That gentleman lived until 1769, and his rules remained unaltered for over one hundred years. In 1864, however, the Arlington and Portland Clubs, finding that modifications were needed, revised the rules, after which the “Cavendish rules” became the mode, but books on card rules are still issued under the name of Hoyle’s “Games of Cards,” so “According to Hoyle” is still a fashionable saying among the votaries of the card table.
CHAPTER XIII
ENGRAVED CARDS
Thanks to the lovers of woodcuts, prints, and engravings, the history of European Playing Cards has been preserved. Through these it has been investigated, as it would have been impossible in any other way, since the men who are devoted to the card table are not usually of an investigating turn of mind, while those who prophesy with cards prefer the occult and mysterious to the scientific.
It was far otherwise with the dilettanti, who recognised the master hand that had produced beautiful pictures, intrinsically valuable, although put to what, in the opinion of connoisseurs, was a debased use. Since the cards, as gamblers’ tools, or the instruments of diviners, had little attraction for print lovers, the latter traced the origin of the cards from an interest in the method of their production. But the history of these instruments followed, since it was an integral part of the story of the pictures that had at first been produced by hand, and then by mechanical arts. This led to an awakened desire to understand the connection of the gambling toys with the period when prints were first issued. But when these learned men studied the histories of the European countries for the first printed or legal record of Playing Cards, and decided on the fourteenth century as the date of their birth, they never looked into the haze of the past to the period when cards were not bits of pasteboard, but of very different character. So the mystery of their origin was not unfolded, although all of the written records mentioned that cards were called the Book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, who was evidently an unknown person.
It was owing to the necessity of producing cards cheaply, on account of their widespread use, that xylographic arts were invented and perfected, thus leading the way to printing, that art which has enlightened mankind as nothing had done before in the same space of time.
Mr. Singer states that “the earliest examples of woodcuts were intended for Playing Cards,” although it is generally believed that the earliest example of a woodcut that survives is the picture of St. Christopher, which was discovered pasted inside of the cover of an old book. Many Playing Cards have been preserved in the same way, since frugal persons utilized the precious paper on which the cards were printed, and did not waste it, as is done in this extravagant age.
That the oldest known print is that of a saint does not disprove Mr. Singer’s statement, for many of the rude figures produced by the first engravers served a double purpose, being equally well adapted for court cards or as representations of historical or saintlike characters, they were often adopted first for the games, and then transferred to the homes of peasants, where the pictures were accorded the name of a patron saint and revered accordingly, so in many such places priceless cuts and engravings have been found, and from there have been transferred to museums or to private print collections, where they are recognised as rare and valuable specimens of the art of the graver’s tool.