of twenty-two playing cards, intended, apparently, [p102] to convey
solemn religious truths in the form of a game of life and death. We do
not know how the game was played: we have to accept the figures upon
the cards as their own explanation and commentary. In the figures of
Jupiter and of the Devil, we see the powers which shape the destinies
of men. The Wheel of Fortune is emblematic of the fate which assigns to
one man the condition of a Hermit, and to another that of an Emperor.
The virtues of Temperance, Justice and Strength which man opposes to
Fate, the frivolity of the Fool, the happiness of the Lover (if he can
be happy who is cajoled by two women), and the pride of the Empress,
are all dominated by the central card bearing an image of the skeleton
Death—Death which precedes the Last Judgment and opens to the righteous
the House of God. In these cards we have a pictorial representation
of scenes from one of the curious spectacle plays of the middle ages,
which were often enacted in the open air to the accompaniments of dance
and music. The union of fearful mysteries with ridiculous accessories,
and the ghastly suggestion of the fate of all men, as shown in the
card of Death the reaper—these were the features which gave point and
character to the series of strange cartoons popular for many centuries
in all parts of civilized Europe under the title of the _Dance of
Death_.
This was but one of the many innovations proposed as substitutes for
the older oriental games. In the latter part of the fifteenth century,
playing cards were made in Italy with figures which represented the
four great monarchies of the ancient world, with which a childish game
was played in imitation of war and conquest. Suitable marks on the
cards designated the four different classes of society; hearts were
the symbol of the clergy; spades (from the Italian _spada_, a sword)
were for the nobility; clubs stood for the peasantry; and diamonds
represented the citizens or burghers.
[Illustration:
1 The Juggler. 12 The Hanged.
2 Juno. 13 Death.
3 The Empress. 14 Temperance.
4 The Emperor. 15 The Devil.
5 Jupiter. 16 The House of God.
6 The Lovers. 17 The Stars.
7 The Chariot. 18 The Moon.
8 Justice. 19 The Sun.
9 The Hermit 20 The Last Judgment.
10 The Wheel of Fortune. 21 The World.
11 Strength. 22 The Fool.
Reduced Fac-Simile of French Copper-plate Playing Cards of the
Sixteenth Century.
[From Breitkopf.]]
Thomas Murner, a professor of philosophy at Cracow in 1507, undertook
to make use of playing cards for teaching high scholastic science.
He published a book which he called [p104] _Logical Playing Cards,
or Logic Realized and Made Comprehensible through Pleasant Exercises
with Pictures_. The cards were filled with mysterious symbols intended
as keys to the entire art of reasoning. The difficult science was
adapted to the meanest capacity, by puerile methods which subsequently
provoked the contempt of Erasmus. Each card had some pedantic name like
Proposition, Predicate or Syllogism. Could there be a more unattractive
game?
Eminent German artists—among them Martin Schongauer and the Master
of 1466—undertook to supplant the stiff and barbarous figures that
had been used on playing cards, with designs of merit. They drew and
engraved new face figures of most extraordinary character, in which
satirical and poetic fancies were strangely blended. The amorousness of
the monks and the coquetry of the ladies, the quarrels of termagants
among the peasantry, the revenge of hares who are roasting their enemy
man and his friend the dog, are the subjects of some cards. On other
German cards of this period are represented, in startling contrast, the
sweet and saintly faces of pure women, heroic men riding in triumph,
and filthy sows with their litters.
Jost Amman[36] designed, and perhaps engraved, a full pack of cards
which was published in book form with explanatory verses in Latin and
German. Rejecting the established forms of hearts, clubs, spades and
diamonds for the designation of the suites, he substituted books,
printers’ inking balls, wine pots and drinking cups. The moral that he
endeavored to inculcate was the advantages of industry and learning
over idleness and drunkenness. But the intended moral is not as clear
as it should be. Some of the figures are exceedingly gross, although
they are drawn with admirable skill and spirit.
[Illustration: French Card of the Fifteenth Century.
[From Lacroix.]]
[Illustration: German Card of the Sixteenth Century.
[From Lacroix.]]
