, that he had not been led to adopt it from any partiality to card-playing; that, in fact, he had never touched cards, and that, from his very childhood he had abhorred the perverse passion for play. In 1518 Murner, apparently stimulated by the success of his logical card-play, published an introduction to the civil law, written and pictorially illustrated in the same manner as the former.[121]

As I have not been able to make anything of Murner's logical card-play, either as regards the instruments or the matter professed to be taught, I willingly avail myself of what Mons. Leber has said on the subject in his 'Etudes Historiques sur les Cartes à jouer.'--"These cards," says Mons. Leber, "made much noise in their time; and this might well be, for they were a novelty which it was easier to admire than to comprehend. At first people fancied that they saw in them the work of the devil; and it was even a question whether the author should not be burnt, seeing that he could be nothing more than a conjurer with the logicians of that age. But the conjurer's pupils made such extraordinary progress, that people cried out "wonderful!" and Murner's book was pronounced divine. Although those cards are fifty-two in number, they have nothing in common with our pack. They differ from all other cards, whether for gaming, or of fanciful device, in the multiplicity and the division of the suits, which the inventor has applied to the divisions of logic, after a method of his own. Of these suits there are no less than sixteen, corresponding with the same number of sections of the text, and having the following names and colours:

I. ENUNCIATIO Bells. II. PREDICABILE Crayfish. III. PREDICAMENTUM Fish. IV. SILLOGISMUS Acorns. V. LOCUS DIALECTICUS Scorpions. VI. FALLACIA Turbans. VII. SUPPOSITIO Hearts. VIII. AMPLIATIO Grasshoppers. IX. RESTRICTIO Suns. X. APPELLATIO Stars. XI. DISTRIBUTIO Pigeons. XII. EXPOSITIO Crescents. XIII. EXCLUSIO Cats, or Tigers. XIV. EXCEPTIO Shields of Arms. XV. REDUPLICATIO Crowns. XVI. DESCENSUS Serpents.

"Such is the whimsicality of those signs, and such the oddity of their relation to the things signified, that the learned Singer has been deterred from the attempt to make them known; at any rate, he declares that he will not undertake to explain that which even the most profound logicians of the day might not be able to comprehend. This is easily said, but we see no impossibility in explaining how the author understood himself. One example will be sufficient to give an idea of Murner's figured language, and of the parts which might be played by serpents, cats, acorns, and crayfish in the chair of Aristotle when its occupant was a friar of the sixteenth century.

"The figure of a man with a crown on his head, a patch over one of his eyes, a book in one hand, and a trowel in the other, relates to section, or "Tractatus," X, APPELLATIO. It displays three symbols, the object of which is intelligence or definition: 1, the logical appellation; 2, relative terms or ideas which have become connected in the mind; 3, privative terms, expressive of privation or exclusion. The open book, [which appears shut] is the symbol of the definition; the trowel indicates connexion; and the patch over the eye signifies privation. The star, which occupies the place of the mark of the suit, and casts its light on all the other three symbols, signifies that clearness is the first merit in every definition." The cut here given is a fac-simile of that referred to.

[Illustration]

Rogers, availing himself of the poetic license, though but to a small extent, has represented the followers of Columbus as playing at cards in his first voyage of discovery, to the West Indies, in 1492.

"At daybreak might the caravels be seen, Chasing their shadows o'er the deep serene; Their burnish'd prows lash'd by the sparkling tide, Their green-cross standards waving far and wide. And now once more to better thoughts inclined, The seaman, mounting, clamour'd in the wind. The soldier told his tales of love and war; The courtier sung--sung to his gay guitar. Round, at Primero, sate a whiskered band; So Fortune smiled, careless of sea or land."[122]

Garcilasso de la Vega, to whom Mr. Rogers refers, says nothing about Primero or the followers of Columbus playing at the game; he only mentions, in his 'History of the Conquest of Florida,' that the soldiers who were engaged in that expedition, having burnt all their cards after the battle of Mauvila, [about 1542], made themselves new ones of parchment, which they painted admirably, as if they had followed the business all their lives; but as they either could not, or would not, make so many as were wanted, players had the cards in their turn for a limited time.[123] Although we have no positive evidence of the fact, it is yet not unlikely that there were cards in the ships of Columbus; unless indeed they had been especially prohibited to the crews on this occasion, as they were to the soldiers and sailors of the Spanish Armada in 1588.[124] Herrera has recorded in his 'History of the Spanish Discoveries in America,' that Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, who was made prisoner by Cortes in 1519, took great pleasure in seeing the Spanish soldiers play at cards.

Barrington, in his 'Observations on the Antiquity of Card-playing in England,' says, "During the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, this amusement seems not to have been common in England, as scarcely any mention of it occurs either in Rymer's Fœdera, or the statute book." Had Mr. Barrington been as well read in old poems and plays as he was in the more ancient statutes, it is likely that he would have been of a different opinion. He says, "It is not improbable, however, that Philip the Second, with his suite, coming from the court of Charles V, made the use of cards much more general than it had been, of which some presumptive proofs are not wanting." The supposition is plausible; but as the presumptive proofs which he alleges, were as likely to be found in the reign of Edward IV, as in the reign of Mary, they are of no weight in the determination of the question. As Catherine, the wife of Henry VIII, was a Spanish princess, and as it is recorded that, amongst her other accomplishments, she could "play at tables, tick-tack, or gleek, with cardes or dyce,"[125] the persons forming her suite were just as likely as those of the suite of Philip II, to have brought into England Spanish cards with the marks of swords and clubs proper--_Espadas_ and _Bastos_: but there can scarcely be a doubt that such cards were known in England long before. Mr. Barrington's partiality to his theory about Spanish cards, and of the game becoming much more general in England after the marriage of Philip and Mary, has probably caused him either to entirely overlook, or attach too little importance to a presumptive proof, to be found in the statute-book, of cards being a common amusement in England in the reign of Henry VIII. In a statute relating to plays and games, passed in the thirty-third year of that king's reign, 1541, we find the following restrictions. "No Artificer, or his Journeyman, no Husbandman, Apprentice, Labourer, Servant at Husbandry, Mariner, Fisherman, Waterman, or Serving-man, shall play at Tables, Tennis, Dice, _Cards_, Bowls, Closh, Coyting, Logating, or any other unlawful game out of Christmas; or then, out of their master's house or presence, in pain of 20_s._; and none shall play at Bowls in open places, out of his garden or orchard, in pain of 6_s._ 8_d._"[126] In the morality of Hycke-Scorner, reprinted in Hawkins's 'Origin of the English Drama,' from a black letter copy in Garrick's collection, of at least as early a date as the commencement of the reign of Henry VIII, the following are enumerated as forming part of the company of the ships that came over with Hycke-Scorner:

"Braulers, lyers, getters, and chyders, Walkers by night, and great murderers, Overthwarte gyle, and joly carders."

In the morality of Lusty Juventus, written by R. Wever, in the reign of Edward VI, Hypocryse says to Juventus, whom he invites to breakfast:

"I have a furny carde in a place, That will bear a turne besides the ace; She purvoyes now apace For my commynge."

From a subsequent passage it appears that this "furny carde"[127] is the naughty woman, "litle Besse," the personification of "Abhominable Livyng."

In the comedy of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' said to have been first printed in 1551, old dame Chat thus invites two of her acquaintance to a game at cards:

"What, Diccon? Come nere, ye be no stranger: We be fast set at trump, man, hard by the fire; Thou shalt set on the king, if thou come a little nyer. Come hither, Dol; Dol, sit down and play this game, And as thou sawest me do, see thou do even the same; There is five trumps besides the queen, the hindmost thou shalt find her."

In a Satire on Cardinal Wolsey and the Romish Clergy by William Roy, without date, but most likely printed in 1527,[128] some of the bishops are charged with gaming in addition to their other vices:

"To play at the cardes and dyce, Some of theym are nothynge nyce, Both at hasard and mom-chaunce."

In the privy purse expenses, from 1536 to 1544, of the Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, afterwards Queen Mary, there are numerous entries of money delivered to the princess to play at cards. In a prefatory memoir, Sir Frederick Madden remarks: "Cards she seems to have indulged in freely; and there is a sum generally allotted as pocket-money for the recreation every month."[129] As Mary is said to have been extremely devout, we may presume that, adopting the decisions of the more indulgent casuists, she availed herself of their permission to play at cards as a recreation when her mind was fatigued with the exercise of her strenuous piety. The records of the burning of men and women in her reign for the sake of _religion_, form a singular contrast with the entries in her privy purse expenses of money delivered to her to play at cards.

From the preceding incidental notices of cards in poems and plays, as well as from the direct evidence of the statute book and the privy purse expenses of the Princess Mary, it would appear that card-playing was common in England during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, both in the cottage and the palace; and there is reason to believe that about the same period the game was equally common in Scotland. William Dunbar, who wrote in the reigns of James IV and James V, in his 'General Satire,' exposing the depravity of all classes of people in the kingdom, thus alludes to the prevalence of dicing and card-playing:

"Sic knavis and crakkaris, to play at carts and dyce, Sic halland-scheckaris, qwhilk at Cowkilbyis gryce Are haldin of pryce, when lymaris do convene; Sic store of vyce, sae mony wittis unwyse, Within this land was nevir hard nor sene."

In the poems of Sir David Lyndsay, there are several allusions to card-playing; and in his 'Satire of the Three Estaites,' which Chalmers says was first acted at Cupar, Fifeshire, in 1535, the Parson declares himself to be an adept at the game:

"Thoch I preich nocht, I can play at the caiche: I wot there is nocht ane amang yow all Mair ferylie can play at the fute-ball; And for the cartis, the tabels, and the dyse, Above all parsouns I may beir the pryse."

In Sir David's poem, entitled 'The Cardinal,' exposing the personal vices and tyrannical conduct of Cardinal Beaton, who was assassinated at St. Andrews in 1546, that prelate is represented as a great gamester:[130]

"In banketting, playing at cartis and dyce, Into sic wysedome I was haldin wyse; And spairit nocht to play with king nor knicht, Thre thousand crownes of golde upon ane night."

In the examination of Thomas Forret, a dean of the Kirk, and vicar of Dollar, on a charge of heresy brought against him by John Lauder, a tool of Cardinal Beaton's, at Edinburgh, 1st March, 1539, Forret's answer to one of the charges of his accuser, affords some idea of the manner in which many bachelor priests of the period were accustomed to spend their tithes:

"_Accuser._ False Heretic, thou sayest it is not lawful to Kirkmen to take their teinds (tythes) and offerings and corps-presents, though we have been in use of them, constitute by the Kirk and King, and also our holy father the Pope hath confirmed the same?

"_Dean Forret._ Brother, I said not so; but I said it was not lawful to Kirkmen to spend the patrimony of the Kirk, as they do, on riotous feasting, and on fair women, and at playing at cards and dice."[131]

Pinkerton, in his 'History of Scotland,' says: "Stewart the poet, in an address to James V, advises him to amuse himself with hunting, hawking, and archery, justing, and chess; and not to play at cards or dice, except with his mother or the chief lords, as it was a disgrace for a prince to win from men of inferior station, and his gains at any time ought to be given to his attendants."

At a period somewhat later, it would appear that card-playing was a common amusement on the borders of Scotland, and that the sturdy rievers, whose grand game was cattle lifting, were accustomed to while away their idle hours at cards for placks and hardheads. The following curious passage occurs in a letter dated Newcastle, 12th January (1570), printed in the second volume of Sir Ralph Sadler's 'State Papers.' The writer was a gentleman named Robert Constable, who appears to have been sent into Scotland to endeavour to persuade his kinsman, the Earl of Westmoreland, to return to England and submit himself to Elizabeth's mercy.[132]

"I left Ferniherst, and went to my ostes house,[133] where I found many guests of dyvers factions, some outlaws of England, some of Scotland, some neighbours thereabout, at cards; some for ale, some for placks and hardhedds [a small coin]; and after I had diligently learned and enquired that there was none of any surname that had me in deadly fude, nor none that knew me, I sat down and plaid for hardhedds among them, where I heard _vox populi_ that the Lord Regent would not, for his owne honour, nor for the honour of his country, deliver the Earls, if he had them bothe, unless it were to have their Quene delivered to him; and if he wold agree to make that change, the borderers would start up in his contrary, and reave both the Quene and the Lords from him, for the like shame was never don in Scotland; and that he durst better eate his own lugs than come agen to seke Farneherst; if he did, he should be fought with ere he came over Sowtray edge. Hector of Tharlows[134] hedd was wished to have been eaten amongs us at supper."

In the old ballad entitled 'The Battle of the Reed Swire,' giving an account of a fray at a Warden meeting, which ended in a general fight, we find cards mentioned. This meeting was held in 1576 near the head of the river Reed, on the English side of the Carter fell; and appears to have been attended, like a fair, by people from both sides of the Border.

"Yet was our meeting meik enough, Began with mirriness and mows; And at the brae abune the heugh The clerk sat down to call the rows;

And sum for kye, and sum for ewes, Callit in of DANDRIE, HOB, and JOCK: I saw come marching owre the knows Fye hundred FENNICKS in a flock.

"With jack and speir, and bowis all bent, And warlike weapons at their will; Howbeit they were not weil content, Yet be me troth we feird na ill: Some gaed to drink, and some stude still, And sum to cards and dyce them sped; While on ane Farstein they fyld a bill,[135] And he was fugitive that fled."

About the same period the game of cards was a common amusement in the south of Ireland. Spenser, in his 'View of the State of Ireland,' written about 1590, speaks of an idle and dissolute class of people called "Carrows," who, he says, "wander up and down to gentlemen's houses, living only upon cards and dice; the which, though they have but little or nothing of their own, yet will they play for much money; which, if they win, they waste most lightly; and if they lose, they pay as slenderly, but make recompense with one stealth or another; whose only hurt is not that they themselves are idle lossels, but that through gaming they draw others to lewdness and idleness."[136]

The counterpart to this picture was to be found in Spain about the same period; and as the intercourse between the two countries was frequent, and the favorite game in both was "One-and-Thirty," it is not unlikely that the Irish obtained their knowledge of cards from the Spaniards. In Cervantes' 'Comical History of Rinconete and Cortadillo,' a young Spanish vagabond gives the following account of his skill at cards: "I took along with me what I thought most necessary, and amongst the rest this pack of cards, (and now I called to mind the old saying, 'He carries his All on his back,') for with these I have gained my living at all the publick houses and inns between Madrid and this place, playing at One-and-Thirty; and though they are dirty and torn, they are of wonderful service to those who understand them, for they shall never cut without leaving an ace at bottom, which is one good point towards eleven, with which advantage, thirty-one being the game, he sweeps all the money into his pocket: besides this, I know some slight tricks at Cards and Hazard; so that though you are very dexterous and a thorough master of the art of cutting buskins, I am every bit as expert in the science of cheating people, and therefore I am in no fear of starving; for though I come but to a small cottage, there are always some who have a mind to pass away time by playing a little;[137] and of this we may now try the experiment ourselves: Let us spread the nets, and see if none of these birds, the carriers, will fall into them; which is as much as to say that you and I will play together at One-and-Thirty, as if it was in earnest; perhaps somebody may make the third, and he shall be sure to be the first to leave his money behind him."

At what period cards were first used in Europe for the purposes of divination or fortune-telling has not been ascertained. In the 'Magasin Pittoresque' for 1842, page 324, there is a cut entitled "Philippe-le-Bon consultant une tireuse de cartes," copied from a painting ascribed to John Van Eyck. Though it has been denied that this picture is really by Van Eyck, it is yet admitted that the costume is that of the reign of Charles VIII, between 1483 and 1498.[138] Supposing then that the picture belongs to the latter period, we have thus evidence of cards being used for the purposes of fortune-telling before the close of the fifteenth century. The gypsies, who are unquestionably of Asiatic origin, appear to have long used them for this purpose; and if they brought cards with them in their earliest immigration into Europe, as Breitkopf supposes, they are just as likely to have brought with them their occult science of cards as to have acquired it subsequently from Europeans. The earliest work, expressly treating of the subject appears to be 'Le Sorti,' written or compiled by Francesco Marcolini, printed at Venice in 1540. In the prologue, the author professes to explain the mode of applying what he calls his pleasant invention--"piacevole inventione;" but beyond the fact that certain cards are to be used, I have not been able to make out his meaning. The only cards to be employed were the King, Knight, Knave, ten,[139] nine, eight, seven, deuce, and ace of the suit Danari or Money. Besides the small cuts of cards, of which the following are specimens, the work contains a number of wood-engravings, some of which are designed in a spirited manner. A work similar to Marcolini's, entitled 'Triompho di Fortuna,' by Sigismond Fanti, professing to teach the art of solving questions relating to future events, but without using cards, was printed at Venice in 1527.

[Illustration]

Juggling and fortune-telling by means of cards, whenever introduced, appear to have had many professors in the latter half of the sixteenth century. A trick performed with cards by a juggler, appears to have excited the inquisitive genius of Lord Bacon when a boy; and his biographer, Basil Montagu, thinks that from this circumstance his attention was first directed to an inquiry into the nature of the imagination.[140] Reginald Scott, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, first published in 1584, has a chapter "Of Cards, with good cautions how to avoid cousenage therein; special rules to convey and handle the cards; and the manner and order how to accomplish all difficult and strange things wrought with cards."

"Having now," says he, "bestowed some waste money among you, I will set you to cards; by which kind of witchcraft a great number of people have juggled away not only their money, but also their lands, their health, their time, and their honesty. I dare not (as I could) show the lewd juggling that cheaters practice, lest it minister some offence to the well-disposed, to the simple hurt and losses, and to the wicked occasion of evil doing. But I would wish all gamesters to beware, not only with what cards and dice they play, but especially with whom, and where they exercise gaming. And to let dice pass, (as whereby a man may be inevitably cousened,) one that is skilful to make and use Bumcards may undo a hundred wealthy men, that are not given to gaming; but if he have a confederate present, either of the players or standers-by, the mischief cannot be avoided. If you play among strangers, beware of him that seems simple or drunken; for under their habit the most special couseners are presented; and while you think by their simplicity and imperfections to beguile them, (and thereof, perchance, are persuaded by their confederates, your very friends as you think,) you yourself will be most of all over-taken. Beware also of the betters by and lookers on, and namely of them that bet on your side; for whilst they look on your game without suspicion, they discover it by signs to your adversaries, with whom they bet and yet are their confederates."

Among the tricks with cards which he notices, are the following: "How to deliver out four Aces and to convert them into four Knaves. How to tell one what card he seeth in the bottom, when the same card is shuffled into the stock. To tell one, without confederacy, what card he thinketh. How to tell what card any man thinketh, how to convey the same into a nut-shell, cherry-stone, &c., and the same again into one's pocket. How to make one draw the same, or any card you list, and all under one devise." The two verses which he quotes in the margin should be inscribed as a motto on the dial-plate of every gamester's watch. "Of dice play, and the like unthrifty games, mark these two old verses, and remember them:

Ludens taxillis, bene respice quid sit in illis: Mors tua, sors tua, res tua, spes tua, pendet in illis."

