Games at cards -- Curious cards -- Price -- Tax on Cards -- Female passion for gambling -- The Groom Porter's -- Gaming houses -- Gamesters -- Noted gamesters -- Debts of honour -- Speculation -- Life insurances -- Marine and other insurances -- Shopkeepers' lotteries -- Government lotteries -- Prizes and winners. But primest and chief delight of men and women in this age was CARDS. Never, perhaps, was such a card-playing time--certainly not in England. Ombre, which is so vividly described in the third canto of the 'Rape of the Lock' was a game which could be played by two, three, or five persons--generally by three; to each of whom nine cards were dealt. It takes its name from the Spanish, the person who undertook to stand the game making use of the words 'Yo soy l'hombre,' 'I am the man.' It was an improvement on _Primero_, which disappeared after its introduction. L'hombre is still played in Spain under the name of _Tresillo_, and in Spanish America it is called _Rocambor_. _Piquet_ is now played. _Basset_ was a very gambling game, closely resembling the modern _Faro_; _Whisk_ or _Whist_, _Brag_, _Lanterloo_, or _Lanctre loo_, in which _pam_, or the knave of clubs, is the highest card:[138] 'Were she at her Parish Church, in the Height of her Devotion, should any Body in the Interim but stand at the Church Door and hold up the _Knave of Clubs_, she would take it to be a Challenge at _Lanctre Loo_; and starting from her prayers, would follow her beloved _Pam_, as a deluded Traveller does an _Ignis Fatuus_'; and _One and Thirty_, which does not seem a very extravagant game, judging by Swift's account of it.[139] 'Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now near quite well. I was playing at _one and thirty_ with him and his family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence apiece to begin with.' These were some of the games[140] they delighted in; and the accompanying illustration very vividly brings before us a quiet and pleasant game at cards. [Footnote 138: Ward's _Adam and Eve stript of their Furbelows_.] [Footnote 139: _Journal to Stella_, letter 53.] [Footnote 140: Other games were cribbage, all fours, ruff and honours, French ruff, five cards, costly colours, bon ace, putt, plain dealing, Queen Nazareen, pennech, post and pair, bankafalat, beast.] [Illustration: A Card Table.]