[155] "Five-Cards is an Irish game, and is as much played in that kingdom, and that for considerable sums of money, as All-Fours is played in Kent, but there is little analogy between them. There are but two can play at it; and there are dealt five cards a piece.... The five-fingers (alias five of trumps) is the best card in the pack; the ace of hearts is next to that, and the next is the ace of trumps."—The Compleat Gamester, p. 90. Edit. 1709. First printed in 1674.
[156] Malone's Supplemental Observations on Shakspeare, cited by Barrington. Dr. Moore, in his Views of Society and Manners in Italy, mentions the card-playing at the opera at Florence. "I was never more surprised," says he, "than when it was proposed to me to make one of a whist party, in a box which seemed to have been made for the purpose, with a little table in the middle. I hinted that it would be full as convenient to have the party somewhere else; but I was told, good music added greatly to the pleasure of a whist party; that it increased the joy of good fortune, and soothed the affliction of bad."
[157] Numbers, xxvi, 55, 56; Proverbs, xvi, 33; Acts, i, 24-26.
[158] This appears to have been one of the chief grounds of objection against cards and dice-play in Scotland, about a century later. Adam Petrie, "the Scottish Chesterfield," adopts Balmford's conclusion: "Lott is an ordinance whereby God often made known his mind, and therefore ought not to be turned into a play; but Cards and Dice are Lott; therefore they ought not to be turned into a play."—Rules of Good Deportment, or of Good Breeding, printed at Edinburgh, 1710; reprinted 1835.
[159] John Wesley, who sometimes "sought an answer" by lots of this kind, was charged by the Rev. Augustus Toplady with "tossing up for his creed, as porters or chairmen toss up for a halfpenny."—Letter to the Rev. John Wesley, p. 7. Edit. 1770.
[160] Traité du Jeu, où l'on examine les principales questions de Droit naturel et de Morale qui ont du rapport à cette matière. Par Jean Barbeyrac, Professeur en Droit à Groningue. Seconde édition, revue et augmentée. En trois tomes, 12mo. Amsterdam, 1737.
[161] Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, Edward Darcy obtained a patent for the manufacture of cards; and in the reign of James I the importation of cards was prohibited, after 20th July, 1615, as the art of making them was then brought to perfection in this country. As a duty or tax of five shillings for every twelve dozen packs was levied about that time by the authority of the Lord Treasurer, the statement that such a tax was first levied in 1631, in the reign of Charles I, is erroneous. This tax was one of the impositions complained of by the Commons, in the reign of Charles I, "as arbitrary and illegal, being levied without consent of Parliament." I am informed that the first act of parliament imposing a tax on cards was passed in 1711, in the reign of Queen Anne. The company of card-makers was first incorporated by letters patent of Charles I in 1629.—See Singer's Researches, pp. 223, 224, 226, 365.
[162] Observations on the Antiquity of Card-playing, Archæologia, vol. viii.
[163] Etudes Historiques sur les Cartes à jouer, p. 30. Mons. Leber had in his collection some cards of Jean Volay's manufacture, which were discovered in the boards of a book. Those cards are described in the Catalogue of his books, tom. i, p. 241, Article xvii. There are also cards manufactured by Jean Volay preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi, at Paris.
[164] The Netherlands seem to have been famed at an early period for the manufacture of cards. Albert Durer, in the journal which he kept during his visit to those parts in 1521, notes that he bought half a dozen packs for seven stivers: "Item hab umb ein halb dutzet Niederländischer Karten geben 7 Stüber."—Albrecht Dürers Reisejournal, in Von Murr's Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 7ter Theil, s. 96. From a passage in Ascham's Toxophilos, 1545, quoted by Singer, it would appear that the price of cards was then about twopence a pack: "He sayd a payre of cards cost not past ii.d."