ernment, and the said Captain ought to be hung out of hand. Out of consideration, however, for the government of the United States, he would commute his sentence, and simply shut him up in a safe place. Which he did. Hence these tears. We will not undertake to decide upon the atrocity of a government which substitutes the prison of "Weltevreden" for the gallows of Batavia. But when we visit a foreign country, and feel like playing the conspirator against the constituted government thereof, we sincerely trust that Captain Gibson's case will be accepted by them as a precedent.

But if the mercy of the Dutch Government saved a life from the rope, they had no power to save it from the press; and accordingly, the remarkable romance of "Weltevreden" is now before us. We say "remarkable," because it is remarkable how any one man could have written so much nonsense on one subject—although that subject were his own precious self! A romance-because the truth in it is like Salario's reasons, "a grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff." Unlike Salario's reasons, however, it is worth hunting a day for, since when it is found, it proves that the Dutch Government made a humane but singular mistake, in not-hanging the author.

The book consists of five hundred pages. Who wrote it will remain a puzzle. Several hands appear to have been at work upon it. Since, however, the gallant Captain fathers it, gallantry forbid that he should not have the entire credit. It is divided into "fifty-four days," probably for the benefit of ordinary readers, for whom each division will undoubtedly be an excellent day's work. This view of the case is strengthened by the fact, that every division commences, "on a fair day," "on the 25th of April,"-evidently a misprint for the 1st of April-or, "in the dark clouds of night," or, with "the sun's declining rays," or, on the "second day," a cunning way of keeping up with his readers, or rather of keeping his readers up with him. To the style we can not pretend to do justice. Its magnificent incomprehensibility drives to mute despair. A single extract must suffice, though an hundred would fail to do it justice, videlicet:

"Amid many pendant lamps like lighted lotus cups softly shaded with an odorous incense cloud from burning benzoin amid yellow and scarlet robes of glittering gems and many pretty bright golden hued faces was one more soft and noble of fine Arab type in many lines of curving nose thin lips rounded chin and proud setting of the neck but softer ones of Passumah poesy marked the swelling brow with its downy

border at the base of the massive mount of glossy hair that rose with magnificent sweep crowning a noble domain of beauty and dignified womanly grace which had fittingly been named the flawless gem." Jupiter, what a woman! But the women were by far the least extraordinary part of the popula tion. The men exceeded them by half. For the Captain was not kept in jail because he had been guilty of treason: quite the reverse. It was because the authorities of Batavia fell in love with him. They found out, cunning Dutchmen, that he was an ingenious Yankee, and knew how to make every thing, from a humming-top to a church-organ. So they kept him as a sort of public constructor. That was the mystery in the mouse-trap. And they were so afraid of losing him, that it is credibly reported the Governor always slept across the door of his cell, and the Grand Mufti watched under his window night and day. And he made them church-steeples, and fire-brick; sugar-mills, and spinning-wheels-in short, he made those benighted Batavians every thing. From the window of his cell he stretched out his magician's wand, and Batavia rose from a state of barbaric rudeness to a pitch of ease, plenty, and elegant civilization.

No wonder the Batavians kept him locked up. Blessed, however, be "the fates, and sisters three, and such odd branches of learning," for cutting his prison-bars in twain, and transmuting "Weltevreden" the prison, into "Weltevreden" the book. Without it we might still have doubted the justice of the gallant Captain's imprisonment.

Typographically, the book is well gotten up, and does credit to the taste and enterprise of its publishers. Nor is it without a certain degree of interest-enough, indeed, to give it a wide circulation. Separate the author and the book, and accept the latter as a pure fiction, and it is very readable. Tales of pirates; dusky maidens, with their fingers pinched between the split bamboos of a proa's deck to keep them quiet, whilst being forcibly carried away from their disconsolate, paternal relations; Dutch interiors; Javanese manners, occasionally well hit off; and a large amount of "uncommon fine writing" about every thing in general and nothing in particular-make up a volume over which one may spend an afternoon not unpleasantly.

The noticeable feature of the book, however, is that it tacitly "confesses the cape," and makes no effort to appeal to the high court of public sentiment from the verdict of the administration in the celebrated case of the States General, ex relatio Walter M. Gibson.

CHES S.*

THE earliest European writer who mentions chess is the celebrated Greek princess, Anna Comnena, of Constantinople. She calls the game Zatrikion, and says that the Greeks derived it from the Babylonians; and that her father, Alexius, who was fond of playing, owed the detection of a conspiracy against him to the friend with whom, late at night, he sat at chess.

It has been surmised by some, that chess travelled into western Europe from Constantinople; and that it was carried by commercial men to Barcelona, to Venice, and to various sea-ports which traded with the Greek metropolis. By others it has been supposed that the Moors of Spain took thither this oriental game, and that France and Italy learnt it from the Spaniards. It has been said, by a third set of antiquaries, that the Crusaders acquired this game in the East, and brought it with them from the Holy Land. In the first case, the technical terms would have a Greek, and in the second case a Spanish complexion, or derivation; but the words checkmate, rook, etc., are Persian, so that they seem, in fact, to have been directly imported from the East.

