QUADRILLE' is a card game, which, as its name, denotes, is played by four persons. The number of cards employed is forty, the tens, nines, and eights being discarded from the pack. The rank and order of the cards in each suit vary according as they are or are not trumps, and are different in the black and red suits. The ace of spades, what ever suit be trumps, is always the highest trump, and is called spaddle; the ace of clubs is always the third highest trump, and is known as basto ; while the second highest trump, or mantle, is the deuce of spades or clubs, or the seven of hearts or diamonds, -according to the suit which is trumps, it being always of the trump suit. When the black suits are not trumps, the black cards rank as iu whist; and when they are trumps, the order is the same, with the exception, as above mentioned, of the deuce, which then '(in the trump suit only) becomes mauille, the deuce of the black suit which is not trumps retaining its position as the lowest card. When the red suits are not trumps, the order of rank is as follows : king, queen, knave, ace, deuce, three, four, five, six, seven; but when they are trumps, the ace (of the trump suit only) is raised to the posi tion of the fourth highest trump, under the name of panto or punto, and the seven (of the trump suit only) becomes, as previously stated, manille. A little consideration will show, that when the black suits are trumps, the number of trump cards is eleven, and twelve when fl red suit is trumps. The three highest trumps, spadille, manille, and basto, are called matadores, and the player who possesses one of them can, if he have no other trumps in his hand, decline to follow suit if trumps are led, provided the trump led is not a matadore of value superior to his own. After the cards have been shuttled, cut, and
dealt, the elder hand, on looking at his cards, may, if his hand be weak, decline to play pass); the next player may do the same, and so on all round; in which case the elder band must commence, naming the suit which lie wishes to be trumps, and the cards are laid, and the tricks taken, as in ordinary card games. If a player does not pass, but -commences the game by naming trumps and playing a card, he must himself make six tricks to win; and if lie succeeds, he obtains the whole of the winnings; but if he loses, lie pays the whole of the losses. If he commences the game by "asking leave"—le., to have a partner—which is done by calling a king, the player who holds the king of the •suit led must play it when his turn arrives; and he who asked leave, or l'hothbre (in England generally called ontbre), along with him who had the king called, or thefriend, -are from this time partners in the game, and divide either the gains or the losses, as the -case maybe. The ombre and the friend win the game if they make six tricks between them. This game is complicated by number of conditions, which, under certain cir -cumstauces, modify the ordinary mode of playing.
A modification of this game, under the name of preference, is ranch in vogue in Lan cashire; and in this country in the beginning of last century, and on the continent— especially in France—the game of l'hombre, which is nothing more than quadrille played by three persons, was exceedingly fashionable. L'hombre is now quite obsolete, but a most accurate description of the mode in which it was played will be found in Pope's Rape of the Lock. L'hombre was the immediate predecessor of quadrille in popular favor.