Rowland, in his 'Judicial Astrology Condemned,' relates the following anecdote of Cuffe, the Secretary of the Earl of Essex, "a man of exquisite wit and learning, but of a turbulent disposition," who was hung at Tyburn, on the 13th of March, 1602, for having counselled and abetted the Earl in his treason. "Cuffe, an excellent Grecian,[141] and Secretary to the Earl of Essex, was told twenty years before his death that he should come to an untimely end, at which Cuffe laughed, and in a scornful manner, intreated the astrologer to show him in what manner he should come to his end; who condescended to him, and calling for cards, intreated Cuffe to draw out of the pack three which pleased him. He did so, and drew three Knaves and laid them on the table with their faces downwards, by the wizard's direction, who then told him, if he desired to see the sum of his bad fortunes, to take up those cards. Cuffe, as he was prescribed, took up the first card, and looking on it, he saw the portraiture of himself, _cap-a-pie_, having men compassing him about with bills and halberds; then he took up the second, and there he saw the judge that sat upon him; and taking up the last card, he saw Tyburn, the place of his execution, and the hangman, at which he laughed heartily; but many years after, being condemned for treason, he remembered and declared this prediction."

Queen Elizabeth, as well as her sister, Mary, was a card player; and even her grave Lord Treasurer, Lord Burleigh, appears to have occasionally taken a hand at Primero.[142] That she sometimes lost her temper, when the cards ran against her, may be fairly inferred from the following passage, which occurs in a letter, written in the latter part of her reign, by Sir Robert Carey to his father, Lord Hunsdon: her violent language must have been the result of her holding a bad hand at the moment that the presence of young Carey reminded her of his father's procrastination. "May it please your L. t'understande that yesterday yn the afternune I stood by hyr Ma^{tie} as she was att Cards in the presens chamber. She cawlde me to hyr, and askte me when you mente too go too Barwyke. I towlde hyr that you determinde to begyn your jorney presently after Whytsontyd. She grew yntoo a grete rage, begynnynge with Gods wonds, that she wolde sett you by the feete, and send another in your place yf you dalyed with hyr thus, for she wolde not be thus dalyed withall.[143]

Though the laity of all ranks and conditions--except apprentices[144]--appear to have played at cards and dice without let or hinderance, notwithstanding any statute to the contrary, yet the clergy seem to have been rather more sharply looked after. In the 'Injunctions geven by the Quenes Majestie, as well to the Clergye as the Laity,' printed by Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1559, the clergy are thus admonished: "Also the sayde ecclesiastical persons shall in no wyse, nor for any other cause then for theyr honeste necessities, haunt or resort to anye Tavernes or Alehouses. And after theyr meates, they shall not geve themselves to any drynkyng or ryot, spendyng theyr tyme idelly by day or by nyght, at dyse, cardes, or tables playing, or anye other unlawfull game."[145] In the 'Injunctions exhibited by John, Bishop of Norwich, at his first visitation, in the third year of our Soveraign Ladie Elizabeth,' printed at London by John Daye, 1561, officials are enjoined to inquire, "Whether any parson, vicare, or curate geve any evell example of lyfe; whether they be incontinent parsones, dronkardes, haunters of tavernes, alehouses, or suspect places; dycers, tablers, carders, swearers, or vehementlie suspected thereof."

A notice of a dramatic representation of the game of cards occurs in the accounts of Queen Elizabeth's 'Master of the Revels,' 1582.[146] In that year he and his officers were commanded "to show on St. Stephen's day at night, before her Majesty at Wyndesore, a Comodie or Morral devised on a game of the cardes," to be performed by the children of her Majesty's Chapel. From the following observations of Sir John Harrington on this "Comodie or Morral," it would seem to have been a severe satire on those Knaves who enrich themselves at the nation's expense: "Then for comedies, to speake of a London comedie, how much good matter, yea and matter of state, is there in that comedie cald the play of the cards? in which it is showed how foure Parasiticalle knaves robbe the foure principall vocations of the Realme, _videlicet_, the vocations of Souldiers, Scollers, Marchants, and Husbandmen. Of which comedie I cannot forget the saying of a notable wise counseller who is now dead (Sir Frauncis Walsinghame), who, when some (to sing Placebo) advised that it should be forbidden, because it was somewhat too plaine, and indeed, as the old saying is, _Sooth boord is no boord_, yet he would have it allowed, adding that it was fit that 'They which doe that they should not, should heare that they would not.'"[147]

The mention of a comedy shown before the Queen at Windsor by the children of her Majesty's Chapel, naturally suggests the recollection of John Lyly's Court Comedies, which were wont to be shown by the same children, as well as by the "children of Poules;" and as in one of those comedies,--Alexander and Campaspe,--Lyly has committed an anachronism with respect to cards,[148] an opportunity is thus afforded of here introducing the pleasantly conceited song that contains the error,--a song, which Elia would have encored, and which even Mrs. Battle herself would have allowed to be sung at the card table during the intermission of the game at the end of a rubber, when cutting in for new partners.[149]

"Cupid and my Campaspe play'd At cards for kisses; Cupid paid: He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows, His mother's doves, and team of sparrows; Loses them too: then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose Growing on's cheek (but none knows how); With these the chrystal on his brow, And then the dimple of his chin: All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes: She won, and Cupid blind doth rise. O Love, has she done this to thee? What shall, alas, become of me!"

Before taking leave of the reign of Elizabeth, it seems proper to insert here what Philip Stubbes says about Cards, Dice, Tables, Tennis, and other games, in his 'Anatomie of Abuses.'[150] "As for Cardes, Dice, Tables, Boules, Tennisse, and such like," says the moral dissector, speaking in the person of Philoponus, "thei are _Furta officiosa_, a certaine kind of smothe, deceiptfull, and sleightie thefte, whereby many a one is spoiled of all that ever he hath, sometimes of his life withall, yea, of bodie and soule for ever: and yet (more is the pitie) these be the only exercises used in every mans house, al the yere through. But especially in Christmas time there is nothyng els used but Cardes, Dice, Tables, Maskyng, Mummyng, Bowling, and such like fooleries. And the reason is, thei think thei have a commission and prerogative that tyme to doe what thei list, and to followe what vanitie they will. But (alas) doe thei thinke that thei are privileged at that time to doe evill? the holier the time is (if one time were holier then another, as it is not) the holier ought their exercises to bee."

He, however, thinks that at some games, under certain circumstances, Christian men may play for the sake of recreation; for, in answer to the question of Spudeus, "Is it not lawfull for one Christian man to plaie with an other at any kinde of game, or to winne his money, if he can?" Philoponus thus replies: "To plaie at Tables, Cardes, Dice, Bowles, or the like, (though a good Christian man will not so idely and vainely spende his golden daies), one Christian with an other, for their private recreations, after some oppression of studie, to drive awaie fantasies, and suche like, I doubt not but thei may, using it moderately, with intermission, and in the feare of God. But for to plaie for lucre of gaine, and for desire onely of his brothers substance, rather then for any other cause, it is at no hande lawfull, or to be suffered. For as it is not lawfull to robbe, steale, and purloine by deceite or sleight, so is it not lawfull to get thy brothers goodes from hym by Cardyng, Dicyng, Tablyng, Boulyng, or any other kind of theft, for these games are no better, nay worser than open theft, for open theft every man can beware of; but this beying a craftie polliticke theft, and commonly doen under pretence of freendship, fewe, or none at all, can beware of it. The commaundement saieth, Thou shall not covet nor desire any thing that belongeth to thy neighbour. Now, it is manifest, that those that plaie for money, not onely covet their brothers money, but also use craft, falshood, and deceite to winne the same."--There are doubtless many card-players, who, conscious of their want of craft, can safely deny the truth of Stubbes's sweeping conclusion; but it is to be feared that most crafty players will not lose if they can avoid it, either by hook or by crook.

In the reign of James I, the game "went bonnily on." His son, Henry, Prince of Wales, who died in 1612, aged nineteen, used occasionally to amuse himself at cards, but so nobly and like himself, as showed that he played only for recreation, and not for the sake of gain.[151] James himself was a card-player; and his favorite game was Maw, which appears to have been the fashionable game in his reign, as Primero was in the reign of Elizabeth. His Majesty appears to have played at cards just as he played with affairs of State--in an indolent manner, requiring in both cases some one to hold his cards, if not to prompt him what to play. Weldon, speaking of the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in his 'Court and Character of King James,' says: "The next that came on the stage, was Sir Thomas Monson; but the night before he was to come to his tryal, the King being at the game of Maw, said, 'to-morrow comes Thomas Monson to his tryal.' 'Yea;' said the King's card-holder, 'where if he do not play his master's prize, your Majesty shall never trust me.' This so ran in the King's mind, that at the next game he said he was sleepy, and would play out that set next night." From the following passage in a pamphlet, entitled 'Tom Tell-troath,' supposed to have been printed about 1622,[152] it would seem that the writer was well acquainted both with his majesty's mode of playing at cards, and with the manner in which he was tricked in his dawdling with state affairs: "In your Majestie's owne tavernes, for one healthe that is begun to your-selfe, there are ten drunke to the Princes your forraygn children. And, when the wine is in their heads, Lord have mercie on their tonges! Ever, in the very gaming ordinaries, where men have scarce leisure to say grace, yet they take a time to censure your Majestie's actions, and that in their oulde schoole terms. They say, you have lost the fairest game at Maw that ever King had, for want of making the best advantage of the five finger, and playing the other helpes in time. That your owne card-holders play bootie, and give the signe out of your owne hand. That hee you played withall hath ever been knowne for the greatest cheater in Christendome.[153] In fine, there is noe way to recover your losses, and vindicate your honour, but with fighting with him that hath cozened you. At which honest downe righte play, you will be hard enough for him with all his trickes."

The following verses, which might have been written by Tom Tell-troath himself, form part of an inscription beneath a caricature engraving of the same period, representing the Kings of England, Denmark, and Sweden, with Bethlem Gabor, engaged in playing at cards, dice, and tables with the Pope and his Monks.[154]

"Denmarke, not sitting farr, and seeing what hand Great Brittayne had, and how Rome's loss did stand, Hopes to win something too: Maw is the game At which he playes, and challengeth at the same A Muncke, who stakes a chalice. Denmarke sets gold, And shuffles; the Muncke cuts: Denmarke being bold, Deales freely round; and the first card he showes Is the five finger, which, being turn'd up, goes Cold to the Muncke's heart; the next Denmarke sees Is the ace of hearts: the Muncke cries out, I lees! Denmarke replyes, Sir Muncke, shew what you have; The Muncke could shew him nothing but the Knave."

From the allusions to the five fingers and the ace of hearts, in the preceding extracts, it would appear that the game of Maw was the same as that which was subsequently called Five-Cards, for, in both games, the five of trumps--called the five fingers--was the best card, and next to that was the ace of hearts.[155]

From the frequent mention of cards by writers of the time of James I, it would appear that the game was as common a diversion with his Majesty's peaceable subjects, as it was with the fighting men who followed the banner of Wallenstein or Tilly in the Thirty-Years' War. Inordinate gaming in one country, according to certain authorities, was the result of long-continued peace and too much ease; according to others, it was the natural consequence of war; in England, the devil, finding men idle, gave them employment at cards and dice; and in Germany, where they were busy in the work of destruction, he encouraged them to play as a relaxation from their regular labours. Prodigals, in each country, lighted their candle at both ends: English gallants used to divert themselves with cards at the playhouse before the performance began;[156] and desperate hazarders in the imperial camp staked, on a cast at dice, their plunder, ere it had well come into their possession.

In the reign of James I, a controversy arose respecting the nature of lots, in which the lawfulness--"_in foro theologorum_"--of deciding matters by lot, and of playing at games of chance, such as cards and dice, was amply discussed. It was maintained by one party, that as lots were of divine ordinance, for the purpose of determining important matters,[157] and of so ascertaining, as it were, the divine will, their employment for the purpose of amusement, was a sinful perversion of their institution, and a disparaging of Divine Providence, which was thus made the arbiter of idle and immoral games.[158] In opposition to this opinion, the learned Thomas Gataker published his treatise, historical and theological, 'Of the Nature and Use of Lots,' in 1619. In this work he treats of casual events in general, and of the different kinds of lots, which he thus classes under three heads: 1, Lots which are commonly employed in serious affairs; 2, Lots which enter into games of chance; 3, Lots extraordinary or divinatory. The first are generally admitted to be innocent; but the third are absolutely condemned by Gataker, except when they are expressly required to be used by a revelation or a divine command.[159] With regard to lots of the second kind, he contends that they are neither prohibited in the Scriptures nor evil of themselves; though, like those of the first, they are liable to great abuse. The abuse he earnestly condemns; but at the same time shows that it is not a necessary consequence of the employment of lots in games of amusement. He also refutes the arguments of James Balmford, who, in a small tract which appears to have been first published about 1593, had maintained that all games of chance were absolutely unlawful. An account of the controversy on this subject, between Gataker on one side, and William Ames and Gisbert Voet on the other, will be found in the preface to the second edition of Barbeyrac's 'Traité du Jeu.'[160]

In the reign of James I, and in the early part of that of his successor, ere the discussion of political grievances had produced a decided effect on the public mind, the fashionable vices of excess in apparel, gaming, drinking, and smoking tobacco, were fertile themes of declamation with a certain class of reformers, both lay and clerical. Their denunciations of the vanity and wickedness of wearing fine clothes are merely variations to Stubbes's 'Anatomy of Abuses;' while their fulminations against tobacco are generally pitched in the somewhat loud key of King James's Counterblast. Their common-places against drunkenness and gaming, are, in general, "very common indeed,"--as Sir Francis Burdett said of a certain common lawyer, who, since his elevation to the peerage, has been convicted of a petty larceny on the literary property of Miss Agnes Strickland, and who seems to be an adept at Cribbage, though no card-player.

In a woodcut on the title-page of 'Woe to Drunkards,' a sermon preached by Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, 1627, the vices of that age are typically contrasted with the virtues of a former one. In the upper compartment we are shown what men were of old by the open Bible, the foot in the stirrup, and the hand grasping the lance; while in the lower, the degeneracy of their descendants is typified by the leg and foot, decorated with a broad silk garter and a large rosette; by cards and dice, and a hand holding at the same time a lighted pipe and a drinking cup with a cockatrice in it. Twenty years afterwards, these types would have been more strictly applicable, with the inscriptions merely transposed.

[Illustration]

At what time the manufacture of cards was established in this country, has not been ascertained; though from their being included in an Act of Parliament of 1463, prohibiting the importation of sundry articles, as being injurious to native manufacturers and tradesmen, it would seem that there were card-makers in England even at that early period.[161] Barrington, referring to a proclamation of Elizabeth, and another of James I, says, "It appears that we did not then make many cards in England." In his paper in the 'Archæologia,' he gives a fac-simile of the cover of an old pack of cards, as a decisive proof that cards were originally made in Spain. On this cover was printed a wood engraving of the arms of Castile and Leon, together with a Club, a Sword, a Cup, and a piece of Money, the marks of the four suits of Spanish cards. To an inscription purporting that they were fine cards, made by JEHAN VOLAY--"Cartas finnas faictes par Jehan Volay"--there was also added, in letters of a different character, either by a stencil, or by means of inserting a new piece of wood in the original block, the name "EDWARD WARMAN," probably that of the English vendor of the cards. The maker's name, Barrington reads, "JE (for JEAN or JOHN) HAUVOLA," and the final Y he mistakes for the Spanish conjunction "and." The whole of the inscription, he says, being rendered into English, runs thus: "Superfine cards made by John Hauvola, and (Edward Warman)," the last name being substituted for that of a former partner of John Hauvola.[162] Mr. Barrington's reading of the maker's name, JE. HAUVOLA, instead of JEHAN VOLAY, and his then introducing _Edward Warman_ into the firm, by means of the final Y, construed as a copulative conjunction, are fair specimens of the proofs and illustrations which he adduces in favour of his theory about Spanish cards.

Jean Volay, as I learn from Leber,[163] was one of the most celebrated French card-makers of the sixteenth century; at what time "Edward Warman" lived, whose name also appears on the cover, is not known; but Mr. Barrington says that a person of that name kept a stationer's shop somewhere about Norton Folgate, about fifty years before the date of his paper, that is about 1737. Any vogue that Spanish cards might have had in the more northerly countries of Europe, during the times of Elizabeth and James I, was probably owing rather to the circumstance of so many Spaniards being then resident in the Low Countries than to any superiority of the cards manufactured in Spain. Until a comparatively recent period, large quantities of cards used to be sent from Antwerp to Spain.[164]

[Illustration]

From the following verses, in "The Knave of Harts his Supplication to the Card Makers," in Samuel Rowlands' satire entitled 'The Knave of Harts,'[165] 1612, it would appear that cards were then commonly manufactured in England, for it cannot be fairly supposed that the Knave's supplication was addressed to foreign card-makers. The foregoing cut, which is a fac-simile of that prefixed to the edition of 1613, shows the Knaves of Hearts and Clubs in the costume complained of.

"We are abused in a great degree, For there's no Knaves so wronged as are we By those that chiefly should be our part-takers: And thus it is, my maisters, you card-makers, All other Knaves are at their own free-will, To brave it out, and follow fashion still In any cut, according to the time, But we poore Knaves (I know not for what crime), Are kept in pie-bald suites, which we have worne Hundred of years; this hardly can be borne. The idle-headed Frenche devis'd us first, Who of all fashion-mongers is the worst; For he doth change farre oftner than the moone; Dislikes his morning suite in th' after-noone. The English is his imitating ape, In every toy the tailors-sheares can shape, Comes dropping after as the divell entices, And putteth on the French-man's cast devices; Ye wee (with whom thus long they both have plaid), Must weare the suites in which we first were made.

* * * * *

How can we choose but have the itching gift, Kept in one kinde of cloaths, and never shift? Or to be scurvy how can we forbeare, That never yet had shirt or band to weare? How bad I and my fellow Diamond goes, We never yet had garter to our hose, Nor any shooe to put upon our feete, With such base cloaths, 'tis e'en a shame to see't; My sleeves are like some morris-dauncing fellow, My stockings idiot-like, red, greene, and yellow: My breeches like a paire of lute-pins be, Scarce buttock-roome, as every man may see. Like three-penie watchmen three of us doe stand, Each with a rustie browne-bill in his hand: And Clubs he holds an arrow, like a clowne, The head-end upward, and the feathers downe. Thus we are wrong'd, and thus we are agriev'd, And thus long time we have beene unreliev'd. But, card-makers, of you Harts reason craves, Why we should be restrained, above all Knaves, To weare such patched and disguis'd attire? Answer but this, of kindnesse, we require.