Hyde, in his dissertation De Ludis Orientalium, states that the Persians do not claim to be the inventors of chess, but admit that they received it from Hindostan, in the reign of Chosroes Nushirvan, that is, about the middle of the sixth century. This idea Sale confirms in the preface to his translation of the Koran, which work contains the earliest known allusion to the game of chess. Borzu, the physician of Nushirvan, imported the game from Canyacuvia. Freret, in his Origine des Echecs, remarks that in the great dictionary of the Chinese, at the word Stangki, it is related that chess was introduced into China under the reign of Vouti, who ascended to the throne in the year 537 of the Christian era, and that the game was brought from Hindostan. Thus all authorities conspire to show that chess is de

* Lucena "Arte breve, e introduction muy necessaria, etc." Salamanca, 1495. Damiano, Rome, 1512. Ruy Lopez, 1524. Gianutio, Turin, 1597. Philidor, London, 1749. Allgaier, Wien, 1811. Walker, Wien, 1836. Match at Chess played between the London and Edinburgh Clubs. 8vo. 1850.

rived from the Hindoos, and began to be played at the beginning of the sixth century.

Sir William Jones, in the first volume of his works, (p. 521,) gives an account of an Indian game called Chaturaji, or the four kings; in which eight pieces, having such movements as our chess-men, were stationed at each of the four corners, and moved by four players, not according to system, but as directed by the throw of dice. The observations made during these compulsary moves appear to have suggested the principles of voluntary chess; which was probably substituted for the older game of chance, in consequence of the prevalence of a superstitious opinion authorized in the Institutes of Menu, and corroborated in the Koran, that games of hazard are contrary to religious duty. The name Chaturanga, or four corners, was given to this reformed game, and remained attached to it after the subsequent amendment of consolidating the allied armies, and reducing the players to two.

D'Herbelot tells us that a Bramin named Sissa, the son of Daher, whom Arabian writers call Nassir, invented the game of chess for the amusement and instruction of King Behram. Whether this be the Vyasa of Sir William Jones, who left rules for playing the old Chaturanga, some future orientalist may ascertain. In our judgment, the Hindoos invented only the Chaturanga, and the Persians devised the admirable alteration of reducing the players to two. Our conjecture reposes on the etymological indications that Chaturanga is a Sanscrit word adopted by the Persians in the form Chatrang, as the name of chess; whereas, the piece which we call the queen, has the native Persian appellation ferz, vizir. Now the primitive Chaturanga of the Hindoos had no vizirs; each of the four armies consisting of eight figures headed by a king. Surely, it is reasonable to imagine that those who have named this piece, introduced it. We may add that chess, in its present form, when played by the Hindoos, borrows Persian technical terms. Lieutenant Moor, in his Narrative of a Detachment from the Mahratta Army, (1794,) relates that he played at chess against four Bramins in a pagoda, and that they pronounced the final Shah mat (these are Persian words) with the most polished gentleness.

Sir William Jones is of opinion that chess was invented by one effort of some powerful genius; that it was created by the first intention; and that it sprang, like Pallas, full-grown from the head of the great contriver. We consider a progressive formation to be far more analogous to the usual course of nature; and we think that we have indicated with probability some of the leading steps in the interesting series. One, however, deserves farther contemplation. The Hollanders have a game which they call Malay draughts, and which they imported from the East-Indies. In this game, the pawns move diagonally, and take straight forwards; there are crowned pieces for the beginning, which take backwards and forwards; and a triple crown is acquired with a farther privilege, like that of the chess-rook, on reaching

the extreme row of the board. This game seems to preserve a trace of one of the intermediate steps between draughts and chess; it is played with five queens and ten pawns, on a board of a hundred squares. If we had not the evidence of history, adduced from Vyasa by Sir William Jones, that Chaturanga was originally played with dice, we might not have inferred that chess had been a game of chance in any part of its progress.

The early metrical romances of Europe ascribe much proficiency in chess to the knights of Arthur, and to the paladins of Charlemagne. Sir Trystan plays with Essylda, and Sir Huon with the daughter of King Ivoirin. This, however, is an anachronism; and these writers carry back to a prior period manners which were observed among the Crusaders. In the romance of the Four Brothers, Gawin, Agravain, Gueret, and Galleret, who go in quest of Sir Launcelot, the critical adventure consists in playing at chess with the fairy Florimel. In the Romaunt of the Rose, where chess is mentioned, occurs the following line:

"Fols, chevaliers, fierce, ni rocs;"

whence it appears that the Persian ferz, vizir, was the original European name for the piece called in England the queen. So, again, in the Latin monkish rhymes which describe a pawn's advancement:

"Tunc augmentatur, tunc fercia jure vocatur."

According to Mr. Twiss, whose book on chess deserves republication, the first modern writer on this subject was Jacob de Casolis, a Dominican friar, who flourished about the year 1200, and who composed twenty-four chapters concerning the origin and nature of the game; without, however, including any rules of play. This work was translated into French before 1330 by John de Vignay, another monk; whose version was farther translated into English, and is remarkable for being the first book printed in England with metal types by Caxton, in 1474.

Our Exchequer is so named from its pavement resembling a chess-board; and in a book preserved there, which records the personal expenses of Henry VII., an entry occurs of fifty-six shillings and eight pence lost at tables and chess. Skelton, the poet-laureate to Henry VIII., was fond of chess, and celebrates the game in rhyme: it often supplies him with an allusion or a metaphor. Queen Elizabeth was taught to play chess by her preceptor, Roger Ascham; and, as she occupied his time much, both in teaching and in amusing her, it was considered as ungrateful that she never rewarded him with any thing better than a prebendal stall at York. King James I. was fond of chess, and willingly taught the game to his young friends. In one of his speeches, he says that "Kings can exalt low things, and abase high things, making the subjects like men at chess, a pawn to take a bishop or a knight."