Among the tricks with cards which he notices, are the following: "How to deliver out four Aces and to convert them into four Knaves. How to tell one what card he seeth in the bottom, when the same card is shuffled into the stock. To tell one, without confederacy, what card he thinketh. How to tell what card any man thinketh, how to convey the same into a nut-shell, cherry-stone, &c., and the same again into one's pocket. How to make one draw the same, or any card you list, and all under one devise." The two verses which he quotes in the margin should be inscribed as a motto on the dial-plate of every gamester's watch. "Of dice play, and the like unthrifty games, mark these two old verses, and remember them:
Ludens taxillis, bene respice quid sit in illis:
Mors tua, sors tua, res tua, spes tua, pendet in illis."
Rowland, in his 'Judicial Astrology Condemned,' relates the following anecdote of Cuffe, the Secretary of the Earl of Essex, "a man of exquisite wit and learning, but of a turbulent disposition," who was hung at Tyburn, on the 13th of March, 1602, for having counselled and abetted the Earl in his treason. "Cuffe, an excellent Grecian, [141] and Secretary to the Earl of Essex, was told twenty years before his death that he should come to an untimely end, at which Cuffe laughed, and in a scornful manner, intreated the astrologer to show him in what manner he should come to his end; who condescended to him, and calling for cards, intreated Cuffe to draw out of the pack three which pleased him. He did so, and drew three Knaves and laid them on the table with their faces downwards, by the wizard's direction, who then told him, if he desired to see the sum of his bad fortunes, to take up those cards. Cuffe, as he was prescribed, took up the first card, and looking on it, he saw the portraiture of himself, cap-a-pie, having men compassing him about with bills and halberds; then he took up the second, and there he saw the judge that sat upon him; and taking up the last card, he saw Tyburn, the place of his execution, and the hangman, at which he laughed heartily; but many years after, being condemned for treason, he remembered and declared this prediction."
Queen Elizabeth, as well as her sister, Mary, was a card player; and even her grave Lord Treasurer, Lord Burleigh, appears to have occasionally taken a hand at Primero. [142] That she sometimes lost her temper, when the cards ran against her, may be fairly inferred from the following passage, which occurs in a letter, written in the latter part of her reign, by Sir Robert Carey to his father, Lord Hunsdon: her violent language must have been the result of her holding a bad hand at the moment that the presence of young Carey reminded her of his father's procrastination. "May it please your L. t'understande that yesterday yn the afternune I stood by hyr Matie as she was att Cards in the presens chamber. She cawlde me to hyr, and askte me when you mente too go too Barwyke. I towlde hyr that you determinde to begyn your jorney presently after Whytsontyd. She grew yntoo a grete rage, begynnynge with Gods wonds, that she wolde sett you by the feete, and send another in your place yf you dalyed with hyr thus, for she wolde not be thus dalyed withall. [143]
Though the laity of all ranks and conditions—except apprentices [144] —appear to have played at cards and dice without let or hinderance, notwithstanding any statute to the contrary, yet the clergy seem to have been rather more sharply looked after. In the 'Injunctions geven by the Quenes Majestie, as well to the Clergye as the Laity,' printed by Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1559, the clergy are thus admonished: "Also the sayde ecclesiastical persons shall in no wyse, nor for any other cause then for theyr honeste necessities, haunt or resort to anye Tavernes or Alehouses. And after theyr meates, they shall not geve themselves to any drynkyng or ryot, spendyng theyr tyme idelly by day or by nyght, at dyse, cardes, or tables playing, or anye other unlawfull game." [145] In the 'Injunctions exhibited by John, Bishop of Norwich, at his first visitation, in the third year of our Soveraign Ladie Elizabeth,' printed at London by John Daye, 1561, officials are enjoined to inquire, "Whether any parson, vicare, or curate geve any evell example of lyfe; whether they be incontinent parsones, dronkardes, haunters of tavernes, alehouses, or suspect places; dycers, tablers, carders, swearers, or vehementlie suspected thereof."
A notice of a dramatic representation of the game of cards occurs in the accounts of Queen Elizabeth's 'Master of the Revels,' 1582. [146] In that year he and his officers were commanded "to show on St. Stephen's day at night, before her Majesty at Wyndesore, a Comodie or Morral devised on a game of the cardes," to be performed by the children of her Majesty's Chapel. From the following observations of Sir John Harrington on this "Comodie or Morral," it would seem to have been a severe satire on those Knaves who enrich themselves at the nation's expense: "Then for comedies, to speake of a London comedie, how much good matter, yea and matter of state, is there in that comedie cald the play of the cards? in which it is showed how foure Parasiticalle knaves robbe the foure principall vocations of the Realme, videlicet, the vocations of Souldiers, Scollers, Marchants, and Husbandmen. Of which comedie I cannot forget the saying of a notable wise counseller who is now dead (Sir Frauncis Walsinghame), who, when some (to sing Placebo) advised that it should be forbidden, because it was somewhat too plaine, and indeed, as the old saying is, Sooth boord is no boord, yet he would have it allowed, adding that it was fit that 'They which doe that they should not, should heare that they would not.'" [147]
The mention of a comedy shown before the Queen at Windsor by the children of her Majesty's Chapel, naturally suggests the recollection of John Lyly's Court Comedies, which were wont to be shown by the same children, as well as by the "children of Poules;" and as in one of those comedies,—Alexander and Campaspe,—Lyly has committed an anachronism with respect to cards, [148] an opportunity is thus afforded of here introducing the pleasantly conceited song that contains the error,—a song, which Elia would have encored, and which even Mrs. Battle herself would have allowed to be sung at the card table during the intermission of the game at the end of a rubber, when cutting in for new partners. [149]
"Cupid and my Campaspe play'd