113. The Ace of Roses.
Ancient Cards.
Upon the other cards belonging to the pack the number of the flowers or animals answered to the pips at present, with the addition of numeral figures corresponding with the devices, that they might be readily distinguished without the trouble of counting them. The originals of these cards, I make no doubt, are the work of Martin Schoen, a well-known and justly celebrated German artist; and Mr. Douce is in possession of part of another set, which evidently appear to be the production of Israel Van Mecheln, who was contemporary with Schoen. Mecheln outlived Martin Schoen a considerable time; the latter died in 1486, and the former in 1523. The earliest print that I have seen by Mecheln with a date is 1480; but he practised the art of engraving some time prior to that period.
A set or pack of cards, but not equally ancient with those above mentioned, were in the possession of Dr. Stukeley: the four suits upon them consisted of bells, of hearts, of leaves, and of acorns; by which, the doctor imagined, were represented the four orders of men among us: the bells are such as are usually tied to the legs of the hawks, and denoted the nobility; the hearts were intended for the ecclesiastics; the leaves alluded to the gentry, who possess lands, woods, manors, and parks; the acorns signified the farmers, peasants, woodmen, park-keepers, and hunters. But this definition will, I trust, be generally considered as a mere effusion of fancy. It is remarkable that in these cards there are neither queens nor aces; but the former are supplied by knights, the latter have no substitute. Dr. Stukeley's cards were purchased at his sale by Mr. Tuttet, and again at his sale by Mr. Gough, in whose possession they now remain. [969] The last gentleman has given a full description of them in a paper upon the subject of card-playing, in the Archæologia. [970] The figured cards, by us denominated court cards, were formerly called coat cards; and originally, I conceive, the name implied coated figures, that is, men and women who wore coats, in contradistinction to the other devices of flowers and animals not of the human species. The pack or set of cards, in the old plays, is continually called a pair of cards; which has suggested the idea that anciently two packs of cards were used, a custom common enough at present in playing at quadrille; one pack being laid by the side of the player who is to deal the next time. But this supposition rests entirely upon the application of the term itself, without any other kind of proof whatever: and seems, indeed, to be entirely overturned by a passage in a very old play entitled The longer thou livest the more Foole thou art; in which Idleness desires Moros the clown to look at "his booke," and shows him "a paire of cardes." [971] In a comedy called A Woman killed with Kindness, a pair of cards and counters to play with are mentioned.
XXIV.—GAMES FORMERLY PLAYED WITH CARDS.
Primero is reckoned among the most ancient games of cards known to have been played in England; each player, we are told, had four cards dealt to him one by one; the seven was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for twenty-one; the six counted for sixteen, the five for fifteen, and the ace for the same; but the two, the three, and the four, for their respective points only. The knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were of different suits the highest number won the primero, if they were all of one colour he that held them won the flush. [972]
Prime, mentioned by Sir John Harrington in his satirical description of the fashionable court games, published in 1615, the hon. Daines Barrington thinks was not the same as primero; he has not, however, specified the difference between them. The poet says,
The first game was the best, when free from crime,
The courtly gamesters all were in their prime.
Trump. A game thus denominated in the old plays is perhaps of equal antiquity with primero, and at the latter end of the sixteenth century was very common among the lower classes of people. Dame Chat, in Gammer Gurton's Needle, says to Dicon, "we be set at trump, man, hard by the fire, thou shalt set upon the king;" and afterwards to her maid,