"Mains ieux qui sont denyez, Aux merelles, _quartes_, et dez," &c. As there was reason to suspect that the word _Cartes_ or _Quartes_, in the printed copies of De Guilleville's poem, was an interpolation, the same as it was found to be in other works examined by M. Duchesne, M. Paulin Paris, assistant-keeper of the manuscripts in the Bibliothèque du Roi, was requested by a friend of Mr. Hill, to compare the printed text with that of the earliest manuscript copies of the poem preserved in the collection under his care. The result of the collation was that the suspected words had been interpolated. The following is a translation of a portion of M. Paulin Paris's letter on the subject. "I have compared the verses of our MSS. of the Pilgrimage of Human Life with the printed editions, and have found the latter very inexact. Cards are neither named nor alluded to in the MSS.; and in them the first passage, pointed out by your friend Mr. N. Hill, stands thus: Ja leur fais je veoir baleurs, Gieux de bastiaux et de jugleurs, De tables et de eschequiers, De boules et de mereliers, De dez et d'entregsterie, Et de mainte autre muserie. _MS._ 6988, fol. 44, _verso_. (No. 2), fol. 47, _verso_. "The other passage referred to is, in both MSS. as follows: Tant l'aime que je en suis sote, Et que en pers souvent ma cote, A mains jeux qui sont devées, Aux merelles, tables, et dez." As all the different interpolations referred to appear to have been made in good faith,--not for the purpose of showing the antiquity of card-playing, nor with any view of deceiving the reader, but merely to supply what the transcriber, looking at the manners of his own age, felt to be an omission,--they afford good grounds for concluding that, at the time when the several works were first written, cards were not a common game in either France or Spain; for, had they then been well known in those countries, it is just as likely that they would have been mentioned by the original writers as that they should have been interpolated by later transcribers. [Illustration]