* * * * *

Good card-makers (if there be goodness in you), Apparell us with more respected care, Put us in hats, our caps are worne thread-bare; Let us have standing collers, in the fashion, (All are become a stiff-necke generation); Rose hat-bands with the shagged-ragged ruffe, Great cabbage-shoostrings (pray you bigge enough), French dublet, and the Spanish hose to breech it, Short cloakes, old mandilions[166] (we beseech it); Exchange our swords, and take away our bils, Let us have rapiers, (Knaves love fight that kils); Put us in bootes, and make us leather legs: This Harts, most humbly, and his fellows begs."

In Rowlands' 'More Knaves Yet? The Knaves of Spades and Diamonds,' published after his 'Knave of Harts,' the Knaves of Spades and Diamonds are represented in a modernised costume, bestowed on them by the printer, and the favour is thus acknowledged.

[Illustration]

"Our fellow Hartes did late petition frame, To card-makers some better sutes to clayme, And for us all, did speake of all our wronges: Yet they, to whom redresse herein belongs Amend it not, and little hope appeares. I thinke before the conquest many yeares, We wore the fashion which we still retaine: But seeing that our sute is spent in vaine, Weele mend our selves as meanes in time doth grow, Accepting what some other friends bestowe. As now the honest printer hath bin kinde, Bootes and stockins to our legs doth finde, Garters, polonia heeles and rose shooe-strings, Which, somewhat, us two knaves in fashion brings; From the knee downeward, legs are well amended, And we acknowledge that we are befrended, And will requite him for it as we can: A knave some time may serve an honest man. To do him pleasure such a chaunce may fall, Although indeed no trust in knaves at all. He that must use them, take this rule from mee, Still trust a knave no further than you see. Well, other friends I hope wee shall beseech For the great large abhominable breech, Like brewers hop-sackes; yet since new they be, Each knave will have them, and why should not wee? Some laundresse we also will intreate, For bandes and ruffes, which kindnes to be great We will confesse, yea and requite it too, In any service that poore knaves can doe: Scarffes we do want, to hange our weapons by, If any punck will deale so courteously As in the way of favour to bestow them, Rare cheating tricks we will protest to owe them. Or any pander with a ring in's eare, That is a gentleman (as he doth sweare), And will afford us hats of newest blocke, A payre of cardes shall be his trade and stocke, To get his lyving by, for lack of lands, Because he scornes to overworke his handes. And thus ere long we trust we shall be fitted, Those knaves that cannot shift are shallow witted."

By a proclamation of Charles I, June, 1638, it was ordered that after the Michaelmas next all foreign cards should be sealed at London, and packed in new bindings, or covers. A few years later, it would appear that the importation of foreign cards was absolutely prohibited; for, in July, 1643, upon the complaint of several poor card-makers, setting forth that they were likely to perish by reason of divers merchants bringing playing-cards into the kingdom, contrary to the laws and statutes, order was given, by a committee appointed by parliament for the navy and customs, that the officers of the customs should seize all such cards, and proceed against the parties offending.[167]

When the civil war commenced, and the people became interested in a sterner game, card-playing appears to have declined. The card-playing gallant whose favorite haunts had been the playhouse and the tavern, now became transformed into a cavalier, and displayed his bravery in the field at the head of a troop of horse; whilst his old opponent, the puritanical minister, incited by a higher spirit of indignation, instead of holding forth on sports and pastimes and household vices, now thundered on the "drum ecclesiastic" against national oppressors; urged his congregation to stand up for their rights as men against the pretensions of absolute monarchy and rampant prelacy, and to try the crab-tree staff against the courtier's dancing rapier.

Among the numerous pamphlets which appeared during the contest there are a few whose titles show that the game of cards, though not so much in vogue as formerly, was still not forgotten.[168] The following are the titles of three of such pamphlets, all quartos, the usual form of the literary light infantry of the period. "Chartæ Scriptæ, or a New Game at Cards, called Play by the Booke, 1645."--"Bloody Game of Cards, played between the King of Hearts and his Suite against the rest of the pack, shuffled at London, cut at Westminster, dealt at York, and played in the open field."--"Shuffling, cutting, and dealing, in a game at pickquet, being acted from the year 1653 to 1655, by O. P. and others, 1659."[169] In a 'Lenten Litany,' a backward prayer for the Rump, written in the time of the Long Parliament, the appointment of three keepers to the great seal is thus commemorated:

"From Villany dressed in a doublet of Zeal, From three Kingdoms baked in one Commonweal, From a Gleek of Lord Keepers of one poor seal Libera nos Domine."[170]

It was probably as much owing to the circumstance of regular playing-cards being in small request, as to any desire to promote learning, that we have the "Scientiall Cards" mentioned in the following title of a work, in which cards are made subservient to the purposes of instruction, and which appears to have been one of the earliest of the kind published in England.[171] "The Scientiall cards; or a new and ingenious knowledge grammatically epitomised, both for the pleasure and profit of schollers, and such as delight to recollect (without any labour) the rudiments of so necessary an art as grammer is, without hindering them from their more necessary and graver studies, offering them as a second course unto you. Which, in all points and suits, do represent your vulgar or common cards; so that the perfection of the grammer principles may hereby be easily attained unto, both with much delight and profit. Together with a key showing the ready use of them. Written by a lover of ingenuity and learning. And are to be sold by Baptist Pendleton at his house, near St. Dunstan's Church in the east, or by John Holden, at the Anchor in the New Exchange. 1651." Of those cards, or of the key, showing how they are to be used, I know nothing beyond what is contained in the title above given, which is preserved amongst Bagford's collections, Harleian MSS. No. 5947, in the British Museum. I, however, greatly suspect that the "lover of learning and ingenuity" who devised them, was specially employed for the purpose by the maker, Mr. Baptist Pendleton, who, sensible of the decline of his regular business, and noting the signs of the times, might think it both for his interest and credit to manufacture cards, which might serve indifferently for the purposes of instruction, but equally as well for play as "your vulgar or common cards," which were then in very bad repute. The Scientiall cards would appear to have been well adapted for the use of persons who wished to save appearances with the Puritans, and yet had no objection to play a quiet game with the profane.

In 1656 was published a little book intitled 'The Schollers Practicall Cards,' by F. Jackson, M.A., containing instructions by means of cards how to spell, write, cypher, and cast accounts; together with many other excellent and necessary rules of calculation, without either almanack or ephemeris. "I am persuaded," says the author in his preface, "that the cards, now in common use, may be reduced to such a way of use as may not only contribute to knowledge and good learning, but may also remove the scandall and abuse, which every tinker that can but tell his peeps [pips] exposeth them unto. To that end I have framed, for the recreation of sober and understanding people, that which (although in form they represent common cards) in the inside, as to the use that be made of them, affords profitable learning and honest recreation: and herein there is much difference; the common cards being meer fiction, like the foolish romances, not applicable to any morall, or anything to be learned by them that is laudable." His method, like all others of the same kind, may be interesting, from its complicated absurdity, to those who already understand what he proposes to teach; but must have formed an almost unsurmountable obstacle to the unlettered, unless they were previously well grounded in Gleek, Ruff, Post and Pair, Saunt,[172] Lodam, and Noddy,--the games to which he chiefly refers in his instructions.

William Sheppard, sergeant-at-law, a great stickler, during the ascendency of the Rump, for the reformation of the law and the correction of manners, thus sets forth certain grievances, and, like a good Samaritan, propounds a remedy for them in his work, entitled 'Englands Balme.'[173]

"It is objected,

"That there is no certain and clear law to punish prophane jesting, fidling, ryming, piping, juggling, fortune-telling, tumbling, dancing upon the rope, vaulting, ballad-singing, sword-playing, or playing of prizes, ape-carrying, puppet-playing, bear-baiting, bull-baiting, horse-racing, cock-fighting, carding, dicing, or other gaming; especially the spending of much time, and the adventuring of great sums of money herein.

"It is offered to consideration,

"That to the laws already made: 1. That it be in the power of any two justices of the peace to binde to the goode behaivour such as are offensive herein. 2. That they be, so long as they use it, uncapable of bearing any office in the commonwealth. 3. That all payments to the commonwealth be doubled on such persons."

His saintly delicacy, if not his Christian charity, is displayed in the following "grievance" and "remedy:"

"There are some other cases wherein the law also is said to be somewhat defective: as

"That there is no law against lascivious gestures, wanton and filthy dalliance and familiarity, whorish attire, strange fashions; such as are naked breasts, bare shoulders, powdering, spotting, painting the face, curling and shearing the hair; excess of apparel in servants and mean people.

"It is offered to consideration,

"1. That the justices of the peace at their Quarter Sessions may binde any such to the good behaivour.

"2. That for a whorish attire, something of note be written upon the door of her house to her disgrace, there to continue till she wear sober attire."

The character of this puritanical reformer's liberality may be estimated by his proposed remedies for the abuses of the press. As his party were in power, there was no longer any occasion for free discussion. Milton was opposed to such canting reformers as Sheppard, and maintained the liberty of unlicensed printing.

"It is objected,

"That there are disorders in printing of books, for which there is no remedy.

"It is offered for this to consider of these things:

"1. That printing-houses be reduced to a number.

"2. That no books be printed but be first perused.

"3. That no dangerous books be printed here, carried beyond sea, and brought in hither.

"4. That the right of every mans copy be preserved.

"5. That every man shall licence his own book and be answerable for it."

On the accession of Charles II, a reaction took place; and people who had felt themselves coerced in their amusements by the puritanical party, seem now to have gloried in their excesses, not so much from any positive pleasure that they might feel in their vicious courses, but as evincing their triumph over those who formerly kept them in restraint. From the example of the king himself, a sensual, selfish profligate, vice became fashionable at court, where gross depravity of manners seems to have been admitted as _prima facie_ evidence of loyal principles. His majesty's personal favorites, from the wealthy noble who had a seat at the council-table, to the poor gentlemen who served as a private in the horse-guards, seem all to have been eager to divert the "merry monarch" by their shameless profligacy. The man of _ton_ of the period, was professionally a rake and a gamester, and often a liar and cheat; boasting of an intrigue with "my lady," while in truth he was _kept_ by "my lord's" mistress; and pretending that he had won a hundred pieces of "the duke," at the groom-porter's at St. James's, when he had merely "rooked" a gay city 'prentice of five pounds at a shilling ordinary in Shire Lane. The morals and manners of the country, generally, at that period, are not, however, to be estimated by those of the court and the so-called "fashionable world." A numerous and influential class remained uncontaminated by their example; and laboured zealously to stem the torrent of vice which, issuing from the court, threatened to deluge the whole country. Though "the saints" no longer enjoyed the fatness of the land, they still exercised great influence over the minds of the middle classes, and fostered in them a deep religious feeling, and a strict observance of decency, which were in direct opposition to the principles and practice of the sovereign and his court. At no period of our history, do the profligacy of one class and the piety of another appear in more striking contrast. On looking closer, however, it would seem that this effect is, in a great degree, produced by the approximation of the extremes of each,--of sinners who painted themselves blacker than they really were, and of saints who heightened their lights and exalted their purity, while they were in truth but as "a whitened wall." A slight glance at the literature of the time of Charles II, will show that mankind do not become worse as the world grows older: the depravity which existed in his reign, is generally dwelt on by historians and moralists, though but few take the trouble of informing their readers that correctives for it, in the shape of good books, were at no period more abundant. For a picture of the manners of the time, we are referred to licentious plays and obscene poems, as if they formed the staple literature of the day,--as if all men frequented the playhouse and read Rochester, but never went to church or conventicle, nor read the numerous moral and religious works which then issued from the press. In the time of Charles II, the representation of plays was almost exclusively confined to London; and it may be questioned if even one of the licentious comedies of the period was represented on a provincial stage. The obscene books which were written in his reign for the entertainment of the fashionable world have sunk into disrepute, and are only to be found in the libraries of collectors of what are termed "Facetiæ;" while those of higher purpose are in constant demand, and are known to millions. More copies of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' have been sold than of all the bad books that ever were written through the encouragement of Charles II and his courtiers.

But to come from this digression to the game we have in hand. Barrington, who is singularly unfortunate in his speculations about cards, and who seems to have been prone to draw general conclusions from special premises, says, that "Ombre was probably introduced by Catherine of Portugal, the queen of Charles II, as Waller hath a poem 'On a card torn at Ombre by the Queen.'" The game, however, was introduced before the arrival of the queen; for a work entitled the 'Royal game of Ombre' was published at London in 1660,[174] and Catherine did not arrive at Portsmouth till 14th May, 1662. Charles, on hearing of the queen's arrival, seems to have intrusted a right reverend prelate with a delicate commission: his majesty, according to Aurelian Cook, Gent., "having sent the Bishop of London thither before him to consummate the sacred rights of marriage, which was to be done in private."[175]

From the following passage in Pepys's Diary, under the date 17th Feb. 1667, it would appear that her majesty was accustomed to play at cards on a Sunday,--a crime of the greatest magnitude in the eyes of certain persons, who insist that the Christian Sunday should be observed like a Jewish Sabbath, and who yet have no objection to roast pig.[176] "This evening," says Mr. Pepys, "going to the Queene's side to see the ladies, I did finde the Queene, the Duchesse of York, and another or two, at cards, with the room full of ladies and great men; which I was amazed at to see on a Sunday, having not believed it, but, contrarily, flatly denied the same a little while since to my cosen Roger Pepys." The Duchess of York here mentioned, was Anne Hyde, first wife of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II. Her daughter, Mary, afterwards Queen of England, used also to play at cards on a Sunday, as we learn from the following passage in the diary of her spiritual director, Dr. Edward Lake, printed in the Camden Miscellany, vol. i, 1847: "Jan. 9. 1677-8. I was very sorry to understand that the Princess of Orange, since her being in Holland, did sometimes play at cards upon the Sundays, which would doubtless give offence to that people. I remember that about two years since being with her highness in her closett, shee required my opinion of it. I told her I could not say 'twas a sin to do so, but 'twas not expedient; and, for fear of giving offence, I advised her highness not to do it, nor did shee play upon Sundays while shee continued here in England." Card-playing on Sundays would appear to have been equally common with the select circle who had the honour of partaking of his majesty's amusements. Evelyn, in his Memoirs, writing on 6th Feb. 1685, the day when James II was proclaimed, says, "I never can forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day se'nnight I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing love songs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset[177] round a large table; a bank of at least £2000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after, all was in the dust!"

In the sixteenth year of the reign of Charles II an act was passed which might justly be entitled "An Act to legalise Gaming; to prevent wealthy Pigeons being plucked by artful Rooks, and to discourage Betting or Playing for large Sums upon Tick." An act of the same kind, passed in the reign of Queen Anne, was repealed in 1844, in consequence of its penalties being likely to fall heavy on some eminent sporting characters who had been so indiscreet as to receive sundry large sums in payment of bets lost to them upon credit. Its enactment and its repeal are significant indications of the state of the sporting world at the two respective periods. It seems to have been framed on a presumption that, in gaming, noble and wealthy sportsmen would be most likely to lose; and to have been repealed because certain noble and wealthy sportsmen had won, and received their bets. The parties in whose favour the act was repealed, were said to have been liable to penalties to the amount of £500,000: the law did not anticipate that lords and squires would be winners, nor intend that needy prosecutors should be enriched at their expense. The preamble and some of the provisions of the act of Charles II are here given as "Curiosities of Gambling Legislation."

"Whereas all lawful Games and Exercises should not be otherwise used than as innocent and moderate recreations, and not as constant trades or callings, to gain a living, or make unlawful advantage thereby; and whereas by the immoderate use of them many mischiefs and inconveniences do arise, and are dayly found to the maintaining and encouraging of sundry idle, loose, and disorderly persons in their dishonest, lewd, and dissolute course of life, and to the circumventing, deceiving, cousening, and debauching of many of the younger sort, both of the nobility and gentry, and others, to the loss of their precious time, and the utter ruin of their estates and fortunes, and withdrawing them from noble and laudable employments and exercises.

"Be it therefore enacted, that if any person or persons, of any degree or quality whatsoever, shall by any fraud, cousenage, circumvention, deceit, &c. in playing at Cards, Dice, Tables, Tennis, Bowls, Kittles, Shovel-board, or in or by Cock-fightings, Horse-races, Dog-matches, or Foot-races &c. or by betting on the sides or hands of such as play, win, obtain, or acquire any sum or sums of money or any other valuable thing; that then every person so offending shall _ipso facto_ forfeit treble the sum or value of money, or other thing, so won, gained, or acquired.

"And for the better avoiding and preventing of all excessive and immoderate playing and gaming for the time to come, be it further enacted, that if any person shall play at any of the said games, or any other pastime whatsoever (otherwise than with and for ready money), or shall bet on the sides of such as play, and shall lose any sum of money or other thing played for, exceeding the sum of one hundred pounds, at one time or meeting, upon ticket or credit, or otherwise, and shall not pay down the same at the time when he shall so lose the same, the party who loseth the said moneys, or other things so played for, above the said sum of one hundred pounds, shall not, in that case, be bound or compelled to pay or make good the same; and that all Contracts, Judgments, Statutes, Recognizances, Mortgages, &c. made, given, acknowledged, or entered for security and payment of the same shall be utterly void and of none effect. And, lastly, it is enacted, that the person, or persons, so winning the said moneys, or other things, shall forfeit and lose treble the value of all such sum and sums of money, or other thing which he shall so win (above the said sum of one hundred pounds), the one moiety to the King, and the other to the Prosecutor." The passion for gaming at that period, and its consequences to wealthy flats, are thus described by Dryden:

"What age so large a crop of vices bore, Or when was avarice extended more? When were the dice with more profusion thrown? The well-filled fob not emptied now alone, But gamesters for whole patrimonies play: The steward brings the deeds which must convey The lost estate. What more than madness reigns, When one short sitting many hundreds drains, And not enough is left him to supply Board wages, or a footman's livery?"

During the reign of Charles II, the business of card-making greatly increased in England: and the game appears to have been so generally understood as to induce many ingenious persons to employ cards not only as a means of diffusing useful and entertaining knowledge, but also of advertising their wares. The same mode of instruction was adopted about the same period in France; but in England it appears to have embraced a wider range of subjects; in France, scientific cards appear to have been devised for the exclusive use of the nobility and gentry, and to have been confined to their instruction in the conundrums of heraldry and the elements of history and geography;[178] while in England they were "adapted to the meanest capacity;" and in addition to the uses for which they were employed in France, were made subservient to the purposes of communicating knowledge in grammar, history, politics, morality, mathematics, and the art of carving.