[Illustration: German Card of the Sixteenth Century.
[From Lacroix.]]
[Illustration: German Card of the Fifteenth Century. [From Breitkopf.]]
These innovations had but a transient popularity. The people played
cards, not for instruction in art, science or [p106] morality, but
for amusement, and they would not suffer the games to be diverted
from their first purpose of the pleasure of hazard. The old games and
the old figures were deeply rooted in their memories and habits. They
would have no changes, and there have been none of any importance.
The hard conventional figures of king, queen and jack which are to be
found on the oldest playing cards have been repeated almost without
alteration in the popular cards of every succeeding century. We can
readily understand the reasons why the scholastic and scientific games
were rejected, but it would be difficult to account for the preference
always manifested for coarse outlines and clumsy drawing in the figures.
Although playing cards led to gambling, and to forms of dissipation
which required restraint,[37] their general use was not an unmixed
evil. To the common people, they were a means of education; a
circuitous and a dangerous means, no doubt, but not the less effectual.
The medieval churl whose ignorance was so dense that he failed to
see the advantages of education, and who would have refused to learn
his letters by any persuasion, did perceive that there was amusement
in playing cards, and did take the trouble to learn the games. With
him, as with little children, the course of instruction began with
bright-colored little pictures and the explanation of hidden meanings
in absurd-looking little spots or symbols. In the playing of the
game, his dull mind was trained to a new and a freer exercise of his
reasoning faculties, and he must have been inspired with more of
respect for the dimly seen utility of painted or printed symbols. To
the multitude of early card players, cards were of no other and no
greater benefit as a means of mental discipline. To men of thought and
purpose, they taught a more impressive lesson of the value of paper and
letters. They induced inquiries that led [p107] to important resolves.
If a few arbitrarily arranged signs on bits of paper could greatly
amuse a party of friends during a long evening, would not the letters
of the alphabet as they were combined in books, furnish a still greater
and an unfailing source of amusement?
The meagre notices of card-makers and card-painters in old town-books
of Germany and in the decree of Venice do not tell us whether cards
were made before or after image prints. Those who have written most
learnedly on this subject,[38] tell us that the cards were made before
the images; that at first they were drawn and painted by hand; that
they were afterward colored by stencils; that when this method was
found too slow, blocks were engraved and printed; and that the image
prints were subsequently introduced for the purpose of counteracting
the evil influences of cards. These propositions are ingenious, but
it must be confessed that we have no certain knowledge that the
improvement was made in this order. This theory of gradual development
is based on conjecture, and its best support is derived from a
consideration of the fact that cards were in common use before we have
any indications of the existence of image prints. That the cards should
have been made by engraving before the images seems reasonable when we
consider that the workmanship of the cards was of a much ruder nature.
The experimenting amateur who knew that he was unable to cut a block
like that of the _St. Christopher_, would readily undertake to engrave
the spots and face figures of the earlier cards.
Breitkopf, an expert type-founder and a writer of authority, stands
almost alone in his opinion that playing cards were [p108] made after
the image prints. He says that the engravers who made cards also made
images, and he adds the curious fact that in some places cards and
images were called by the same name.[39]
The curt and careless manner in which the business of card-making is
mentioned in the old records is an indication that the process used
was not novel. We do not find in the writings of any author of the
fifteenth or sixteenth centuries a statement that the earliest playing
cards were made by a new art. That they were made by block-printing
at the beginning of the fifteenth century in Italy and Germany seems
clearly established. That they were made at a corresponding period in
Spain and France, where cards were as common, cannot be proved. It is
probable that the Germans derived their knowledge of cards from Italy,
but the evidences of an early manufacture by printing are decidedly
in favor of southern Germany, a district in which the most famous
image prints have been found, and which, at a later period, was the
birthplace of many eminent engravers on wood.
[p109]
VI
The Chinese Method of Printing.
Antiquity of Printing among the Chinese . . . Statement of Du Halde
. . . Its Perversion . . . First Chinese Method, the Gouging of
Letters . . . Didot’s Hypothesis . . . Second Method, of Xylography
. . . Third Method, a Combination of Xylography and Typography
. . . A Peculiarly Chinese Invention . . . Method now used . . .
