In Marcus’s “Life at Primero,” many of the terms used in the game are mentioned, such as Prime, Rest, Eldest Hand, Flush, Stop, Pack, etc., all of which have been adopted in one or more modern games. In Minshew’s Spanish Dictionary there is an illustration of players at Primero in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
In “Capitolo del Gioco della Primera,” by Berni, the game is thus mentioned: “To describe what Primera is would be little less than useless, for there can scarcely be any one so ignorant as to be unacquainted with it, although played differently in Florence from Venice, Naples, France, or Spain, but none of these various ways of playing the game are superior to the Rules of Rome, where the game principally flourishes.”
In one of the works of Rabelais, edited by M. le Duchat, two kinds of Primero are described called “the lesser” and “the greater.” In the former only pip cards are required, but in the latter the whole Tarot pack is retained, as in Austria, where Atouts and pip cards belong to Tappé Tarok. The Germans play “the lesser Primero” and call it Skat. This shows how widely the rules of the game have parted from the original laws, which is the reason that it is now almost impossible to harmonize it with the fortune-telling game that it was primarily. In Italy it is called Minchiate, Tarocco, and Tarocconi. These now differ as much from the original as bridge whist does from these games.
The terms of the different games were frequently used in old plays or romances in England, as well as in other places. Shakespeare mentions Primero in “Henry VIII” (v:1): “I left the king at Primero with the Duke of Suffolk.” Again, in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv:5), Falstaff says: “I never prospered since I foreswore myself at Primero.”
Sir Harry Wildair (1701) says: “The Capot at Piquet, the Paroli at Basset, and then Ombre. Who can resist the charms of Matadores?”
Lady Lurewell answers: “Ay, Sir Harry, and the ‘Sept le va, Quinze le va’ [of Basset], ‘the Nine of Diamonds at Comet’ [or Pope Joan], ‘three Fives at Cribbage and Pam,’ the ‘Queen to the Knave of Clubs in Loo.’”
The terms in Primero have been so generally adopted in modern games that they are familiar to all players, although as a collection they are no longer used for one game. Primero is played by dealing four cards, at which the players look, and, if they are unsuitable, they say “Pass.” The Sevens are the highest cards and are worth twenty-one points. The other numbers have values that differ according to the locality where the game is played. Quinola, or the Knave of Hearts, represents the Joker, and the cards left after dealing are not called the Widow or the Stock, as in some games, but the Rest. Punto, or “point,” is not the Ace of Cups, as in Spain, for in England it is the Quinola. Flushes are four cards of the same suit, and Prime is a hand in which there are four cards of the same value, but each one of a different suit.
Card games followed each other, first one and then another becoming the fashion, only to be replaced by a new one or a modification of some old one, and after L’Ombre and Preference came Mawe, Post, Lodam, Noddy, Barkerout (probably Baccarat), and countless others, to the now all-important Bridge or Auction Whist.
Mawe is described in Mr. Singer’s “History of Playing Cards” (page 258) “as a playe at cards grown out of the country from the meanest into credit at court with the greatest.” The game is frequently referred to by name in books or plays written about 1580. The Ace of Hearts is called Rumstitch or Romstecq, the name given to Mawe in the Netherlands. In Germany the game is played with a Piquet pack of thirty-six cards, and any number of persons from two to six may form the party. The Italians call a similar game Romfa.
Noddy is a childish game, but it was fashionable in the seventeenth century, and is frequently referred to by writers of that time.