A Mons. De Brainville invented at Lyons, about 1660, a pack of Heraldic cards, in which the Aces and Knaves, "les As et Valets," were represented by the arms of certain princes and nobles. Now as this was evidently a breach of etiquette and a derogation of heraldic nobility--Mons. De Brainville, like Mr. Anstis, does not seem to have rightly understood his own "foolish business"[179]--the plates were seized by the magistrates. As it appeared, however, that he had given offence through pure inadvertence, and not with any satirical intention, the plates were restored to him on condition of his altering the odious names of "As" and "Valets" into Princes and Chevaliers. In 1678 Antoine Bulifon carried the same kind of cards to Naples, where Don Annibal Aquaviva established a society to play at Blazon, under the name of "Armeristi," with the map of Europe for a device, and the motto, "Pulchra sub imagine Ludi."[180]

About the same time that Heraldic cards were introduced into Naples, a pack of the same kind as these of Mons. De Brainville were engraved in England. In these cards, specimens of which are given in the annexed plate, the honours of the several suits are thus represented. Each of the cards representing a Knave, is marked P, for Prince; and a stamp appears on the Ace of Spades.

CLUBS. KING, by the arms of the Pope. QUEEN " King of Naples. PRINCE (Knave) " Duke of Savoy. ACE " Republics of Venice, Genoa, and Lucca.

SPADES. KING " King of France. QUEEN " Sons of France, the Dauphin, Duke of Anjou, and Duke of Orleans. PRINCE " Princes of the Blood--Bourbon, Berry, Vendome, and Alençon. ACE " Ecclesiastical Peers--Rheims, Langres, and Laon. DIAMONDS. KING " King of Spain. QUEEN " King of Portugal. PRINCE " Castile and Leon. ACE " Arragon.

HEARTS. KING " King of England. QUEEN " Emperor of Germany. PRINCE " Bohemia and Hungary. ACE " Poland.

In the annexed specimens, which are of the same size as the originals, the honours represented are the King of Clubs, the Queen of Hearts, the King of Diamonds, and the Ace of Spades. The arms of the Pope, representing the King of Clubs, are those of Clement IX, who was elected 20th June, 1667, and died 9th December, 1669.

In another pack of Heraldic cards, relating entirely to England, probably engraved about the same period, the armorial ensigns of the King and the nobility were thus distributed amongst the _Têtes_ and _Pips_.[181] The King and Queen of Hearts were respectively represented by the arms of England and of the Duke of York; of Diamonds, by the arms of Ireland, and of Prince Rupert; of Spades, by the arms of France, and of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York; and of Clubs, by the arms of Scotland, and of the Dukes of Norfolk, Somerset, and Buckingham. In this pack there were no Knaves. The arms of the Earls were distributed amongst the sevens, eights, nines, and tens; the Viscounts furnished the sixes; the Bishops were quartered on the fives; and the Barons' coats armorial clothed the nakedness of the lower orders, from the fours to the aces,--the aces in the Heraldic game being low. From a kind of title-page, or perhaps wrapper, preserved in Bagford's collection, in the British Museum, it would appear that the publication of those cards was licensed by the Duke of Norfolk, as Earl Marshal of England, and as such entitled to take cognizance of all matters relating to heraldry.

[Illustration: _The_ POPE, _The_ EMPEROUR

_Castille & Leon_,

_Eclesiasticks Dukes and Peirs (Reims, Longres, Laon)_]

In playing the game armorial with Heraldic cards, the players were required to properly describe the various colours and charges of the different shields; but as this could not be done without some previous knowledge of the science of heraldry, a Mons. Gauthier was led to devise, about 1686, a new pack of Heraldic cards, simply explaining the terms of blazon, and thus serving as an introduction to the grand game.[182] The Heraldic game, however, never was popular; and does not even appear to have been in much esteem with the higher orders, for whose instruction and entertainment it was specially devised. It would seem to have declined in France with the glory of Louis XIV, and not to have survived the Revolution in England.

About 1679, there was published a pack of cards, containing, according to the advertisement, "An History of all the Popish Plots that have been in England, beginning with those in Queen Elizabeth's time, and ending with the last damnable plot against his Majesty Charles II, with the manner of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's murder, &c. All excellently engraved on copper-plates, with very large descriptions under each card. The like not extant. Sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers Hall, and by most booksellers, price One Shilling each pack." In a "puff collusive,"[183] forming a kind of postscript to this announcement, approbation of these cards is thus indirectly made a test of staunch Protestantism. "Some persons who care not what they say, and to whom lying is as necessary as eating, have endeavoured to asperse this pack by a malitious libel, intimating that it did not answer what is proposed. The contrary is evident. Aspersers of this pack plainly show themselves popishly affected."[184]

Such a pack of cards as that announced in the advertisement referred to--"containing an history of all the popish plots that have been in England, beginning with those in Queen Elizabeth's time"--I have never seen; and from the objection which was made to it at the time, namely, that "it did not answer what was proposed," I am inclined to think that it was the same pack as that which relates entirely to the pretended Popish plot of 1678, and the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. A pack of the latter now before me appears to have been published about 1680, and certainly subsequent to the 18th of July, 1679; as on the Four of Clubs is represented the trial of Sir George Wakeman and three Benedictine monks, who on that day were arraigned at the Old Bailey on an indictment of high treason for conspiring to poison the king. The complete pack consists of fifty-two cards; and each contains a subject, neatly engraved, either relating to the plot or the trial and punishment of the conspirators, with a brief explanation at the foot. At the top are the marks of the suit; and the value of the low cards, from one to ten, is expressed in Roman numerals. The suits of Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs consist chiefly of illustrations of the pretended plot, as detailed in the evidence of Titus Oates and Captain Bedloe; while the suit of Clubs relates entirely to the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. An idea of the whole pack may be formed from the following description of a few of the cards of each suit. HEARTS: King: the King and privy councillors seated at the council-table; Titus Oates standing before them: inscription at the foot, "_Dr. Oates discovereth y^e Plot to y^e King and Councell_." The Eight: "_Coleman writeing a declaration and letters to la Chess_,"--Père la Chaise. The Ace: the Pope with three cardinals and a bishop at a table, and the devil underneath: "_The Plot first hatcht at Rome by the Pope and Cardinalls, &c._" DIAMONDS: Knave: "_Pickerin attempts to kill y^e K. in S^t James Park_." The Four: "_Whitebread made Provintiall_." The Ace: "_The consult at the white horse Taverne_." CLUBS: King: "_Cap^t Bedlow examind by y^e secret Comitee of the House of Commons_." The Nine: "_Father Connyers preaching against y^e oathes of alegiance & supremacy_." The Six: "_Cap^t Berry and Alderman Brooks are offer'd_ 500£ _to cast the plot on the Protestants_." SPADES: Queen: "_The Club at y^e Plow Ale house for the murther of S. E. B. Godfree_." The Nine: "_S^r E. B. Godfree strangled, Girald going to stab him_." The Five: "_The body of S^r E. B. G. carry'd to Primrose hill on a horse_."

Another pack of historical cards, apparently published in the same reign, but of inferior execution to the former, appears to have related to the Rye-house plot. As these cards are of even greater rarity than those relating to the Popish plot, the following description of four of them--all that I have ever seen--is here given as a stimulus to collectors. Queen of Hearts: "_Thompson one of y^e conspirators taken at Hammersmith_." Knave of Diamonds: "_Rumbold the malster_;" on a label proceeding from his mouth is the inscription, "_They shall dye_." Ace of Clubs: "_Keeling troubled in mind_:" on a label proceeding from his mouth, "_King killing is damnable_." Ace of Spades: "_Hone taken prisoner at Cambridge_." Shortly after the Revolution of 1688, one or two packs of cards appeared with subjects relating to the misgovernment of James II, and the birth of his son the Prince of Wales. In the reign of either Charles II or James II was published a pack of mathematical cards, by Thomas Tuttell, "mathematical instrument-maker to the King's most excellent Majesty." Those cards were designed by Boitard, and engraved by J. Savage; they represent various kinds of mathematical instruments, together with the trades and professions in which they are used. They were evidently "got up" as an advertisement. A few years afterwards, Moxon, also a mathematical instrument-maker, followed suit.

"It would be difficult," says Mons. Leber, "to name an elementary book of science or art, which had not a pack of cards as an auxiliary. Grammar, Rhetoric, Fable, Geography, History, Heraldry, the principles of Morals and Politics,--all these things, and many others besides, were to be learnt through the medium of play. The game of cards had served for the amusement of a royal lunatic; and similar games were comprehended in the plan for the education of one of our greatest kings.[185]--Though France had a large share in the dissemination of such treasures of knowledge, England showed herself not less diligent in working the same mine; if to us she owes the game of Piquet, it is from her own proper resources that she has endowed the culinary art with a game of a different kind, yet highly interesting considered in its relation to the play of the jaws, the most ancient and highly esteemed of all play. It was in December, 1692, that the London papers first announced to the world the invention of the game of Carving at Table. This precious announcement is conceived in the following terms: 'THE GENTEEL HOUSEKEEPER'S PASTIME; or the mode of Carving at the table, represented in a pack of Playing Cards, with a book by which any ordinary capacity may learn how to cut up, or carve in mode, all the most usual dishes of flesh, fish, fowl, and baked meats, with the several sawces and garnishes proper to each dish of meat. Price 1_s._ 6_d._ Sold by J. Moxon, Warwick Lane.'"[186] In those cards the suit of Hearts is occupied by flesh; Diamonds by fowl; Clubs by fish; and Spades by baked meats. The King of Hearts presides over a sirloin of beef; of Diamonds over a turkey; of Clubs over a pickled herring; and of Spades over a venison pasty. A red stamp on the Ace of Spades belonging to a pack which I have had an opportunity of examining, contains the words "Six pence." If this was the duty on each pack, it was certainly great for the period.

In the reign of Queen Anne and that of George I, several packs of satirical and fanciful cards were published. A pack of the latter description, now in the possession of Thomas Heywood, Esq., of Pendleton, near Manchester, relates entirely to the subject of love. Each card is neatly engraved on copper; and, from the stamp on the Ace of Spades, it appears evident that they were manufactured and sold for the purposes of play. The subject of this card is a Cupid plucking a rose, with the inscription "In love no pleasure without pain," and the following verses at the foot:

"As when we reach to crop y^e blooming rose From off its by'r, y^e thorns will interpose; So when we strive the beauteous nymph to gain, Y^e pleasures we pursue are mixed with pain."

All the other cards have, in the same manner, explanatory verses at the foot. The mark of the suit is placed at the top, to the left, and above it is engraved the value of the card, in Roman numerals. In the coat cards, the name of each,--King, Queen, or Knave--is engraved above the mark of the suit. This pack has been in the possession of Mr. Heywood's family for upwards of a century.

A pack of satirical cards, belonging to W. H. Diamond, Esq., Frith street, Soho square, appear to have been executed about the same time. Each subject has an explanatory couplet at the bottom, and the value of each in the game is indicated by a small card engraved at the top, to the left. As in the other pack, there is a red stamp on the Ace of Spades. All the subjects are coarsely engraved, though some of them display points of character very much in the style of Hogarth. In the Three of Spades there is a billiard-table, at which a gentleman is playing with a curved cue. The inscription is:

"Think not a losing gamester will be fair, "Who at y^e best ne're playd upon the square."

In the Ten of Spades, a Moorfields quack is seen pointing to his sign, with the inscription:

"To famed Moorfields I dayly do repair; Kill worms, cure itch, and make y^e ladies fair."

In the Ace of Diamonds, a lady is seen showing her palm to a fortune-teller, with the inscription:

"How can you hope this Gipsey drabb should know The Fates decrees, and who was made for you."

In the Four of Diamonds, a lady is seen exchanging some of her clothes for china ware, with an itinerant dealer. The inscription is:

"Your pockets, madam, surely are wondrous bare, To sell your very clothes for china ware."

In the Ten of Diamonds, the interior of a shop is shown, with articles of plate on the shelves. A woman is standing behind the counter, on which are a box and dice, and in front are a lady and gentleman who seem to have just thrown. The inscription is:

"At Epsom oft these rafflings I have seen, But assignation's what they chiefly mean."

In England, books containing instructions for playing at cards appear to have been first published in the reign of Charles II, to the great benefit, most assuredly, of all adepts who had acquired their knowledge by practice; for in card-playing, as well as in chemistry, the experienced manipulators have a great advantage over the merely book-learned when matters are brought to the test. The real science of play is not to be acquired by the study of books, but by frequent encounters across the table, with men, whose keenness ensures attention to the rules of the game. But, even with the knowledge thus acquired, the proficient will gain but little, unless he also be skilled in the discrimination of flats and sharps.

In 1670, an edition of a book entitled 'Wits Interpreter,' was enlarged with directions for playing the "Courtly Games of L'Hombre, Piquit, Gleek, and Cribbage;" and in 1674 appeared Cotton's "Compleat Gamester; or, Instructions how to play at all manner of usual and most Gentile games, either on Cards, Dice, Billiards, Trucks, Bowls, or Chess." This book was several times reprinted; and in an edition published in 1709, the following are enumerated as the principal games at cards: Piquet; Gleek; l'Ombre, a Spanish game; Cribbage; All-Fours; English Ruff and Honours, alias Slam; Whist; French Ruff; Five Cards; a game called Costly Colours; Bone-Ace; Put, and the High Game; Wit and Reason, a game so called; a Pastime called the Art of Memory; a game called Plain-Dealing; a game called Queen Nazareen; Lanterloo; a game called Penneech; Bankafalet; Beast;[187] and Basset.[188]

The game of Whist, or Whisk, as it seems to have been usually called, is unquestionably of English origin, and appears to have been popular long before it became fashionable.

"Let India vaunt her children's vast address, Who first contriv'd the warlike sport of Chess; Let nice Piquette the boast of France remain, And studious Ombre be the pride of Spain; Invention's praise shall England yield to none, While she can call delightful Whist her own. But to what name we this distinction owe, Is not so easy for us now to know: The British annals all are silent here, Nor deign one friendly hint our doubts to clear: Ev'n HUME himself, whose philosophic mind Could not but love a pastime so refin'd: Ungrateful HUME, who, till his dying day, Continued still his fav'rite game to play;[189] Tho' many a curious fact his page supplies, To this important point a place denies."[190]

Barrington's observations on the introduction of the game into respectable company, are as follows: "Quadrille (a species of Ombre) obtained a vogue upon the disuse of the latter, which it maintained till Whisk was introduced, which now [1787] prevails not only in England, but in most of the civilized parts of Europe.[191] If it may not possibly be supposed that the game of Trumps (which I have before taken notice of, as alluded to in one of the old plays contained in Dodsley's Collection) is Whisk, I rather conceive that the first mention of that game is to be found in Farquhar's 'Beaux Stratagem,' which was written in the very beginning of the present century.[192] It was then played with what were called _Swabbers_,[193] which were possibly so termed, because they who had certain cards in their hand were entitled to take up a share of the stake, independent of the general event of the game. The fortunate, therefore, clearing the board of this extraordinary stake, might be compared by seamen to the _Swabbers_ (or cleaners of the deck), in which sense the term is still used. Be this as it may, Whisk seems never to have been played on principles till about fifty years ago, when it was much studied by a set of gentlemen who frequented the Crown coffee-house in Bedford row: before that time it was confined chiefly to the servants' hall with All-Fours and Put."

From Mr. Barrington's own references it would appear to have been a favorite game with country squires about 1707, the date of the Beaux Stratagem; and occasionally indulged in by clergymen about 1728, the date of Swift's Essay on the Fates of Clergymen. Their example, however, seems to have been unable to retrieve it from the character of vulgarity, until it was seriously taken up by "a set of gentlemen," who appear to have commenced their studies at the Crown coffee-house, in Bedford row, just about the time that the Treatise on Whist, by "Edmond Hoyle, Gent.," was first published by Thomas Osborne, at Gray's Inn. The studies of such gentlemen, and the celebrity of their scientific instructor, are thus commemorated in the prologue to the 'Humours of Whist,' a dramatic satire quoted in the preceding page.

"Who will believe that man could e'er exist Who spent near half an age in studying Whist; Grew grey with Calculation,--Labour hard!-- As if Life's business centred in a card? That such there is, let me to those appeal, Who with such liberal hands reward his zeal. Lo! Whist he makes a science; and our Peers Deign to turn school-boys in their riper years; Kings too, and Viceroys, proud to play the game, Devour his learned page in quest of Fame: While lordly sharpers dupe away at WHITE's, And scarce leave one poor cull for common bites."

Though Mr. Barrington has not assigned any grounds for supposing that Whist was the same game as that which was formerly called Trumps, or Trump, it is not unlikely that he was induced to suggest the possibility of their being the same from his having read, in 'The Compleat Gamester,' that Whist differed but little from the game called English Ruff and Honours, and in consequence of his having learnt, from Cotgrave's Dictionary, that Ruff and Trump were the same.[194] He says, in a note, that "In 1664, a book was published, entitled 'The Compleat Gamester,' which takes no notice of Whisk." Though it be true that "Whisk" is not named in the first edition of the book--printed in 1674, not 1664--yet the following passage, distinctly asserting that Whist was then a common game in all parts of England, appears in the second edition published in 1680.

"Ruff and Honours (by some called Slam), and Whist, are games so common in England, in all parts thereof, that every child almost, of eight years, hath a competent knowledge in that recreation; and therefore I am more unwilling to speak anything more of them than this, that there may be a great deal of art used in dealing and playing at these games, which differ very little one from the other." In the 'Memoirs of the most Famous Gamesters, from the reign of Charles II, to that of Queen Anne,' 1714, a sharper named Johnson, who was hanged in 1690, is mentioned as having excelled in the art of securing honours for himself and partner when dealing at Whist; and in the works of Taylor the Water-poet, printed in 1630, Whisk is mentioned among the games at which the prodigal squanders his money:

"The prodigalls estate like to a flux, The Mercer, Draper, and the Silkman sucks: The Taylor, Millainer, Dogs, Drabs, and Dice, Trey-trip, or Passage, or the Most-at-thrice. At Irish, Tick-tacke, Doublets, Draughts, or Chesse, He flings his money free with carelessnesse: At Novum, Mumchance, Mischance (chuse ye which), At One-and-thirty, or at Poor-and-rich, Ruffe, Slam, Trump, Noddy, Whisk, Hole, Sant, New-cut. Unto the keeping of four Knaves he'll put His whole estate; at Loadum or at Gleeke, At Tickle-me quickly, he's a merry Greek; At Primifisto, Post-and payre, Primero, Maw, Whip-her-ginny, he's a lib'ral hero; At My-sow pigg'd: but (reader, never doubt ye) He's skill'd in all games, except Looke about ye. Bowles, Shove-groat, Tennis, no game comes amiss, His purse a nurse for anybody is; Caroches, Coaches, and Tobacconists, All sorts of people freely from his fists His vaine expenses daily sucke and soake, And he himself suckes only drinke and smoake. And thus the Prodigall, himselfe alone, Gives sucke to thousands, and himself sucks none."[195]

In an edition of 'The Compleat Gamester' of 1709, it is said that the game of Whist is so called from the silence that is to be observed in the play; and Dr. Johnson, from the manner in which he explains the term, seems to have favoured this opinion: "Whist, a game at cards, requiring close attention and silence."[196] The name, however, appears more likely to have been a corruption of the older one of Whisk. As the game of Whisk and Swabbers was nearly the same as that of the still older one of Ruff and Honours, it would seem that the two former terms were merely the ludicrous synonyms of the latter,--introduced perhaps about the time that Ruffs were going out of fashion, and when the Honours represented by the coat cards were at a discount. The fact that a game, so interesting in itself, should be so slighted, as it was, by the higher orders, from the reign of Charles II to that of George II, would seem to intimate that they were well aware of the ridicule intended to be conveyed by its popular name of Whisk and Swabbers. Looking at the conjunction of these terms, and considering their primary meaning,[197] there can scarcely be a doubt that the former was the original of Whist, the name under which the game subsequently obtained an introduction to fashionable society, the Swabbers having been deposed and the Honours restored.

