Читать книгу The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860 - Various - Страница 5

Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars one by one, who is known to have been borne, (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl,) at midnight, first to the evening star, and then to the moon, and then set down safely in his home,—and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a mystic seer, and had conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets, approaching also, on one occasion, so nigh unto Uriel that his beard was singed by the sun, wherein that angel resideth,—these, ten million years ago, lived in their palaces on adjoining estates and lands. But about the boundary-line atwixt them they could not agree: Schatrenschar maintaining that he had lived there longest, and had a right to choose where the wall should be built between himself and a later comer; Al Kahlminar declaring that the world was not made for Schatrenschar,—furthermore, that the Astronomer had paid nothing for the land, and had already more than he could attend to, since his chief devotion was manifestly to the estates he was reputed to own in Venus and the moon. They came to no decision; and it was beneath the dignity of these men, who prided themselves on being confidants elect of invisible and superior worlds, publicly to wrangle about the gross soil of this. Nevertheless, Schatrenschar, at last, losing patience, cried,—

"Al Kahlminar, 'tis but by the grace of Yezdan, who hath commissioned me to watch the sacred stars, which reveal not themselves to the violent, that I am saved this day from flogging thee!"

To this the Seer: "O Schatrenschar, thou must have left in some of thy other worlds, mayhap in Venus, the limbs which can cope with these."

"Nay," replied the Astronomer, discerning some truth in that remark, "but I am not alone, Al Kahlminar; I have within my palace two valiant knights, skilled with the steed and the spear, who are ready to go forth in my stead at a word."

"And I," answered the Mystic, warming, "have two godly priests, men skilled by the orthodox beheading of heretics into the aim and valor of Arjoon himself. Your knights cannot stand before these messengers of Heaven; they will tremble like aspen-leaves, lest Allah be wroth, if they receive harm."

"If thou shouldst bring forth thy priests, Al Kahlminar, then would I confront them and thee with the two elephants which my brother sent me lately from Geestan, on each of which I can place a rook with a slave cunning with the javelin, before which thy priests will flee; for the animals see no difference between priests and other mortals;—the elephant is sagacious, neighbor!"

"And I," said the other, "haye riches, which thou hast not. Whatever thou hast wherewith to extend thy line into my lot, I can oppose with an equal force,—nay, with a stronger."

Schatrenschar hereupon paused in deep meditation. Presently a subtile thought struck him. He took a parchment-leaf and drew thereon a diagram; and after inscribing several hieroglyphic characters, he cried out,—

"Hearken, Al Kahlminar; hast thou not heard it among the sayings of Sasan, that the battle is not always to him who hath the superior physical force? Suppose that in our encounter thy forces stood here, as marked on these squares: by what stratagem couldst thou reach me, who stand here with even fewer and weaker men? If thou canst tell as much without my assistance, I will yield the boundary-line; for it will show thee to have a calculation equal to my own, as well as riches."

Al Kahlminar pondered long, suffered manifold headaches, closed not an eyelid for a week, but could not give answer. The Mystic was used to seeing only those things to see which the eyes must be closed. At length Schatrenschar opened the problem to him, which so delighted his heart that he clave unto him, and besought him that their estates should be one, and that he would use his (Al Kahlminar's) riches as his own. A bower was built midway between their houses, wherein they sat for hours over other diagrams, contrived first by the Astronomer afterward by the Mystic: and out of it arose a curious and knightly play which beareth to this day the name Schatrenschar.

