In “Henry Esmond,” Thackeray mentions that an invitation was sent on a Ten of Diamonds, and this was a common practice in America before the Revolution. There are several cards preserved in different families on which invitations have been written or printed. One of them is as follows: “Sir Jeffery Amhurst’s compliments to Mrs. Paul Miller, and desires the Favour of her Company to a Ball at the New Assembly Rooms on Saturday the 23d inst., being the Anniversary of St. George. Head Quarters April 18th, 1763, New York.”
In the days of Charles I and the Commonwealth, there was a Sir John Northcote, ancestor of the present peer, who took the Parliamentary side against the king. His father was Justice Northcote, who at a game of cards won an estate in Devonshire from a Mr. Dowrish. The game played was Piquet, and to commemorate this transaction, the hands held by the players were afterwards inlaid upon the table they used, that is still preserved by the family.
CHAPTER XI
POINT CARDS WITH FRENCH PIPS
When Mercury’s emblems were discarded by the French, some four hundred years since, to be replaced by local designs, it was but natural that the points should be accorded original and appropriate significances at their birthplace, as well as in the alien countries where these new pips were adopted. Names were suggested by the shape or usage of the device in different games or under noteworthy occasions.
Thus, the Pique of the French (the shape of which was derived from the outline of the hallebarde of the soldiers who were on guard about their king) received from the English the name of Spade, and for this several derivations have been given. One of them is that the shape resembled that of the shovel or spade common among miners, but the more probable origin is the one that is suggested from the Tarot pip called by the Spaniards Espadas, the name of which was transferred to the new emblem, which is a suggestion that the Tarot cards were not unknown in England before the arrival of the French pack, although no cards of this period have been found in England.
This is strange, for fragments of an old pack called Dr. Stukley’s cards are now in the British Museum, bearing Bells and other German emblems. They are of about the date of the invention of the French pips, but since they were found in the binding of a Latin book that may have been imported into England, the originals may never have been used in that country.
In Yorkshire, the common people call a Diamond a “Picke,” says Mr. Taylor, “because it is picked or sharp-pointed as the diamond stone.” Other authorities declare that “it is to be gathered from its resemblance to a mill-pick,” and others assume that the small window frames of early days are responsible for the name Diamond, as they were generally lozenge or diamond-shaped. The name “Picke” may also have been a corruption of the French Pique, assigned from the original to the pip of another colour.