In the annexed specimens of Chinese cards, Nos. 1 and 2 are the first and third of the suit of nine myriads of Kwan; Nos. 3 and 4 are the one and the three of the suit of cakes; No. 5 is the one of the suit of chains; and No. 6 is that of the three superior cards, which is called the white flower.
Besides those above described, the Chinese have several other varieties of cards: one pack or set is called Pih-tsze-pae, the hundred boys' cards; another, Tseen-wan-jin-pae,—"a thousand times ten-thousand mens' names cards," containing the names of persons famous in Chinese history; and a third has the same name as Chinese Chess, Keu-ma-paou, chariots, horses, and guns. This latter name corroborates what has been previously said about the probability of the game of cards having been suggested by that of chess.
The marks to be found on Chinese cards scarcely afford a gleam of light by which we might judge of their relation to the cards of other countries: in a pack of such as are chiefly used in Cochin China, I have observed the form of the diamond nearly the same as it appears on English cards; and in a pack of the Chinese cards called Tseen-wan-che-pae, the mark of the suit of Nine Cakes is nearly the same as that of the old Italian Danari, which Galeottus Martius—in his treatise 'De Doctrina promiscua,' written about 1488—considers to have been meant for a loaf.
The cards commonly used in China, are much narrower than ours; an idea of their size may be formed from the specimens given, making allowance for a small margin of white paper all round, but rather wider at the top and bottom than at the sides. The Chinese name for a card, considered singly, or as one of the pieces of a pack or set, appears to be Shen, a fan.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bibliothèque curieuse et instructive, tom. ii, chap. xii. Des Principes des Sciences et des Arts, disposé en forme de Jeux. Trevoux, 1704.
"Ludo Tesserarum Plato vitam comparavit, in quo et jacere utilia oportet, et jacientem uti benè iis quæ ceciderunt."— Plut. Op. Mor. Epist. ad Paccium.—Etudes historiques sur les Cartes à Jouer, par M. C. Leber, p. 63.
[3] In a paper entitled, l'Origine du Jeu de Piquet, trouvé dans l'Histoire de France sous le règne de Charles VII. Printed in the Mémoires pour l'Histoire des Sciences, &c.—Trévoux; in the vol. for May, 1720, p. 934-968.
[4] In a dissertation "Du Jeu de Tarots, où l'on traite de son origine, où l'on explique ses allégories, et où l'on fait voir qu'il est la source de nos Cartes modernes à jouer," &c. This dissertation is contained in his Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le Monde moderne.—Dissertations mêlées, tom. i, p. 365-394. Paris, 1781. It is not unlikely that he was led to make this discovery from the notices of a philosophic game of the ancient Egyptians, quoted by Meursius, in his treatise De Ludis Græecorum, p. 53. Lugduni Batavorum, 1622. A summary of Court de Gebelin's conceits on the subject of Tarots is to be found in Peignot's Analyse de Recherches sur les Cartes à jouer, p. 227-237.
[6] See an image of Isis, horned, with the infant Horus on her knee; and note, that antiquaries have not settled why the Virgin Mary is sometimes represented with the crescent on her head. Isis was the protectress of seafaring people; and her image, as we learn from Petronius and other writers, was frequently placed in ships.
[7] The hand occurs frequently in Egyptian hieroglyphics: it would be superfluous to tell the learned reader what it means. The hand holding a hammer, in the hieroglyphic usually known as the Blacksmiths' Coat of Arms, is sufficiently explained by the motto,
[8] Versuch, den Ursprung der Spielkarten, die Einführung des Leinenpapieres, und den Anfang der Holzschneidekunst in Europa zu erforschen. Von J. G. I. Breitkopf. 4to. Leipzig, 1784.
[9] Researches into the History of Playing Cards; with Illustrations of the Origin of Printing and Engraving on Wood. By Samuel Weller Singer. 4to. London, 1816.
[10] Tome deuxième de l'année 1836. 'Origine Française de la Boussole et des Cartes à jouer.' Fragmens d'un ouvrage sous presse, intitulé, 'Histoire du Drapeau, des Couleurs, et des Insignes de la Monarchie Française,' &c. Par M. Rey. Livre X—Universalité des Fleurs de Lis.
[11] Etudes historiques sur les Cartes à jouer. Par M. C. Leber. Originally printed in the sixteenth volume of the 'Mémoires de la Société royale des Antiquaires de France,' and subsequently published separately. Paris, 1842.