In playing the game, Swabbers seem to have signified either the Honours, or the points gained through holding them. At the older game of Ruff and Honours, Ruff signified the Trump. It would appear that when the Ruff was called a Whisk, in ridicule of the Ruff proper, the Honours, or points gained through them were, "in concatenation accordingly, designated Swabbers." In the present day, a Parisian tailor calls, facetiously, the shirt-ruffle of a shopmate a damping clout; and Philip Stubbes, in his 'Anatomie of Abuses,' 1583, thus speaks of the ruffs of the gallants of his time: "Thei have great and monsterous ruffes, made either of cambricke, holland, lawne, or els of some other the finest cloth that can be got for money, whereof some be a quarter of a yarde deepe, yea some more, very few lesse: so that thei stande a full quarter of a yarde (and more) from their necks, hanging over their shoulder points instead of a vaile. But if Æolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his stormes, chaunce to hit upon the crasie barke of their bruised ruffes, then they goeth flip-flap in the winde, like ragges that flew abroode, lying upon their shoulders like the dishcloute of a slut."

In the reign of Queen Anne, card-playing seems to have attained its full tide in every part of civilized Europe. In England, in particular, it was at once fashionable and popular; Ombre was the favorite game of the ladies; and Piquet of the gentlemen, _par excellence_; clergymen and country squires rubbed on at Whist; and the lower orders shuffled away at All-Fours, Put, Cribbage, and Lanterloo. Subsequently some of the games may have been more diligently studied, and the chances more nicely calculated "on principles," but at no other time, either before or since, was card-playing more prevalent amongst people of all classes. The more pious indeed did their best to discourage the general passion for play; but their dissuasions appear to have produced but little effect; as indeed might be expected at a period when one of the first statesmen of the time piqued himself rather on his skill in gaming than on his political reputation, and when kind landlords, of the Sir Roger de Coverley school, used to send a string of hog's puddings and a pack of cards as a Christmas gift to every poor family in the parish.[198] The character of the statesman alluded to--Lord Godolphin, who died 1712,[199]--is thus sketched by Pope in his first Moral Epistle:

"Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, His hand unstained, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head! all interests weighed, All Europe saved, yet Britain not betrayed? He thanks you not; his pride is in piquette, Newmarket fame, and judgement in a bet."

The following particulars relating to the manufacture of cards in the reign of Queen Anne, are derived from a broadside entitled "Considerations in relation to the Imposition on Cards, humbly submitted to the Hon. House of Commons." It is without date, but was certainly printed in the reign of Queen Anne, for the purpose of being circulated among the members of the House of Commons on the occasion of a proposal to lay a tax of sixpence per pack on cards. "Nine parts in ten of the cards now made," it is stated, "are sold from 6_s._ to 24_s._ per gross; and even these at 6_s._ will by this duty be subjected to £3 12_s._ tax. This, with submission, will destroy nine parts in ten of the manufacture; for those cards which are now bought for 3_d._ [per pack] can't then be afforded under 10_d._ or 1_s._ If any of your honours hope by this tax to suppress expensive card-playing, it is answered that the common sort who play for innocent diversion will only be hindered; the sharp gamesters who play for money will not be discouraged; for those who play for many pounds a game will not be hindered by 12_d._ a pack." There were then 40,000 reams of Genoa white paper annually imported, chiefly for the purpose of making cards. The business was in the hands of small masters, mostly poor, of whom there were no less than a hundred, in and about London. Their price to retailers, one sort of cards with another, was three halfpence a pack, and their profit not above a halfpenny. Though cards were at that period much smaller than they are at present, it is difficult to conceive how they could be manufactured at so low a price.

As Pope's description of the game of Ombre in the Rape of the Lock has been so frequently referred to by writers of all kinds,--whether treating, like Richard Seymour, Esq., on Court Games, or, like Miss Mitford, on Country Contentments,[200]--the omission of a reference to it here might be considered a gross oversight; but as it is impossible to go a pitch beyond the encomiums which have been bestowed on it, the following remarks by an old author may be introduced as a variation: "Mr. Pope, too, most certainly has his merit; yet the generality of polite men heed him little more than a pack-horse upon the road; they hear the jingle of his bells and pass on, without thinking of the treasure he carries. I have frequently thought it odd, that in all the good company I have kept, I never heard a line quoted from any part of him, unless, now and then, an accidental one, from his beautiful and accurate description of the game of Ombre."[201]

During the greater portion of the "Georgian Era" it would seem that cards were as much played at by all classes as in the reign of Queen Anne. In the early part of George I, Seymour published his 'Court Gamester,' written, as the title-page states, for the use of the young Princesses.[202] The only games of which Mr. Seymour treats are Ombre, Piquet, and the Royal Game of Chess. His instructions for playing at Ombre and Piquet are minute and precise, and have all the appearance of having been adapted for royal capacities. At cards with princesses, he may have been a master, in both senses of the word, and have played, in any company, a "decent hand;" but at Chess, it is evident, he was a mere novice,--"aut caprimulgus, aut fossor." Though, in the title-page, the work is said to have been written for the use of the young princesses, yet, in the preface, the author candidly acknowledges that he had been induced to compile it for the fashionable world at large, seeing that "gaming had become so much the fashion among the beau-monde, that he who in company should appear ignorant of the games in vogue would be reckoned low-bred and hardly fit for conversation." In his explanation of the Spanish terms employed in the game of Ombre, he is laudably precise; though when he renders the words, "_No se deve, por Dios_," by "_It is not lost, by G--d_," he seems wishful rather to give the spirit of the exclamation than the simple meaning of the phrase, and to be emphatic even at the risk of appearing profane. It is to be hoped that the princesses confined themselves to the original Spanish, and that they were ignorant that it contained an oath, supposing the objectionable English words to be merely added, _elegantiæ causa_, by their polite teacher.

About the time that Seymour's 'Court Gamester' was first published, a spirit of gambling seems to have pervaded all classes. Skill in the games at cards most in vogue was a test of gentility; stock-jobbing, or speculating for a rise or a fall in the public funds, had become a regular trade; and even pious ministers, of high dissenting principles, who looked on card-playing as sinful, scrambled as eagerly as the most profane for shares of South Sea stock, and were blinded to the sense of Christian duty by the dazzling hope of becoming suddenly rich. The South Sea bubble, however, at length burst, and its promoters and their dupes were appropriately caricatured in a pack of cards.[203] The South Sea directors, instead of having thousands of pounds presented to them by the shareholders, as a tribute to their speculative genius, were summoned before a parliamentary committee to give an account of their estates. Parliamentary committees have of late been employed for a purpose widely different:

"... multi Committunt eadem diverso crimina fato: Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic _diadema_."

About 1737, Hoyle's 'Treatise on Whist' was first published. The work, which seems to have been admirably adapted to the wants of society at the time, was most favorably received; and in the course of the succeeding ten or twelve years it ran through as many editions as Lindley Murray's Grammar, in the same period, in modern times. It proved a "lucky hit," both for the author and the publisher, who took every precaution to secure their copyright: injunctions were held up _in terrorem_ against pirates; and purchasers were informed that no copies of the work were genuine unless they bore the signatures of

[Illustration: Signature of Edmond Hoyle.]

AND

[Illustration: Signature of Tho. Osborne]

The race of "Wits," who had previously exercised no small influence on the world of fashion, was then on the decline; the beau-monde had acquired the ascendency over Grub street; and gentlemen of rank and fashion formed themselves into clubs, for the purposes of gaming and social intercourse, from which thread-bare poets and hack pamphleteers were excluded by the very terms of subscription, to say nothing of the preliminary ordeal of the ballot. Those were the golden days of Beau Nash; when George the Second was king; and his son, the Duke of Cumberland, the patron of Broughton and Figg; when Cibber was Poet-Laureate, and when Quin's brutality passed for wit; when the Guards, the pride of the army, were such heroes as we see them in Hogarth's March to Finchley; and when such statesmen as Bubb Doddington had the entrée, by the back stairs, both at Leicester House and St. James's. Even those who professed to correct the vices of the age seem in some degree to have been infected with its spirit; Richardson, the novelist, writing with the ostensible design of reforming "Rakes" and retaining innocent young women in the paths of virtue, seems often to indulge, more especially in Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe, in describing scenes and suggesting circumstances which only could have been conceived by a prurient imagination; and even John Wesley appears to have encouraged his poor converted sinners to exaggerate their petty vices, when speaking their experience at a love-feast, and to dwell, with a peculiar kind of complacency, on their former state of carnal wickedness as compared with their present state of spiritual grace,--just as William Huntington, S.S., when in the fulness of sanctity, dwelt on the memory of his former backslidings, and told all the world, with ill-dissembled pride, that his first-born love-begotten son was an exact copy of his father, both in humour and in person.

The reign of Beau Nash at Bath forms a "brilliant" era in the annals of ostentatious frivolity. Under his auspices the City of the Sick[204] became the favorite place of resort for the fashionable and the gay; and in the pools where formerly lepers alone washed to cleanse them of their sores, smooth-skinned ladies dabbled for pleasure, to the sound of soft music, while gentlemen, enraptured, looked on.[205] The Beau was admirably fitted, from his mercurial talents, to discharge the peculiar duties of purveyor of pleasure to the fashionable society of his age: he could administer flattery to a duchess while he pretended to reprove her; and could persuade the little madams, of the Would-be family, that they were honoured by his patronising condescension, at the very time that he was endeavouring to make them appear ridiculous, for the amusement of _real_ ladies. He displayed great tact in bringing parties together who wished to be better acquainted, and denounced scandal as the bane of fashionable society. He promoted play as a recreation for the polite of both sexes; and encouraged dancing, not only as a healthy exercise _per se_, but for the benefit of the rooms, and for the sake of aiding the salutary operation of the waters. In his dress he was "conspicuously queer," as was requisite in a Master of the Ceremonies: he wore a large white hat,--cocked, be it observed,--the buckle of his stock before instead of behind, and, even in the coldest weather, his waistcoat unbuttoned, displaying the bosom of his shirt. He drove six greys in his carriage, and when he went in state to the rooms he was always attended by a numerous escort and a band of music, the principal instruments of which were French horns,--"Sonorous metal, blowing martial sounds." On his decease, which took place in 1761, the corporation of Bath, grateful for the benefits conferred on their city through his means, erected a marble statue of the Grand Master of the Ceremonies in the Pump-room, between the busts of Newton and Pope; and his good-natured friend, the Earl of Chesterfield, in an epigram, thus did justice to his memory and the taste of the corporation:

"The Statue, placed these busts between, Gives Satire all its strength; Wisdom and Wit are little seen, But Folly at full length."

The Earl of Chesterfield was a frequent visitor at Bath, where he found many admirers of his wit, and many opportunities of exercising it. Bath, indeed, was the very place for such a genius to shine in, for in no other city in the kingdom were manners and morals, such as his lordship's, more highly appreciated. His lordship was fond of play too; and was partial to the company of Mr. Lookup, one of the most noted professional gamesters of the day. Lookup, as well as Colonel Charteris,--of notorious memory in the annals of gaming and debauchery,--was from the north of the Tweed. He was born in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh, and was bred an apothecary. On the expiration of his apprenticeship, he proceeded southward, and obtained a situation in the shop of an apothecary at Bath. On the death of his master, he wooed and won the widow; and having thus obtained possession of about five hundred pounds in ready money, he gave up the shop, and devoted himself entirely to play, an itch for which he is said to have brought with him from his native country. In Lookup's youth, and, indeed, for many years afterwards, a fondness for card-playing was more prevalent in Jedburgh than in any other town on the Scottish border.

Lookup, having determined to make gaming his business, devoted, like a sensible man, his whole attention to it: he calculated the odds coolly, played steadily, and, consequently, won considerably from those fashionable amateurs whose confidence was not according to knowledge. He was not only a proficient in all the usual games at cards, but also played well at billiards. Lord Chesterfield used sometimes to amuse himself at billiards with Lookup; and on one occasion had the laugh turned against him by a _ruse_ of his antagonist, who, after winning a game or two, asked his lordship how many he would give if he were to put a patch over one eye. His lordship agreed to give him five;[206] and Lookup having won several games in succession, his lordship threw down his mace, declaring that he thought Lookup played as well with one eye as with two. "I don't wonder at it, my lord," replied Lookup, "for I have only seen out of one these ten years." The eye of which Lookup had lost the use appeared as perfect as the other, even to a near observer. With the money which he had at various times won of Lord Chesterfield, chiefly at Piquet, he built some houses at Bath, which he jocularly called "Chesterfield Row."

Lookup's gambling career, though successful, was not uniformly smooth; and on one occasion he got himself very awkwardly entangled in the meshes of the law. A gentleman, who had lost between three and four hundred pounds to Lookup at Cribbage, being persuaded that there had been "a pull" upon him, brought an action against Lookup for double damages, according to the statute made and provided for the special protection of the Tom-Noddy class of gamesters,--pitiful, whimpering, greedy fools, who call upon the world to commiserate their losses, though occasioned solely by their attempts on the purses of people more knowing, though not a whit more knavish, than themselves. In the course of some proceedings arising out of this action, Lookup, through the blunder of his attorney, it is said, swore to the truth of a circumstance which was subsequently proved to be false. Lookup was hereupon prosecuted for perjury, and imprisoned; and only escaped the pillory in consequence of a flaw in the indictment: the blunder of his own attorney brings him into peril, and the blunder of his opponent's sets him free; John a-Nokes's broken arm is a set-off against Tom a-Styles's broken leg; each party is left to pay his own costs, and thus the Law at least is satisfied. The oyster is swallowed, and the scales of justice are evenly balanced with a shell in each.

Lookup, like his contemporary, Elwes the miser, who was also a great card-player, frequently lost large sums by projects which he was allured to engage in by the tempting bait of a large return for his capital; a corrective occasionally administered by fortune to her spoiled children when they leave their old successful course of retail trickery, to embark as merchant adventurers on the sea of speculation. But though fortune frowned on him when he gave up gaming as a regular profession, to become the principal partner in a saltpetre manufactory at Chelsea, she yet looked favorably on some of his other speculations which were more in accordance with his old vocation: the shares which he held in several privateers, in the French war from 1758 to 1763, paid well; and he was highly successful as an adventurer in the slave trade. He is said to have died "in harness,"--that is, with cards in his hand,--when engaged in playing at his favorite game of Humbug, or two-handed Whist. Foote--who is supposed to have represented him in the character of Loader, in the farce of the Minor--is said to have observed, on learning the circumstances of his death, that "Lookup was humbugged out of the world at last." He died in November, 1770, aged about seventy. His biographer thus sums up his character: "Upon the whole, Mr. Lookup was as extraordinary a person as we have met with for several years in the metropolis. He possessed a great share of good sense, cultivated by a long acquaintance with the world; had a smattering of learning, and a pretty retentive memory; was fluent in words, and of a ready imagination. We cannot add, he was either generous, grateful, or courageous. In his sentiments, his cunning, and his fate, he nearly resembles the famous Colonel Charteris; a Scotchman by birth, and a gamester by profession, he narrowly escaped condign punishment for a crime that was not amongst the foremost of those of which he probably might be accused."[207] Had he lived in the railway era, he would, most assuredly, have been either a king or a stag royal:

"The craven rook and pert jackdaw, Although no birds of moral kind, Yet serve, when dead, and stuffed with straw, To show us which way points the wind."

The reign of George II is a historical picture of "great breadth," abounding in strongly marked characters, strikingly contrasted; but chiefly undignified, and generally low. The Carnal man is a ruffian rioting in Gin Lane; whilst the Spiritual is typified by a sinister-looking personage, with lank hair, cadaverous visage, and a cock-eye, preaching Free Grace from a tub to a miscellaneous company at Mile-end Green,--the indifference of the unregenerate being indicated by a prize fight in the background. Here a poor rogue is going, drunk, to Tyburn, for having robbed a thief-taker's journeyman of a silver watch, a steel chain, and a tobacco-stopper,--worth altogether forty shillings and threepence, the value required by law to entitle the thief-taker to his price of blood; and there a wealthy soap-boiler, who has made a fortune by cheating the excise, is going in state to Guildhall as Lord Mayor of London. Here a young rake is making violent love to his mother's maid, who has been induced to encourage his attentions from her reading Pamela; and there his aunt, a maiden lady of fifty-two, but having in her own right three thousand a year, is complacently listening to the matrimonial proposals of a young New-light preacher. Here is Colley Cibber sipping his wine at the table of "my lord;" and there sits Samuel Johnson, behind the screen in Cave's back shop, eagerly devouring the plate of meat which the considerate bookseller has sent him from his own table. Here are Johnny Cope and the dragoons riding a race from Preston Pans; and there sits the young Chevalier, unkempt and bare-legged, smoking a short pipe in a Highland hut. Here hangs the sign of the Duke of Cumberland's head; and there, grinning down on it from the elevation of Temple Bar, are the heads of the decapitated rebels. Here Ranelagh is seen shut up on account of the earthquake at Lisbon;[208] and there a batch of gambling senators are hurrying down to the House from the club at WHITE'S, to give their votes in favour of a bill to repress gaming.

The several acts passed against gaming, in the reign of George II, appear to have had but little effect in restraining the practice, either at the time, or in any subsequent reign; for though occasionally a solitary loose fish might become entangled in their meshes, they never interrupted the onward course of the great shoal.

The shameless inconsistency of many of the noble lords and honorable gentlemen who were parties to the enactment of those laws, is cleverly shown up in an ironical pamphlet entitled, "A Letter to the Club at White's. In which are set forth the great Expediency of repealing the Laws now in force against Excessive Gaming, and the many Advantages that would arise to this Nation from it. By Erasmus Mumford, Esq.," 1750. The following passages appear most worthy of transcription, both as showing the composition of a celebrated club about a hundred years ago, and as containing the pith of the writer's argument.