* * * * *

Perhaps this last line of the old Sanscrit story is the only veracious thing in it. Perhaps it is all true. Who can answer? Was there ever a great thing whose origin was not in some doubt? If so with the Iliad, with Platonic Dialogues, with Shakspearian Plays, how naturally so with Chess! The historic sinew of the above would seem to be, that Schatrenschar, the Oriental word for Chess, is the name of a very ancient and learned astronomer of Persia; how much mythologic fat has enveloped said sinew the reader must decide. Philological inquisition of the origin of the low Latin Scacchi (whence the French Echecs, Ger. Schach, and our Chess,) has led to a variety of conclusions. Leunclavius takes it from Uscoches, famous Turkish banditti. Sirmond finds the word's parent in German Schächer (robber) and grandparent in Calculus! Tolosanus derives check-mate from Heb. schach (to prevail) and mat (dead). Fabricius favors the idea we have given above, and says, "A celebrated Persian astronomer, one Schatrenschar, invented the game of Chess, and gave it his own name, which it still bears in that country." Nicod derives it from Xeque, a Moorish word for Prince or Lord. Bochart maintains that Schach-mat is originally Persian, and means "the king is dead." We incline to accept this last opinion; and believe, that, though the game must have originated with some person, perhaps Schatrenschar, yet it reached its present form and perfection only through many touchings and retouchings of men and generations. Pope's translation of the "Odyssey" has led many persons to think that chess was known to the ancient Greeks, because, in describing the sports of Penelope's suitors, the translator says,—

But there can be little doubt that this is an anachronism.

In short, we may safely conclude that the game is of purely Oriental origin. The Hindoos claim to have originated it,—or rather, say that Siva, the Third Person of their Trinity, (Siva, the Destroyer,—alas! of time?) gave it to them; Professor Forbes has shown that it has been known among them five thousand years; but words tell no myths, and the Bengalee name for Chess, Shathorunch, casts its ballot for Persia and Shatrenschar;—though India may almost claim it, on account of the greater perfection to which it has brought the game, and the lead it has always taken in chess-culture. India rejoices in a flourishing chess-school. The Indian Problem is known as the perfection of Enigmatic Chess. And if Paul Morphy had gone to Calcutta, instead of London and Paris, he would have found there one Mohesh Ghutuck, who, without discovering that he was a P. and move behind his best play, and without becoming too sick to proceed with the match, would have given him a much finer game than any antagonist he has yet encountered. This Mohesh, who was presented by his admiring king with a richly-carved chess-king of solid gold nine inches high, not only plays a fabulous number of games at once whilst he lies on the ground with closed eyes, but games that none of the many fine native and English players of India can engage in but with dismay. Fine, indeed, it would have been, if the world could have seen in the youths of Calcutta and New Orleans the extreme West matched with the extreme East!

There is no call for any one to vindicate this game. Chess is a great, worldwide fact. Wherever a highway is found, there, we may be sure, a reason existed for a highway. And when we find that the explorer on his northward voyage, pausing a day in Iceland, may pass his time in keen encounters with the natives,—that the trader in Kamtschatka and China, unable to speak a word with the people surrounding him, yet holds a long evening's converse over the board which is polyglot,—that the missionary returns from his pulpit, and the Hindoo from his widow-burning, to engage in a controversy without the theologicum odium attached,—the game becomes authentic from its universality. It is akin to music, to love, to joy, in that it sets aside alike social caste and sectarian differences: kings and peasants, warriors and priests, lords and ladies, mingle over the board as they are represented upon it. "The earliest chess-men on the banks of the Sacred River were worshippers of Buddha; a player whose name and fame have grown into an Arabic proverb was a Moslem; a Hebrew Rabbi of renown, in and out of the Synagogues, wrote one of the finest chess poems extant; a Catholic priest of Spain has bestowed his name upon two openings; one of the foremost problem—composers of the age is a Protestant clergyman of England; and the Greek Church numbers several cultivators of chess unrivaled in our day." It has received eulogies from Burton,—from Castiglione,—from Chatham, who, in reply to a compliment on a grand stroke of invention and successful oratory, said, "My success arose only from having been checkmated by discovery, the day before, at chess,"—from Comenius, the grammarian,—from Condé, Cowley, Denham, Justus van Effen, Sir Thomas Elyot, Guillim, Helvetia, Huarte, Sir William Jones, Leibnitz, Lydgate, Olaus Magnus, Pasquier, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rousseau, Voltaire, Samuel Warren, Warton, Franklin, Buckle, and many others of ability in every department of letters, philosophy, and art. We know of but one man of genius or learning—who has repudiated it,—Montaigne. "Or if he [Alexander] played at chess," says Montaigne, "what string of his soul was not touched by this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it because it is not play enough,—that it is too grave and serious a diversion; and I am ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon that as would serve to much better uses." Looked at simply as a diversion, chess might naturally impress a man of intellectual earnestness thus. It is not a diversion; a recreation it may be called, but only as any variation from "the shop" is recreative. But chess has, by the experiences of many, sufficiently proved itself to have serious uses to men of thought, and in the way of an intellectual gymnasium. It is to the limbs and sinews of the mind—prudence, foresight, memory, combination, analysis—just what a gymnasium is to the body. In it every muscle, every joint of the understanding is put under drill; and we know, that, where the mind does not have exercise for its body, but relics simply on idle cessation for its reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon, a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,—such as made Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love, peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."—But we promised not to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine verse of the Oriental bard, Ibn ul Mûtazz:—

