Continued still his fav'rite game to play; [189]
Tho' many a curious fact his page supplies,
To this important point a place denies." [190]
Barrington's observations on the introduction of the game into respectable company, are as follows: "Quadrille (a species of Ombre) obtained a vogue upon the disuse of the latter, which it maintained till Whisk was introduced, which now [1787] prevails not only in England, but in most of the civilized parts of Europe. [191] If it may not possibly be supposed that the game of Trumps (which I have before taken notice of, as alluded to in one of the old plays contained in Dodsley's Collection) is Whisk, I rather conceive that the first mention of that game is to be found in Farquhar's 'Beaux Stratagem,' which was written in the very beginning of the present century. [192] It was then played with what were called Swabbers, [193] which were possibly so termed, because they who had certain cards in their hand were entitled to take up a share of the stake, independent of the general event of the game. The fortunate, therefore, clearing the board of this extraordinary stake, might be compared by seamen to the Swabbers (or cleaners of the deck), in which sense the term is still used. Be this as it may, Whisk seems never to have been played on principles till about fifty years ago, when it was much studied by a set of gentlemen who frequented the Crown coffee-house in Bedford row: before that time it was confined chiefly to the servants' hall with All-Fours and Put."
From Mr. Barrington's own references it would appear to have been a favorite game with country squires about 1707, the date of the Beaux Stratagem; and occasionally indulged in by clergymen about 1728, the date of Swift's Essay on the Fates of Clergymen. Their example, however, seems to have been unable to retrieve it from the character of vulgarity, until it was seriously taken up by "a set of gentlemen," who appear to have commenced their studies at the Crown coffee-house, in Bedford row, just about the time that the Treatise on Whist, by "Edmond Hoyle, Gent.," was first published by Thomas Osborne, at Gray's Inn. The studies of such gentlemen, and the celebrity of their scientific instructor, are thus commemorated in the prologue to the 'Humours of Whist,' a dramatic satire quoted in the preceding page.
"Who will believe that man could e'er exist
Who spent near half an age in studying Whist;
Grew grey with Calculation,—Labour hard!—
As if Life's business centred in a card?