"The pertinency of my address to you, my Lords and Gentlemen, on this occasion, must be evident to every one that knows anything of your history; as that you are a Club of about Five Hundred, much the greatest part of you Peers and Members of Parliament, who meet every day at a celebrated Chocolate House, near St. James's, with much greater assiduity than you meet in the Court of Requests; and there, all party quarrels being laid aside, all State questions dropped, Whigs and Tories, Placemen and Patriots, Courtiers and Country Gentlemen, you all agree for the good of the Public, in the salutary measures of excessive gaming. But then as this is against laws of your own making, though now become old-fashioned, musty things, it would save appearances a little to the world methinks, that they should be repealed in the same solemn form in which they were enacted. And as you are, by yourselves and your relations, a great majority of the Legislature, and have no party bias whatsoever on this article, so it would certainly be as easy for you, as it is, in my opinion, incumbent on you, to accomplish such a repeal.... For, whatever we mean in our hearts, the forms of government should be carefully preserved; and though gaming is of the highest advantage to this nation, as I shall presently make appear, yet to practise it in defiance of all order, in the very sight, as it were, of the Government, and against the spirit and letter of the laws which you made yourselves, is entirely inconsistent with the character of Patriots, Nobles, Senators, Great Men, or whatever name of public honour you would chuse to call yourselves by.

"Besides, we have some odd queer maxims in our heads, that the Law is the same for the King and the Cobler, &c., nor is there in any Act of Parliament that has come to my knowledge, any exception of this same house called White's and the good company who frequent it. If you have any act against Gaming with any such exception in it, be so good as to produce it; for I believe verily that, besides yourselves, there is not a man in the kingdom who knows any thing of it. I have read the last Act over and over, and I protest that I can't see any such thing; and yet I don't know how to persuade myself that so many noble Lords and so many of the House of Commons, of all parties and denominations, should every day meet together in open contradiction to such an Act, without a saving clause to shelter themselves under.--

"But though it does no other harm at present, yet still it continues to be an act of the Lords and Commons of the kingdom, (of which you, to your eternal praise, are a great part,) and which has had the Royal assent. And whilst it does so continue, it not only hinders the rest of the kingdom, who are so silly as to mind Acts of Parliament, from Gaming, but it prevents a scheme, which I have had in my head for some time, from taking place; which is, that you should use your utmost endeavours with his Majesty, that he would be pleased, in consideration of the great good of his people, to give neither place nor pension to any Peer, howsoever deserving in all other respects, who is not of your body; and that a Bill should be brought in to render every one incapable of sitting as a member in either House of Parliament, how sound soever his political principles may be, who is not likewise a member of the Gaming Club at WHITE's. This, I apprehend, would be an effectual way of introducing this wholesome innocent diversion into every house of Fashion and Politeness in the kingdom, and make your illustrious body more in vogue, if that can be, than it is at present.--

"But this scheme, which I apprehend to be of such great utility, can never be executed whilst these Acts of Parliament remain unrepealed.... There is one difficulty indeed which I am aware of, which, as I don't know how to get over very well myself, I must submit to your greater wisdom; and that is, getting the king and his chief ministers to consent. For as to the former, though he allows of the practice in his palace once a year, from mere antient custom,[209] yet it is well known that he discourages it very much; and the moment he heard of a table at his house at Kensington, sent immediate orders to forbid it. And as to the Secretaries of State, though they have this diversion once a year or so at their houses, for the entertainment of the Foreign Ministers, yet they never play themselves, nor show any other countenance to it, directly nor indirectly."[210]

In the political pamphlets which appeared in opposition to the ministry in the latter part of the reign of George II, the club at White's is frequently alluded to; and in 'A Political and Satirical History of the years 1756, 1757, 1758, 1759, and 1760, in a series of one hundred and four Humourous and Entertaining Prints,'[211] the gaming propensities of Lord Anson, the circumnavigator, who was at the same time a member of the club and of the government, are keenly satirised. In Plate 7 he is represented as a Sea Lion, with the body of a man and the tail of a fish; in one hand he holds a dice-box, and in the other a card; and on the wall are two pictures, the one showing an E.O. table, and the other a table covered with money, with the inscription "_Blacks_ and WHITES." In another print he figures as the Knave of Diamonds, with the inscription at the top, "_Hic niger est_;" and at the bottom, "ACAPULCA." In the Key prefixed to the work the person represented is thus denounced: "This caricatura's propensity to gaming tells us at once how valuable he must be to a shipwrecked state, and that he deserves (like a drunken pilot in a storm) to be thrown overboard, to make room for one of clearer brains and more integrity." The three other Knaves are: SPADES, inscribed "Monsr. Dupe;" and in the Key it is said that, by the flower-de-luces, seen on the ground, is expressed, "how much this caricatura was connected with our enemies, and was even a Dupe to them against the interests of his country." HEARTS, with a fox's head, and inscribed "Monsr. Surecard:" in the Key it is said that this character "infers, by the sharpness of the nose, that craft and subtilty which is natural to creatures of a similar kind, known by the name of FOXES, and is here pointed out as a Knave." CLUBS, with a broken yoke in his hand, and inscribed "Null Marriage:" the Key says, "this caricatura was esteemed the most atrocious Knave in the pack, and the worst of the black sort."

Another plate in the same series of caricatures displays the gamester's coat of arms. The shield is charged with cards, dice, and dice-boxes, and is surrounded by a chain, from which hangs a label inscribed "CLARET." Supporters, two Knaves. Crest, a hand holding a dice-box. Motto, "_Cog it_ AMOR NUMMI." In Plate 90, of which a copy is here given, the principal performers figuring on the political stage in 1759 are represented as coat cards.[212] In the suit of HEARTS, the King, Optimus, is George II; Queen, Britannia; Knave, Pitt. DIAMONDS, King, the King of Prussia; Queen, the City of London; Knave, Prince Ferdinand. SPADES, King, the King of Poland; Queen, the Queen of Hungary; Knave, Holland. CLUBS, King, the King of France; Queen, Gallia; Knave, Marshal Broglie. In the Key it is said that "the labels and characters here represented are sufficient to explain the meaning of the print, with the least application."

[Illustration: The Court Cards of 1759 or Hearts is Trump & has won the Game.]

In a work relating to the authorship of Junius's Letters,[213] the following account is given of the volume of caricatures in question. It is not, however, correct in every point; for though it may be true that the earlier plates were at first privately distributed, it is certain that subsequently they were publicly sold. The first collection of them, published in a volume, consisted only of the caricatures for 1756-7; and appears to have been enlarged from time to time, by the addition of such plates as had been published separately in the preceding year. The edition of the first volume which I have consulted, containing the plates from 1756 to 1760, is the fifth,--a proof that latterly those caricatures were not privately distributed, whatever they might have been at the commencement. Though Lord George Townshend might have supplied the publisher with sketches or hints,[214] for some of the subjects, and even have suggested the publication of the series, it would be absurd to conclude that he was the designer of the whole. There are only four subjects in the volume relating to Lord George Sackville; and they are among the most worthless of the series, both with respect to conception and design.

"Soon after the unfortunate misunderstanding at Minden, Lord George Townshend (who had formerly been on friendly terms with Lord George Sackville, particularly at the battle of Dettingen) joined with the court party in publicly censuring his conduct. He had an ingenious turn for drawing, and he even went so far as to caricature Lord George flying from Minden, which, with many others, he privately circulated among his friends. This book of caricatures, bearing date from 1756 to 1762, is extremely curious. As they were privately distributed, they are, of course, seldom to be met with. I never saw but one complete set, now in the possession of W. Little, Esq., of Richmond, who has obligingly allowed me to copy the one in question, which is submitted to the reader's inspection. We have Lord Orford's testimony to prove that this book was the production of Lord George Townshend. Lord Orford has described the first of the series, vol. ii, p. 68, 'A new species of this manufacture now first appeared, invented by Lord George Townshend; they were caricatures on cards. The original one, which had amazing vent, was of Newcastle and Fox, looking at each other, and crying with Peachum, in the Beggar's Opera, '_Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong_.' On the Royal Exchange a paper was affixed, advertising 'Three kingdoms to be let: inquire of Andrew Stone, broker, in Lincoln's Inn Fields.'--The whole series forms a curious collection. Those on Lord George Sackville were very severe."

The example set by the club at White's appears to have been much more influential in promoting gaming than the denunciation of an Act of Parliament to have been effective in repressing it: the letter of the act was, indeed, killing, but the spirit of the legislators, as displayed at White's, kept the game alive. New clubs of the same kind,--on the principle of mutual insurance against informers,--were established in the metropolis; and even in the provinces, country gentlemen and tradesmen, becoming aware of the advantages of the social compact, formed themselves into little clubs for the purpose of indulging in a quiet game at cards or dice. Card-playing about the same time, or a little later, was greatly promoted by the establishment of assembly-rooms in country towns, where cock-fighting squires, after attending the pit in the morning, might enjoy in the evening the more refined amusements of dancing and cards.[215] The example set by the higher classes was followed by the lower; and at a "merry night" in a Cumberland village, some fifty years since, cards were as indispensable as at an assize ball in the county town: with the exception of the dress of the company and the arrangement of the rooms, the one assembly, at the commencement at least, seems to have displayed all the essentials of the other.

"Ay, lad, see a murry-neet we've had at Bleckell! The sound o' the fiddle yet rings i' my ear; Aw reet clipt and heeled were the lads and the lasses, And monnie a clever lish hussey was there: The bettermer sort sat snug i' the parlour; I' th' pantry the sweethearters cuttered sae soft; The dancers they kicked up a stour i' the kitchen; At lanter the caird-lakers sat i' the loft."[216]

The passion for card-playing appears to have been extremely prevalent in the earlier part of the reign of George III.[217] In almost every town where there is an assembly-room, traditional anecdotes are handed down of certain keen players keeping up the game for twenty-four successive hours, till they were up to their knees in cards; and there is scarcely a county in England that has not a story to tell of two or three of its old landed gentry being ruined at cards by the Prince of Wales. Even villages have their annals of gaming; of once substantial farmers turning horse-coursers and riding headlong to ruin on a leather plater; of others going more quietly off at cards, staking their corn before it was housed; and of certain desperate cock-fighters losing their whole substance at a single match, and then straightway hanging themselves in their own barn. The love of card-playing, to the great horror of the inordinately pious, seems even to have infected ladies who were, in other respects, irreproachable:--good wives, affectionate mothers, teaching their children the Catechism, going regularly to church on Sundays, and taking the sacrament every month; yet, alas! dearly loving a snug private party of four or five tables, and immensely fond of Quadrille; and making but a poor atonement for their transgression by never touching a card in Passion week, nor the night before the Communion, nor even on the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent,--whenever they could avoid playing, "consistently with good manners."[218]

A discourse against gaming, preached in 1793, by Dr. Thomas Rennell, Master of the Temple, seems to have made much noise about the time, but no converts. The most original passage in the work is the following, wherein he asserts that the habit of card-playing renders the mind insensible of Gospel evidence: in the present day, it may be observed in passing, that a similar effect has been ascribed to the study of Oriel-college logic. "The mind of one immersed in cards soon becomes vacant, frivolous, and captious. The habits form a strange mixture of mock gravity and pert flippancy. The understanding, by a perpetual attention to a variety of unmeaning combinations, acquires a kind of pride in this bastard employment of the faculty of thought, which is so far from having any analogy to the real exercise of reason, that we generally find a miserable eminence in it attainable by the dullest, the most ignorant, and most contemptible of mankind. The gamester, however, frequently mistakes this skill for general acuteness, and from that conceit either totally rejects the Gospel evidence, or if political or professional considerations render this indecent or inexpedient, he harbours all that contemptible chicane, all that petty sophistry, all that creeping evasion, with which a selfish heart, and a contracted understanding, meets and embraces the prevailing heresy of the times in which we live."[219]

The following appears to be levelled at an individual of no small reputation in his day, and whose memory is likely to outlast Dr. Rennell's. "What is it that converts those designed by Providence to be the GUARDIANS and PROTECTORS into the BANE and CURSE of their country? I will answer, the GAMING TABLE. The reverses here every moment occurring unite beggared fortunes, mortified pride, callous baseness, and inflamed appetites, directing their joint operations to the destruction of that common mother which gave them birth. And here I wish to be rightly understood--that with a frugal, active, dignified poverty, the discharge of public duty is perfectly compatible. Such a poverty was highly reverenced in the best ages of Pagan antiquity, as the nurse of every great and useful exertion; but as distant as light from darkness is such a poverty from that degraded, malevolent, abject MENDICITY, the offspring of vice, the organ of faction, and the parent of universal prostitution and venality."

Dr. Parr, in his copy of this discourse, wrote the following note, which may serve as a tail-piece to the present chapter: "Dr. Rennell is said, with his own hand, to have put a copy of this animated sermon under the knocker of Mr. Fox's door in South street. I could wish the story to be untrue. But the eloquent preacher did not employ his great talents in a sermon against Sabbath-breaking, though his illustrious patron, Mr. Pitt, had lately fought a duel with Mr. Tierney on Wimbledon Common."

FOOTNOTES:

[109] Heller, Vom Ursprung der Spielkarten, in der Geschichte der Holzschneidekunst, s. 307.

[110] "Interim vero jocis et ludo, minime concito, vacandum, ne sensus cogitatione occupati concoctionem impediant. Careat jocus (quem urbanum, facetum, modestum volo) dicacitate, scurrilitate, mordacitate. Nolo mimos; non proterviam; non dicteria; non convicia, unde ira et indignatio, et plerumque magna rixa oritur. Ludus sit talis, tessera, saccho (ut nostra appellatione utur), _carthis variis imaginibus pictis_. Absit inter ludendum omnis fraus et avaritia, qua illiberalior et destestandus fit ludus, nec ullam affert ludenti voluptatem; cum timor, ira, et immensa habendi cupiditas variis modis ludentes cruciet."

The first edition of Platina's treatise, De Honesta Voluptate, appeared at Venice, 1475. The preceding extract is from the second edition, printed in 1480.--Platina was born in 1421, and died in 1481.

[111] "Non mirum ergo ob hujus planctæ excellentem prærogativam si in taxillis felicem jactum, non Jovem qui major fortuna putatur, sed Venerem nuncupavit antiquitas. Unde Propertius,

Me quoque per talos Venerem quærente secundos, Semper damnosi subsiliere Canes.

Canem vero et Caniculam damnosum jactum etiam siderum comparatione appellaverunt. Sic Persius:

... Damnosa canicula quantum Raderet.

Canis vero et canicula qualia sint sidera superius patuit. Sed forsitan quidam riderent hujuscemodi ludorum inventionem, doctis quoque viris tribui, nisi et ludum quem chartarum nominant vulgò et à sapientibus fuisse excogitatum ratio dictaret; nam, ut regum, reginarum, equitum peditumque potentiam præteream (quilibet enim dignitatis militiæque differentiam novit), nonne cum ensium, hastarum, scyphorum, paniumque agrestium vim consideramus, perspicacissimi ingenii inventorem esse cognoscimus? Cum viribus ubi est opus, ut in hastis ensibusque videtur, multitudo superat paucitatem: in esculentis vero poculentisque, ut per panes vinumque figuratur, paucitas multitudinem vincit; constat enim abstemios crapulosis edacibusque viris acrioris esse ingenii, et in negotiis agendis fore superiores. Panes autem rusticos voco, propter formam et colorem, croceo enim colore olim fuisse Plinius narrat, (nam cuppæ scyphi sunt, ubi vinum,) et illi sunt panes, quos imperite nummos credunt. Hastas, sic dixit vulgus, quoniam H aspiratio et V convertantur, ut Hesper, Vesper. B autem et V sibi invicem sedem præbere Græcus Latinusque testantur; ut Bastoni Hastoni vulgò appelleutur, ita ut aliquando hastarum plerumque bipennium formam gerant; utrumque enim militiæ; instrumentum est."--Galeottus Martius, De Doctrina Promiscua, cap. xxxvi, pp. 477-8. 16mo, Lyons, 1552.

[112] Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i, p. 483.--The passage relating to cards, in the act referred to, was pointed out to the Hon. D. Barrington by Mr. John Nichols. Gough, in his 'Observations on the Invention of Cards,' in the Eighth Volume of Archæologia, says, that Mr. Le Neve produced before the Society of Antiquaries a minute to show that cards were manufactured in England before the 1st of Edward IV; for then a person had his name from his ancestor having been a card-maker. Mr. Gough observes that the ancestor of this person--Hugh Cardmaker, prior of St. John the Baptist, at Bridgenorth--was probably a maker of cards for dressing flax or wool. A _Karter_--a wool-comber--occurs in the town-books of Nuremberg, in 1397.

[113] Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. ii, p. 333, edit. 1778.

[114] "The kynge came privily to the said castell [of Newbattle], and entred within the chammer with a small company, where he founde the quene playing at the CARDES."--Leland's Collectanea, vol. iii, Appendix, p. 284. Cited by Warton, in his History of English Poetry, who also observes that cards are mentioned in a statute of Henry VII, in the year 1496.

[115] Private Life of James IV of Scotland, in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, Nos. 9 and 10, 1832.

[116] "Les cartes, comme tout ce qui tient aux arts, out une origine Italienne: c'est à Venise ou à Florence que les Grecs réfugiés de Constantinople les ont d'abord fait connaître."--Annuaire Historique pour I'année 1837, p. 188.

[117] Ducange, Glossarium ad Scriptores mediæ; et infimæ Græcitatis. Folio, 1688. Under the words Αζαρια and Χαρτια. Ταυλια is merely a different mode of spelling ταβλια--_tabulæ_, tables, a kind of backgammon board with its appendages.

[118] The following is Mons. Brunet's prefatory note to his brochure, which was published at Paris, in 1842. "Les curieux, les amateurs de livres recherchent avec empressement tout ce qui a rapport aux cartes; c'est ce qui m'a porté à consacrer un instant de loisir à la traduction de ce que je venais de lire, à cet égard, dans un ouvrage allemand, vaste répertoire de I'érudition bibliographique la plus étendue (Lehrbuch einer Literargeschichte der berühmtesten Volker des Mittelalters, von J.G.T. Grasse, Dresden und Leipsig, Arnoldische Buchhandlung, 1842, Band II, s. 879-85); j'ajoute quelques indications nouvelles à cet aperçu, que je n'imprime d'ailleurs qu'à quelques exemplaires."

[119] Geiler's second bell--his peal consists of seven--rings to this tune. "Secunda nola est: ludcre alea dissimilibus. Tangit hæc nola feminas nobiles et sacerdotes: feminas, inquam, quæ immiscent se turbis virorum et cum eis ludunt, contra c. ii de judiciis, lib. vi; sacerdotes et prelatos ludentes cum laicis,--laici sunt clericis oppido infesti, unde scandalizantur; nobiles qui ludunt cum nebulonibus et lenonibus, ut in speculo nostro vulgari habes."--Speculum Fatuorum, auctore Joanne Geiler de Keisersberg, concionatore Argentorense, sect. LXXVII. Lusorum turba (_Spiel Narre_). Edit. Strasburg, 1511. It may here be observed that Geiler's bells are intended by himself for the caps of "_Spiel Narre_"--gambling fools.

