r obscure history. In the museum of Nantes there
is a painting, said to be by Van Eyck, representing Philippe le Bon,
Archduke of Austria, and subsequently King of Spain, consulting a
fortune-teller by cards. This picture cannot be of a later date than the
fifteenth century. Then the art was introduced into England is unknown;
probably, however, the earliest printed notice of it in this country is
the following curious story, extracted from Rowland's Judicial Astrology
Condemned:--"Cuffe, an excellent Grecian, and secretary to the Earl of
Essex, was told, twenty years before his death, that he should come
to an untimely end, at which Cuffe laughed, and in a scornful manner
entreated the soothsayer to show him in what manner he should come to
his end, who condescended to him, and calling for cards, entreated Cuffe
to draw out of the pack any three which pleased him. He did so, and drew
three knaves, and laid them on the table by the wizard's direction, who
then told him, if he desired to see the sum of his bad fortune, to take
up those cards. Cuffe, as he was prescribed, took up the first card, and
looking on it, he saw the portraiture of himself cap-a-pie, having men
encompassing him with bills and halberds. Then he took up the second,
and there he saw the judge that sat upon him; and taking up the last
card, he saw Tyburn, the place of his execution, and the hangman, at
which he laughed heartily. But many years after, being condemned, he
remembered and declared this prediction."

'The earliest work on cartomancy was written or compiled by one
Francesco Marcolini, and printed at Venice in 1540.'(85)

(85) The Book of Days, Feb. 21. In this work there is a somewhat
different account of cartomancy to that which I have expounded 'on the
best authorities' and from practical experience with the adepts in
the art; but, in a matter of such immense importance to ladies of all
degrees, I have thought proper to give, in foot-notes, the differing
interpretations of the writer in the Book of Days, who professes to
speak with some authority, not however, I think, superior to mine, for I
have investigated the subject to the utmost.

CHAPTER XIV. AMUSING CARD TRICKS.(86)

(86) These tricks appeared originally in Beeton's Christmas Annual, and
are here reproduced with permission.

Although my work is a history of gambling, in all its horrors, and with
all its terrible moral warnings, I gladly conclude it 'happily,' after
the