Of the same class, but with more true artistic feeling and treatment than the preceding, we give the Deuce of Clubs, from a pack with London Cries (Fig. 27), and another with Fables (Fig. 28), both of which date from the earlier years of the last century, the former with the quaint costume and badge of a waterman, with his cry of "Oars! oars! do you want a boat?" In the middle distance the piers of Old London Bridge, and the house at its foot with overhanging gallery, make a pleasing old-time picture. The "Fables" cards are apparently from the designs of Francis Barlow, and are probably engraved by him; although we find upon some of them the name of J. Kirk, who, however, was the seller of the cards only, and who, as was not uncommon with the vendor of that time, in this way robbed the artist of what honour might belong to his work. Both of these packs are rare; that of the "Fables" is believed to be unique. Of a date some quarter of a century antecedent to those just described we have an amusing pack, in which each card has a collection of moral sentences, aphorisms, or a worldly-wise story, or--we regret in the interests of good behaviour to have to add--something very much the reverse of them. The larger portion of the card is occupied by a picture of considerable excellence in illustration of the text; and notwithstanding the peculiarity to which we have referred as attaching to some of them, the cards are very interesting as studies of costume and of the manners of the time--of what served to amuse our ancestors two centuries ago--and is a curious compound survival of Puritan teaching and the license of the Restoration period. We give one of them in Fig. 29. [Illustration: FIG. 29.] The Ace of Clubs, shown in Fig. 30, is from a pack issued in Amsterdam about 1710, and is a good example of the Dutch burlesque cards of the eighteenth century. The majority of them have local allusions, the meaning of which is now lost; and many of them are of a character which will not bear reproduction. A better-known pack of Dutch cards is that satirizing the Mississippi scheme of 1716, and the victims of the notorious John Law--the "bubble" which, on its collapse, four years later, brought ruin to so many thousands. [Illustration: FIG. 30.] [Illustration: FIG. 31.] [Illustration: FIG. 32.] [Illustration: FIG. 33.] [Illustration: FIG. 34.]