money, as All-fours is played in Kent,
and Post-and-pair in the west of England."

'Noddy was one of the old English court games. This has been supposed to
have been a children's game, and it was certainly nothing of the kind.
Its nature is thus fully described in a curious satirical poem, entitled
Batt upon Batt, published in 1694.

"Show me a man can turn up Noddy still, And deal himself three fives
too, when he will; Conclude with one-and-thirty, and a pair, Never fail
ten in Stock, and yet play fair, If Batt be not that wight, I lose my
aim."

'From these lines, there can be no doubt that the ancient Noddy was the
modern cribbage--the Nod of to-day, rejoicing in the name of Noddy, and
the modern Crib, being termed the Stock.

'Ombre was most probably introduced into this country by Catherine of
Portugal, the queen of Charles II.; Waller, the court poet, has a poem
on a card torn at Ombre by the queen. This royal lady also introduced to
the English court the reprehensible practice of playing cards on Sunday.
Pepys, in 1667, writes: "This evening, going to the queen's side to see
the ladies, I did find the queen, the Duchess of York, and another at
cards, with the room full of ladies and great men; which I was amazed
at to see on a Sunday, having not believed, but contrarily flatly denied
the same, a little while since, to my cousin."(61)

(61) Hombre, or rather El Hombre, or 'The Man,' was so named as
requiring thought and reflection, which are qualities peculiar to man;
or rather, alluding to him who undertakes to play the game against the
rest of the gamesters, emphatically called The Man. It requires very
great application to play it well: and let a man be ever so expert, he
will be apt to fall into mistakes if he thinks of anything else, or is
disturbed by the conversation of those that look on. It is a game of
three, with 40 cards, that is, rejecting the eights, nines, and tens of
all the suits.

'In a passage from Evelyn's Memoirs, the writer impressively describes
another Sunday-evening scene at Whitehall, a few days before the
death of Charles II., in which a profligate assemblage of courtiers is
represented as deeply engaged in the game of Basset. This was an Italian
game, brought by Cardinal Mazarin to France; Louis XIV. is said to have
lost large sums at it; and it was most likely brought to England by some
of the French ladies of the court. It did not stand its ground, however,
in this country;