[12] "... Ce n'est pas l'affaire de quelques années, ni des travaux, ni des sacrifices d'une seule vie, que de rassembler tant de chétifs débris, de pièces égarées, souillées, mutilées, informes, et dont la découverte n'est plus souvent qu'un caprice du hasard, une bonne fortune plutôt qu'une bonne action. Il faut donc attendre que cette œuvre du temps et de la persévérance soit accomplie."—Etudes Historiques, p. 60.
[13] Catalogue des Livres imprimés, Manuscrits, Estampes, Dessins, et Cartes à jouer, composant le Bibliothèque de M. C. Leber, tom. i, p. 238. Paris, 1839. This library, the Catalogue of which consists of three volumes, now belongs to the city of Rouen. The cards are described in the first volume, pp. 237-48.
[14] With the Latins, Ludere par impar; with the Greeks, αρτιαζειν; ραιζειν, αρτια η περιττα. "Nempe ludentes, sumptis in manu talis, fabis, nucibus, amygdalis, interdum etiam nummis, interrogantes alteram divinare jubebant, 'αρτια η περιττα'; paria, nempe, an imparia haberent."—Meursius, de Ludis Græcorum, p. 5, edit. 1622.
[15] Fortune is a parvenue, in the Olympian circle,—of great means, but no family:
[16] Dr. Thomas Hyde is inclined to think that the game of Astragali was known from the time of the general Deluge.—De Ludis Orientalibus. Oxon. 1694.
[17] The ancient Greek game of Astragali or Astragalismus—the Tali of the Romans—appears to have been played in a manner similar to that described in the text. The names given to the different casts are to be found in Meursius, De Ludis Græcorum, under the word ΑΣΤΡΑΓΑΛΙΣΜΟΣ.
The word used by Homer, ρεσσοι,—which properly means the pebbles or pieces employed in the game,—is here translated tables; a term, which having now become nearly obsolete as signifying draughts, may be used to denote an ancient cognate game.
It might be plausibly urged by a commentator fond of discovering Homer's covert meanings, that the poet intended to censure the games of Astragalismus and Petteia,—the former as a cause of strife, and the latter as a fitting amusement for idle and dissipated persons, like the suitors of Penelope. In the twenty-third book of the Iliad, v. 87, Patroclus is represented as having killed, when a boy, though unintentionally, a companion with whom he had quarrelled when playing at Astragali or Tali:
It is not unlikely that an ancient piece of sculpture, in the British Museum,—representing a boy biting the arm of his companion, with whom he has quarrelled at Tali—relates to this passage.
[19] See a work by the late Mr. James Christie—more generally known to the world as an auctioneer than as a man of learning and of great research—entitled "An Enquiry into the ancient Greek game supposed to have been invented by Palamedes antecedent to the Siege of Troy; with Reasons for believing the Game to have been known from remote antiquity in China, and progressively improved into the Chinese, Indian, Persian, and European Chess." London, 1801.
[20] Julius Pollux, Onomasticon, lib. ix, cap. 7.
[21] "As the military groundwork of the game of cards, and its similarity to chess, cannot be denied; so a closer examination of this affinity may readily lead to the origin of the change in their figures and colours."—Breitkopf, Ueber den Ursprung der Spielkarten, s. 30.
[22] "Le traducteur du Poëme de la Vielle, en décrivant les Echecs, s'exprime ainsi;
—L'Origine du Jeu des Echecs, par Mons. Freret. Hist. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. v, p. 255.
[23] "Comme c'est un jeu militaire, il y a dans chaque couleur un roi, un officier supérieur ou capitaine, nommé Ober, et un bas-officier appelé Unter. On appelait encore de nos jours dans l'Empire, où les mots François ne sont pas en vogue, les officiers supérieurs Oberleute, et les bas-officiers Unterleute"—Heineken, Idée Générale d'une Collection d'Estampes, p. 241. Leipsic, 1771.
[24] It would appear that the etymology of this name was a matter of great uncertainty even among people of oriental race. According to some, it was Sad-rengh, the hundred turns, or wiles of the players; according to others, it was Sad-rangi, the hundred vexations of the game. A third derivation was from Shesh-rengh, six colours, as if each of the six orders of pieces had been distinguished by a separate colour.—Hyde, De Ludis Orientalibus. Par. 1. Historia Shahiludii, cap. De Nomine Shatrangi. Oxon. 1694.
