Card-playing.
Card-playing.
This diversion, resorted to at visitings during the twelve days of Christmas, as of ancient custom, continues without abatement during the prolongation of friendly meetings at this season. Persons who are opposed to this recreation from religious scruples, do not seem to distinguish between its use and its abuse. Mr. Archdeacon Butler refers to the “harmless mirth and innocent amusements of society,” in his sermon on “Christian Liberty,” before the duke of Gloucester, and the university of Cambridge, on his royal highness’s installation as chancellor, June 30, 1811. The archdeacon quotes, as a note on that point in his sermon, a remarkable passage from Jeremy Taylor, who says, “that cards, &c. are of themselves lawful, I do not know any reason to doubt. He can never be suspected, in any criminal sense, to tempt the Divine Providence, who by contingent things recreates his labour. As for the evil appendages, they are all separable from these games, and they may be separated by these advices, &c.” On the citation, which is here abridged, the archdeacon remarks, “Such are the sentiments of one of the most truly pious and most profoundly learned prelates that ever adorned any age or country; nor do I think that the most rigid of our disciplinarians can produce the authority of a wiser or a better man than bishop Jeremy Taylor.” Certainly not; and therefore an objector to this pastime will do well to read the reasoning of the whole passage as it stands at the end of the archdeacon’s printed sermon: if he desire further, let him peruse Jeremy Taylor’s “advices.”
Cards are not here introduced with a view of seducing parents to rear their sons as gamblers and blacklegs, or their daughters to
“a life of scandal, an old age of cards;”
but to impress upon them the importance of “not morosely refusing to participate in” what the archdeacon refers to, as of the “harmless mirth and innocent amusements of society.” Persons who are wholly debarred from such amusements in their infancy, frequently abuse a pleasure they have been wholly restrained from, by excessive indulgence in it on the first opportunity. This is human nature: let the string be suddenly withdrawn from the overstrained bow, and the relaxation of the bow is violent.
Look at a juvenile card-party—not at that which the reader sees represented in the [engraving], which is somewhat varied from a design by Stella, who grouped boys almost as finely as Fiamingo modelled their forms—but imagine a juvenile party closely seated round a large table, with a Pope Joan board in the middle; each well supplied with mother-o’-pearl fish and counters, in little Chinese ornamented red and gold trays; their faces and the candles lighting up the room; their bright eyes sparkling after the cards, watching the turn-up, or peeping into the pool to see how rich it is; their growing anxiety to the rounds, till the lucky card decides the richest stake; then the shout out of “Rose has got it!” “It’s Rose’s!” “Here, Rose, here they are—take ’em all; here’s a lot!” Emma, and John, and Alfred, and William’s hands thrust forth to help her to the prize; Sarah and Fanny, the elders of the party, laughing at their eagerness; the more sage Matilda checking it, and counting how many fish Rose has won; Rose, amazed at her sudden wealth, talks the least; little Samuel, who is too young to play, but has been allowed a place, with some of the “pretty fish” before him, claps his hands and halloos, and throws his playthings to increase Rose’s treasure; and baby Ellen sits in “mother’s” lap, mute from surprise at the “uproar wild,” till a loud crow, and the quick motion of her legs, proclaim her delight at the general joy, which she suddenly suspends in astonishment at the many fingers pointed towards her, with “Look at baby! look at baby!” and gets smothered with kisses, from which “mother” vainly endeavours to protect her. And so they go on, till called by Matilda to a new game, and “mother” bids them to “go and sit down, and be good children, and not make so much noise:” whereupon they disperse to their chairs; two or three of the least help up Samuel, who is least of all, and “mother” desires them to “take care, and mind he does not fall.” Matilda then gives him his pretty fish “to keep him quiet;” begins to dress the board for a new game; and once more they are “as merry as grigs.”
In contrast to the jocund pleasure of children at a round game, take the picture of “old Sarah Battle,” the whist-player. “A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game,” was her celebrated wish. “She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and-half players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who affirm that they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game, and lose another; that they can wile away an hour very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will desire an adversary, who has slipt a wrong card, to take it up and play another. Of such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. Sarah Battle was none of that breed; she detested them from her heart and soul; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took and gave no concessions; she hated favours; she never made a revoke, nor ever passed it over in her adversary, without exacting the utmost forfeiture. She sat bolt upright, and neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people have their blind side—their superstitions; and I have heard her declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. I never in my life (and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of it) saw her take out her snuffbox when it was her turn to play, or snuff a candle in the middle of a game, or ring for a servant till it was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at, miscellaneous conversation during its process: as, she emphatically observed, cards were cards. A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favourite game. There was nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage—nothing superfluous. To confess a truth, she was never greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have heard her say,—disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce ‘go,’ or ‘that’s a go.’ She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber, because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring ‘two for his heels.’ Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born.” These, omitting a few delicate touches, are her features by the hand of Elia. “No inducement,” he says, “could ever prevail upon her to play at her favourite game for nothing.” And then he adds, “With great deference to the old lady’s judgment on these matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my life when playing at cards for nothing has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget—Bridget Elia.” Cousin Bridget and the gentle Elia seem beings of that age wherein lived Pamela, whom, with “old Sarah Battle,” we may imagine entering their room, and sitting down with them to a square game. Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times: she, full of kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially;—he, no less kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse with the world, and, ever and anon, giving us scenes that Metzu and De Foe would admire, and portraits that Denner and Hogarth would rise from their graves to paint.