Chapter IV (4)

[268] Millin, Dictionnaire des Beaux Arts, tom. i, p. 201. Paris, 1806. Quoted by Peignot.--Jacobello del Fiore flourished about 1420.--A set of cards, "containing figures of the gods, with their emblematic animals, and figures of birds also," were painted for Philip Visconti, Duke of Milan, who died in 1447. Decembrio, in his life of this prince, in the 20th volume of the 'Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,' says that they cost fifteen hundred pieces of gold, and were chiefly executed by the prince's secretary, Martianus Terdonensis. From the context, it appears that they were not mere pictures, but were intended for some kind of game.--Aretine, in his 'Carte Parlanti,' speaks with admiration of a pack of cards painted by Jacopo del Giallo, a Florentine artist who flourished about 1540.

[269] It is but fair to observe here that the Dutch name for the suit which we call Spades, is _Scop_, a Shovel, or Spade; and that as this name has been evidently given to the suit from the mark bearing some resemblance to a spade, the same suit might have been called Spades by the English for the same reason. This objection, however, does not affect the conjecture with respect to Clubs. In the Nugæ Venales, printed in Holland, 1648, we meet with the following: "Query. Why are the Four Kings of cards, Diamonds, Trefoil, Hearts, and Spades--Rhombuli, Trifolii, Cordis, et Ligonis--always poor?--Answer. Because they are always at play; and play, according to the proverb, is man's perdition. Their state is also in other respects most miserable; for when through them much money is lost, they are condemned to the flames, and burnt like wizards." The modern Dutch names for the suits of French cards are _Hart_,--Heart; _Ruyt_, a lozenge-shaped figure, a diamond-shaped pane of glass,--Diamonds; _Klaver_, Clover, Trefoil,--Clubs; _Scop_, a Spade, Shovel, or Scoop,--Spades.

[270] Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. iii, p. 80.

[271] "Here begynneth a traetys callyde the Lordis flayle handlyde by the Bushoppes powre theresshere Thomas Solme."--Without date. At the end: "Prynted at Basyl by me Theophyll Emlos, undere the sygne of Sente Peters Kay."--16mo. In one passage Henry VIII is appealed to as then living.

[272] To the barn or grange of monasteries a chapel was frequently attached, which used to be attended on holidays by country people who lived at a distance from the parish church.

[273] 'The Poems of William Dunbar, now first collected, with notes and a memoir of his life, by David Laing,' vol. ii, p. 67, 1834.--In the notes to this edition, there are several references to the card-playing of James IV of Scotland. His majesty, it would seem, was accustomed to play with the "French Leich," John Damian, whom he afterwards promoted to the abbacy of Tungland. Damian, who broke his thigh in an attempt to fly from the top of Stirling castle, is the person ridiculed by Dunbar as the "Fenyet Friar of Tungland."

[274] A few single cards, apparently belonging to this pack, preserved in the British Museum, are ascribed to Hans Sebald Behaim.

[275] Those cards are the rarest of all Jost Amman's numerous works. The first title of the volume is "Jodoci Ammanni, civis Noribergensis Charta Lusoria, Tetrastichis illustrata per Janum Heinrichum Scroterum de Gustrou." Then follows a long explanatory title in German, and the imprint, "Gedruct zu Nüurnberg, durch Leonhardt Heussler, Anno, 1588." There is a copy of the work in the British Museum.

[276] Breitkopf, Ursprung der Spielkarten, s. 33.

[277] "Voy. les Voyages de Samuel Purchas; ceux de Thomas Herbert en Perse et dans plusieurs parties de l'Orient; le Suppl. t. ii, des Cérémonies relig., avec les figures de B. Picart, et la Pl. de la fête de Huly, t. i, 2^e part. des mêmes Cérémonies, p. 138."

[278] "Notamment EXODE, c. xxxix, v. 25."

[279] "Voy. D. Calmet, Dictionn. de la Bible, au mot CLOCHETTE."

[280] "Lalla Rookh, an oriental romance, by T. Moore."

[281] "Voy. Breitkopf, Ursprung der Spielkarten, p. 33, et la Pl. de Henri VI et de Wulphilde (d'après l'Archéologie, sauf erreur). Les mêmes figures, copiées par Jansen, se retrouvent t. i, de son Essai sur l'Origine de la Gravure en Bois et en Taille-douce. Paris, 1808, 2 vol. in-8. Le costume en a été évidemment rajeuni, mais il est hors de toute vraisemblance qu'on y ait supposé une parure de grelots étrangère au monument original."--Mons. Leber, in citing Breitkopf, spells his name with uniform inaccuracy.

[282] "Gough, d'après Stukeley, Archæologia, t. viii, p. 152; et Singer, p. 73."

[283] "La Fauconnerie de Guillaume Tardif, ch. x, p. 61; et les Oiseaux de Proie, par G. B., p. 122 du recueil de J. du Fouilloux, édit. de Paris, 1614, in-4, fig."

[284] "Quoiqu'on ait souvent traduit les mots _crotalum_ et _crusma_,--κροταλον, κρωσμα,--par _grelot_, et réciproquement, on croit que les instruments ainsi nommés par les Grecs et les Romains n'étaient pas ce que nous appelons des grelots; et, en effet, la figure du grelot ne se retrouve dans aucun monument d'une antiquité bien établie. Voy. F. A. Lampe, De Cymbalis veterum, lib. i, cap. 4, 7, 8, et fig., pp. 26 et 44, Holl., pet. in-12."

[285] "Voy. les comp. 2 et 8 de la pl. 56 des Monuments de la Monarchie française, par Montfaucon."

[286] "Ibid. pl. 55, d'après une miniature d'un manusc. angl. du X^e siècle."

[287] "Hist. de la Maison de Montmorency.--Le Grand, Vie privée des Franç. tom. ii."

[288] "Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. 9, p. 245 de l'édit. in-4 de Savaron. Ce commentateur allègue un passage de Prosper, lib. iii, cap. 17, de Vita contemplativa, où il est aussi question d'oiseaux et de chiens de chasse: 'Utuntur accipitribus ac saginatis canibus ad venatum.'"

[289] "Suivant l'opinion la plus généralement adoptée, et que partagèrent Velser, Duchesne, Fauchet, Du Tillet, Blondel, les frères de Sainte-Marthe, Spelman, le P. Menestrier et autres. Voy. le Traité de _l'Origine des Armoiries_, de ce dernier. Paris, 1679, in-12, pp. 53 et suiv."

[290] "Sentiment adopté par le président Hénault: 'Mathilde ... broda en laine un monument qu'on voit dans l'église de Bayeux, de l'expédition de son mari en Angleterre; la mort ne lui permit pas de l'achever.' (Hist. de Fr. sous les ann. 1067-74.)"

[291] "Voy. Fauconnerie de G. Tardif."

[292] Leber, Etudes Historiques sur les Cartes à jouer, pp. 80-4.

[293] There is every reason to believe that the suit of cards which we call Diamonds was not so named in consequence of the mark being mistaken for the symbol of a precious stone, but merely on account of its form. The Dutch call the same suit _Ruyt_, in consequence of its form being like a lozenge-shaped pane of glass. The Diamonds on cards are, in Northumberland, more especially amongst the colliers, frequently termed _Picks_, in consequence of the acute angular points being something like the Picks used in hewing coals. The Spanish name _Oros_ appears to have been originally applied to the suit called by the Italians _Denari_ or _Danari_, without the least reference to the French _Carreaux_.--The mistakes on this subject appear to be exclusively Mons. Leber's own.

[294] The probability is on the other side, namely, that the German _Grün_, or Leaf, was the original of the French _Pique_. No French cards hitherto discovered are of so early a date as those which have Bells, Hearts, Leaves, and Acorns as the marks of the suits.

[295] The Crequier is a kind of wild plum-tree, and its leaves are borne as the family arms of the house of Crequi. Armorial bearings of this kind are called "_armoiries parlantes_" by French heralds.

[296] Mons. Leber should have said "Sept de Grün;" but then this would have destroyed the anomaly which he was desirous of illustrating; for there is nothing anomalous in the Leaves on German cards having a resemblance to the leaves of a particular tree.

[297] See the passage at length, p. 135.

[298] On this card the name of the manufacturer appears--P. De Lestre--together with his mark.

[299] In a pack of modern Portuguese cards now before me there is no Queen; and the suits are Hearts, Bells, Leaves, and Acorns. The figures of the coat cards are half-lengths and double--"de duas Cabeças;" so that a head is always uppermost whichever way the card may be held. In a pack of modern Spanish cards,--"Naypes Refinos"--also without a Queen, the figures are also double; but the suits are Copas, Oros, Spadas, and Bastos,--Cups, Money, Swords, and Clubs proper.--On modern German cards the figures are frequently represented double in the same manner.