[25] That the suits of cards were formerly distinguished by an emblem which was suggestive of a particular colour, as well as representing a particular form, is certain. The Germans still call two of their suits Roth and Grün—red and green—and the emblems are a heart and a leaf.
[26] Observations on the Antiquity of Card-playing in England. In the Archæologia, vol. viii.
[27] "Edward the First, when Prince of Wales, served nearly five years in Syria, and therefore, whilst military operations were suspended, must naturally have wished some sedentary amusement. Now, the Asiatics scarcely ever change their customs: and as they play at cards, though in many respects different from ours, it is not improbable that Edward might have been taught this game, ad quatuor reges, whilst he continued so long in this part of the globe."—Archæol. viii, p. 135.
[28] "Après souper venoient en place les beaulx Evangiles de bois, c'est-à-dire force tabliers, ou le beau flux, ung, deux, trois."—Rabelais, livre i, chap. 22.
[29] The following verses relating to this point are quoted by Peignot, in his Analyse de Recherches sur les Cartes à Jouer, from a poem intituled "La Magdeleine au Désert de la Sainte-Baume en Provence, Poëme spirituel et chrétien, par le P. Pierre de St. Louis, religieux Carme." Lyons, 1668.
[30] "The b and v in Persian are constantly used for each other; one instance will suffice—the plural of na-eeb, a viceroy, is equally pronounced nu-vaub and nu-baub, or, according to our pronunciation, nabob."—A Personal Narrative of a Journey from India to England, by Captain the Hon. George Keppel, vol. ii, p. 89. Second edit. 1827.
[31] "Naipe, carton, &c. Tamarid quiere que sea nombre Arabigo, y lo mismo el Brocense; pero comunamente se juzga que se los dio este nombre por la primer cifra que se las puso, que fue una N y una P, con que se significaba el nombre de su inventor, Nicolao Pepin: y de ahi con pequeña corrupcion se dixo Naipe."—Diccionario de la Academia Españolo, edit. 1734.
[32] Istoria della Citta di Viterbo, da Feliciano Bussi, p. 213. Roma, 1743. The passage relating to cards appears to have been first pointed out by Leber, in his Etudes Historiques sur les Cartes à jouer, p. 43. "Though we have no information respecting the precise date of Covelluzzo's birth or death," says Mons. Leber, in a note at p. 17 of Mons. Duchesne's Précis Historique, "it is yet certain that this chronicler, whose name is properly Giovanni de Juzzo de Covelluzzo, wrote in the fifteenth century, and that what he relates about cards being brought into Viterbo in 1379, was extracted from the chronicle of Nicholas de Covelluzzo, one of his ancestors, who, as well as himself, was an inhabitant of Viterbo, and who possibly might have resided there at the period when cards were first introduced."
[33] Mahmoud, the Gasnevide, first invaded Hindostan in a.d. 999.
[34] "χαρταριον; Gallicum, quartier; scutulum quadratum. Extat. apud Codinum de Offic. aulæ Constantinop. χαρτιον, idem quod χαρταριον."—Meursii Glossarium Græco-Barbarum, 4to, Lugd. Batavor., 1605.—Quartier de bois. A quarter, or square piece of timber.—Cotgrave's French and English Dictionary.
[35] "Cayer. A quire of written paper; a piece of a written book, divided into equal parts."—Cotgrave. The cayer appears to have been synonymous with the pecia of monkish writers. It may be observed that from chartar, a Persian word literally signifying 'four-strings,' the Rev. Stephen Weston has traced the descent of κιθαρα; cithara; chitarra; and guitar. To these derivates the old English gittern may be added."—Specimens of the Conformity of the European Languages, especially the English, with the Oriental languages, especially the Persian. By Stephen Weston, B. D. 12mo, 1802.
[36] It may be here noted that the word Wuruk or Wuruq, used by the Moslems in Hindostan to signify a card, signifies also the leaf of a tree, a leaf of paper, being in the latter sense identical with the Latin folium. See Richardson's Arabic Dictionary, word "Card;" and the word "Wuruq"' in the list of terms used at the game of cards as played at Hindostan, given in a subsequent page.
[37] Should I be told that the correct word for "four" in Hindostanee, is chatur, chatta, or cattah,—not chartah,—and be required to account for the ρ in χαρτης, supposing the latter word to be derived from the same root, I should answer by giving a case in point—the derivation of quartus from quatuor,—leaving others to assign the reason. I subjoin here, by way of contrast, a different etymology of carta—Epistola, a letter. "Quieren algunos que este nombre Castellano, Carta, se derivasse de la ciudad de Carta insigne por aver sido cuna de la reyna Dido, y atribuyen à esta ciudad la etimologia, por aver sido la primera que dio materia en que las Cartas se escriviessen."—Seneca impugnado de Seneca, &c. Por Don Alonzo Nuñez de Castro, p. 220, 4to. Madrid, 1661.—Is there any evidence to show that the form of ancient Carthage was Square?