[120] "Logica Memorativa: Chartiludium logice, sive dialectice memoria; et novus Petri Hyspani textus emendatus. Cum jucundo pictasmatis exercitio: eruditi viri F. Thomæ Murner, ordinis minorum, theologie doctoris eximii." 4to, Strasburg, 1509 Leber says that the book was first printed at Cracow in 1507; and that an edition of it, in octavo, was printed at Paris in 1629. Murner was one of Luther's early opponents; and one of the pamphlets which was published during their controversy bears the following title: "Antwort dem Murner, uff scine frag, ob der Künig von Engellant ein lügner sey, oder der götliche doctor Mart. Luther, 1523." "An answer to Mumer on his question, 'Whether the King of England, or the reverend Doctor Martin Luther, is a liar?'"

[121] "Chartiludium Institute summarie, doctore Thoma Murner memorante et ludente." 4to, Strasburg, 1518. A copy of this book was sold at Dr. Kloss's sale in 1835; and in the Catalogue, No. 2579, we are informed that "this very rare and curious volume contains very many wood-engravings, illustrative of four distinct games played by the ancients with paper." Such games, we may presume, as are played at with the Statutes at large. If Murner understood any game, he must have learnt it subsequent to the publication of his Logical Card-play; and if he were able to make it subservient to the explanation of anything else, he must have improved himself greatly between 1508 and 1518.

[122] The Voyage of Columbus, in Poems by Samuel Rogers. Mr. Rogers's note on the passage above quoted is: "Among those who went with Columbus were many adventurers and gentlemen of the court. Primero was then the game in fashion. See Vega, p. 2, lib. iii, c. 9."

[123] "Y porque decimos, que estos Españoles jugavan, y no hemos dicho con què; es de saber, que despues que en la sangrienta battalla de Manvila los quemaron los naypes, que llevavan con todo lo demàs que alli perdieron, hacian naypes de pergamino, y los pintavan à las mil maravillas; porque en qualquiera necessidad que se los ofrescia, se animavan à hacer lo que avian menester. Y salian con ello, como si toda su vida huvieran sido Maestros de aquel oficio; y porque no podian, ò no querian hacer tantos, quantos eran menester, hicieron los que bastavan, sirviendo por horas limitadas, andando por rueda entre los jugadores; de donde (ò de otro paso semejante) podriamos decir, que huviese nascido el refràn, que entre los Tahures se usa decir jugando: Demonos priesa señores, que vienen por los naypes; y como los que hacian los nuestros eran de cuero, duravan por peñas."--La Florida del Inca [Garcilasso de la Vega], Parte Primera del Libro Quinto, capitulo i, p. 198. Folio, Madrid, 1723.

[124] "Also I order and command that there be a care that all soldiers have their room clean, and unpestered of chests, and other things, without consenting in any case to have cards; and, if there be any, to be taken away presently: neither permit them to the mariners; and if the soldiers have any, let me be advertised."--Orders set down by the Duke of Medina to be observed in the Voyage towards England, 1588; reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany.

[125] Strutt, who quotes this passage in his Sports and Pastimes, refers to Sir William Forrest, and Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii, sect. iii, p. 311. Sir William Forrest's work, entitled 'The Poesye of Princelye Practise,' was written towards the conclusion of the reign of Henry VIII, and presented to Edward VI. The author allows that a king, after dinner, may for a while "repose" himself at tables, chess, or cards; but denies the latter to labouring people. Strutt says that the work is in manuscript, in the Royal Library.

[126] Sir Robert Baker, in his Chronicle, states that in the eighteenth year of Henry VIII a proclamation was made against all unlawful games, so that in all places, tables, dice, cards, and bowls were taken and burnt; but that this order continued not long, for young men, being thus restrained, "fell to drinking, _stealing conies_, and other worse misdemeanours."

[127] Furny--French, _fourni_--prepared, sorted, furnished, in complete fashion, in full equipage. The card was a _coat_ card, in a certain sense, though certainly not an honour.

[128] For some account of the author of this satire, the reader is referred to Annals of the English Bible, by Christopher Anderson, vol. i, pp. 63, 116, 136, 137. 8vo, 1845.

[129] Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII, afterwards Queen Mary. With a Memoir of the Princess, and Notes, by Fred. Madden, Esq., F.S.A. 1831. From the following references in the index, the reader may judge of Mary's partiality to the game.

"Cards, money delivered to the Princess to play at, p. 3, 10, 11, 14, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 35, 49, 50, 55, 57, 59, 67, 69, 73, 76, 81, _sæpe_, 101."

"Cards, money lent, to play at, 4, 13, 29, 30."

The sums delivered are mostly from 20_s._ to 40_s._ One entry is for so small a sum as 2_s._ 2_d._, and another for 12_s._ 6_d._

[130] The charge of gaming is frequently alleged against the more wealthy members of the Roman Catholic clergy by writers who were in favour of the Reformation. "Item les grosses sommes de deniers qu'ils jouent ordinairement, soit à la Prime, à la Chance, à la Paulme, n'ont pas esté mises en compte. Qui est le bon Papiste qui pourroit se contenter de voir son Prelat jouër et perdre pour une après disnee, quatre, cinq, et six mil escus: pour une reste de Prime, avoir couché cinq cens escus; pour un Aflac en perdre mille; que la pluspart des episcopaux, jusques aux moindres chanoines, tiennent berland ouvert à jouër à tous jeux prohibez et defendus, non seulement par le droit canon, mais par les ordonnances du roi? L'exces y est bien tel, qu'on monstrera qu'au simple chanoine, en achapt de cartes et de dez, a employé durant une année cent, et six vingts escus, compris la chandelle et le vin de ceux qui la mouchoyent."--Le Cabinet du Roy de France, dans lequel il y a trois Perles precieuses d'inestimable valeur, p. 65. 12mo, 1581. This virulent attack on the French clergy is ascribed by Mons. Le Duchat to Nicolas Froumenteau; and by L'Isle de Sales to Nicolas Barnaud.

[131] Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, vol. ii, p. 500.

[132] The Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland were the principal leaders of the Rebellion, or "Rising in the North," in 1569.

[133] His host was George Pyle, of Millheugh, on Ousenam water, about four miles south-eastward from Jedburgh. The Earl of Westmoreland was then staying with Kerr of Fairniherst.

[134] Hector, or Eckie of Harlaw, as he is called in the Border Minstrelsy, delivered up the Earl of Northumberland, who had sought refuge with him, to the Regent Murray.

[135] The name of the person against whom the bill was filed was Henry Robson, probably of Falstone. His non-appearance seems to have caused the dispute between the wardens, Sir J. Foster and Sir J. Carmichael, which ended in a general combat between their followers.

[136] The above passage is quoted by Mr. T. Crofton Croker in a note on the following lines in "A Kerry Pastoral," a poem published in Concanen's Miscellanies, 1724, and reprinted by the Percy Society:

"Dingle and Derry sooner shall unite, Shannon and Cashan both be drain'd outright; And Kerry men forsake their cards and dice, Dogs be pursued by Hares, and Cats by Mice, Water begin to burn, and fire to wet, Before I shall my college friends forget."

The favorite game of the Kerry men is said to have been "One-and-thirty."

[137] Pascasius Justus, in his work entitled Alea, first published in 1560, relates that though he frequently felt difficulty in obtaining a supply of provisions when travelling in Spain, he never came to a village, however poor, in which cards were not to be found. The prevalence of card-playing in Spain about the middle of the sixteenth century is further shown in a work entitled 'Satyra invectiva contra los Tahures: en que se declaran los daños que al euerpo, y al alma y la hazienda se siguen del juego de los naypes. Impressa en Sevilla, en casa de Martin de Montesdoca, Año de M.D.LVII.' This work is erroneously ascribed by Antonio, in his Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, to Dominic Valtanas, or Baltanas, a Dominican friar, at whose instance the edition referred to was printed. The author was Diego del Castillo, who also wrote another work on the same subject, entitled 'Reprobacion de los Juegos,' printed at Valladolid in 1528.--The author derives the word _Tahur_, a gamester, from _Hurto_, theft, robbery, by transposing the syllables, and changing _o_ into _a_:

"Tahur y ladron, Una cosa son."

[138] "Il existe en Belgique plusieurs tableaux attribués à Jean Van Eyck, qu'il est inutile de désigner, et qui par les costumes des personnages dénotent une postériorité d'un grand nombre d'années. Nantes en possède un, également attribué à ce maître, dont les costumes sont ceux du règne de Charles VIII. Le sujet, sous le titre de _Philippe-le-Bon consultant une tireuse de cartes_, en a été donné dans le Magasin Pittoresque, année 1842, p. 324."--Quelques Mots sur la Gravure au Millésime de 1418, p. 13. Philippe-le-Bon, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1467; John Van Eyck in 1445.

[139] Though the ten is one of the cards employed in Marcolini's System of Fortune-telling, it appears to have been generally omitted in the packs of cards used by the Italian jugglers of the sixteenth century. Leber, who says that he had examined "un grand nombre de tours de cartes" described in the pamphlets of the most famous Italian jugglers of the sixteenth century, yet refers only to two works on the subject printed before 1600; one of them entitled 'Opera nuova non più vista, nella quale potrai facilmente imparare molti giochi di mano. Composta da Francesco di Milano, nominato in tutto il mondo il BAGATELLO.' 8vo, circa 1550. The other, 'Giochi di carte bellissimi e di memoria, per Horatio Galasso.' Venetia, 1593. The author of the following work, also referred to by Leber, appears to have been the original "Pimperlimpimp," whose fame as a mountebank physician appears to have been still fresh in the memory of the wits of the reign of Queen Anne: 'Li rari et mirabili Giuochi di Carte, da Alberto Francese, detto PERLIMPIMPIM.' 8vo, Bologna, 1622.

[140] Life of Lord Bacon, p. 5. Lord Bacon relates the circumstances, and a certain curious man's explanation of them, in his Sylva, Century xth, p. 245. Edit. 1631.

[141] Cuffe assisted Colombani in the "editio princeps" of the Greek text of the romance of Daphnis and Chloe, printed at Florence, 4to, 1598.

[142] "Observations on a picture by Zuccaro, from Lord Falkland's collection, supposed to represent the game of Primero. By the Hon. Daines Barrington." In the Archæologia, vol. viii. Mr. Barrington says, "According to tradition in the family, it was painted by Zuccaro, and represented Lord Burleigh playing at cards with three other persons, who from their dress appear to be of distinction, each of them having two rings on the same fingers of both their hands. The cards are marked as at present, and differ from those of more modern times only by being narrower and longer."

[143] Original Letters Illustrative of English History, with Notes by Sir Henry Ellis. Second Series, vol. iii, p. 102.

[144] When the prohibition to play at cards or dice was first introduced into apprentices' indentures I have not been able to learn. It occurs, however, in the form of an indenture for an apprentice in 'A Book of Presidents,' printed about 1565, and said to have been compiled by Thos. Phaer, the translator of the seven first books of the Æneid. In the title-page of his translation, 1558, Phaer describes himself as "Solicitour to the King and Queenes Majesties."

[145] Those injunctions with respect to tavern-haunting and gaming are embodied in the seventy-fifth canon of the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, 1603.

[146] Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Edited by Peter Cunningham, p. 176. Published by the Shakspere Society.

A comedy intended to display the evil consequences of dicing and card-playing was performed before the Emperor Maximilian II at Vienna, on New Year's Day, 1570.--See the Collectanea of Johannes a Munster, appended to the Alea of Pascasius Justus, edit. 1617.

[147] A Briefe Apologie of Poetrie, 1591. Quoted by Mr. P. Cunningham, in his notes to Extracts from Accounts of the Revels, p. 223. In dramatic representations of the game of cards we seem to have preceded the French. In 1676, a comedy by Thomas Corneille, called 'Le Triomphe des Dames,' was acted at Paris, in the theatre of the Hôtel de Guegenaud, and the ballet of the Game of Piquet was one of the interludes. "The four Knaves first made their appearance with their halberts, in order to clear the way. The Kings came in succession, giving their hands to the Queens, whose trains were borne up by four Slaves, the first of whom represented Tennis, the second Billiards, the third Dice, and the fourth Backgammon."--Historical Essays upon Paris. Translated from the French of Mons. de Saintfoix, vol. i, p. 229. Edit. 1766.

[148] In an engraving of St. Peter denying Christ, after a painting by Teniers, two soldiers are seen playing at cards in the hall of the high priest; and, from the chalks on the table, the game appears to be _Put_.

[149] See Mr. Battle's Opinions on Whist, in Essays by Elia (Charles Lamb).

[150] "The Anatomie of Abuses, containing A Discoverie, or breife summarie of such notable vices and corruptions as now raigne in many Christian countreyes of the world; but especially in the countrey of AILGNA: [Anglia, England.] Together with the most fearefull examples of God's judgements executed upon the wicked for the same, as well in AILGNA of late, as in other places elsewhere. Made Dialogue-wise by Philip Stubs," p. 112. Edit. printed by Richard Jones, 1583.--The Jew's supposition that a thunder-storm was evidence of the divine displeasure at his being about to indulge in a rasher of bacon, is nothing compared with Master Stubbes's announcement of the wrath of heaven against those who indulge in starched collars, fine linen shirts, and velvet breeches.

[151] A Discourse of the most illustrious Prince, Henry, late Prince of Wales. Written in 1626 by Sir Charles Cornwallis. Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany.

[152] 'TOM TELL-TROATH: or a free Discourse touching the manners of the time.' Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany. The king's "forraygn children" mentioned in this pamphlet are his daughter Elizabeth and her family. Elizabeth was married to Frederick, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, the competitor of the Emperor Ferdinand II for the crown of Bohemia.

[153] "The King of Spain, or Gondemar, his ambassador."

[154] This engraving is preserved in a collection of Proclamations, Ballads, &c., formed by the late Joseph Ames, and now in the library of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. For the part played by Bethlem Gabor in the affairs of Europe, between 1618 and 1628, the reader is referred to Schiller's History of the Thirty-Years' War.

[155] "Five-Cards is an Irish game, and is as much played in that kingdom, and that for considerable sums of money, as All-Fours is played in Kent, but there is little analogy between them. There are but two can play at it; and there are dealt five cards a piece.... The five-fingers (_alias_ five of trumps) is the best card in the pack; the ace of hearts is next to that, and the next is the ace of trumps."--The Compleat Gamester, p. 90. Edit. 1709. First printed in 1674.

[156] Malone's Supplemental Observations on Shakspeare, cited by Barrington. Dr. Moore, in his Views of Society and Manners in Italy, mentions the card-playing at the opera at Florence. "I was never more surprised," says he, "than when it was proposed to me to make one of a whist party, in a box which seemed to have been made for the purpose, with a little table in the middle. I hinted that it would be full as convenient to have the party somewhere else; but I was told, good music added greatly to the pleasure of a whist party; that it increased the joy of good fortune, and soothed the affliction of bad."

[157] Numbers, xxvi, 55, 56; Proverbs, xvi, 33; Acts, i, 24-26.

[158] This appears to have been one of the chief grounds of objection against cards and dice-play in Scotland, about a century later. Adam Petrie, "the Scottish Chesterfield," adopts Balmford's conclusion: "Lott is an ordinance whereby God often made known his mind, and therefore ought not to be turned into a play; but Cards and Dice are Lott; therefore they ought not to be turned into a play."--Rules of Good Deportment, or of Good Breeding, printed at Edinburgh, 1710; reprinted 1835.

[159] John Wesley, who sometimes "sought an answer" by lots of this kind, was charged by the Rev. Augustus Toplady with "tossing up for his creed, as porters or chairmen toss up for a halfpenny."--Letter to the Rev. John Wesley, p. 7. Edit. 1770.

[160] Traité du Jeu, où l'on examine les principales questions de Droit naturel et de Morale qui ont du rapport à cette matière. Par Jean Barbeyrac, Professeur en Droit à Groningue. Seconde édition, revue et augmentée. En trois tomes, 12mo. Amsterdam, 1737.

[161] Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, Edward Darcy obtained a patent for the manufacture of cards; and in the reign of James I the importation of cards was prohibited, after 20th July, 1615, as the art of making them was then brought to perfection in this country. As a duty or tax of five shillings for every twelve dozen packs was levied about that time by the authority of the Lord Treasurer, the statement that such a tax was first levied in 1631, in the reign of Charles I, is erroneous. This tax was one of the impositions complained of by the Commons, in the reign of Charles I, "as arbitrary and illegal, being levied without consent of Parliament." I am informed that the first act of parliament imposing a tax on cards was passed in 1711, in the reign of Queen Anne. The company of card-makers was first incorporated by letters patent of Charles I in 1629.--See Singer's Researches, pp. 223, 224, 226, 365.

[162] Observations on the Antiquity of Card-playing, Archæologia, vol. viii.

[163] Etudes Historiques sur les Cartes à jouer, p. 30. Mons. Leber had in his collection some cards of Jean Volay's manufacture, which were discovered in the boards of a book. Those cards are described in the Catalogue of his books, tom. i, p. 241, Article xvii. There are also cards manufactured by Jean Volay preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi, at Paris.

[164] The Netherlands seem to have been famed at an early period for the manufacture of cards. Albert Durer, in the journal which he kept during his visit to those parts in 1521, notes that he bought half a dozen packs for seven stivers: "Item hab umb ein halb dutzet Niederländischer Karten geben 7 Stüber."--Albrecht Dürers Reisejournal, in Von Murr's Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 7ter Theil, s. 96. From a passage in Ascham's Toxophilos, 1545, quoted by Singer, it would appear that the price of cards was then about twopence a pack: "He sayd a payre of cards cost not past ii.d."

[165] The Four Knaves: a series of Satirical Tracts by Samuel Rowlands. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by E. F. Rimbault, Esq. Reprinted for the Percy Society, 1843. For the loan of the cuts of the Four Knaves the publisher is indebted to the Percy Society.

[166] On the word mandilions, Mr. Rimbault has the following note: "Mandiglione, a jacket, a Mandilion?--Florio's _New World of Words_, ed. 1611. Stubbes (_apud_ Strutt, _dress and habits_, vol. ii, p. 267) says that it covered the whole body down to the thighs; and Randle Holme describes it as 'a loose hanging garment, much like to our jacket or jumps, but without sleeves, only having holes to put the arms through; yet some were made with sleeves, but for no other use than to hang on the back.'"

[167] In 1641, a pamphlet, in verse, against monopolizers and patentees, appeared with the following title: 'A Pack of Patentees, opened, shuffled, cut, dealt, and played.' The articles monopolized, or for which patents had been obtained, were coals, soap, starch, leather, salt, hops, gold wire, and horns.