Now that the Persian poet has touched his lyre in our pages, we will not at once pass to any cold geographical or analytical realm of our subject, but pause awhile to cull some flowers of song which have sprung up on good English soil, which the feet of Caïssa have ever loved to press. No other games, and few other subjects, have gathered about them so rich a literature, or been intertwined with so much philological and historical lore. Not the least of this is to be found in the English classics, from which we propose to make one or two selections. We begin where English poetry begins, with Dan Chaucer; and from many beautiful conceits turning upon chess, we select one which must receive universal admiration. It is from the "Booke of the Duchesse."

In the early part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Middleton wrote a comedy styled "A Game at Chess," which was acted at the Globe (Shakspeare's) nine times successively. It seems to have been a severe tirade on the religious aspects of the times. The stage directions are significant: for example:—Act I., Scene 1. Enter severally, in order of the game, the White and Black houses. Act II., Scene 1. Enter severally White Queen's Pawnes and Black Queen's Pawnes. The Prologue is as follows:—

The play excited indignation in the partisans of the Romish Church, and was not only suppressed by James I., but at the demand of the Queen its author was imprisoned, and was relieved only by a witty verse sent to the King.

The last which we have room to quote is anonymous, and of date near 1632. It may have been written by the celebrated divine, Thomas Jackson, of Corpus-Christi College, whose discourse comparing the visible world to a "Devil's Chess-board" evidently suggested the familiar etching in which Satan contends with a youth for his soul. The lines are entitled:

THE PAWNE

It is very clear that the pawns in chess represent the common soldiers in battle. The Germans call them "peasants" (Bauern); the Hindoos call them Baul, or "powers" (in the sense of force); and that each of these, if he can pursue his file to its end, should win a crown has always given to this game a popular stamp. These pawns are doubtless, next to knights, the most interesting pieces on the board: Philidor called them "the soul of chess."

At an early period Asiatic chess was divided into two branches,—known amongst players as Chinese and Indian. They are different games in many respects, and yet enough alike to show that they were at some period the same. The Chinese game maintains its place in Eastern Asia, Japan, etc.; in the islands of the Archipelago, and, with very slight modifications, throughout the civilized world, the Indian game is played. Indeed, there is no difference between Indian and European chess, except that in the former the Bishop is called Elephant,—the Rooks, Boats,—the Queen, Minister: the movements of the pieces are the same.

Of Chinese chess some description will be more novel. Their chess-board, like ours, has sixty-four squares, which are not distinguished into alternate black and white squares. The pieces are not placed on the squares, but on the corners of the squares. The board is divided into two equal parts by an uncheckered space, which is called the River. There are nine points on each line, and forty-five on each half of the board. They have the same number of pieces with ourselves. Each player has a king, two guards, two elephants, two knights, two chariots, two cannon, and five pawns. Each player places nine pieces on the first line of the board,—the king in the centre, a guard on each side of him, two elephants next, two knights next, and then the two chariots upon the extremities of the board; the two cannons go in front of the two knights and the pawns on the fourth line.