[38] "Im Arabischen heist Nabaa: er hat einen leisen Ton, wie die Zauberer thun, von sich gegeben; davon Naba, die Zaubertrommel, und Nabi, ein Prophet, Wahrsager, herkömmt. Eichhorn erklärt, in der Einleitung zum A. Testamente, die hebräischen Worte Nabi, Nabüm, durch göttliche Eingebung, und durch Leute, die durch göttliche Eingebung handeln."—Ueber den Ursprung der Spielkarten, s. 15.
[39] Heineken, Idée Générale d'une complète Collection d'Estampes, p. 240. Leipsic, 1771.
[40] The Abbé Bullet, previous to the appearance of his little book on Cards, in 1757, had commenced the publication of a Celtic Dictionary. In the former there are many traces of his mind having acquired a bent from his Celtic researches. He finds the origin of the term as or ace in the Celtic as; and in the same language he finds the true meaning of the names of the Queens of Clubs and Hearts, Argine and Judith. Argine is formed of ar, la, the, and gin, belle, beautiful; and Judith is a corruption of Judic,—which is formed of jud, a queen, and dyc, twice. Both those queens, according to his fancy, are intended to represent Anne of Bretagne, wife of Charles VIII and Louis XII. According to Père Daniel, Argine is an anagram of Regina, and is meant for Mary of Anjou, wife of Charles VII; and Judith is not the heroine of the Old Testament, but the wife of Louis-le-Debonnaire. Though those doctors disagree, yet each appears to have equally good reasons for his opinions. The consequence is that we can put no faith in either.
[41] The Abbé Rive, grounding his opinion on an interpolated passage in Guterry's French translation of Guevara's Epistles, ascribes the invention of cards to the Spaniards, and places it about the year 1330. With respect to the origin of the name Naipes, he adopts the N P etymology of the Spanish Academy. The Abbé's brochure on cards is entitled 'Eclaircissements Historiques et Critiques sur l'Invention des Cartes à jouer.' Paris, 1780.
[42] "Mappa, dit Papias, togilla, (c-est-à-dire, touaille, nappe); Mapa etiam dicitur Pictura vel Forma Ludorum, unde dicitur Mapamundi. Un vieux glossaire latin-français de la Bibliothèque de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, cité par Ducange, reproduit et explique ainsi ce passage précieux, en le traduisant: 'Mapamundi, mapemunde; et dicitur a Mapa, nappe ou picture, ou form de jeux.'"—Mélanges d'Origines Etymologiques et de Questions Grammaticales. Par M. Eloi Johanneau, p. 40. Paris, 1818.
[43] The description alluded to will be found at p. 41.
[44] The sex of the Company appears to be a matter of interest even with the ladies of Affghanistan. "At night the ladies of Mahomed Shah Khan, and other chiefs who were travelling in our company, invited Mrs. Eyre to dinner. She found them exceedingly kind in manner and prepossessing in outward appearance, being both well-dressed and good-looking. They asked the old question as to the gender of the Company."—Lieut. Eyre's Journal of Imprisonment in Affghanistan.
[45] "Apropos de bottes,"—"Now you speak of a Gun:" Moore, in his Life of Sheridan, observes that but a very imperfect report of Sheridan's celebrated speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings is preserved. The following piquant passage relating to the East India Company, as then constituted and acting, occurs in a report of the speech published in an old Magazine, for February, 1787. "He remembered to have heard an honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas) remark, that there was something in the first frame and constitution of the Company, which extended the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive operations, connecting with their civil policy, and even with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar and the profligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and the military line could be observed auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals; and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an army employed in executing an arrest; a town besieged on a note of hand; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was they exhibited a government which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre, and the little traffic of a merchant's counting-house, wielding a truncheon with one hand and picking a pocket with another."
[46] It is expressly stated that the cards of one of the packs are made of canvas, in a memorandum which accompanies them. This is the pack which is said to be a thousand years old. On first handling them they seemed to me to be made of thin veneers of wood.
