[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.]
The "foolish business" of Heraldry has supplied the motive for numerous
packs of cards. Two only, however, can be here shown, though there are
instructive examples of the latter half of the seventeenth and beginning
of the eighteenth centuries from England, Scotland, France, Germany, and
Italy. The example given in Fig. 16 is English, of the date of 1690, and
the fifty-two cards of the pack give us the arms of the different
European States, and of the peers of England and Scotland. A pack
similar to this was engraved by Walter Scott, the Edinburgh goldsmith,
in 1691, and is confined to the Arms of England, Scotland, Ireland,
France, and the great Scottish families of that date, prepared under
the direction of the Lyon King of Arms, Sir Alexander Erskine. The
French heraldic example (Fig. 17) is from a pack of the time of Louis
XIV., with the arms of the French nobility and the nobles of other
European countries; the "suit" signs of the pack being "Fleur de Lis,"
"Lions," "Roses," and "Eagles."
[Illustration: FIG. 18.]
Caligraphy, even, has not been left without recognition, for we have a
pack, published in Nuremberg, in 1767, giving examples of written
characters and of free-hand pen drawing, to serve as writing copies. We
show the Nine of Hearts from this pack (Fig. 18), and the eighteenth
century South German graphic idea of a Highlander of the period is
amusing, and his valorous attitude is sufficiently satisfying.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.]
Biography has, too, its place in this playing-card cosmography, though
it has not many examples. The one we give (Fig. 19) is German, of about
1730, and is from a pack which depicts a series of heads of Emperors,
poets, and historians, Greek and Roman--a summary of their lives and
occurrences therein gives us their _raison d'être_.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.]
Of Geographical playing cards there are several examples in the second
half of the seventeenth century. The one selected for illustration (Fig.
20) gives a sectional map of one of the English counties, each of the
fifty-two cards of the pack having the map of a county of England and
Wales, with its geographical limitations. These are among the more rare
of old playing cards, and their gradual destruction when used as
educational media will, as in the case of horn-books, and early
children's books generally, account for this rarity. Perhaps the most
interesting geographical playing cards which have survived this common
fate, though they are the _ultima rarissima_ of such cards, is the pack
designed and engraved by H. Winstanley, "at Littlebury, in Essex," as we
read on the Ace of Hearts. They appear to have been intended to afford
instruction in geography and ethnology. Each of the cards has a
descriptive account of one of the States or great cities of the world,
and we have taken the King of Hearts (Fig. 21), with its description of
England and the English, as the most interesting. The costumes are those
of the time of James II., and the view gives us Old London Bridge, the
Church of St. Mary Overy, on the south side of the Thames, and the
Monument, then recently erected at the northern end of the bridge to
commemorate the Great Fire, and which induced Pope's indignant lines:--
"Where London's column, pointing to the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts its head and--lies."
The date of the pack is about 1685, and it has an added interest from
the fact that its designer was the projector of the first Eddystone
Lighthouse, where he perished when it was destroyed by a great storm in
1703.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.]
Music, too, is not forgotten, though on playing cards it is seen in
smaller proportion than other of the arts. To the popularity of the
"Beggar's Opera" of John Gay, that satirical attack upon the Government
of Sir Robert Walpole, we are indebted for its songs and music appearing
as the _motif_ of the pack, from which we give here the Queen of Spades
(Fig. 22), and the well-thumbed cards before us show that they were
popular favourites. Their date may be taken as nearly coincident with
that of the opera itself, viz., 1728. A further example of musical cards
is given in Fig. 23, from a French pack of 1830, with its pretty piece
of costume headgear, and its characteristic waltz music.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.]
France has been prolific in what may be termed "Cartes de fantaisie,"
burlesque and satirical, not always designed, however, with due regard
to the refinements of well-behaved communities. They are always
spirited, and as specimens of inventive adaptation are worth notice. The
example shown (Fig. 24) is from a pack of the year 1818, and is good of
its class.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.]
Of these "Cartes de fantaisie," each of the card-producing countries of
Europe has at different dates produced examples of varying degrees of
artistic value. Although not the best in point of merit, the most
generally attractive of these are the packs produced in the years
1806-7-8 and 9, by the Tübingen bookseller, Cotta, and which were
published in book form, as the "Karten Almanack," and also as ordinary
packs. Every card has a design, in which the suit signs, or "pips," are
brought in as an integral part, and admirable ingenuity is displayed in
this adaptation; although not the best in the series, we give the Six of
Hearts (Fig. 25), as lending itself best to the purpose of reproduction,
and as affording a fair instance of the method of design.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.]
In England numerous examples of these illustrated playing cards have
been produced of varying degrees of artistic merit, and, as one of the
most amusing, we select the Knave of Spades from a pack of the year 1824
(Fig. 26). These cards are printed from copper-plates, and are coloured
by hand, and show much ingenuity in the adaptation of the design to the
form of the "pips."
[Illustration: FIG. 26.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.]