The king moves only one square at a time, but not diagonally, and only in an enceinte, or court, of four squares,—to wit, his own, the queen's, queen's paw and king's pawn's. Castling is unknown. The two guards remain in the same limits, but can move only diagonally; thus we have in our king both the Chinese king and his guard. The elephants move diagonally, two squares at a time, and cannot pass the river. Their knight moves like ours, but must not pass over pieces; he can pass the river, which counts as one square. The chariots and cannon move like our castles, and can cross the river. The pawns always move one step, and may move sidewise as well as forward,—taking in the same line in which they move; they cross the river. The cannon alone can pass over any piece; indeed, a cannon can take only when there is a piece between it and the piece it takes,—which intervening piece may belong to either player. The king must not be opposite the other king without a piece between. All this certainly sounds very complex and awkward to the English or American player; and our game has the preferable tendency of increasing the power of the pieces, (as distinct from pawns,) rather than, with theirs, limiting their powers and multiplying their number. However, it is probable, whatever may be the respective merits of the two games, that neither of them will ever be altered; the Chinese, who can roast his pig only by burning the sty, because the first historic roast-pig was so roasted, will be likely to continue his chess as nearly as possible in the same form as the celestial Tia-hoang and the terrestrial Yin-hoang played it a million years ago. In Europe and America we have all complacently concluded, that, when David said he had seen an end of all perfection, it only indicated that he was unacquainted with chess as played in accordance with Staunton's Handbook.

But it is only the Indian game which has had a development equal to the development of the civilized arts. This has been chiefly through what are called by the Italian-French name of gambits. There is much prejudice, amongst a certain class of chess-players, against what is called "book-chess," but it rarely exists with players of the first rank. These gambits are as necessary to the first-rate player as are classifications to the naturalist. They are the venerable results of experience; and he who tries to excel without an acquaintance with them will find that it is much as if he should ignore the results of the past and put his hand into the fire to prove that fire would burn. If he should try every method of answering a special attack, he would be sure to find in the end that the method laid down in the gambit was the true one. An acquaintance, therefore, with these approved openings puts a player at an advanced starting-point in a game, inexhaustible enough in any case, and where he need not take time in doing what others have already done. Although we design in this article to refrain, as much as possible, from technical chess, it may be well enough to give a list of the usual openings, and their key-moves.

PHILIDOR'S DEFENCE. (Philidor, 1749.)

White. Black. 1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. P. to Q. 3d.

GIUOCO PIANO. (Italian.)

1. P. to K. 4th 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d. 3. B. to Q.B. 4th. 3. B. to Q.B. 4th. 4. P. to Q. 3d or Q.B. 3d.

RUY LOPEZ'S KNIGHT'S GAME. (Lopez, 1584.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d. 3. B. to Q.Kt. 5th.

PETROFF'S DEFENCE. (1837.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d.

Q. PAWN OR SCOTCH GAME. (So named from the great match between London and Edinburgh in 1826, but first analyzed as a gambit by Ghulam Xassitrt, Madras, 1829.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d. 3. P. to Q. 4th.

SICILIAN GAME. (Ancient Italian MS.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to Q.B. 4th.

EVANS'S GAMBIT. (Captain Evans, 1833.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d. 3. B. to Q.B. 4th. 3. B. to Q.B. 4th. 4. P. to Q.Kt. 4th.

KING'S BISHOP'S GAMBIT.

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. B. to Q.B. 4th. 2. B. to Q.B. 4th.

KING'S KNIGHT'S GAMBIT.

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. P. to K.B. 4th. 2. P. takes P. 3. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 3. P. to K.Kt. 4th. 4. B. to Q.B. 4th. 4. B. to K.Kt. 2d.

