This blunt preaching was in those days admirably effectual, but it would be considered ridiculous in ours—except from the lips of such original geniuses as Mr Spurgeon, who hit upon this vein and made a fortune of souls as well as money. He is, however, inimitable, and any attempt at entering into his domain would probably have the same result as that which attended an imitation of Latimer by a country minister, mentioned by Fuller. 'I remember,' he says, 'in my time (about the middle of the seventeenth century), a country minister preached at St Mary's, from Rom. xii. 3,—"As God has DEALT to every man the measure of faith." In a fond imitation of Latimer's sermon he followed up the metaphor of DEALING,—that men should PLAY ABOVE-BOARD, that is, avoid all dissembling,—should not POCKET CARDS, but improve their gifts and graces,—should FOLLOW SUIT, that is, wear the surplice, &c.,—all which produced nothing but laughter in the audience. Thus the same actions by several persons at several times are made not the same actions, yea, differenced from commendable discretion to ridiculous absurdity. And thus he will make but bad music who hath the instruments and fiddlesticks, but none of the "resin" of Latimer.'
The habit of card-playing must have been much confirmed and extended by the marriage of Philip of Spain with our Queen Mary, whose numerous and splendid retinue could not but bring with them that passionate love of cards which prevailed in the Spanish court.
It seems also probable that the cards then used (whatever they might have been before) were of Spanish form and figure, in compliment to the imperious Philip; since even to this day the names of two Spanish suits are retained on English cards, though without any reference to their present figure. Thus, we call one suit spades, from the Spanish espada, 'sword,' although we retain no similitude of the sword in the figure,—and another clubs, in Spanish, bastos, but without regard to the figure also.
Old Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, gives us a picture of the gambling arts of his day, as follows:—How will they use these shiftes when they get a plaine man that cannot skill of them! How they will go about, if they perceive an honest man have moneye, which list not playe, to provoke him to playe! They will seek his companye; they will let him pay noughte, yea, and as I hearde a man once saye that he did, they will send for him to some house, and spend perchaunce a crowne on him, and, at last, will one begin to saye: "at, my masters, what shall we do? Shall every man playe his twelve-pence while an apple roste in the fire, and then we will drincke and departe?" "Naye" will another saye (as false as he), "you cannot leave when you begin, and therefore I will not playe: but if you will gage, that every man as he hath lost his twelve-pence, shall sit downe, I am contente, for surelye I would Winne no manne's moneye here, but even as much as woulde pay for my supper." Then speaketh the thirde to the honeste man that thought not to play:—"What? Will you play your twelve-pence?" If he excuse him—"Tush! man!" will the other saye, "sticke not in honeste company for twelve-pence; I will beare your halfe, and here is my moneye." Nowe all this is to make him to beginne, for they knowe if he be once in, and be a loser, that he will not sticke at his twelve-pence, but hopeth ever to get it againe, whiles perhappes he will lose all. Then every one of them setteth his shiftes abroache, some with false dyse, some with settling of dyse, some with having outlandish silver coynes guilded, to put awaye at a time for good golde. Then, if there come a thing in controversye, must you be judged by the table, and then farewell the honeste man's parte, for he is borne downe on every syde.'
It is evident from this graphic description of the process, that the villany of sharpers has been ever the same; for old Roger's account of the matter in his day exactly tallies with daily experience at the present time.
The love of card-playing was continued through the reign of Elizabeth and James I.,(60) and in the reign of the latter it had reached so high a pitch that the audiences used to amuse themselves with cards at the play-house, while they were waiting for the beginning of the play. The same practice existed at Florence. If the thing be not done at the present day, something analogous prevails in our railway carriages throughout the kingdom. It is said that professed card-sharpers take season-tickets on all the lines, and that a great DEAL of money is made by the gentry by duping unwary travellers into a game or by betting.
(60) King James, the British Solomon, although he could not 'abide' tobacco, and denounced it in a furious 'Counterblaste,' could not 'utterly condemn' play, or, as he calls it, 'fitting house-pastimes.' 'I will not,' he says, 'agree in forbidding cards, dice, and other like games of Hazard,' and enters into an argument for his opinion, which is scarcely worth quoting. See Basilicon Doron—a prodigy of royal fatuity—but the perfect 'exponent' of the characteristics of the Stuart royal race in England.
There is no reason to suppose that the fondness for this diversion abated, except during the short 'trump or triumph of the fanatic suit'—in the hard times of Old Oliver—when undoubtedly cards were styled 'the devil's books.' But, indeed, by that time they had become an engine of much fraud and destruction; so that one of the early acts of Charles II.'s reign inflicted large penalties on those who should use cards for fraudulent purposes.
'Primero was the fashionable game at the court of England during the Tudor dynasty. Shakspeare represents Henry VIII. playing at it with the Duke of Suffolk; and Falstaff says, "I never prospered since I forswore myself at Primero." In the Earl of Northumberland's letters about the Gunpowder-plot, it is noticed that Joscelin Percy was playing at this game on Sunday, when his uncle, the conspirator, called on him at Essex House. In the Sidney papers, there is an account of a desperate quarrel between Lord Southampton, the patron of Shakspeare, and one Ambrose Willoughby. Lord Southampton was then "Squire of the Body" to Queen Elizabeth, and the quarrel was occasioned by Willoughby persisting to play with Sir Walter Raleigh and another at Primero, in the Presence Chamber, after the queen had retired to rest, a course of proceeding which Southampton would not permit. Primero, originally a Spanish game, is said to have been made fashionable in England by Philip of Spain, after his marriage with Queen Mary.
Maw succeeded Primero as the fashionable game at the English court, and was the favourite game of James I., who appears to have played at cards, just as he played with affairs of state, in an indolent manner; requiring in both cases some one to hold his cards, if not to prompt him what to play. Weldon, alluding to the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Court and Character of King James, says: 'The next that came on the stage was Sir Thomas Monson, but the night before he was to come to his trial, the king being at the game of Maw, said, "To-morrow comes Thomas Monson to his trial." "Yea," said the king's card-holder, "where, if he do not play his master's prize, your Majesty shall never trust me." This so ran in the king's mind, that at the next game he said he was sleepy, and would play out that set the next night.