[47] Though Mahometans might object to paint figured cards, it appears that they do "tolerate" them, and that very amply, by using them. See a description of the Gunjeefu, or cards used by the Moslems, at page 41.
[48] In a note to the article on Whist, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 48, previously referred to, this pack of cards is noticed, and the suits are thus enumerated: "While this article was in the press, we have been favoured with a sight of two packs of cards in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society: and, as truth is more strange than fiction, one of these, consisting of Ten Suits, certainly does represent the Ten Avatars or incarnations of the Vistnou, or Vishnava, sect.... The suits are:
- 1. The Fish.
- 2. The Tortoise.
- 3. The Boar.
- 4. The Lion.
- 5. The Monkey.
- 6. The Hatchet.
- 7. The Umbrella (or Bow.)
- 8. The Goat.
- 9. The Boodh.
- 10. The Horse.
"The Dwarf of the 5th Avatar is substituted by the Monkey; the Bow and Arrows of the 7th by the Cattashal or Umbrella, which gives precisely the same outline; and the Goat there, as often elsewhere, takes the place of the Plough."
On the pack of eight cards, which was probably one of those previously noticed in the present volume, the writer of the article makes the following observations: "The other pack has eight suits, of eight cards and two court cards each; eighty in all. [The number of cards, inclusive of the honours, in each suit, is twelve, as has been previously observed.] The Parallelogram, Sword, Flower, and Vase, answer to the Carreau, Espada, Club, and Copa of European suits: the Barrel (?), the Garland (?), and two kinds of Chakra (quoit) complete the set."—The Sword is plain enough, and so is the parallelogram. The Flower and the Cup, I confess, I have not been able to make out; and I question much if the Parallelogram—which in another pack, subsequently described, represents a royal diploma or mandate—be the original of the Carreau or Diamond on European cards. The "two kinds of Chakra" are simply two circular marks.
[49] Engravings of those subjects, as well as their description, will be found in 'Religions de l'Antiquité, considerées principalement dans leurs formes symboliques et mythologiques; ouvrage traduit de l'Allemand du Dr. Frederic Creutzer, par J. D. Guigniant.' Planches, premier cahier, p. 11, 8vo; Paris, 1825.
[50] "Espèce de roue enflammée, symbole de la force vivante qui pénètre et meut l'univers."
[51] The Institutions of Moses and those of the Hindoos compared. By Joseph Priestly, LL.D. p. 56. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1799.
[52] Beshbur.
[53] Kumbur.
[54] The names of the suits are thus explained: Taj, a crown. Soofed, white, abbreviated from the original appellation, zur-i-soofed, a silver coin; figuratively, the moon. Shumsher, a sabre. Gholam, a slave. Chung, a harp. Soorkh, red, or zur-i-soorkh, gold coin; figuratively, the sun. Burat, a royal diploma, or assignment. Quimash, merchandize.
[55] In cutting for the deal, Taj is the highest suit, and the rest have precedence, after that suit, in the order above recited.
[56] "By an oversight of the engraver, a native Bengalee artist, the Moon in No. 2, Plate I, is represented as crescent instead of full. [The error has been faithfully retained in our fac-similes.] The price of the pack was two rupees."
[57] "In the Dictionary Hindostanee and English, edited by the late Dr. Hunter, the names of the Eight Suits of Cards are to be found under the word Taj, the name of the first suit."—On the authority of a gentleman of eminent attainments in Hindostanee literature, I am informed that there is no Sanscrit word for Playing Cards.
[58] A particular account of the mode of playing the game of "L'Hombre à trois," will be found in the first volume of the 'Académie des Jeux.' The author observes, "Il est inutile de s'arrêter à l'etymologie du jeu de l'hombre; il suffit de dire que les Espagnols en sont les auteurs, et qu'il se sent du flegme de la nation dont il tire son origine." According to the same authority, "La Quadrille n'est, à proprement parler, que l'hombre à quatre, qui n'a pas, à la verité, la beauté, ni ne demande pas une si grande attention que l'hombre à trois; mais aussi faut-il convenir qu'il est plus amusant et plus recréatif."
[59] Barrington's Observations on the Antiquity of Card-playing in England.—Archæologia, vol. viii, 1787.
