These, however, are mere antiquarian particulars, of no use to the progress of the science of chess. They may amuse the idleness of a solitary amateur, but will not sharpen the skill of contending champions: they may busy the imagination about a favorite pursuit, but have no tendency to strengthen the intellect for conflict. Let us turn to other considerations. Damiano had the glory of being the first author who, in Europe, wrote a treatise intended to facilitate the study of the game. The title, or translated title of his work is Libro da imparare giocare a Scacchi, of which the present author does not possess the original, but the long subsequent edition of 1564. Damiano was a Portuguese: his instructions are issued both in Italian and in Spanish, so that he addressed the entire Provençal public and his book was reprinted both at Barcelona and at Venice. His games are drawn up as if castling was not in use. Damiano was succeeded by Ruy-Lopez, a Spanish priest of Cafra, who printed his book on chess at Alcala, in 1561. It contains sixty-six games, of which twenty-four are from Damiano: it was translated into Italian, and reprinted in 1584. Mr. Sarrat awards to Damiano a degree of skill superior to that of Lopez, but inferior to that of Salvio, who published at Naples, in 1604, "Il Puttino, del Salvio, sopra el gioco dei Scacchi." The first part of this work contains an historical account of the game, with numerous anecdotes of eminent players; such as Buzecca, a Saracen, and Leonardo da Cutri. Salvio excelled so young at chess, that he was called il puttino, the boy, by excellence, and travelled about to exhibit his skill. Early exercise is in every thing favorable to superior proficiency. He visited Rome in 1574, where he played both with Ruy-Lopez and with Leonardo da Cutri and beat them both. These two players had been engaged with each other in the presence of Philip II. of Spain; and Leonardo, having won, received a considerable present. Among the good books on chess, we are disposed to reckon the French work printed for Konig, of Strasburg, in 1802, entitled "Stratagèmes des Echecs." The author of that concise but condensed pocket volume is probably a German learned in the literature of chess, and perhaps the celebrated Moses Hirschel himself. Hitherto the "Traité des Amateurs," printed in 1775, had been the popular book of the French on this subject: but the author of the Stratagèmes avails himself of Greco, of Stamma, of Lolli, of Philidor, of Stein, who printed at the Hague in 1789, and of Koch, who published in 1801. A principal advantage of the Stratagèmes is the transparent method of mapping the chess-board which is adopted in it, and the brief literal notation which records the successive steps of warfare. This is a real amendment of what may be called the stenography of chess,. and much facilitates the understanding of a literary perusal of any given game. It is a plan of notation invented by Moses Hirschel, a German Jew, who edited Greco and Stamma, the Calabrian and the Aleppo games, on his own principle of checkered and literal delineation; and who is deservedly honored for the apt simplicity of his new scientific character, which forms a sort of universal language for chess. Like the notes of the musician, or the flourishes of the Chinese, or the figures of the arithmetician, it can be read by any nation in its own tongue: it is a pasigraphy, remarkable alike for conciseness and distinctness. Lastly occur the games of Salvio. The Italian method of castling, adopted in these games, should have been explained by an introductory note. Far the greater part of the book, namely, two hundred and seventy-six pages, is occupied with the exertions of Salvio; who introduced into literature, we believe, the word gambetto, to designate the stride, or double move of a pawn. This word is here Englished gambit and not gambet; which latter form we should have deemed more consonant with English analogy. Like a Greek tragedy, a game at chess may naturally be divided into three acts, the beginning, the middle, and the end. An orderly teacher would first descant on the method of opening a game, and decorate his lecture with specimens of the more curious and masterly outsets which are imagined, or preserved, by the classical writers on the art. He would next collect and criticise the poignant positions, and the embarrassing situations which have extorted contradictory counsels from eminent champions. Finally, he would enlarge on the methods which are useful in deciding the termination, and he would bring under contemplation a selection of the more splendid, revolutionary, and decisively sudden catastrophes. Here, however, we are made to travel with some confusion from games to gambets, from situations to openings, from variations to positions, and from conclusions to attacks; always, indeed, occupied with interesting, but not with consecutive matter. If it be the office of the drama, as Aristotle pretends, to purge the passions of pity and fear, and by exhausting their excesses on ideal cases, to bring them under the control of discretion, surely it might be the nobler office of chess to purge the