The other principal card-games of the period were ledam, noddy, bankerout, saunt, lanterloo, knave-out-of-doors, and post-and-pair. Sir John Harrington mentions lodam as succeeding maw in court patronage. It is not known how it was played.
Noddy is supposed by some to have been the original of cribbage, because the knave was called noddy. But it would seem that the game of noddy was played for counters, and that it was fifteen or twenty-one up. In Salton's tales, a young heir is likened to "a gamester at noddy; one-and-twenty makes him out." Nares says that noddy was not played with a board; but Gayton (Festivous Notes upon Don Quixot, 1654) speaks of noddy boards.
Saunt and sant are merely corruptions of cent, or cientos, a Spanish game. It was named cientos because the game was a hundred. It is supposed to have been the same as piquet.
Lanterloo was very similar to loo. The first mention of lanterloo occurs in a Dutch pamphlet (circa 1648).
Knave-out-of-doors was probably the same game as poore-and-rich, or as beggar-my-neighbour.
Post-and-pair is said to have resembled the game of commerce. It was played with three cards each; and much depended on vying, or betting, on the goodness of your own hand. A pair-royal of aces was the best hand, and next, a pair-royal of any three cards according to their value. If no one had a pair-royal, the highest pair won, and next to this, the hand that held the highest cards. This description seems to apply more nearly to brag than to commerce.
In Cotton's "Compleat Gamester," we find, in addition to the games already mentioned, the following which are obsolete—ombre, French-ruff, costly-colours, bone-ace, wit-and-reason, the art of memory, plain-dealing, Queen Nazareen, penneech, bankafalet, and beast. Most of these defunct games were very babyish contrivances. Boneace, for instance, was admitted by Cotton to be "trivial and very inconsiderable, by reason of the little variety therein contained; but," added the author, "because I have seen ladies and persons of quality have plaid at it for their diversions, I will briefly describe it, and the rather, because it is a licking game for money." The whole game consisted in this, the dealer dealt three cards to each player, the first two being dealt face downwards and the third being turned up. The biggest card turned up carried the bone, that is, half the pool, and the nearest to thirty-one in hand won the other half.
The games mentioned by Cotton, which are still practised, are all superior games; games of variety, and games into which skill largely enters. They are piquet, cribbage, all-fours, and whist. Of these whist is the king. It has been the game for some hundred and twenty years and its never-ending variety, and its well adjusted complements of skill and chance, seem likely to continue it in undisturbed possession of modern card-rooms.
THE BATTLE PAINTER.
I.
Wild horsemen billowing round a planted flag,
Pistols red flashing, sabres reaping fast,
Whirlpools of pikes, maim'd men trod under foot,
The sulphur smoke of cannon rolling past;
And in the midst a proud, white, tossing plume,—
The chief's, who, wrestling with a stalwart Croat,
Or Pole, or Turk, yells out his battle-cry,
While hewing madly at the other's throat.
II.
You know such pictures; Wouvermans has done
Some not unlike, with ever a white horse
Focussing out a light amid the gloom,
Giving the masses unity and force.
Always a standard, while sore wounded men
Grapple upon the ground with armour strewn,
And shattered drum and banners wet with gore,
And helmets beaten in and bucklers hewn.
III.
Don Rinaldo de Montalba, battle painter,—
He who left us many score such things,—
Was wont to rouse his genius, we are told,
Not by deep draughts from the Castalian springs,
By beating charges on a Turkish drum,
Nor clashing cymbals; no, by no device
So tame as these, but by a daring stroke,
A vigorous and a chivalrous artifice.
IV.
He clothed a figure in a coat of mail,
Helmet and cuirass, breastplate, target too,
Tassets and pauldrons buckled sure and firm,
Each plate of armour fitting close and true;
Then, with a giant's huge two-handed sword,
In a feigned fury he drove at the steel,
Slashing it into shreds, with sturdy blows
That might have made the proudest Paynim reel.
V.
Having well smitten, hewn, and stabbed, and struck,
He calmly placed his sword upon its rack,
And seized his brushes, his strained canvas set,
His easel planted, and with bended back,
And steadfast head bent down, portrayed the scenes
His fancy now was teeming with, and fierce
With furious pencil pictured storms of horse,
And clouds of Pandours, hot at carte and tierce.
VI.
Don Rinaldo de Montalba, battle painter,
Rudely to us, poets, and painters, all
Did teach this simple lesson, still to work
With fiery ardour, turning this earth-ball,
And all in sea and sky, unto our use,
To help us onward up the arduous mount,
Where Phœbus sits enthroned, and sweet below
Ripples with music Aganippe's fount.