[60] Chung is also the Chinese name for a kind of harp.—In three other packs of Hindostanee cards, of the same kind, which I have had an opportunity of examining, the harp occurs both in the honours and the numeral cards. I suspect that the bird has been substituted through a mistake of the native artist who engraved the cards. In one of the packs just alluded to, the cards are not circular, but rectangular, like European cards, but of much smaller size. In another pack of Hindostanee cards which I have seen, the marks in all the eight suits are birds; in four of the suits, they are all of the same form—something like that of a starling—but differing in their colour; in three others they are all geese, and of the same colour, so that the suit is only to be distinguished by the ground on which they are painted. The mark of the eighth suit is a peacock.
[61] These are still the marks of the suits in Spain: "Copas, Espadas, Oros, y Bastos." The "Oros," literally golden money, are also called Dineros, that is, money in general. The same marks are also to be found on old Italian cards, and the names for them were, Coppe, Spade, Danari, and Bastoni. The discrepancy between the names, Spades and Clubs, and the marks of these suits, in English cards, will be noticed in its proper place.
[62] Religions de l'Antiquité; traduction Française de Guigniant.
[63] Von Hammer's Mines of the East.
[64] This is Mr. Colebrooke's conclusion. Sir John Malcolm gives a different account, the correctness of which may be very justly doubted, both as regards the present time and the past: "The four divisions of Hindoos, viz. the priests, soldiers, merchants, and labourers, appear to have existed in every human society, at a certain stage of civilization; but in India alone have they been maintained for several thousand years with prescriptive vigour."—Essay on the Bhills (Beels) by Sir John Malcolm, in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i, p. 65, 1824.
[65] Innocentio Ringhieri, Cento Ginochi liberali et d'Ingegno, p. 132. 4to. Bologna, 1551.
[66] The Life of St. Francis Xavier, by Father Bouhours: translated by John Dryden, pp. 71, 203, 697.
[67] "The 6th October, [1592] they met with a Malacca ship of 700 tons, which, after her main-yard was shot through, yielded.... They found on board fifteen pieces of brass cannon, 300 butts of Canary and Nipar or Palm-wine, with very strong raisin wine; all sorts of haberdashery-wares, as hats, red knit caps, and stockings of Spanish wool; velvets, taffeties, camblets, and silks; abundance of suckets, rice, Venice glasses, counterfeit stones (brought by an Indian from Venice, to cheat the Indians), Playing Cards, and two or three packs of French paper." The prize was taken in the Straits of Malacca; and the articles of European manufacture appear to have been brought to Malacca by the Portuguese.—The Naval Chronicle; or Voyages of the most celebrated English Navigators, vol. i, p. 392. 8vo. 1760.
[68] Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, vol. ii, p. 169. Second edit. 1835.
[69] Card-playing appears to be a very common amusement in Hindostan.—"I could remind or perhaps inform the fashionable gamesters of St. James's Street, that before England ever saw a dice-box, many a main has been won and lost under a palm-tree, in Malacca, by the half-naked Malays, with wooden and painted dice; and that he could not pass through a bazaar in this country [Hindostan] without seeing many parties playing with cards, most cheaply supplied to them by leaves of the cocoa-nut or palm-tree, dried, and their distinctive characters traced with an iron style.... At the corner of every street you may see the Gentoo-bearers gambling over chalked-out squares, with small stones for men, and with wooden dice; or Coolies playing with cards of the palm-leaf. Nay, in a pagoda under the very shadow of the idol, I have seen Brahmins playing with regular packs of Chinese cards."—Sketches of India: written by an Officer for Fireside Travellers at Home, pp. 68 and 100. Fourth edition, 1826.
[70] For the reference to the Ching-tsze-tung, and the explanation of the passage relating to cards, I am indebted to Mr. S. Birch, of the British Museum.
[71] "Second Mémoire sur les Relations politiques des Rois de France avec les Empereurs Mongols," dans le Journal Asiatique, de Septembre, 1822, p. 62.
CHAPTER II.
INTRODUCTION OF CARDS INTO EUROPE.
At what period Playing Cards first became known in Europe,—whether as an original invention, or introduced from some other quarter of the world,—has not yet been ascertained. From the silence, however, of all authorities by whom we might expect to find them distinctly named if they had been in common use, it may be fairly concluded, that, though they possibly might be known to a few persons before the year 1350, they did not begin to attract notice nor come into frequent use till towards the latter end of the fourteenth century. Packs of cards are distinctly mentioned by the name which they still retain in France—Jeux de Cartes—in an entry made in his book of accounts, about 1393, by Charles Poupart, treasurer of the household to Charles VI of France. Considering, then, this entry as an established fact in the history of cards, I shall now proceed to lay before the reader some of the grounds and evidences on which it has been asserted that cards were well known in Europe before that period.
