Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/82

 Peacocks. The aces are lettered with the distinctive suit-titles of the German cards, viz., "Grun," "Eicheln," "Schellen," and "Herzen." The pack consists of fifty-two, divided into four suits of thirteen cards each; the date of these cards is between 1535 and 1560, and they are an important and valuable item in the artistic history of playing cards.

Another example of this variation in the suit signs, as well as of a variation from the ordinary rectangular form, is to be found in the round card (Fig. 8), of a somewhat earlier date than the preceding, where the suits are Hares, Parrots, Pinks, and Columbines, and which when complete make also a pack of fifty-two, the value of the cards following the sequence of King, Queen, and Knave being indicated by the Arabic numeral at the base of and the Roman figure at the top of each, the card shown being the Six of Hares.

In both of them there is a great decorative facility and clever adaptation to the form of the card. To indicate the coincidence of idea, in the next (Fig. 9) we have a round card from India—one of the "Coate" cards of a pack, or more properly series, of 120 cards. The material used in their manufacture is matted vegetable fibre coated with lacquer and painted by hand. Most of the playing cards of Persia are also round, and are similarly decorated by the same means. About a dozen years ago round playing cards were patented in America as a novelty, in ignorance of the fact that cards of that shape had probably been in common use in the East, centuries before the discovery of that great and inventive country!

As an illustration (Fig. 10) of the suit signs of Southern Europe, we take a card from a Portuguese pack of 1610, the "Cavalier de Bâtons" (Clubs); the other suit signs are Swords, Coins, and Cups. The anatomy of the charger and the self-satisfied aspect of the Cavalier are striking; and as to the former, we are reminded of the bizarre examples of hippic adornment which,