We do not, however, think Mr. Chatto will prove right in supposing this seated lion to be Venetian. The lion of St. Mark is usually represented passant, and with a nimbus round his head.

The first direct proof of the use of Cards in England is supposed to be that their importation among other manufactured wares was prohibited by a protectionist act of parliament in the year 1463. Cards are mentioned among the Christmas sports in the household of a widowed peeress (Lady Morley) in the year 1484. King Henry the Seventh, his daughter Margaret queen of Scotland, and her husband James IV. are all commemorated as card-players; as are queen Katharine of Arragon, her daughter queen Mary, and queen Elizabeth. William Roy, in his satire on Cardinal Wolsey, says of some of the bishops of that day, GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXI.

To play at the cardes and dyce Some of theym are nothynge nyce, Both at hasard and mom-chaunce; and Sir David Lyndsay, the Scottish satirist of the same age, makes cardinal Beaton to confess,

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 crowns of golde upon ane night.

In the reign of Elizabeth the clergy. were restricted from card-playing, and so were apprentices (p. 121), and in some degree, we presume, the lower orders generally, except at Christmas, when unrestrained licence was extended. As Philip Stubbes says in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1583,

"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 thei will. But (alas) doe thei thinke that thei are privileged at that tyme 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."

Still even Philip Stubbes did not wholly condemn the recreation of cards and certain other games among Christians, "using it moderately, with intermission, and in the feare of God."

The principal games at cards played in England before the reign of Charles II. are said to have been, the game of Trumps, in the time of Edward VI.; Primero, Maw, Lodam, Noddy, La Volta, and Bankerout, mentioned by Sir John Harington; and Gleek, Crimp, Mount - Saint, Knave out of Doors, Post and Pair, and Ruff, mentioned in Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays. In the days of the Merry Monarch, Ombre and Basset reigned supreme; in those of Queen Anne, Cotton's "Compleat Gamester" offered instruction in the following games :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

3 A

Dealing; a game called Queen Nazareen; Lanterloo; a game called Penneech; Bankafalet; Beast; and Basset. Quadrille succeeded to Ombre, which it resembled; but at length Whist was introduced, and has now maintained its supremacy for more than a century. It was at first called Whisk, as it still is in some localities; and Mr. Chatto says it is unquestionably of English origin, and appears to have been popular long before it became fashionable. It is named even so early as 1630 by Taylor the Water Poet, but is unnoticed in the first edition of the Compleat Gamester, published in 1674. In the second edition, however, printed six years after, the author condescended to say,―

"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."

Mr. Edmund Hoyle was of a different opinion as to the public demand for instruction in this particular. In 1737 he published his Treatise on Whist, which made a little fortune for himself and his bookseller, Tom Osborne.

Mr. Lockup, a noted professional gamester, who died in 1770, is said to have been seized with his mortal stroke when engaged in playing his favourite game of Humbug, or twohanded Whist: whereupon Foote, who is supposed to have personified him as Loader in the farce of The Minor, observed that "Lookup was humbugged out of the world at last." Is it from this game that we derive that still favourite term of reprobation?

Mr. Chatto's fourth chapter treats "of the different kinds of cards, and the marks of the suits." From want of space we must pass over the discussion of the interesting Italian variety called Tarocchi, a set of emblematical pictures, used as auxiliaries to the regular pack, and of apparently as high antiquity.

The distinctive marks of the suits on the oldest European cards in existence are Hearts, Bells, Leaves, and Acorns.

Such are those shown in the fac-simile in Plate I. and in another imperfect set, somewhat smaller in size, represented in Singer's Researches, from the originals already described in the note in p. 360.

On early Italian cards the most common marks are Swords, Cups, Batons, and Money, and the same marks still continue in Spain. For this reason such cards are termed Spanish; whilst the preceding are the kind most generally used in Germany.

The cards now made in this country have the French marks of Cœur, Trèfle, Pique, and Carreau; or, as we call them, Hearts, Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds. Of these, Mr. Chatto remarks, two at least, the Coeur and the Pique, are evidently derived from the Heart and the Leaf of the earlier pack; while there is good reason to believe that the form of the Trèfle was copied from that of the Acorn.

Some of the early German cards engraved on copper, have figures evidently introduced according to the fancy of the artist, and bearing no resemblance to any of earlier or later date. Of some of these the circular cards in the accompanying engravings (Plate II.) are specimens, and of which Mr. Chatto gives the following ac

count:

Perhaps the earliest specimens of the cards in question are those which have Hares, Parroquets, Pinks, and Columbines as the marks of the suits, and of which a complete pack, or set, of fifty-two pieces, is now in the Bibliothéque du Roi. They are not cut up, but appear just as they came from the hands of the printer, and each separate piece of paper contains either four or six cards. The four Aces form one plate; the numeral cards from Four to Nine are contained on four plates; and the Twos and Threes appear promiscuously mixed with the coat cards on five plates

more.

