The modern French cards differ slightly from those used in England and America, as they are smaller, and the edges are rounded and generally gilded. The cards, instead of being perfectly flat, are slightly curved; and this is in order to facilitate shuffling, which is not done in France in the way usually adopted among English-speaking nations, where the pack is divided and laid on a flat surface, and the edges of the cards are lifted and allowed to pass quickly one over the other, in this way distributing or shuffling them very rapidly. The French cards are divided, but held up, and the sides of the two parts pressed together, which shuffles them effectually, but which it is impossible to do if the cards are not curved. ENGLAND. Some of the most interesting collections of old playing-cards can be seen in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the South Kensington Museum, and the British Museum in London. The latter collection has a historian of its own; and the variety, number, and beauty of the packs in this place are minutely recorded, and form an interesting study by themselves. By their aid it is possible to note the various changes and modifications which have crept in among the costumes of the court, and the pips of the suit cards. The early packs seem to have been imported from Spain, as they bear the old symbols of _coin_, _maces_, _swords_, and _cups_. Other packs have been found which were stencilled with the _grelots_ (bells) commonly found on the early German cards; but finally the French card came into common use, and these were adopted and have been universally accepted in England, and by her introduced into her colonies, so that these marks of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades are found all over the globe. [Illustration: Plate 10.] The English and American card of the present day differs slightly from those in use in France. The latter have discarded obsolete costumes and fanciful devices when designing the figures of the court cards, and the dresses are modernized, the faces are shaded, and the whole figure looks more like a pretty picture than the cherished card dear to the heart of the Englishman, whose Kings are dressed somewhat after the fashion of Henry the Eighth, the Queens like his mother, Elizabeth of York, and the Knaves in the costume adopted by the lower classes in the days of Chaucer.