That Ombre, or its successor, Quadrille, was a fashionable game at no very ancient period, is proved by the inimitable description given in Cranford of the card-parties held in that mildewed little place. It says: “The drawing-rooms contained small tables, on which were displayed a kaleidoscope, conversation cards, puzzle cards (tied together to an interminable length with faded pink satin ribbon). The card-table was an animated scene to watch,—four old ladies’ heads, with niddle-noddling caps all nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough, ‘Basto, madam, you have Spadille, I believe.’”
Plate 12.
A game much in favour among the common folks at the latter end of the sixteenth century was, says Singer, “an old one called Trump, which was probably the Triumfo of the Spaniards and Italians.” In that amusing performance “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” first acted in 1561, Dame Chat says to Diccon,—
“We sat at trump man by the fire;”
and afterward to her maid she says,—
“There are five trumps besides the Queen.”
Trump bore some resemblance to Whist or Ruff (another name for that game); and it is noticeable that these two words should still be used in playing Whist, and that both of them signify the same thing. We are told by Mr. Singer that Whist and Honours (alias Slam) were games commonly known in all parts of England, and that “every child of eight years old has competent knowledge in that recreation.”
In a book published in 1787, called “The Complete Gamester,” by Richard Seymour, Esq., we find the following sentence: “Whist, vulgarly called Whisk, is said to be a very ancient game among us, and the foundation of all English games upon the cards.” It was probably invented about the period of Charles the Second. Its original name was Whist, or the Silent game. It is believed that “it was not played upon principles until about 1736; before that time it was chiefly confined to servants’ halls. The rules laid down by the gentlemen who frequented the Crown Coffee House in Bedford Row were: ‘To play from a straight suit; to study your partner’s hand as much as your own; never to force your partner unnecessarily, and to attend to the score.’” At one time it was usual to deal four cards together. Horace Walpole, writing in 1767 from Paris, says: “The French have adopted the two dullest things the English have,—Whist and Richardson’s novels.”
The Whist-players of the last century would be astonished to see the developments a hundred years have made in this game. At the present time the books which have been written on it alone would fill a small book-case,—the one by “Cavendish,” who is the acknowledged authority on the game, having reached its seventeenth edition; and it has become so complicated that its rules require profound study, and so fashionable that teachers of its mysteries have sprung up in all directions. Several ladies have adopted the profession of Whist-teachers, and have found it a most profitable one. One person has reduced the system of teaching it to a science, and has also invented an arrangement by which “a singleton” can play a four-handed game of Whist. This is done by placing an ingenious combination of letters and figures on the backs of the ordinary playing-cards, which can be sorted according to these instead of being dealt in the usual way. The cards having been sorted are placed face downward on the table, and then turned up in regular order exactly as if played by four persons. As they have been arranged so as to illustrate certain styles of play or exemplify well known rules, the games they play are not only most amusing, but also instructive. The credit of this novel invention is due to Mr. Frederic Foster, a well known teacher of the noble game of Whist; and his pack is known as the “Self-playing Cards.”