Its Advantages over Types . . . Chinese Paper . . . Performance of
Pressmen . . . Curious Method of Binding . . . Expense of Engraving no
hindrance to Chinese Printing . . . The Xylographic Method necessary
. . . Chinese Practice in Typography . . . Cheapness of Chinese Books
. . . Similarity between the Chinese and the European Methods of
Block-Printing . . . The Hypothesis of its Transmission to Europe
through Marco Polo, or other Venetian Travelers.
* * * * *
In both arts, writing and printing alike, the Chinese have
remained stiff, stolid, and immovable at the first step, With the
characteristic unchangeability of the yellow races of Eastern Asia.
_D. F. Bacon._
* * * * *
Many eminent authors are of the opinion that we are indebted to China
not only for playing cards, but for the means of making them. They tell
us that playing cards could not have been popular, as they were at the
beginning of the fifteenth century, if they had not been made by a
cheaper process than drawing by hand. The inference attempted is that
block-printing and playing cards were brought to Europe together. The
reasons presented in support of this opinion are far from conclusive,
but they are based on many curious facts which deserve consideration.
The Chinese claims for priority in the practice of block printing
have been disallowed by some critics, chiefly because they have been
presented in the form of perverted translations. That oriental people
practised printing before this art was applied to any useful purpose
in Europe is admitted by all who have studied their history. Du Halde,
a learned Jesuit father, who traveled in China during the earlier part
of the [p110] eighteenth century, was the first author who furnished
Europeans with a description of Chinese printing. He quotes the
following extract from a Chinese book, supposed to have been written
in the reign of the emperor Wu-Wong, who was living 1120 B. C. “As
the stone _me_ (Chinese for blacking), which is used to blacken the
engraved characters, can never become white, so a heart blackened by
vices will always retain its blackness.”[40] This is an allusion to
some primitive method of blackening incised characters, for the purpose
of making them more legible. It is a method which is still observed in
the inscriptions on memorial stones in churches and graveyards. But it
is an allusion to engraving and blackening only. There is no mention
of printing ink, and no suggestion of printing. Du Halde quoted it
only to show the antiquity of engraving, yet it has been used by many
authors as a warrant for the assertion that printing was practised in
China eleven hundred years before the Christian era. If we could accept
this statement, we should have to believe that printing was invented
in China but a few years after the siege of Troy, before Rome was
founded, before Homer wrote and Solomon reigned. Du Halde’s words do
not warrant this statement. He says, with due caution, “In printing, it
seemeth that China ought to have the precedence of other nations, for,
according to their books, the Chinese have made use of this art for
sixteen hundred years,” or since the first century.
The practice of blackening characters was not printing, but it may have
led to its development. Du Halde says that the Chinese printed not only
on wood blocks, but on tables of “stone of a proper and particular
kind.” The writing or design to be printed, while it was still wet
with ink, was transferred by pressure from the paper upon which it
was written to the smooth surface of a slab of stone. When the [p111]
black lines of the writing or design were firmly set on the stone,
the paper was peeled off. The black transferred lines were then cut
out, or cut below the surface, as they are now done in the copper-plate
process. The surface was inked, paper was laid on the stone, and an
impression was taken. The result was, the appearance on the paper of
the writing or design in white on a field of solid black. This method
of cutting out the lines, so that they should appear white in the
printed impression, is the simplest form of engraving. It is like that
of the boy who cuts his name in the bark of a tree. He finds it easier
to gouge out the letters than it is to raise them in high relief.
Reasoning from probability, we should say that it should have been the
earliest of the methods. Didot believes that it was known to the old
Romans.[41] Du Halde says that this method of printing on stone was
used chiefly for “epitaphs, pictures, trees, mountains and such like
things.” He does not fix the date of its invention, but it was probably
the earlier method. Didot says that he had in his [p112] library the
portraits of four Chinese emperors of a dynasty which began A. D. 618,
and ended during the ninth century, and also some fac-similes of the
imperial writings, which were made by the same process.[42]
Sir John Francis Davis, for many years British Minister to China, and
author of two valuable books on that country, places the invention of
block-printing in China in the tenth century of the Christian era.
