Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/240

 220 Hiftory of Domejiic Manners writer of this tra6t gives diredlions for playing at feveral other games of tables, and names fome of them — fuch as " paume carie," the Lombard's game {Indus Lomhardonim), the "imperial," the "provincial," "baralie," and "faylys." This game continued long to exifl in England under its old name of tables. Thus Shakefpeare : — nis is the ape of form, monfieur the nice. That, ivhen he plays at tables, chides the dice. — Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. Sc. 2. The game appears at this time to have been a favourite one in the taverns and ordinaries. Thus, in a fatirical trad in verfe, printed in 1600, we are told of— A n honefi -nicker, and a kind confort. That to the alehouje friendly ivould refort. To ha-ue a game at tallies noiu and than. Or drinke his pot as foone as any man. — Letting' of Humours Blot^d, icno. And one of the moft popular of the fatirical writers of that period, Dekker, in his " Lanthorne and Candle-Light," printed in 1620, fays, punningly, — "And knowing that your moft felefted gallants are the onelye tahle-men that are plaid withal at ordinaries, into an ordinarye did he moft gentleman-like convay himfelfe in ftate." We learn from another tra6t of the fame author, the " Gul's Hornbooke," that the table- men at this time were ufually painted. We hardly perceive how the name of tables difappeared. It feems probable that at this time the game of tables meant ftmply what we now call backgammon, a word the oldeft mention of which, fo far as I have been able to difcover, occurs in Howell's " Familiar Letters," firft printed in 1646. It is there written haggamon. In the " Compleat Gamefter," 1674, backgammon and ticktack occur as two diftin£t games at what would have formerly been called tables ; and another fimilar game was called Irilh. Curioully enough, in the earlier part of the laft century the game of backgammon was moft celebrated as a favourite game among country parfons. Another game exifting in the middle ages, but much more rarely alluded to, was called dames, or ladies, and has ftill preferved that name in