"The form of these cards is circular, and in each suit there are four coat cards, namely, a King, a Queen, a Squire, and a Knave. The distinction, between the two latter is not indeed very clearly expressed in the costume; though there cannot be a doubt that the lowest character

is that which in each suit is represented as running, and thus plainly corresponding with the Italian Fante. The bighest of the numeral cards is the Nine, there being no Ten in this pack. The respective number of each is marked at the top

in Arabic cyphers, and at the bottom in Roman numerals. At the bottom also, within the outer circle of the border, are the letters T.W., probably intended for the initials of the engraver. Whoever he might be, his name is unknown, and only one other subject of his engraving is noticed by Bartsch."

There is another set of these cards, very nearly resembling them, but which may be distinguished by having the numbers affixed both in Arabic and

Roman numerals, and by the initials of A. W. being absent. Some of these are engraved by Mr. Singer at p. 45; and indeed the Two of Columbines introduced by Mr. Chatto belongs to the numbered set.

Many of the German cards are admirable as works of art.

"The two annexed figures (Plate III.) are the second coat cards * of the Suits of Grun and Eicheln-Leaves and Acorns, in a pack of German cards engraved on wood, of the date 1511. The figures are drawn with great freedom, and are much in the style of Lucas Cranach. On the Two of Acorns are the letters F. C. Z.; the F.

and the C. being probably the initials of the designer, and the Z. signifying that he made the drawings-zeichnet. On the

Two of Leaves are two shields suspended from a tree; the one displays two straight swords, in saltire; and the other the arms of the house of Saxony, the same as are frequently seen in wood engravings_designed by Lucas Cranach. In a third shield at the bottom of the same card are a pick-axe and mallet in saltire, the same as in Dr. Stukeley's cards, probably the mark of the card-maker. Thirty-six cards of this pack, which appears to have originally consisted of fifty-two, are preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi, and fac-similes of them are given in the Jeux de Cartes Tarots et de Cartes Numérales,' published by the Society of Bibliophiles Français, planches 92-95."

The German cards have continued to display more of fanciful embellishment than the cards of other countries, down to the present time. This takes place more especially in the numeral or low cards; which, in addition to the pips, or marks of the suits, frequently contain figures of men and women,

* By "second coat-cards" we should understand the Chevalier (answering to our Queen); but Singer, who has engraved the Scribe here copied, calls it the Knave of Leaves.-REV.

quadrupeds, birds, foliage, and such like ornaments, introduced at the caprice of the designer. Some very beautiful early examples are copied in Mr. Singer's quarto volume; and we have seen a modern pack which commemorates the events of the war between the Allies and Bonaparte.

The French appear to have been the first who gave their coat cards the names of historical personages. A sett of four well-designed Valets or Knaves, perhaps drawn in the fifteenth century or very early in the sixteenth, are inscribed with the names of Lancelot, Hogier, Rolant, and Valery: f.; whilst some, represented in Leber's Etudes Historiques, have partly names and partly mottoes: thus,

Trèfle Valet, Rolan; King, Fautsou (Penny-less); Queen, Tromperie. Carreau-(Valet, wanting;) King, Coursube; Queen, En toi te fie. (For te read probably ie, i.e. je.)

Pique-Valet, etarde; King, Apollin; Queen, leaute due (loyauté due).

Cœur-(Valet, wanting;) King (inscription cut off); Queen, la foy et pdu (est perdue).

These cards the French antiquaries have supposed to be of about the date 1425. We have no hesitation in placing them a full century later. The Queen of Spades is not unlike the portraits of Queen Jane Seymour. Indeed, the costume is little different from that still copied on our coat cards; whilst the attire of the set of Knaves or Valets before mentioned more nearly approaches to the time of Edward IV. Instead, therefore, of Mr. Chatto modestly claiming the figures of his discovering to be almost, if not quite, as old as the French, they are probably from thirty to fifty years older. We are sorry we cannot give examples of these interesting cards; but they are excellently copied, in their proper colours, in Mr. Chatto's volume.

In a pack of French cards engraved in the time of Henri IV. the Kings were named Salomon, Auguste, Clovis, Constantine; the Queens, Elizabeth, Dido, Clotilda, Pantalisee; the Valets, Valet de Court, Valet de Chasse, Valet

†These also, with some other cards of the pack, were found in the cover of an old book, by Mr. Chatto, and are now in the British Museum.