Antiquity of billiards.
A history and description of Billiards. Samuel May, Billiard Table manufacturer. 1867
Interesting relative facts.
The origin of the game of billiards, like the antiquity of Stonehenge, has thus far evaded all investigation. Hitherto, although it was deemed highly probable that the Templars brought it with them on their return from the Holy Land, at the close of the 12th century, the belief has obtained, more particularly in Europe, that it was not known until centuries afterwards, when it was invented by Henri Devigne, a French artist. Shakspeare causes Cleopatra to exclaim: “Charmian, let us to billiards;” but this has been held to be one of the several anachronisms, or antedates, with which “nature’s great expositor,” stands charged. Yet, were archæology to be closely studied by the students of billiards, we doubt not it would appear that Shakspeare, instead of being guilty of prochronism, committed no error at all, or at least came centuries nearer the real time, in fixing the age of billiards, than the French, who, according to the literary remains of a much earlier epoch than that which witnessed the triumphs of the Old or the exploits of Richard Cœur de Lion, have perpetrated the equally gross error of parachronism, in minting the sixteenth century serve as the birth-time of what Louis the Fourteeth designated “The Noble Game,” and what in Germany has been called “The King of Games and the Game of Kings.”
In the letter we append, written by a gentleman who up to 1864 occupied the distinguished position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, there is what may be regarded as conclusive evidence that the game of billiards was known prior to A. D. 148; and as Cleopatra lived B. C. thirty years, there is but little latitude for doubt that Shakspeare, who must have been well versed in classic lore—his famous soliloquy, “To be, or not to be,” having been taken almost word for word from Plato— found in the earlier authors frequent allusions to billiards. Plutarch, whose “Lives” are reproduced, so to speak, in Shakspeare’s works, does not, that wo remember, mention billiards. But it is not likely that, had the play been known, he would have referred to it; as he treats mainly, if not wholly, of the important doings and achievemets of the ancients. If not in support of the extract from the Abbe McGeorghegan’s ”History of Ireland,” then certainly in proof that billiards was one of the amusements in Europe centuries anterior to the return of the Templars, we have the statement of the late Rev. Archbishop Hughes, who was himself a billiard-player, that he remembered reading in the Confession of St. Augustine, born A. D. 480, an allusion to billiards.
We shall now give the letter of the ex-Chief Justice, which is doubly valuable to the student of billiards, first for the information per se that it contains, and next for its tendency so direct the attention of antiquaries to a closer examination into the subject. And as tournaments at billiards and chess, indicating as they do that intellect reigns to-day, have trodden under foot the sanguinary joists of the middle ages, it cannot but awaken the pride of ancestry inherent in the celtic race, to be reminded through the medium of this letter that the intellectual pastime of billiards was, possibly, earliest practised by a people whose pregnant and instructive history the world can now learn only by piece-meal.
Ottawa, Ill., Jan. 1867
Michael Phelan, Esq.:
Dear Sir: I take the liberty of calling your attention to a passage in the English translation, by O’Reilly, of the Abbe MacGeorghegan’s “History of Ireland,” page 82, as furnishing pretty authentic evidence that the game of billiards was in use, at least in Ireland, nearly a thousand years before the return of the Knights Templars to Europe from the first crusade, which you give in your admirable work on Billiards as the first authentic date of the introduction of the game into Europe.
Our author on the page referred to, as he says, “merely to show the singular tastes of such early times,” gives the substance of the Will of Cathire More, a sub-King of Ireland, who reigned over the district of Leinster, and who died in the year A. D. 148.
I quote: “To Drimoth he bequeathed fifty billiard balls of brass, with the pools and cues of the same material; ten Tric-Tracs, of exquisite workmanship; twelve chess-boards, with chess-men.”
By the way, can you inform me what is “Tic-Tac? ” Does Dryden refer to it when he says: “Play at tick and lose the Indies “—as we would say, “Play at pin and lose a kingdom,” to show a violent contrast?
I confess to feeling much Interested in being carried back more than seventeen hundred years and shown the amusements of a people so far removed from the centres of civilization, though undoubtly more learned and refined than any other of the northern nations. Here we find them practising billiards and chess, which can interest those only of cultivated minds and tastes.
Yours truly,
J. D. Caton.
“Tic-tac”— or “tick-tack” and “trick-track,” according to modern orthography—was a game somewhat similar to our backgammon and played with pins and “men.” Dryden undoubtly refers to this game; and it is more than likely, judging from the comments of contemporaneous writers, that Dryden himself had a practical knowledge of it. Tric-trac is indeed, the French name for backgammon; the Germans also knows it by this name; and the Italians call it “Tavola reale,” the royal table. It was a favorite diversion of the clergy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and (we quote from the “American Hoyle,” published by Dick & Fitzgerald, of this city), “it is related of Sir Roger de Coverley, of immortal memory, that, wishful to obtain from the University a chaplain of piety, learning, and urbanity, be made it a condition that the candidate should, at least know something of backgammon. —B. Cue.