military passion. While it is feeding hopes and fears, analogous to those of warfare, with harmless gratifications, it is adapted to insinuate the pernicious consequences of a wild and gambling temerity and to teach the disciple of its lessons uniformly to trust in adequate precaution alone for the means of victory. The poet of Caissa has inculcated a great moral, in making Mars the allegorical contriver of chess. It has been said that chess tends excessively to repress an adventurous disposition. By accustoming men to a struggle in which skill, and skill alone, is always necessarily to predominate, they are brought out of the world of experience into that of philosophy. They acquire an undue reliance on cold foresight and precaution, and they are made to look with contempt not only on the magic of prayer, but on the miracles of fortune. Now human life, like whist, is made up of chance and skill; and, though it is worth while to learn the play, yet sometimes the cards, and sometimes the partner, will disappoint the wisest efforts. A mixed game prepares the mind to compliment prosperity with the praise of skill, and to console adversity with the notice of its unlucky deals; but chess, where wisdom always wins, may lead to that insolent obduracy which worships success with unqualified admiration, and pelts every child of ruin with the nickname, "fool." If the laws of nature were not too complex for us to calculate their individual results, not only superstition would expire, but pity also among men; and is there no room for apprehending that an exclusive and persevering application to this game, in which every situation is the obvious result of unswerving laws, may favor a turn of mind that is more welcome in the magistrate than in the neighbor? Against inconsistency in our expectations, however, chess is a powerful antidote. Cerutti, in his animated poem on the game, ascribes the invention to philosophy: "Mon ami, prolongeons une innocente guerre, It is related of Philidor, who excelled all the London players, that on the 20th of June, 1795, he waited by apppointment on the Turkish ambassador, played six games against him, and lost them all. The Turk had made the condition that his queen, as is usual at Constantinople, should have the knight's move, and this put Philidor out of his combinations. It is farther stated, in the narrative of Mr. Twiss, that the Turkish ambassador objected to use Philidor's sculptured figures with horses' heads, and produced pieces made by the turner, which too nearly resembled one another. The Turk stipulated this last condition out of superstition. Chess is prohibited in the Koran; but the Mohammedan clergy, finding it impossible to extirpate the game, wished to discover its compatibility with the faith; and they accordingly argued that Mohammed's objection to chess was founded on its idolatrous character. The players used images, which it was even forbidden to make, and which might easily restore the use of teraphim, or pocket-gods. Having given this opinion, they permitted a chess which was played with plain pieces. We are aware with how bowed a neck, with how crouching a step, in how humble an attitude, a man should approach a mufti; with how hesitating an accent, and how faltering a tongue, he should venture to differ from him; but, if we may trust our version of the Koran, and the collocation of the prohibition there among those which are given against games of chance, we should rather lean to the doctrine that Mohammed forbad chess, not as an idolatrous game, but as a game of hazard; and we draw from the prohibition this curious farther inference, that at the time of the publication of the Koran, chess was still a game of chance, and existed only in the form called chaturanga. This prohibition in the Koran so exactly coïncides with the period at which the Persians dropped the use of dice at Chaturanga, that it evidently occasioned the reform; and thus the Unitarian prophet may himself be considered as having made the greatest practical improvement in chess, which that noblest of games has received in the course of its progress from infancy to maturity. ELECTRIC LINES. THE Electric Telegraph "The steed called Lightning (say the Fates) Was tamed in the United States; 'Twas Franklin's hand that caught the horse- DEAR H: The foregoing toast was given at the celebration in Canada upon laying the electric sub-marine wires. Although old Neptune swallowed at a gulp the cable without a shock, and prevented the enterprise at present, it must be admitted they came thundering near a striking accomplishment of their purpose, and at no distant day will astonish the leviathans of the deep. Yours truly, R. D. P. NEW-YORK, October, 1855. To bind the Union with a chain, Yet reunited, heart to heart, By thee, thou bright and heaven-born art! Sweet hope upon your viewless wings, As when the stars together sung, And joy through heaven's broad archway rung. The parted mother, child, and wife. The wounded heart can comfort take From words of love, that else might break; Ebbing and flowing as a river, Unchanged, and constant, and for ever, Till Heaven's own lightning, from the sky, R. D. P. |