A history of Playing Cards, treating of them in all their possible relations, associations, and bearings, would form nearly a complete cyclopædia of science and art; and would still admit of being further enlarged by an extensive biographical supplement, containing sketches of the lives of celebrated characters who have played at cards,--or at any other game. CARDS would form the centre--the _point_, having position, but no space,--from which a radius of indefinite extent might sweep a circle comprehending not only all that man knows, but all that he speculates on. The power of reach, by means of the point and the radius, being thus obtained, the operator has his choice of topics; and can arrange them round his centre, and colour them at his will, as boys at school colour their fanciful segments of a circle.
To exemplify what has just been said about the capability of cards as a subject of disquisition:--One writer, Père Menestrier,[1] preluding on the invention of cards, says, _apropos_ to the term JEU--_ludus_, a game--that, to the Supreme Being the creation of the world was only a kind of game; and that schoolmasters with the Romans were called Ludi Magistri--masters of the game or sport. Here, then, is a fine opportunity for a descant on creation; and for showing that the whole business of human life, from the cradle to the grave, is but a game; that all the world is a great "gaming-house,"--to avoid using a word offensive to ears polite,--
"And all the men and women merely _players_."
Illustrative of this view of human life, a couple of pertinent quotations, from Terence and Plutarch, are supplied by another brother of the same craft, M. C. Leber.[2]
According to Père Daniel,[3]--a reverend father of the order of Jesuits, who wrote an elaborate history of the French Military Establishments,--the game of Piquet is symbolic, allegorical, military, political, and historical, and contains a number of important maxims relating to war and government. Now, granting, for the sake of argument, that the game, with respect to its esoteric principles, is really enigmatic, it may be fairly denied that Père Daniel has succeeded in explaining it correctly; his fancied discoveries may be examined in detail, and shown, with very little trouble, to be the mere seethings of his own working imagination; others may be proposed, and, as a matter of course, supported by authorities, ancient and modern, on the origin, use, and meaning of symbols and allegories, and illustrated with maxims of war and state policy, carefully selected from the bulletins, memoirs, and diplomatic correspondence of the great military chiefs and statesmen of all nations: thus a respectable volume--in point of size at least--might be got up on the subject of Piquet alone, without trenching on the wide field of cards in general.