Now, whatever may have been the origin of the name of cards, it is undeniable that the idea of the number _four_ is very generally associated with them; there are four suits, and in each suit there are four honours, reckoning the ace;--to say nothing of the very old game of All Fours, which may have originally meant winning in each of the four Angas or divisions, now represented by High, Low, Jack, and the Game. It is also certain that, in this country, cards were called the Books of the Four Kings, long before the passage relating to the game of _Quatuor Reges_, which might have suggested the name, appeared in Anstis's History of the Garter. They are so called by Sir Thomas Urquhart, in his translation of Rabelais, in chapter 22, book i, which contains an account of the games that Gargantua played at: "After supper, were brought into the room the fair wooden gospels, and the books of the _Four Kings_, that is to say, the tables and cards."[28] Cards are not indeed called the Books of the Four Kings in the original text of Rabelais; though it is certain that they were known in France by that name, and that the Valets or Knaves were also called _fous_--a term which, as Peignot remarks, corroborates Breitkopf's theory of the analogy between chess and cards.[29] Mrs. Piozzi, speaking of cards, in her Retrospection, published in 1801, says, "It is a well-known vulgarity in England to say, 'Come, Sir, will you have a stroke at the history of the Four Kings?' meaning, Will you play a game at cards?" A writer in Fraser's Magazine, for August, 1844, also calls cards the books of the Four Kings, as if they were well known by that name. Now as _chahar_, _chatur_, or, as the word is sometimes written in English, _chartah_, signifies four in the Hindostanee language, as it enters into the composition of _chaturanga_, and as chess probably suggested the game of cards, I am inclined to think that both games were invented in Hindostan, and that _chahar_ or _chatur_ in the language of that country formed a portion of the original name of cards. The common term for cards in Hindostan, is _Taj_ or _Tas_; and its primary meaning, as I am informed, is a leaf, _folium_. But as it is also used in a figurative sense to signify a diadem or crown, and as the term signifying a _crown_ is frequently used in most languages to signify regal authority, the compound term _chahar-taj_, or _chahar-tas_, would be suggestive of nearly the same idea as "the Four Kings," and be almost identical in sound with the Latin _chartæ_ or _chartas_. The name, whatever it might be, would be liable to change in passing from Hindostan, through other countries, into Europe; in the same manner as we find _Chaturanga_, the Sanscrit name of chess, transformed into the Persian _Chatrang_, the Arabic _Shatranj_, the Greek _Zatrikion_, the Spanish _Axedrez_, the Italian _Scacchi_, the German _Schach_, the French _Echecs_, and the English _Chess_.