After the middle of the fifteenth century, cards came into very general use; and at the beginning of the following century, there was such a rage for card-playing, that an attempt was made early in the reign of Henry VIII. to restrict their use by law to the period of Christmas. When, however, people sat down to dinner at noon, and had no other occupation for the rest of the day, they needed amusement of some sort to pass the time; and a poet of the fifteenth century observes truly,-- _A man may dryfe forthe the day that long tyme dwellis_ _With harpyng and pipyng, and other mery spellis,_ _With gle, and wyth game._ Such amusements as these mentioned, with games of different kinds in which the ladies took part, and dancing, generally occupied the afternoon, from dinner to supper, the hour of which latter meal seems usually to have been six o’clock. The favourite amusement was dancing. A family party at the dance is represented in our cut No. 253, from M. Barrois’ manuscript of the “Comte d’Artois.” The numerous dances which were now in vogue seem to have completely eclipsed the old carole, or round dance, and the latter word, which was a more general one, had displaced the former. The couple here on their legs are supposed to be performing one of the new and tasteful fashionable dances, which were much more lively than those of the earlier period; some of them were so much so as to scandalise greatly the sage moralists of the time. The after-dinner amusements were resumed after supper; and a practice had now established itself of prolonging the day’s enjoyment to a late hour, and taking a second, or, as it was called, a rere-supper (_arrière souper_), which was called the banquet in France, where the three great meals were now the dinner, the supper, and the banquet, and dinner appears to have been considered as the least meal of the three. It was thus, probably, that, in course of time, dinner took the place of supper, and supper that of banquet. [Illustration: _No. 253. A Dance._]