He attributes the discovery of the art to Foong-Taou, the Chinese
minister of state, who had been greatly hindered in the discharge of
his duties by his inability to procure exact copies of his writings.
After many trials and failures, he dampened a written sheet of paper,
and pressed it on a smooth surface of wood until he had produced a fair
transfer. He then cut away every part of the surface that did not show
the transferred lines, and thus produced a block in relief. The lines
in relief were next brushed with ink; a sheet of paper was laid on the
block, and impression was applied. The result was, a true fac-simile of
his writing, and the birth of block-printing.
There was another Chinese method, which, paradoxical as it may seem,
was a combination of xylography and typography. It was invented A.
D. 1041, by an ingenious Chinese blacksmith, named Pi-Ching, whose
process is thus described by Davis. The inventor first made a thick
paste of porcelain clay, and moulded or cut it in little oblong cubes
of proper size. On these cubes he carved the Chinese characters that
were most frequently used, thereby making movable types. The next
process was to bake them in an oven until they were hardened. But the
types so made were irregular as to height and as to body. In printers’
phrase, they would not stand together: some would be larger than the
standard, others would be too high to paper, and all would be crooked.
This difficulty could be remedied only by fixing the types firmly on
a surface or bed-plate of unequal elevation. This surface was formed
by pouring a melted mixture of wax, lime and [p113] resin on a plate
of iron. Pi-Ching then took a stout frame of the size of the page he
proposed to print, filled with iron wires in narrow parallels, and
placed it on the prepared bed-plate. The types of clay were next forced
between the iron wires on the mixture, and pressed close together. Then
the plate was put on a furnace and heated until the composition became
soft. A planer was put upon the face of the types, to force them down
in the composition until they were firmly secured at a uniform height.
So treated, the composed types were made as solid as a xylographic
block or a stereotype plate. The form was then ready for printing. The
method of printing was like that subsequently used for printing blocks
engraved on wood, a method that will be described hereafter. When the
form had been printed, heat was again applied; the types were withdrawn
from the composition, cleaned of ink and adhering composition by the
aid of a brush, and put back into a case for future use. Signs and
unusual characters not in constant use were wrapped up in paper.
There is nothing incredible in this curious story: on the contrary,
it bears internal evidences of its probability. The selection, for
printing purposes, of so unpromising a material as clay, the patient
labor given to each character before it reached the condition of a
type, the sagacity that foresaw and evaded the difficulty of irregular
bodies and heights by the use of iron parallels, and a yielding
bed-plate—all these are characteristic of the eccentricities of
Chinese invention. The process was ingenious, but it was not entirely
practical. It depended for its success more on the zeal and ability of
Pi-Ching than it did on its own merits. When Pi-Ching died, his process
died with him. His friends preserved his types as mementos of his
ability, but none of them were able to use his method with success.
The present Chinese method is, practically, the method originally used
by Foong-Taou. For the purpose of block-printing, Chinese printers
select the wood of the pear-tree, which has close fibres that yield
readily and sharply to the [p114] touch of the graver. Contrary to
western usage, the blocks are cut from wood sawed in boards, or sawed
parallel with the fibres. The thickness of the boards or blocks is
about a half-inch, but, in the Chinese method, it is not important that
the blocks be made of uniform thickness.[43] Each block is cut large
enough to contain two pages, and is carefully planed and truly squared.
The surface is then sized with a thick solution of boiled rice, which
saturates the pores of the wood. When the sizing is hard, the block is
ready for the engraver.
The writing or design to be engraved is neatly drawn or written on
thin, strong, transparent paper, and is transferred, face downward,
to the surface of the block. The rubbing of the back of the paper
permanently transfers the writing in its inverted position to the
block. The engraver then cuts away the field, leaving the transferred
lines in high relief. If the graver slips and spoils a letter, the
defective part is cut out; the vacant space is plugged with new wood,
on which plug the letter is redrawn and cut. Labor is cheap, and skill
is abundant: the cutting of a block of Chinese characters which conveys
as many ideas as a page of large Roman book types costs no more, often
less, than the composition of the types. The block has advantages over
metal types or stereotypes. It is, practically, a stereotype: correct
to copy, it needs no proof-reading; light, portable, and not so liable
to damage as the stereotype, it can be used for printing copies as they
are needed from time to time.
