Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/79

 authentic examples which still exist are parts of the two packs of cards which were produced for the amusement of that King, by the hands of Jacques Gringonneur, and of which seventeen are preserved m the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris,

These are the most early forms of playing cards, and are known as "Tarots" (as distinguished from "Numerals," or cards which have the consecutively marked "suit" signs), and which had evidently a purpose outside the ordinary games of playing cards as known to us. The "Tarot" pack consists variously of seventy-two, seventy-seven, or seventy-eight cards, including the "Tarots," which give them their distinctive name. "Tarot" as a game was familiar three centuries ago in England, but is so no longer, although it has a limited use in other parts of Europe still. One of the "Tarot" cards, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, "La Mort" is shown as the first of our illustrations (Fig. 1).

Familiar to those who are conversant with the literature of playing cards will be the Knave of Clubs, shown in Fig. 2, which is one of the fragments of a pack of cards found, in 1841, by Mr. Chatto, in the wastepaper used to form the pasteboard covers of a book. These cards are printed in outline from wood blocks and the colour filled in by stencilling, a method employed in the manufacture of cards down to a very few years ago. The date of these cards may safely be taken as not more recent than 1450, and they are most interesting as being coeval with, if not antecedent to, the most early form of printed book illustration as shown in the "Biblia Pauperum." The archaic drawing of the features, with its disregard of facial perspective, and the wondrous cervical anatomy, do not lessen our admiration of the vigour and "go" shown in this early example of the art of the designer and wood engraver.