Several writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in discussing the lawfulness of card-playing, gratuitously assuming that the game was included under the general term Alea, [72] have spoken of cards as if they had been known from time immemorial. The easy mode of deriving aliquid de aliquo by means of a comprehensive genus, is of frequent use with those decisive characters who delight in settling cases of conscience with a strong hand; and who, enveloped in the dust of the Schools, lay vigorously about them, both right and left, with weapons borrowed from "the old Horse Armoury of the Fathers," and re-ground, for present use, on the Decretals. He who can discover cards, implicitè, as Olearius has it, [73] in St. Cyprian's tract, De Aleatoribus, or in the injunctions against gaming in the canons of any Council or Synod previous to 1390, will have no difficulty in finding "Roulette" and "E or O," implied under the general term Tabulæ. Having thus indicated the value of the hypothetic evidence in favour of cards being known in early times,—because the game was subsequently comprehended under a schoolman's definition of the term Alea,—it may be left to pass for what it is worth.
Mons. Eloi Johanneau's proof that cards were known in the eleventh century, from the testimony of Papias, previously noticed, neither requires, nor indeed admits of serious refutation. If it could be shown that the word Naipe or Naibe was ever used in Spain or Italy to signify a painted cloth or a picture, before it was used to signify a Playing Card, its affinity with Nappe and Mappa might be admitted to be clearly established. John of Salisbury, who was born in the early part of the twelfth century, says not a word in his work 'De Nugis Curialium'—on the Trifling of Courtiers—which might indicate a knowledge of cards, although one of the chapters is especially devoted to an examination of the use and abuse of gaming. [74] Had cards formed one of the common pastimes of the courtiers of his age, it is highly probable that he would have mentioned them, by some name or other, so as to distinguish them from the other games which he enumerates.
The 38th canon of the Council of Worcester, held in 1240, contains the following prohibition: "Prohibemus etiam clericis, ne intersint ludis inhonestis, vel choreis, vel ludant ad aleas vel taxillos; nec sustineant ludos fieri de Rege et Regina, nec arietes levari, nec palæstras publicas fieri:" that is, "We also forbid clergymen to join in disreputable games or dancings, or to play at dice; neither shall they allow games of King and Queen to be acted [fieri], nor permit ram-raisings, nor public wrestlings. " [75] Ducange, who quotes the passage in his Latin Glossary, under the word Ludi, is inclined to think that the game de Rege et Regina—King and Queen—might have been the game of cards. There are not, however, any just grounds for entertaining such an opinion. The conjecture seems to have been suggested merely from the circumstance of there being a King and Queen in the cards with which the writer was most familiar; but had he known that no Queen is to be found in the earliest European cards, he probably would not have made so bad a guess. Besides, looking at the context, there can scarcely be a doubt that the games—not game—of King and Queen were a kind of mumming exhibitions which the clergy enjoyed as spectators, not as performers. Payments to minstrels and mummers for their exhibitions for the amusement of the monks, and eke of the lord Abbot himself, are not of unfrequent occurrence in the account books of old monasteries. In the same clause, the clergy are enjoined not to allow of ram-raisings nor public wrestlings—sports in which they were as unlikely to appear as actors as in the games of the King and Queen. What may have been meant by ram-raising—arietes levari—the curious reader is left to find, if he can, in the pages of Strutt and Fosbroke.
The next passage, supposed to relate to Playing Cards, which demands attention, is that which occurs in the Wardrobe accounts of Edward I, anno 1278, and which has been already quoted in the first chapter. It appears necessary to give it here again, together with the Hon. Daines Barrington's remarks on it, in the chronological order of evidences adduced in favour of the antiquity of Card Playing in Europe. "The earliest mention of cards that I have yet stumbled upon, is in Mr. Anstis's 'History of the Garter' (vol. ii, p. 307), where he cites the following passage from the Wardrobe rolls, in the sixth year of Edward the First: 'Waltero Sturton ad opus regis ad ludendum ad quatuor Reges, viii.s. v.d.'; from which entry Mr. Anstis, with some probability conjectures, that Playing Cards were not unknown at the latter end of the thirteenth century; and perhaps what I shall add, may carry with it some small confirmation of what he supposes."