ALLGAIER GAMBIT. (Johann Allgaier, 1795.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. P. to K.B. 4th. 2. P. takes P. 3. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 3. P. to K.Kt. 4th, 4. P. to K.B. 4th.

MUZIO GAMBIT. (Preserved by Salvio, 1604.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. P. to K.B. 4th. 2. P. takes P. 3. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 3. P. to K.Kt. 4th. 4. B. to K.B. 4th. 4. P. to K.Kt. 5th. 5. Castles. 5. P. takes Kt.

SALVIO GAMBIT. (Preserved from the Portuguese by Salvio, 1604.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th. 2. P. to K.B. 4th. 2. P. takes P. 3. K.Kt. to B. 3d. 3. P. to K.Kt. 4th. 4. K.B. to Q.B. 4th. 4. P. to K.Kt. 5th. 5. Kt. to K. 5th. 5. Q.to K.R.'s 5th. (ch.) 6. K. to B. Sq. 6. K.Kt. to B. 3d.

FRENCH GAME.

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 3d.

These gambits may be classed under what are, in common phrase, termed "open" or "close" games; an open game being where the pieces are brought out into more immediate engagement,—a close game where the pawns interlock, and the pieces can less easily issue to the attack. An instance of the former may be found in the Allgaier,—of the latter in Philidor's Defence. These two kinds of games are found in chess-play because they are found in human temperament; as there are brilliant and daring Napoleons, and cautious, pertinacious Washingtons in war, so are there in chess Philidor and La Bourdonnais, Staunton and Morphy. In examining Mr. Staunton's play, for example, one is struck with the French tact of M. St. Amant's remark, made many years ago: "M. Staunton has the solidity of iron, but neither the purity of gold nor the brilliancy of the diamond." However much Mr. Staunton's ignoble evasion of the match with Morphy—after bringing him, by his letter, all the way from New Orleans to London, a voyage which would scarcely have been taken otherwise—may have stained his reputation as a courageous and honorable chess-player, we cannot be blind to the fact, that he is the strongest master of the game in Europe. With a fine mathematical head, (more at home, however, in the Calculus than in Algebra,)—with an immense power of reserve and masterly repose,—able to hold an almost incredible number of threads without getting them entangled,—he has all the qualities which bear that glorious flower, success. But he is never brilliant; he has outwearied many a deeper man by his indefatigable evenness and persistance; he is Giant Despair to the brilliant young men. Mr. Morphy is just the otherest from Staunton. Like him only in sustained and quiet power, he brings to the board that demon of his, Memory,—such a memory, too, as no other chess-player has ever possessed: add to this wonderful analytic power and you have the secret of this Chess-King. Patient practice, ambition, and leisure have done the rest. He has thus the lustre du diamant, which St. Amant missed in Mr. Staunton; and we know that the brilliant diamond is hard enough also to make its mark upon the "solid iron."

Amongst other great living players who incline to the "close game," we may mention Mr. Harrwitz, whose match with Morphy furnished not one brilliant game; also Messrs. Slous, Horwitz, Bledow, Szen, and others. But the tendency has been, ever since the celebrated and magnificent matches of the two greatest chess geniuses which England and France have ever known, McDonnel and De la Bourdonnais, to cultivate the bolder and more exciting open gambits. And under the lead of Paul Morphy this tendency is likely to be inaugurated as the rule of modern chess. Professor Anderssen, Mayet, Lange, and Von der Lasa, in Germany,—Dubois and Centurini, at Rome,—St. Amant, Laroche, and Lécrivain, of Paris,—Löwenthal, Perigal, Kipping, Owen, Mengredien, etc., of London,—are all players of the heroic sort, and the games recently played by some of them with Morphy are perhaps the finest on record. And certainly, whatever may be said of their tendency to promote careless and reckless play, the open and daring games are at once more interesting, more brief, and more conducive to the mental drill which has been claimed as a sufficient compensation for the outlay of thought and time demanded by chess.

