CHAPTER III.
THE PROGRESS OF CARD-PLAYING.

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:

"An unlucky cast was called the Dog—"Canis"—and also the Little Dog—"Canicula"—with reference to the Stars. Thus Persius:

"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:

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:

"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:

"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 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.

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 20s.; and none shall play at Bowls in open places, out of his garden or orchard, in pain of 6s. 8d." [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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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 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.

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.

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: