For what Lady Morgan thought of it, and
the characteristic story of the peculiar terms on which she offered
"to sell her copy to Archbishop Dacre," the reader is referred to the
Bentijack Correspondence.
It is on its face a model method of fortune-telling with cards;
easily the first for completeness and directness. Our author, in a
letter to his cousin, Henry Antrobus, quotes the eminent Brough as
styling it not only the most authoritative little book on its topic,
certainly the most interesting one; hit the only volume on the
subject "which is not a confusing and puerile farrago of nonsense--
troublesome to look into and unsatisfactory to acquire."
Certainly our ancient enthusiasts record can be learned and used
systematically, exactly as is the case with such excellent and
approved systems of chiromancy as Mr. Heron-Allen's and others.
It may be thought fortunate for modern students of card-divination
that the work has survived, so complete and clear. Its discreetness,
too, is delightfully adroit, when it suggests that its tenses, past,
present, and future, are not as definite as one might desire.
There is no copy of the hook in the British Museum, nor in the
Paris Bibliotheque Nationale, nor in any public collection of
America, England, or France that I can name. One worn but
perfect MS copy is to be found in a private library in the United
States.
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