"We'll shuffle up the pack; those that before Did play at post and pair, must play no more."

[168] About the same period the game of cards seems to have furnished titles to political pamphlets in other countries as well as in England. The following is the title of a Dutch pamphlet, without date, but apparently published about the time that the treaty of Westphalia was concluded, 1648: 'Het herstelde Verkeer-bert verbetert in een Lanterluy-spel.' From a passage in this pamphlet it appears that the game of Lanterloo was the same as that called _Labate_--the French _La Bête_, called "Beast," in Cotton's Compleat Gamester.

"_Vlaming._ Was spel is dat, Vader Jems? ick weet niet dat ick dat oyt ghelesen heb, maer al die ghy genoemt hebt weet ick van.

"_Vader Jems._ O Bredder! het is dat spel dat veeltijts genoemt werdt _Labate_, ofte om beter te seggen, _Lanterluy_."

[169] The two following are of later date but in the same strain. 'A Murnival of Knaves: or Whiggism plainly display'd, and if not grown shameless, burlesqu'd out of countenance, a Poem. 1683.' 'Win at first, lose at last; or the Game of Cards which were shuffled by President Bradshaw, cut by Col. Hewson the Cobler, and played by Oliver Cromwell and Ireton till the Restoration of Charles II. 1707'--A Murnival, at the game of Gleek, was all the four aces, kings, queens, or knaves.

[170] Poems on State Affairs, vol. iii, p. 25. Edit. 1704. "Tricon is, at cards, that which we now call a gleek of Kings, Queens, Knaves, &c., viz. three of them in one hand together."--Howell's Edition of Cotgrave's French and English Dictionary, 1673. The term _Gleek_ is probably derived from the German _Gleich_, signifying _like_; thus the _Gleek_ was a certain number of cards of a _like_ kind. See further illustrations of the word Gleek in Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic Words.

[171] William Maxwell, in a catalogue of his works prefixed to his 'Admirable Prophecies concerning the Church of Rome,' 4to, 1615, inserts the following as one already published: "Jamesanna, or a Pythagorical play at cards, representing the excellency and utility of Union and Concord, with the incommodities of Division and Discorde, dedicated to the most hopefull Prince Charles." He also mentions another work of his, of the same kind, unpublished, written in imitation of More's Utopia. The author informs us, that his grandfather, William Maxwell, son of the Laird of Kirkconnel, was man-at-arms to the Most Christian King, and had the honour to serve the mother of Mary Queen of Scots, and also Mary herself. The Maxwells are still "Lairds of Kirkconnel," in Dumfries-shire. "Fair Kirkconnel Lea," mentioned in the old ballad, "I wish I were where Helen lies," is one of the most beautiful spots in Britain.

[172] _Saunt_ he properly explains by _centum_, a hundred. _Cientos_ was a Spanish game, resembling Piquet.

[173] Englands Balme: or, Proposals by way of Grievance and Remedy, humbly presented to his Highness and the Parliament; towards the Regulation of the Law and better Administration of Justice. Tending to the great Ease and Benefit of the good People of the Nation. By William Sheppard, Esq. 12mo, 1657. The disregard of such _good_ men as Mr. Sergeant Sheppard for the feelings and opinions of those whom they were pleased to consider _bad_, and who formed a great majority of the nation, paved the way for the restoration of Charles II.

[174] Though this pamphlet does not treat of the game, but is wholly political, it cannot be doubted that Ombre was well known in England at the time of its publication.

[175] Titus Britannicus: An Essay of History Royal, in the Life and Reign of his late Sacred Majesty, Charles II, of ever blessed and immortal memory. By Aurelian Cook, Gent. p. 296. Edit. 1685. Aurelian is loud in his praises of his Titus for his _piety_ and _religion_. According to his account, it would seem that in these respects the "Martyr Charles" was nothing to "Old Rowley."

[176] In Heath's Chronicles, a right loyal publication, it is said that Dr. Dorislaus,--the Parliamentary envoy, who was assassinated at the Hague in May, 1649,--was accustomed to play at cards on Sundays at Sir Henry Mildmay's, in Essex.--The Democracy, or pretended free State, being the 2d part of the Brief Chronicle of the late intestine War, p. 435. Edit. 1662.

[177] Basset would seem to have been a common game at the court of France about the same period. "The King (Louis XIV) now seldom or never plays, but contents himself sometimes with looking on; but formerly he hath been engaged, and has lost great sums. Mons. S. rookt him of near a million of livres at Basset by putting false cards upon him, but was imprisoned and banished for it some years."--Dr. Martin Lister, Journey to Paris in the year 1698. In 1691, Louis XIV issued an ordonnance prohibiting Faro, Basset, and other similar games. Whoever should be convicted of playing at any of those games was to be fined a thousand livres; and the person who allowed them to be played in his house incurred a penalty of six thousand livres. Basset and Flush--il Frusso--appear to have been known in Italy in the fifteenth century. They are mentioned by Lorenzo de Medici in his Canti Carnascialeschi, quoted by Singer, Researches, p. 26.

[178] The following is the title of a pack of geographical cards, now lying before me, which appear to have been engraved in the reign of Charles II. "The 52 Counties of England and Wales, geographically described in a pack of Cards, whereunto is added the length, breadth, and circuit of each county, the latitude, situation, and distance from London of the principal Cities, Towns, and Rivers, with other Remarks; as plaine and ready for the playing of all our English Games as any of the common Cards." The heads of the Kings are shown at the top of the maps of Hereford, Monmouth, Middlesex, and Yorkshire; of the Queens at the top of the maps of Durham, Huntingdon, Radnor, and Worcestershire; and of the Knaves at the top of the maps of Anglesey, Gloucester, Leicester, and Rutland. If the deviser had any particular meaning in his assignment of the coat cards, it is not easy to be discovered; though it may be "shrewdly guessed at" as respects Monmouth and York.

[179] Lord Chesterfield is reported to have said to Anstis on one occasion, when the latter was talking to him about heraldry, "You silly man, you do not understand your own foolish business."

[180] Menestrier, Bibliothèque curieuse et instructive, tom. ii, p. 180.

[181] By card-makers the coat cards--King, Queen, and Knave--are technically termed _têtes_, and the others _pips_.

[182] "Jeu d'Armoires, où tous les termes du Blazon sont expliqués et rangés par ordre. Dedié à Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne. Se vend à Paris, chez Vallet, dessinateur et graveur du Roy." The privilege to the author, Sieur Gauthier, is dated 15th December, 1686.

[183] "The PUFF COLLUSIVE is the newest of any; for it acts in the disguise of determined hostility. It is much used by bold booksellers and enterprising poets."--The Critic, act i. The "puff collusive" was not an invention of Sheridan's time, but merely the revival of an old trick.

[184] The advertisement of those cards is preserved amongst Bagford's collections, Harleian MSS. No. 5947.

[185] "Principally games of geography, history, and metamorphoses, engraved by Della Bella, from plans furnished by the poet Desmarets, to facilitate the studies of Louis XIV when a child. The idea is said to have been suggested by Cardinal Mazarine."--A pack of military cards, with instructions for playing the game, devised by the Sieur Des Martins, and dedicated to "Son Altesse le Duc de Maine, Colonel-général des Suisses," appeared in 1676. His Highness the Colonel-general, who was the son of Louis XIV and Madame Montespan, was then six years old.

By the favour of F. R. Atkinson, Esq., of Manchester, an assiduous and intelligent collector of curious books, I have had an opportunity of examining two sets of French Historic Cards, without date, but probably published about 1690. One of them is entitled "Cartes des Rois de France. A Paris, chez F. Le Comte, rue St. Jaques, au Chifre du Roi." The title of the other is, "Jeu des Reynes Renommées. A Paris, chez Henri le Gras, Librairie, au 3^e pilier de la grande Salle du Palais." Both sets appeared to have been designed exclusively for the purpose of instruction, and not for play.

[186] About the same period Moxon, "glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," published a pack of Astronomical Cards. In the life of Beau Hewitt, in Lucas's Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures of the most Famous Gamesters and Celebrated Sharpers in the reigns of Charles II, James II, William III, and Queen Anne, 1714, the Beau is represented as having "most assiduously studied the use of the geometrical playing-cards, set forth by Monsieur Des Cartes, the famous French philosopher and mathematician; but that finding the demonstrations of that great man to be founded on no certainty, he resolved to try his luck at dice." It is said that Pascal's attention was first directed to the calculation of chances in consequence of some questions proposed to him by the Chevalier de Meré, a great gamester.

[187] In the text, Beast is said to be called by the French "_La Bett_" [_La Bête_].

[188] The following appear to have been the principal games at cards played in England before the reign of Charles II: the game of Trumps, in the time of Edward VI; Primero, Maw, Lodam, Noddy, La Volta, and Bankerout, mentioned by Sir John Harrington; and Gleek, Crimp, Mount-Saint, Knave out of Doors, Post and Pair, and Ruff, mentioned in Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays.--See Barrington and Bowle on Card-playing, in the Archæologia, vol. viii.

[189] "Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he found himself weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated; and he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends; and sometimes, in the evening, with a party at his favorite game of whist."--Dr. Adam Smith, Letter to Wm. Strahan.

[190] Whist, a poem in twelve Cantos. By Alexander Thomson, Esq., p. 21. Second Edition, 1792.

[191] Mr. Barrington seems to have obtained his information respecting the succession of Whist to Quadrille from an authority whom he did not like to acknowledge, namely, Sir Calculation Puzzle, in the Humours of Whist. "Egad, you remind me, Sir John, of an observation I have made too; which is, that as long as Quadrille and Ombre were the games in vogue, we certainly were under French influence. Whereas since Whist has come in fashion, you see our politics are improved upon us."--The Humours of Whist. A Dramatic Satire, as acted every day at WHITE's, and other Coffee-houses and Assemblies. 8vo, 1743.

[192] From the following passage in the 'Beaux Stratagem,' act ii, scene 1, Whisk is mentioned by Mrs. Sullen in a disparaging manner, as if it were fit only for rustics:

"_Dorinda._ You share in all the pleasures that the country affords.

_Mrs. Sullen._ Country pleasures! racks and torments! Dost think, child, that my limbs are made for leaping of ditches, and clambering over styles? or that my parents, wisely foreseeing my future happiness in country pleasures, had early instructed me in the rural accomplishments of drinking fat ale, playing at whisk, and smoking tobacco with my husband?"

[193] "'The clergymen used to play at _Whisk_ and _Swabbers_.'--Swift."

[194] "Whist is a game not much differing from this" [English Ruff and Honours].--Compleat Gamester, p. 86. Edit. 1709. "Triomphe, the card-game called Ruffe, or Trump."--Cotgrave's French and English Dictionary. Edit. 1611.

[195] Taylor's Motto: Et habeo, et careo, et curo.

[196] The writer of an article on Whist, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 48, discussing the etymology of the name, says: "The Irish injunction, Whisht--'be quiet,' may be thought to require consideration. It is the exact form of the word, barring only the pure s; but this is not the Sibboleth, or touchstone, here. At the utmost, the difficulty is but a dialectical variety, _elegantiæ causa_, for the sake of elegance; just as shoup, for soup."--Nares, in his Glossary, under the word Whist, an exclamation enjoining silence, says of the game, "That the name of Whist is derived from this, is known, I presume, to all who play, or do not play."

[197] A Whisk, a small kind of besom: a swab or swabber, a kind of mop.

[198] "Whist; by an Amateur: its History and Practice," p. 28, 1843.--A beautiful little book, with appropriate illustrations, designed by Kenny Meadows, and engraved on wood by Orrin Smith and W. J. Linton.

[199] "Oldsworth upbraided the late Earl of Godolphin with having a race-horse, and the Earl of Sunderland with having a library, very honestly insinuating that the former made an ill use of the one, and the latter no use at all of the other."--The Censor censured; or Cato turned Cataline, a pamphlet, published in 1722.

[200] "Mr. Pope's beautiful description of the manner of playing this game."--Seymour's Court Gamester, 1722.--"It is Belinda's game in the Rape of the Lock, where every incident in the whole deal is so described, that when Ombre is forgotten (and it is almost so already) it may be revived with posterity from that admirable poem."--Barrington on the Antiquity of Card-playing. Pope's Grotto, and Hampton Court, excite in the mind of Miss Mitford "vivid images of the fair Belinda and of the inimitable game at Ombre."--Our Village, fourth series.

[201] Serious Reflections on the dangerous tendency of the common practice of Card-playing; especially the game of All-Fours, as it hath been publickly played at Oxford in this present year of our Lord, 1754.

[202] The Princesses were the daughters of George Prince of Wales, afterwards George II. One of them, Amelia, in her old maidenhood, was a regular visitor at Bath, seeking health at the pump, and amusement at the card-table.

[203] About 1721, a pack of cards was published, ridiculing the principal bubble schemes of the day, but more especially the South Sea project. About the same time, a set of caricature cards, ridiculing the Mississippi scheme, was published in Holland.

[204] "The Saxons called it Akeman-ceaster, which has been interpreted the City of Valetudinarians."--Bath Guide. It is worthy of remark that most watering-places much visited by wealthy invalids, abroad as well as at home, are also the haunts of gamesters. "Where the carrion is, there are the vultures."

[205] "At this period it was the fashion for the ladies to adorn their heads, before they entered the bath, with all the lures of dress. By these means their charms were set off to such advantage, that the husband of a lady, who, with Nash and other spectators, was admiring the female dabblers, told his wife 'she looked like an angel, and he wished to be with her.' Nash seized the favorable occasion to establish his reputation as a man of gallantry and spirit, and therefore suddenly taking the gentleman by the collar and the waistband of his breeches, soused him over the parapet into the bath."--Life of Beau Nash.

[206] An analogous case, at cards, of _begging_ for a point in order to inspire the adversary with an erroneous opinion of the _beggar_ being weak, is thus related by Paschasius Justus of Pope Leo X. His holiness once, when playing at a game similar to Primero, held such cards as made it impossible for him to lose, except from the circumstance of his being the last player; but as his adversary, whose turn it was to declare first, proposed a heavy stake, he concluded that he held as good cards as himself. Being reluctant to yield the game, "give me a point," he cried, "and I will see you." The other, not suspecting that the Pope held such capital cards, readily assented, and consequently lost.--The narrator says that he could applaud the trick, if his holiness had returned the loser his stake.--Pasc. Justi Aleæ, lib. i, p. 50. Edit. Neapoli Nemetum [Neustadt, in the diocese of Spires], 1617.

[207] The Literary Register, or Weekly Miscellany, p. 296, Newcastle on Tyne, 1771.

[208] "Uninflammable as the times were, they carried a great mixture of superstition. Masquerades had been abolished, because there had been an earthquake at Lisbon; and when the last jubilee-masquerade was exhibited at Ranelagh, the alehouses and roads to Chelsea were crowded with drunken people, who assembled to denounce the judgments of God on persons of fashion, whose greatest sin was dressing themselves ridiculously. A more inconvenient reformation, and not a more sensible one, was set on foot by societies of tradesmen, who denounced to the magistrate all bakers that baked or sold bread on Sundays. Alum, and the variety of spurious ingredients with which bread, and, indeed, all wares, were adulterated all the week round, gave not half so much offence as the vent of the chief necessary of life on a Sunday."--Earl of Orford's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 283.

[209] The king not only allowed of gaming at the groom porter's at the Christmas holidays, but used to pay a formal visit there himself at the commencement of the "season."

[210] From an advertisement in the public papers, subsequently referred to by the author, it would appear that this compliment to the secretaries of state was ironical. It is there stated that a set of gentlemen of character and fortune had determined to enforce the acts of parliament respecting unlawful games of play, whether with cards or otherwise; and that they were firmly resolved that neither the sanctuary at WHITE's, nor the more sacred mansion of a secretary of state, should prevent their putting their design in execution. It is not surprising that cards should be a favorite game with diplomatists, seeing that their regular vocation consists in cutting and shuffling, and that their grand game is usually won by a trick. Talleyrand was a capital player both at cards and protocols. Espartero, when Regent of Spain, is said to have played at cards with the ministers as he lay in bed. Cabral, the Portuguese minister, is also a great card-player.

[211] This collection of caricatures is contained in a small volume of a square form, like that of a pocket dictionary. In the title, the work is said to have been "digested and published by M. Darly, at the Acorn in Ryder's Court, Cranbourn Alley, Leicester Fields." Subsequently, Darly published another volume, of the same size, entitled 'A Political and Satirical History, displaying the unhappy Influence of Scotch Prevalency in the years 1761, 1762, and 1763; being a regular series of ninety-six humourous, transparent, and entertaining prints. With an explanatory Key to every print.' These two volumes contain the most numerous and interesting series of political caricatures that had hitherto appeared in England. The caricatures which appeared in the Political Register from 1767 to 1772 may be considered as a continuation of the series published by Darly.

[212] In the same volume there is another plate of the same kind, showing the coat cards for 1756.

[213] A Critical Enquiry regarding the real Author of the Letters of Junius, proving them to have been written by Lord Viscount Sackville. By George Coventry, p. 34, 1825. Copies of _two_ of the caricatures on Lord George Sackville are given in this work.

[214] At the foot of the title-page of the second volume, for the years 1761-2-3, there is a notice, that "sketches or hints, sent post-paid [to the publisher], will have due honour shewn them."

[215]

"Et decus ob patrium, et studiosæ pubis in usus, Construxere sacros chartis fidibusque penates."

C. ANSTEY, ad C. W. BAMPFYLDE, Epistola, 1777.

[216] Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect, by R. Anderson. An explanation of a few terms in the above verses will render them more intelligible to the reader who has the misfortune to be unacquainted with the Cumberland dialect. _Clipt and heeled_, prepared for the sport, like cocks for fighting. _Lish_, sprightly, active. _Cuttered_, cooed, like billing doves. _Stour_, dust. _Lanter_, three-card loo. _Caird-lakers_, card-players. Lanter, or lant, so common in Cumberland and Northumberland, appears to have been unknown to a deservedly high authority on all sports and games: "The editor does not know the game of _Lant_."--Bell's Life in London, 4th March, 1838.

[217] Some curious particulars--somewhat exaggerated--respecting certain great card-players of this period will be found in 'The Adventures of a Guinea.'

[218] An Address to Persons of Fashion relating to Balls: with a few occasional Hints concerning Play-houses, Card-tables, &c. By the Author of Pietas Oxoniensis. Sixth edition, 1771.

[219] "The causes of infidelity are various. Before the improved sagacity of Dr. Rennell had discovered that it owed its origin to Popery, his wisdom had detected its source, artfully lurking in the 'unmeaning combinations' of a pack of cards."--Reflections on the Spirit of Religious Controversy, by the Rev. Joseph Fletcher, of Hexham, England, p. 192. 12mo, New York, 1808.