We have already given some specimens of the Poetry of Chess. The Chess Philosophy itself has penetrated every direction of literature. From the time that Miranda is "discovered playing chess with Ferdinand" in Prospero's cell, (an early instance of "discovered mate,") the numberless Mirandas of Romance have played for and been played for mates. Chess has even its Mythology,—Caïssa being now, we believe, generally received at the Olympian Feasts. True, some one has been wicked enough to observe that all chess-stories are divisible into two classes,—in one a man plays for his own soul with the Devil, in the other the hero plays and wins a wife,—and to beg for a chess-story minus wives and devils; but such grumblers are worthless baggage, and ought to be checked. The Chess Library has now become an important collection. Time was, when, if one man had Staunton's "Handbook," Sarratt, Philidor, Walker's "Thousand Games," and Lewis on "The Game of Chess," he was regarded as uniting the character of a chess-scholar with that of the antiquary. But now we hear of Bledow of Berlin with eight hundred volumes on chess; and Professor George Allen, of the University of Pennsylvania, with more than a thousand! Such a literature has Chess collected about it since Paolo Boi, "the great Syracusan," as he was called, wrote what perhaps was the first work on chess, in the middle of the sixteenth century.

But such numbers of works on chess are very rare, and when the reader hears of an enormous chess library, he may be safe in recalling the story of Walker, whose friend turned chess author; seven years after, he boasted to Walker of the extent of his chess library, which, he affirmed consisted of one thousand volumes minus eighteen! It turned out that eighteen copies of his work had been sold, the rest of the edition remaining on his hands.

Though these old works are like galleries of old and valuable pictures to the chess enthusiast, they contain very little that is valuable to the general reader. Their terms and signs are to the uninitiated suggestive of a doctor's prescription. But the anecdotes of the game are, many of them, remarkable; and we believe they are known to have less of the mythical about them than those told in other departments. One who knows the game will feel that it is sufficiently absorbing to be woven in with the textures of government, of history, and of biography. It is of the nature of chess gradually to gather up all the senses and faculties of the player, so that for the time being he is an automaton chess-player, to whom life and death are abstractions.

How seriously, even religiously, the game has always been regarded by both Church and State may be judged by the account given by old Carrera of one whom we have already named as probably the earliest chess author, as he certainly is one of the greatest players known to fame. "In the time of our fathers," says this ancient enthusiast, "we had many famous players, of whom Paolo Boi, Sicilian, of the city of Syracuse, and commonly called the Syracusan, was considered the best. He was born in Syracuse of a rich and good family. When a boy, he made considerable progress in literature, for he had a very quick apprehension. He had a wonderful talent for the game of Chess; and having in a short time beaten all the players of the city, he resolved to go to Spain, where he heard there were famous players, honored and rewarded not only by noblemen, but also by Philip II., who took no small delight in the game. He first beat with ease all the players of Sicily, and was very superior in playing without seeing the board; for, playing at once three games blindfold, he conversed with others on different subjects. Before going into Spain, he travelled over all Italy, playing with the best players, amongst others with the Pultino, who was of equal force; they are therefore called by Salvio the light and glory of chess. He was the favorite of many Italian Princes, and particularly of the Duke of Urbino, and of several Cardinals, and even of Pope Pius V. himself, who would have given him a considerable benefice, if he would have become a clergyman; but this he declined, that he might follow his own inclinations. He afterward went to Venice, where a circumstance happened which had never occurred before: he played with a person and lost. Having afterward by himself examined the games with great care, and finding that he ought to have won, he was astonished that his adversary should have gained contrary to all reason, and suspected that he had used some secret art whereby he was prevented from seeing clearly; and as he was very devout, and was possessed of a rosary rich with many relics of saints, he resolved to play again with his antagonist, armed not only with the rosary, but strengthened by having previously received the sacrament: by these means he conquered his adversary, who, after his defeat, said to him these words,—'Thine is more potent than mine.'"

