derived from the Sanscrit Chatur-anga, that is, the four angas or members of an army, which are said in the Amaracosha to be elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers, and in this sense that term is frequently used by epic poets in their descriptions of real armies. It seems probable that chess was originally played with these four sets of men,* as such a game still continues in India, also called Chaturanga, but more frequently Chaturaji or the Four Kings. The board, as in the Persian chess, consists of only sixty-four squares; but the pieces (the number of which is not stated) are at first stationed next each margin. Sir W. Jones quotes the directions given in the Bhawishya Paran. "Having," says the sage Vyasa, "marked eight squares on all sides, place the red army to the east, the green to the south, the yellow to the west, and the black to the north;" whereupon Mr. Chatto remarks that these colours still form the ground of four of the suits of one of the divisions of an eight-suit pack of Hindostanee cards. In this game, played by four persons, commanding two allied armies, which combat on either side, we have, as Sir William Jones remarks, a prototype of Whist. But the affinity of cards to chess may be further traced in the identity of the chief pieces of the chess-board with the principal cards. The King is chief in `both, the Persian Shah or Schach, from whence it seems to us that the name of Echecs or Chess is derived. In playing that game, when the King is threatened, the single word Check (Schach) is pregnant with direful meaning. Next in the oriental game of chess was the Pherz or general, a name afterwards confounded with the French Vierge, and so converted in Europe into a lady, or Queen. "Now the very same change that has taken place in the second piece in chessnamely, from a male to a female-has also happened to the second principal figure in French and English cards. Among the oldest numeral cards that have yet been discovered no Queen is to be found; the three principal figures or coat cards being the King, the Knight, and the Valet or Knave. There was no Queen in the old Spanish pack of cards; nor was there usually in the German in the time of Heineken and Breitkopf. In the Spanish, the coat cards of each suit were the King (Rey), the Knight (Cavallo), and the Knave, groom, or attendant (Sota); in the German, the King (Konig), a chief officer (Ober), and subaltern (Unter). The Italians, instead of making any change in the old coat cards, sometimes added the itself, in quatuor and quartus. In French, the word quartier means a square or foursided piece, as un quartier du bois; as well as, like our quarter, a fourth part of the whole. * Subsequently, in p. 31, when discussing the modern Hindoo cards of eight or even ten suits, Mr. Chatto says, "If the game of cards were suggested by that of chess, I am inclined to think that the earliest pack would consist of only two suits." But surely this is a retreat from a previously well-defended position. If cards were suggested by the chatur angas, or four-trooped chess, the earliest pack would be likely to consist of four suits; and this we regard as one of the strongest arguments for the affinity of the two games-supposing, as he says, the further number of Hindoo suits have been contrived in later times to satisfy the wants of "busy idleness," for a more complicated game. In this idea we deviate from the authority of Sir William Jones: who says that Chaturanga, having been corrupted into the Persian Chatrang, and Arabic Shatranj, was further altered in the various dialects of India, and "thus has a very significant word in the sacred language of the Brahmans been transferred by succes sive changes into Axedras, Scacchi, Echecs, Chess; and, by a whimsical concurrence of circumstances, given birth to the English word check, and even a name to the Exchequer of Great Britain,"-the last, as is well known, from the rayed cloth which was laid on the table of the King's court, to facilitate reckonings, being made in resemblance of a chess-board.-Mr. Chatto subsequently (p. 21) states the etymological chain more completely-from the Arabic Shatranj, to the Greek Zatrikion, the Spanish Axedrez, the Italian Scacchi, the German Schach, the French Echecs, and the English Chess. We confess this does not seem so clear to us as card from chatur. German seems, in fact, to retain the original Persian name of the chief piece, in its guttural pronunciation, unaltered. The Queen to them, so that they had four instead of three, namely, Re, Reina, Cavallo, and Fante." Now, we have proof that the game of the Four Kings was played by Edward I. King of England, in the year 1278: "Waltero Sturton, ad opus regis ad ludendum ad quatuor reges, viijs. vd." (Wardrobe Roll.) When this passage was discovered by Mr. Anstis, he cited it (in his History of the Order of the Garter) as a proof that playing-cards were known at the date of the entry; and the Hon. Daines Barrington was inclined to regard it in the same light. It is now clear that the Four Kings was the earlier form of the game of chess. But in playing-cards, when subsequently introduced into Europe, the four Kings and their four armies were retained, as they have since continued, though varied in their distinguishing marks or suits in different countries, as we shall show hereafter; and "the book of the Four Kings" has been handed down as a familiar metonyme for a pack of cards in the conversation and literature of all ages. In Cards are not, however, in all parts of Europe, known by a name that can be derived from Chatur-angas. Germany they were anciently called karten, but now briefe, literally "letters," for which we do not find any satisfactory explanation. In Spain and Portugal they go by the name of Naipes, upon which Mr. Chatto's speculations are as follow: "It is to be observed that cards are called Naibi by the earliest Italian writers who mention them; and that they have always been called Naypes, or Naipes, in Spain, since the time of their first introduction into that country. Now in Hindostan, where we find the word Chahar, Chatur, or Chartah, they have also the word Na-eeb or Naib, which, judging from the sound only, appears at least as likely to have been the original of naibi and naipe, as it is of the English Nabob. This word Na-eeb signifies a viceroy, lieutenant, or deputy, who rules over a certain district, as a feudatory who owes allegiance to a sovereign. Now, as the game of chess was known in Hindostan by the name of the Four Kings, if cards were suggested by chess, and invented in the same country, they might have been called Chatur-Nawaub-the Four Viceroys, as the cog nate game of chess was called the Four Kings." And here we may observe, en passant, that Mr. Chatto, in pp. 231-235, has clearly