The Ohio State University

Facetious 18th century anti-card-playing tract

September 30th, 2008

Another new acquisition has just arrived:

Serious Reflections on the Dangerous Tendency of the Common Practice of Card-playing; Especially of the Game of All-Fours, as It Hath Been Publickly play’d at Oxford, in this present Year of our Lord, MDCCLIV. In a Letter from Mr. Gyles Smith, to his Friend Abraham Nixon, Esq; of the Inner Temple. London: Printed for W. Owen, at Homer’s Head near Temple-Bar, [1755].

This nifty little 24-page octavo pamphlet offers a humorous attack on the popularity of card games and card-playing by students at Oxford. Describing card-playing as a “heinous and crying Sin” and cards themselves as “the Devil’s Books,” these Serious Reflections lament the popularity of cards with all segments of society, from dukes to porters, and from “the Duchess in the Drawing-Room, to the Cinder-Wench on the Dunghill.” The author calls for some form of official “discouragement” or sanction—preferably passed by Parliament—to be imposed on card games because they “manifestly tend to corrupt the Principles and Morals of the People, to subvert all Order and Authority, and confound the Notions of Right and Wrong.” Additionally, the author laments, card games supplant education: “It is a melancholy Thing to think, how much all good Learning hath suffered by this unaccountable Attachment. The Arts and Sciences are either entirely neglected by us, or pursued only in Subordination, or Subserviency to it.” Lest the reader be confused, however, the author takes pains to point out that he is by no means attacking the gentlemanly pursuit of gaming, or betting, a pastime he defends by stating that every gentleman “hath a Right of disposing of his Lands, Tenements, and Monies, in what Manner he pleaseth, and of transferring them to another, upon any Terms and Conditions which may be agreed upon between them.”

A contemporary reader identified the pseudonymous author as Benjamin Buckler, writing this name toward the bottom of the title page in the copy we have just acquired. Buckler was bursar of All Souls College, Oxford, beginning in 1752, and was a prominent local Tory. He was the author of A Complete Vindication of the Mallard of All-Souls College (1750), and he may have been the author of A Philosophical Dialogue concerning Decency (1751; ascribed to Samuel Rolleston), a scatological work exploring different cultural habits in lavatory use. In 1777, Buckler was elected Keeper of the Archives of Oxford University, and he died in 1780.

Eric J. Johnson, Associate Curator

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