Before us are parts of two packs of cards which were discovered in Edinburgh, in 1821, pasted up in a book of household accounts, one of its leaves bearing the date of 1562; and it would be no great stretch of fancy to believe that they were taken to Edinburgh by some follower of Mary Queen of Scots on her return to Scotland a year before this date. These cards are of Flemish make; on one of them is the name "Jehan Henault," who was a card-maker in Antwerp in 1543, and in passing we may remark that at this period there was a considerable trade between London and France in playing cards of Flemish manufacture. Old playing cards may be looked for in most unlikely places; a few years ago two nearly complete packs were found wedged in an old cross-bow, for the purpose of securing the bow where it had worked loose in the head; they were of sixteenth century manufacture, and had doubtless been the means of relieving the tedium of many a weary watch or waiting, in field or fortress, before they found their resting-place of a couple of centuries in the obsolete missive weapon where they were discovered. We find on many cards some attempts at portraiture. Thus we have in Fig. 5 Clovis as the King of Clubs, but depicted in a costume of the time of Henry IV. of France, the card itself being of that period. This, as well as Fig. 4, is from a pack of fifty-two "Numeral" cards, printed from wood-block and stencilled in colour. [Illustration: FIG. 6.] Returning to "Tarots," we have in Fig. 6 (Le Fou) one of the cards designed by Mitelli about 1680, it is said to the order of a member of the Bentivoglio family (parts of whose armorial bearings are to be found on many of the cards), for the "Tarrocchini di Bologna," a special form of the game of Tarot, a series of spirited designs of vigorous and careful drawing, and the most artistically valuable of any of the Tarots with which we are acquainted. In them not only the Tarot series but the ordinary suits display a quaint conception and generally elegant design. It is curious to note that in the eleven packs or parts of packs of these Bolognese cards which we have met with in various parts of Europe there is not any uniformity of manufacture, but while the designs are the same and evidently produced from the same copper plates, the making of them into cards for the purpose of play bears indication of what might be termed a "domestic" manufacture. For some time the game was interdicted in Bologna, and it is possible that this may have induced a surreptitious production and illicit sale of the cards. Fortunately, the interdict did not prevent the preservation to us of this interesting series. [Illustration: FIG. 7.]