For printing the block, a press is not needed. The block is adjusted
upon a level table, before which the printer stands, with a bowl
of fluid ink on one side, and a pile of paper, cut to proper size,
on the other. In his right hand the printer holds two flat-faced
brushes, fixed on the opposite ends of the same handle. One brush is
occasionally dipped into the ink, [p115] and afterward swept over the
face of the block. This done, the printer places a sheet on the block;
he then reverses the position of the wet brush, and sweeps the paper
lightly, but firmly, with the dry brush at the other end of the handle.
This light impression of the brush is all that is needed to fasten the
ink on the paper. The success of this operation depends largely on
the quality of the paper, which is soft, thin, pliable, and a quick
absorbent of fluid ink.[44] If American book papers were substituted
for Chinese paper, the process of printing by the brush and with fluid
ink would be found impracticable: the sheet would not adhere to the
block; the ink would smear on the paper; the brush would not give
enough pressure to transfer the ink.
Chinese presswork is done with rapidity. Du Halde said that a printer
could perfect, without exertion, ten thousand sheets within one day.
As this performance, about thirteen impressions in a minute, for a
working day of twelve hours, is really greater than that of ordinary
book-printing machines in modern printing offices, this part of the
description of Du Halde may be rejected as entirely untrustworthy. We
must believe that the good father did not count the work, and that his
credulity was imposed upon by some Chinese braggart. Davis, with more
reason, says that the usual performance of the Chinese printer is two
thousand sheets per day, which is about one-fourth more than the daily
task of an American hand-pressman. The simple nature of the work favors
speed. The sheets are printed on one side only, and the printer is not
delayed by the setting-off, or smearing of the ink, on the back of the
white paper.
Although the Chinese book is printed on paper of the size of two
leaves, in pairs of two pages, it is not stitched through the back or
centre of the double leaf. The paper is folded between the pages, and
the fold is made the outer edge of the book; the cut edges are the back
of the book, [p116] through which the stitching is done. Clumsy as
this method of binding may seem to our standards of propriety, it is
done in China with a neatness and thoroughness which are almost beyond
criticism.[45]
The labor of engraving separate blocks for every work, which would be
regarded as an insuperable difficulty in the Western World, is esteemed
but lightly by the patient and plodding Chinese, and is no hindrance
to a very broad development of printing. A daily newspaper, known to
European residents as the _Peking Gazette_, has been printed in Peking
for centuries. This paper, which is made up chiefly of the orders of
the emperor and the proceedings and papers of his general council,
is printed from a composition of hard wax, which can be more quickly
engraved or indented than wood. The presswork, as might be expected,
is inferior to that done from engraved wooden blocks. The cost, in
China, of engraving a full page, about twice the size of the fac-simile
opposite, would be about forty-five cents; a careful imitation of the
same page by a competent engraver on wood in New-York would cost about
thirty-five dollars.
Adherence to old usages, in neglect of improved methods, is a true
oriental trait, but the preference of the Chinese for block-printing
is not altogether unreasonable. Their written language is an
almost insurmountable obstacle to the employment of types. Chinese
characters do not stand for letters or sounds; they represent complete
words or ideas. As their vocabulary contains a great many of these
words, estimated by some at 80,000, and by others at 240,000, it is
impracticable, by reason of its expense, to cut punches for all these
characters. European type-founders, at various times, have made up an
assortment of Chinese characters for printing the New Testament, and
for other books requiring a limited [p117] number of words, but a
complete collection has never been attempted beyond the Chinese Empire.
[Illustration: Fac-Simile of part of a Page from a Chinese Book.]
[Illustration: Chinese Types Made in London.
[Furnished by Mr. John F. Marthens of Pittsburgh.]]