demonstrated that the reproachful term Jackanapes, (which was used in England at least so early as the reign of Henry VI., when it was applied in a political song" to the Duke of Suffolk,) is literally Jack o' cards, and not as Dr. Johnson and other lexicographers have derived it, from Jack and Ape, nor, as Mr. Sharon Turner, on the historical occasion alKnave. The latter, indeed, would be luded to, has suggested, Jack the a mere reduplication of terms; for the Jack of cards is the Knave. The result of Mr. Chatto's persevering researches with respect to the introduction of Cards into Europe is summed up in the following epitome in the latter pages of his book : "Admitting cards to be of Eastern invention a fact which appears to be sufficiently established by the evidence adduced in the first chapter,-it would seem that they first became known in Europe as a popular game between 1360 and 1390. Covelluzzo, an Italian chronicler of the fifteenth century, says, that the game was first brought into Viterbo in 1379; in 1373 three packs of cards were painted by Jacquemin Gringonneur for the amusement of Charles VI. of France; in 1397, the working people of Paris were forbid to play at cards on working days; and in the same year card-playing was prohibited by the magistrates of Ulm. Such are the principal facts relative to the introduction of cards into Europe. The game appears to have rapidly spread amongst all classes of people. The manufacture of cards was a regular business in Germany and Italy prior to 1425; the importation of foreign cards into England was prohibited by act of parliament in 1463; and about 1484, cards, as at present, was a common Christmas game. Several passages of ancient authors which have been supposed to allude to cards as in use in Europe at an earlier date than is here stated, are examined in succession by Mr. Chatto, but none are found to stand the test until he arrives at that of the Italian chronicler Covelluzzo, which asserts that "In the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them called Naib." A French miniature, of which a copy is given in the volume before us,* has been supposed to be of about that date, but the dresses belong to a later period by half a century. We do not find that Mr. Chatto has noticed the illumina tion engraved in "Singer's History of Playing Cards," p. 68, from a MS. of Le Roman du Roy Meliadus, which formerly belonged to the Duke of Roxburghe, and afterwards to Sir Egerton Brydges. This picture we regard as an important document in this question for surely the costume of the King and his courtiers there represented is of the reign of Edward the Third, which, to all appearance, is the true æra of the first introduction of playing cards into Europe. The cards themselves were depicted by means of cut patterns or stencils, and not engraved in wood until about the year 1420. When both these processes were adopted,† they were used conjointly, not merely for playing cards, but for a vast quantity of heiligen, or pictures of saints, &c. and gave employment to great numbers of artisans in Germany, of whom the wood-engraver bore the title of Formschneider, and the stenciller that of Briefmaler. (See figures of them both at their work, derived from Mr. Chatto's Treatise on Wood-Engraving, in our vol. XII. p. 110, and the same also in Mr. Singer's "Researches.") The stencilling has been partially continued nearly down to our own day: "Until a comparatively recent period the coat-cards, after having been printed in outline from wood blocks, were coloured by means of stencils; but at present in this country the colours are all applied by means of the press." (p. 272.) A specimen of some of the earliest stencilled cards is exhibited in the annexed engraving (Plate I.) "The originals are preserved in the print-room of the British Museum, and *First published in the Magasin Pittoresque for April 1836, from a MS. of the Cité de Dieu, translated from St. Augustine by Raoul de Presle, between 1371 -1375; but the MS. must be a transcript made in the next century. The earliest known engraving printed from wood is the Saint Christopher, which bears the date 1423; a reduced copy of which, extracted from Mr. Chatto's Treatise on Wood Engraving, will be found in our vol. XII. p. 112. from a repeated examination of them, I am convinced that they have been depicted by means of stencil, and not printed nor 'rubbed off' from wood blocks. They are not coloured, nor cut into single cards, but appear just as they are shown in the fac-similes. They formed part of the covers or boards' of an old book, and were sold to the British Museum by Mr. D. Colnaghi. Looking at the marks of the suits on those cards, the character of the figures, and the manner in which they are executed, I should say that they are not of a later date than 1440. Though cards of only three suits occur, namely, Hearts, Bells, and Acorns, there can be little doubt that the fourth suit was Leaves, as in the pack described by Mr. Gough, in the eighth volume of the Archæolothese, there is no Queen; though, like gia.'* As in Mr. Gough's cards, so in them, there appears to have been three 'coat' cards in each suit, namely, a King, a Knight or superior officer, and Knave or servant; in other words, King, Jack, and Jack's Man. The lower cards, as in Mr. Gough's pack, appear to have been numbered by their 'pips' from two to ten, without any ace. a "That these cards were depicted by means of a stencil, is evident from the feebleness and irregularity of the lines, as well as from the numerous breaks in them, which, in many instances, show where a white isolated space was connected with *These cards, like those just mentioned, were exhumed from the pasteboard cover of an old book. They belonged to Thomas Rawlinson, esq. who gave them to Dr. Stukeley. In 1776 they were purchased by Mr. Tutet, and on his decease by Mr. Gough, who described them in the Archæologia. In 1806 they were in the possession of Mr. Triphook the bookseller. So far Mr. Chatto, p. 205; to which we may now add, that they passed into the possession of the Duke of Buckingham, among whose library they were sold, in February 1849, for 67. 10s. and have passed into the hands of Mr. De la Rue the card-maker. In the curious library of M. Libri, recently sold by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, was also part of an ancient pack of cards, and apparently hitherto undescribed. They are supposed to be of French execution, and of the beginning of the 16th century. Like so many others of the kind, they came from the covers of a book; and, though much injured by damp, about thirteen are entire. They are coat cards, and the costume resembles that of Francis I. and his courtiers. They were sold to Mr. Colnaghi for 47. 48.-it is understood for the British Museum. |