Canis vero et canicula qualia sint sidera superius patuit. Sed forsitan quidam riderent hujuscemodi ludorum inventionem, doctis quoque viris tribui, nisi et ludum quem chartarum nominant vulgò et à sapientibus fuisse excogitatum ratio dictaret; nam, ut regum, reginarum, equitum peditumque potentiam præteream (quilibet enim dignitatis militiæque differentiam novit), nonne cum ensium, hastarum, scyphorum, paniumque agrestium vim consideramus, perspicacissimi ingenii inventorem esse cognoscimus? Cum viribus ubi est opus, ut in hastis ensibusque videtur, multitudo superat paucitatem: in esculentis vero poculentisque, ut per panes vinumque figuratur, paucitas multitudinem vincit; constat enim abstemios crapulosis edacibusque viris acrioris esse ingenii, et in negotiis agendis fore superiores. Panes autem rusticos voco, propter formam et colorem, croceo enim colore olim fuisse Plinius narrat, (nam cuppæ scyphi sunt, ubi vinum,) et illi sunt panes, quos imperite nummos credunt. Hastas, sic dixit vulgus, quoniam H aspiratio et V convertantur, ut Hesper, Vesper. B autem et V sibi invicem sedem præbere Græcus Latinusque testantur; ut Bastoni Hastoni vulgò appelleutur, ita ut aliquando hastarum plerumque bipennium formam gerant; utrumque enim militiæ; instrumentum est."--Galeottus Martius, De Doctrina Promiscua, cap. xxxvi, pp. 477-8. 16mo, Lyons, 1552. [112] Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i, p. 483.--The passage relating to cards, in the act referred to, was pointed out to the Hon. D. Barrington by Mr. John Nichols. Gough, in his 'Observations on the Invention of Cards,' in the Eighth Volume of Archæologia, says, that Mr. Le Neve produced before the Society of Antiquaries a minute to show that cards were manufactured in England before the 1st of Edward IV; for then a person had his name from his ancestor having been a card-maker. Mr. Gough observes that the ancestor of this person--Hugh Cardmaker, prior of St. John the Baptist, at Bridgenorth--was probably a maker of cards for dressing flax or wool. A _Karter_--a wool-comber--occurs in the town-books of Nuremberg, in 1397. [113] Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. ii, p. 333, edit. 1778. [114] "The kynge came privily to the said castell [of Newbattle], and entred within the chammer with a small company, where he founde the quene playing at the CARDES."--Leland's Collectanea, vol. iii, Appendix, p. 284. Cited by Warton, in his History of English Poetry, who also observes that cards are mentioned in a statute of Henry VII, in the year 1496. [115] Private Life of James IV of Scotland, in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, Nos. 9 and 10, 1832. [116] "Les cartes, comme tout ce qui tient aux arts, out une origine Italienne: c'est à Venise ou à Florence que les Grecs réfugiés de Constantinople les ont d'abord fait connaître."--Annuaire Historique pour I'année 1837, p. 188.