Some of the earliest writers on chess have given their idea of the all-absorbing nature of the game in the pleasant legend, that it was invented by the two Grecian brothers Ledo and Tyrrheno to alleviate the pangs of hunger with which they were pressed, and that, whilst playing it, they lived weeks without considering that they had eaten nothing.

But we need not any mythical proof of its competency in this direction. Hyde, in his History of the Saracens, relates with authenticity, that Al Amin, the Caliph of Bagdad, was engaged at chess with his freedman Kuthar, at the time when Al Mamun's forces were carrying on the siege of the city with a vigor which promised him success. When one rushed in to inform the Caliph of his danger, he cried,—"Let me alone, for I see checkmate against Kuthar!" Charles I. was at chess when he was informed of the decision of the Scots to sell him to the English, but only paused from his game long enough to receive the intelligence. King John was at chess when the deputies from Rouen came to inform him that Philip Augustus had besieged their city; but he would not hear them until he had finished the game. An old English MS. gives in the following sentence no very handsome picture of the chess-play of King John of England:—"John, son of King Henry, and Fulco felle at variance at Chestes, and John brake Fulco's head with the Chest-borde; and then Fulco gave him such a blow that he almost killed him." The laws of chess do not now permit the king such free range of the board. Dr. Robertson, in his History of Charles V., relates that John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, whilst he was playing with Ernest, Duke of Brunswick, was told that the Emperor had sentenced him to be beheaded before the gate of Wittenberg; he with great composure proceeded with the game, and, having beaten, expressed the usual satisfaction of a victor. He was not executed, however, but set at liberty, after five years' confinement, on petition of Mauritius. Sir Walter Raleigh said, "I wish to live no longer than I can play at chess." Rousseau speaks of himself as forcené des échecs, "mad after chess." Voltaire called it "the one, of all games, which does most honor to the human mind."

"When an Eastern guest was asked if he knew anything in the universe more beautiful than the gardens of his host, which lay, an ocean of green, broad, brilliant, enchanting, upon the flowery margin of the Euphrates, he replied,—'Yes, the chess-playing of El-Zuli.'" Surely, the compliment, though Oriental, is not without its strict truth. When Nature rises up to her culmination, the human brain, and there reveals her potencies of insight, foresight, analysis, memory, we are touched with a mystic beauty; the profile on the mountain-top is sublimer than the mountain. But we must heed well Mr. Morphy's advice, and not suffer this fascinating game to be more than a porter at the gate of the fairer garden. Only when it secures, not when it usurps the day, can it be regarded as a friend. There is a myriad-move problem, of which Society is the Sphinx, given us to solve.

He who masters chess without being mastered by it will find that it discovers essential principles. In the world he will see a larger chess-field, and one also shaped by the severest mathematics: the world is so because the brain of man is so,—motive and move, motive and move: they sum up life, all life,—from the aspen-leaf turning its back to the wind, to the ecstasy of a saint. See the array of pawns (forces, as the Hindoo calls them): the bodily presence and abilities, power of persistence, endurance, nerve, the eye, the larynx, the tongue, the senses. Do they not exist in life as on the board, to cut the way for royal or nobler pieces? Does not the Imperial Mind win its experiences, its insight, through the wear and tear of its physical twin? Is not the perfect soul "perfect through sufferings" for evermore? For every coin reason gets from Nature, the heart must leave a red drop impawned, the face must bear its scar. See, then, the powers of the human arena: here Castle, Knight, Bishop are Passion, Love, Hope; and above all, the sacred Queen of each man, his specialty, his strength, by which he must win the day, if he win at all. Here is the Idea with reference to which each man is planned; it preexisted in the universe, and was born when he was born; it is King on the board,—that lost, life's game is lost. By his side stands the special Strength into whose keeping it is given, making, in Goethe's words, "every man strong enough to enforce his conviction,"—his conviction