[300] Peignot, Analyse de Recherches sur les Cartes à jouer, pp. 288-90. Paris, 1826. The following passage relative to the change of manners which succeeded the Revolution is quoted by Mons. Peignot from a periodical entitled 'Le Corsaire:'--"Les cartes en vogue jusqu'à la révolution furent totalement abandonnées pendant les terribles années de notre bouleversement politique. Le boston, le grave wisth, le sémillant reversis, n'étoient plus conservés que chez quelques bons bourgeois, dont ils n'avoient jamais sans doute enflammé les passions, ou dans quelques vieilles maisons du Marais et du faubourg Saint-Germain. La bouillotte n'étoit guère connue que de quelques marchands; et même l'opinion publique flétrissait ceux dont une ignoble avidité compromettoit la fortune. La mode avoit mis en faveur la conversation, les soirées musicales, les soirées dansantes. L'écarté a paru, et ce jeu niais et insipide a fait revivre parmi nous toutes les fureurs du gothique lansquenet. Plus de conversation, plus de danses; la sonate ou la romance du jour sont interrompues par le cri des joueurs; le bal est désert, ou n'est plus peuplé que de vieux amateurs; tandis que la jeunesse s'empresse autour des tables d'écarté."

[301] A description of the same cards by Mons. Amanton, member of the Academy of Dijon, is given in Peignot's Analyse, p. 291: "Dans ce jeu," says Mons. Amanton, "les portraits des rois sont très ressemblans, les costumes du temps bien observés; et même les noms des personnages sont écrits en caractères de l'écriture en usage dans le siècle où ils ont vécu. Malgré la perfection du travail, ces jolis dessins n'ont pu l'emporter sur les anciennes images informes, qui rappellent l'enfance de l'art; tant la force de l'habitude est tyrannique."

[302] Mons. Peignot, in his 'Analyse de Recherches sur les Cartes à Jouer,' 1826, after noticing Cotta's cards, thus speaks of the satirical cards above described: "C'est sans doute ce recueil qui a donné lieu à un jeu de cartes très-malin, publié à Paris il y a sept à huit ans, sous le titre de Cartes à rire; ce doit être, autant que je puis me le rappeler, sous le ministère de M.D.C.... On attribue ce jeu à M.A. ... C.A.D.C.D.D.O. Toutes les cartes, soit à personnages, soit numériques, présentent des dessins charmans, des figures ingénieusement groupées, des attitudes très-plaisantes. Mais l'esprit satyrique y est poussé à l'excès; et ce n'est point avec de pareilles caricatures qu'on parviendra à rétablir l'union parmi les Français." p.297.

[303] According to Père Daniel, the Ace or As is the Latin As,--a piece of money, coin, riches; while Bullet derives it from the Celtic, and says that it means origin, source, beginning, the first. A French writer of the sixteenth century, supposed to be Charles Stephens, in a work entitled 'Paradoxes,' printed at Paris in 1553, says that the Ace, or "_Az_ ought to be called _Nars_, a word which, in German, signifies a fool." The German word which he alludes to is _Narr_, which is just as likely to have been the origin of Deuce as of Ace. It has also been supposed that the term Ace has been derived from the Greek word ὁνος, which, according to Julius Pollux, signified _One_ in the Ionic dialect; but as the word ὁνος also signified an Ass, it has been conjectured that the Ace of cards and dice was so called, not as a designation of unity, but as signifying an Ass or a Fool. Those who entertained the latter opinion are said by Hyde to be Asses themselves: "Qui unitatem asinum dicunt errant, et ipsi sunt asini." (_De Ludis Orient._ lib. ii.)--Leber, Etudes Historiques, pp. 39, 86.

[304] Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words.

[305] Singer's Researches, p. 271.

[306] Dr. Houstoun's Memoirs of his own Lifetime, p. 92. Edit. 1747.

[307] A writer of the age of Queen Elizabeth would appear to have foreseen the great "Card Controversy," which within the last 150 years has occupied so many "learned pens:" "It shall be lawful for coney-catchers to fall together by the ears, about the four Knaves of Cards, which of them may claim superiority; and whether false dice or true be of the most antiquity."--The Pennyless Parliament of Thread-bare Poets.

[308] The French also call the Trump _Atou_,--"Coupez: Cœur est Atou." Cut: Hearts are Trumps.

[309] "Triomphe: the card-game called Ruff, or Trump; also, the Ruff, or Trump at it."--Cotgrave's French and English Dictionary.

[310] In 'The Toast,' a satirical poem written about 1730, by Dr. William King, Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, Dr. Hort, Archbishop of Tuam, is called Lord Pam. He is also called Pam by Swift.

[311]

"Discincta tunica fugiendum est;
Ne nummi pereant.
Deprendi miserum est."--HORAT.

[312] Pascasius Justus mentions in his Alca, first published in 1560, that a certain merchant, having obtained from Charles V a monopoly for ten years of the sale of cards in Spain, became extremely rich in consequence of the great demand for them.

[313] Encyclopédie Méthodique, mot, Cartier. An account of the subsequent legislation in France, with respect to cards, is to be found in the 'Manuel du Cartonnier, et du Fabricant de Cartonnages,' pp. 224-37. Paris, 1830.