what excuse, what preface can atone
For crimes which guilty Bayes _has singly done_--
Bayes, whose Rose Alley ambuscade enjoin'd
To be to vices, which he practised, kind?"

All the contemporary evidence, with which I am acquainted, tends to
establish that Lord Mulgrave, instead of being the author of a satire which
Dryden improved and polished, had nothing in the world to do with it. Is
there any evidence, not contemporary, which shows the contrary? Surely
this, and the two other matters to which I have above adverted, are
interesting literary Queries.

Now to a subject that I care less about, and upon which I am entitled, from
his published works, to appeal to your correspondent, MR. S. W. SINGER. It
is a mere trifle, but upon a curious point--the history of playing cards,
which may, however, attract more attention than topics that relate only to
such insignificant men as Thomas Gray and John Dryden.

I have before me only four, out of what I presume originally consisted of
fifty-two playing cards, unlike any I have hitherto heard of. Each of them
illustrates a proverb, which is engraved at the bottom of a pictorial
representation of figures and objects, and the cards consist of the ten of
diamonds, the ace of hearts, the seven of hearts, and the eight of spades:
the number is in Roman figures at the left-hand corner, and the subject, a
diamond, heart, and spade, at the right-hand corner. I will briefly
describe them separately.

The proverb illustrated by the ten of diamonds is "Hee's in an ill case y^t
can finde no hole to creepe out at;" and the engraving (upon copper)
represents two men, with grey heads and in black gowns, in the pillory,
surrounded by soldiers armed with halberds, partisans, spears, &c., of
various shapes, and by a crowd of men in dresses of the seventeenth
century. The ace of hearts illustrates the proverb "Look before you leap;"
a man in a hat turned up at the sides is about to leap from a high bank
into the waters, wherein two others are already swimming: in the background
is a fifth man looking over the fence of a cottage. The seven of hearts has
engraved at the bottom of it, {463} "Patience on force is a medicine for a
mad horse;" and it represents the female keeper of a brothel receiving
whip-castigation at a cart's tail, a punishment frequently inflicted of old
upon women of that description, as many authors testify: soldiers with
halberds, &c., as before, march on either side of