Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/123

 i2S.iv.ArBiL.iM8.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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i.e., Lucretio, disguised as Lucretia, attacks Lodovico, drawing a rapier.

In ' The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,' by Joseph Strutt, new edition, much enlarged and corrected by J. Charles Cox, 1003, p. 261, in a paragraph by the editor we read :

" Queen Elizabeth was fond of taking a hand at Primero which was then the fashionable game of cards. The favourite game of James I. was Maiv which took the place of Primero during his reign ; it afterwards became popular under the nr.me of Five Cards."

In ' Foster's Complete Hoyle,' by R. F. Foster, 1897, I find s.v. "Spoil Five " :

" Spoil Five is one of the oldest of card games, and is generally conceded to be the national game of Ireland. It is derived from the still older game of Maw, which was the favourite recreation of James I. The connecting link seems to have been a game called Five Fingers, which is de- scribed in the ' Compleat Gamester,' first pub- lished in 1674. The Five Fingers was the five of trumps, and also the best, the Ace of Hearts coming next. In Spoil Five, the Jack of trumps comes between these two . . . .Spoil Five is played with a full pack of fifty-two cards."

Seeing that the " five finger," otherwise the five of trumps, apparently took the first place in the game of maw in 1611, the date of George Chapman's ' May Day,' it is evident that maw was played with at least forty cards. I see no reason for thinking that it was not played with a full pack, like its descendant " spoil five."

In the ' New English Dictionary,' s.v. "Maw,' is a 1593 quotation which shows that the five finger was the best card, and the knave of trumps the second.

Like MR. JESS EL (iii. 426), I can see no re- semblance between the games of maw and romestecq. There is a description of the latter in the ' Academie Universelle des Jeux,' nouvelle edition, 1777, i. 335. Al- though the particulars given are not very clear, the following points are certain : that romestecq was played with thirty-six cards ; there was no trump ; the ace was the highest card, the other cards being in their regular order ; if a superior card was played to an inferior, it could not take it, unless of the same suit ; if of a different suit, the inferior (played first) took the superior. Each player having five cards dealt to him, there were combinations of cards in hand which had their special names and scoring values : Virlicque, Double Ningre, Triche, Village, Double-Rome, and Rome ; e.g., the highest was Virlicque, meaning four aces, four kings, &c. If a player omitted to announce by its proper name any com-

bination as above when playing it, he- lost ; e.g., a player having two aces and a pair of (say) kings lost unless he called " Double Ningre."

The stecq was a point which was scored out for the player who made the last trick. There were apparently points scored against a player by way of penalty as well as those in his favour the score being kept by a non -player.

1 The Groome- porters lawes at Mawe,' mentioned by MB. JESSES, appear to have been rules of play mainly by way of restric- tion and penalty, promulgated for those who knew how to play the game. No one either in the sixteenth or the twentieth century could possibly learn the game from, these " lawes." ROBERT PIERPOINT.

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MAPS (12 S. iii. 250). Johannes a Deutecum and his brother Lukas, engravers who flourished in the latter half of the sixteenth century, are called after the name of the town from which they came r Deutichem or Deutekom or Deutechom (the modern spelling is Doetinchem) in Gelder- land. Working together, they produced the series of engravings ' La Pompe funebre de Charles V.' after Jerome Cock. See Max Rooses, ' Catalogue du Musee Plantin- Moretus.' Johannes, besides maps for Ortelius's ' Theatrum,' produced plates for Linschoten's ' Itinerarium.'

Ferandus Berteli is presumably Ferrando Bertelli, member of a sixteenth-century family of engravers and art dealers. He was. a native of Venice (born c. 1530), and en- graved the works of Venetian painters.

These details are mcstly taken from the original edition of Meyer's ' Conversations- Lexicon.' EDWARD BENSLY.

MERVYN STEWART (12 S. ii. 29), 2nd Captain, R.A., died in a private hospital near Dublin on Oct. 31, 1874. He was the son of Capt. Mervyn Stewart (bom 1794), who died at Katikati, New Zealand, in 1885, (See Burke' s ' Peerage arid Baronetage ' under head of Stewart of Athenry.)

J. D. LOTJCH.

Wellington, New Zealand.

"MR. BASSET" OF HEIPERLY (12 S iv. 45). This was Francis Basset, only son and heir of Francis Basset of Tehidy. He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Thomas Spencer of Yarnton, co. Oxford, and widow of Sir Samuel Garrard; and, second, Mary, daughter and heir of" John Pendarves, Rector of Dunsteignton.