Of the same class, but with more true artistic feeling and treatment
than the preceding, we give the Deuce of Clubs, from a pack with London
Cries (Fig. 27), and another with Fables (Fig. 28), both of which date
from the earlier years of the last century, the former with the quaint
costume and badge of a waterman, with his cry of "Oars! oars! do you
want a boat?" In the middle distance the piers of Old London Bridge, and
the house at its foot with overhanging gallery, make a pleasing old-time
picture. The "Fables" cards are apparently from the designs of Francis
Barlow, and are probably engraved by him; although we find upon some of
them the name of J. Kirk, who, however, was the seller of the cards
only, and who, as was not uncommon with the vendor of that time, in this
way robbed the artist of what honour might belong to his work. Both of
these packs are rare; that of the "Fables" is believed to be unique. Of
a date some quarter of a century antecedent to those just described we
have an amusing pack, in which each card has a collection of moral
sentences, aphorisms, or a worldly-wise story, or--we regret in the
interests of good behaviour to have to add--something very much the
reverse of them. The larger portion of the card is occupied by a picture
of considerable excellence in illustration of the text; and
notwithstanding the peculiarity to which we have referred as attaching
to some of them, the cards are very interesting as studies of costume
and of the manners of the time--of what served to amuse our ancestors
two centuries ago--and is a curious compound survival of Puritan
teaching and the license of the Restoration period. We give one of them
in Fig. 29.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.]
The Ace of Clubs, shown in Fig. 30, is from a pack issued in Amsterdam
about 1710, and is a good example of the Dutch burlesque cards of the
eighteenth century. The majority of them have local allusions, the
meaning of which is now lost; and many of them are of a character which
will not bear reproduction. A better-known pack of Dutch cards is that
satirizing the Mississippi scheme of 1716, and the victims of the
notorious John Law--the "bubble" which, on its collapse, four years
later, brought ruin to so many thousands.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.]
[Illustration: FIG. 33.]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.]
Our space forbids the treatment of playing cards under any but their
pictorial aspects, though the temptation is great to attempt some
description of their use from an early period as instruments of
divination or fortune telling, for which in the hands of the "wise man"
or woman of various countries they are still used, and to which primary
purpose the early "Tarots" were doubtless applied; but, as it is among
the more curious of such cards, we give the Queen of Hearts from a pack
of the immediate post-Commonwealth period (Fig. 31). The figure is
called Semiramis--without, so far as can be seen, any reason. It is one
of a mélange of names for cards in which Wat Tyler and Tycho Brahe rub
shoulders in the suit of Spades, and Mahomet and Nimrod in that of
Diamonds! In the pack we find the Knave of Clubs named "Hewson" (not the
card-maker of that name), but he who is satirized by Butler as "Hewson
the Cobbler." Elsewhere he is called "One-eyed Hewson." He is shown with
but one eye in the card bearing his name, and as it is contemporary, it
may be a fair presentment of the man who, whatever his vices, managed
under Cromwell to obtain high honours, and who was by him nominated a
member of the House of Lords. The bitter prejudice of the time is shown
in the story which is told of Hewson, that on the day the King was
beheaded he rode from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange proclaiming
that "whoever should say that Charles Stuart died wrongfully should
suffer death." Among the _quasi_-educational uses of playing cards we
find the curious work of Dr. Thomas Murner, whose "Logica Memorativa
Chartiludium," published at Strassburg in 1507, is the earliest instance
known to us of a distinct application of playing cards to education,
though the author expressly disclaims any knowledge of cards. The method
used by the Doctor was to make each card an aid to memory, though the
method must have been a severe strain of memory in itself. One of them
is here given (Fig. 32), the suit being the German one of Bells
(Schnellen).
It would seem that hardly any branch of human knowledge had been
overlooked in the adaptation of playing cards to an educational purpose,
and they who still have them in mind under the designation of "the
Devil's books," may be relieved to know that Bible history has been
taught by the means of playing cards. In 1603 there was published a
Bible History and Chronology, under the title of the "Geistliche Karten
Spiel," where, much as Murner did in the instance we have given above,
the cards were used as an aid to memory, the author giving to each of
the suit signs the distinctive appellation of some character or incident
in Holy Writ. And more recently Zuccarelli, one of the original members
of our Royal Academy, designed and etched a pack of cards with the same
intention.
In Southern Germany we find in the last century playing cards specially
prepared for gifts at weddings and for use at the festivities attending
such events. These cards bore conventional representations of the bride,
the bridegroom, the musicians, the priest, and the guests, on horseback
or in carriages, each with a laudatory inscription. The card shown in
Fig. 33 is from a pack of this kind of about 1740, the Roman numeral I.
indicating it as the first in a series of "Tarots" numbered
consecutively from I. to XXI., the usual Tarot designs being replaced by
the wedding pictures described above. The custom of presenting guests
with a pack of cards has been followed by the Worshipful Company of
Makers of Playing Cards, who at their annual banquet give to their
guests samples of the productions of the craft with which they are
identified, which are specially designed for the occasion.
[Illustration: THE ARMS OF THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF MAKERS OF PLAYING
CARDS, 1629.]
To conclude this article--much too limited to cover so interesting a
subject--we give an illustration (Fig. 34) from a pack of fifty-two
playing cards of _silver_--every card being engraved upon a thin plate
of that metal. They are probably the work of a late sixteenth century
German goldsmith, and are exquisite examples of design and skill with
the graver. They are in the possession of a well-known collector of all
things beautiful, curious, and rare, by whose courteous permission this
unique example appears here.
_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._