The simple fact that the game of cards was known, both in France and England, by the name of the Four Kings, long before we had any special dissertations respecting its origin, is of more weight, in corroboration of Anstis's supposition, than Mr. Barrington's supplemental conjectures. The first question to be determined, is the identity of the game of cards, and that of the Quatuor Reges; but, without adducing the slightest evidence, he assumes the fact, and then proceeds to speculate where Edward might have learnt the game. But even admitting that cards were meant by the term Quatuor Reges, it is just as likely that Edward learned the game from his Queen, Eleanor of Castile, as that he learned it from the Saracens in the Holy Land; for, admitting it to be of Eastern origin, and that Europeans first obtained a knowledge of it from the Saracens, or a people of Arab race, it may be fairly supposed that Spain would be one of the countries in which cards would be earliest introduced. In the cards now in use in England, there are certain peculiarities in the names of two of the suits, as compared with the marks, which seem to intimate that we obtained our first knowledge of the game from Spain, although subsequently we might import our cards from France.
Seeing that chess was known in the East by a term signifying the Four Kings, and that it was a favorite amusement with the higher classes in Europe in the reign of Edward I, there can scarcely be a doubt that this was the game to which Walter Sturton's entry relates. If cards were indeed known in Europe in the early part of the reign of Edward the First, the silence respecting them, of all contemporary writers, for about a century afterwards, must be admitted as conclusive, though negative, evidence of their not being in common use. Petrarch, though he treats of gaming in one of his dialogues, never mentions them; and though Boccacio and Chaucer notice various games at which both the higher and lower classes of the period were accustomed to play, yet there is not a single passage in the works of either, which can be fairly construed to mean cards.
From the following passage, which occurs in a work on the 'Government of a Family,' in manuscript, composed by Sandro di Pipozzi, [76] in 1299, it has been concluded by Breitkopf that cards were at that period well known in Italy: "Se giucherà di denaro, o cosi, o alle carte, gli apparecchieria la via, &c." Zani, however, opposes to the authority of the manuscript, the negative evidence of Petrarch, who flourished at a subsequent period, and who, he thinks, would not have failed to have mentioned cards if they had then been known among the various games which he enumerates in the first dialogue of his treatise 'De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ.' [77] Mons. Duchesne also remarks, in his 'Observations sur les Cartes a jouer,' that, as the copy of Sandro di Pipozzi's work, cited by Taraboschi, and examined by Zani, is not of an earlier date than 1400, there is reason to believe that the express mention of cards in it, was the interpolation of a transcriber. That such interpolations were frequently made both by printers and transcribers, will appear evident from the following observations on several works, both printed and manuscript, which have been cited in proof of the antiquity of card-playing in Europe. [78]
The Abbé Rive, who ascribes the invention of cards to Spain, endeavours to show that they were known there in the early part of the fourteenth century. The evidence of this is, according to his statement, to be found in the Statutes of the military order of the Band, promulgated by Alphonso, King of Castile, where there is a passage expressly forbidding the members to play at cards. Whether cards are expressly mentioned in any old Spanish manuscripts of the Statutes in question, has not been ascertained; but of all the different editions, original and translated, of Guevara's 'Golden Epistles,' the work from which the Abbé Rive obtained his information, the first in which cards are expressly named, is that of the French translation by Gutery, published at Lyons in 1558. [79] As the word is not to be found in the original Spanish editions, nor in the Italian translations made from them, there cannot be a reasonable doubt of its being an interpolation of Gutery, who probably thought that a general prohibition of gaming necessarily included cards; and thus, "par conséquent," the Abbé Rive is furnished with positive evidence that the game of cards was common in Spain in 1332. Another authority, referred to by the Abbé Rive in favour of the antiquity of Spanish cards, is of the same kind. In a collection of the 'Laws of Spain,' printed in 1640, he finds the following passage in an Ordonnance issued by John I, King of Castile, in 1387: "We command and ordain that none of our subjects shall dare to play at dice or at cards (Naypes) either in public or in private, and that whoever shall so play, &c." [80] There can, however, be no doubt that the word cards (Naypes) is an interpolation; for it is not to be found in the same Ordonnance as given in the collection entitled 'Ordenanças Reales de Castilla,' printed at Medina del Campo, 1541. In this earlier edition, playing at dice and tables for money is indeed forbidden—"de jugar juego de dados ni de tables, a dinero"—but cards are not mentioned.
Jansen, in his 'Essai sur l'Origine de la Gravure en Bois et en Taille-douce,' cites the four following verses from the romance of Renard le Contrefait, pointed out to him by the late Mons. Van Praet, in evidence of cards being known in France at least as early as 1341, the year in which the romance was finished: