Note 196 — Chapter III · THE PROGRESS OF CARD-PLAYING. (continued 2)

The writer of an article on Whist, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 48, discussing the etymology of the name, says: "The Irish injunction, Whisht—'be quiet,' may be thought to require consideration. It is the exact form of the word, barring only the pure s; but this is not the Sibboleth, or touchstone, here. At the utmost, the difficulty is but a dialectical variety, elegantiæ causa, for the sake of elegance; just as shoup, for soup."—Nares, in his Glossary, under the word Whist, an exclamation enjoining silence, says of the game, "That the name of Whist is derived from this, is known, I presume, to all who play, or do not play."