at this time, sets of chessmen made of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, of wood, of iron and of gutta percha. The Character of Chess. The following paragraph is from the brief History of the game which forms the opening chapter of the Book of the Congress. The date to which I have referred the origin of chess will probably astonish those persons who have only regarded it as the amusement of idle hours, and have never troubled themselves to peruse those able essays in which the best of antiquaries and investigators have dissipated the cloudy obscurity which once enshrouded this subject. Those who do not know the inherent life which it possesses will wonder at its long and enduring career. They will be startled to learn that chess was played before Columbus discovered America, before Charlemagne revived the Western Empire, before Romulus founded Rome, before Achilles went up to the siege of Troy, and that it is still played as widely and as zealously as ever, now that those events have been for ages a part of history. It will be difficult for them to comprehend how, amid the wreck of nations, the destruction of races, the revolutions of time, and the lapse of centuries, this mere game has survived, when so many things of far greater importance have either passed away from the memories of men, or still exist only in the dusty pages of the chroniclers. It owes, of course, much of its tenacity of existence to the amazing inexhaustibility of its nature. Some chess writers have loved to dwell upon the unending fertility of its powers of combination. They have calculated by arithmetical rules the myriads of positions of which the pieces and pawns are susceptible. They have told us that a life-time of many ages would hardly suffice even to count them. We know, two, that while the composers of the orient and the occident have displayed during long centuries an admirable subtilty and ingenuity in the fabrication of problems, yet the chess stratagems of the last quarter of a century have never been excelled in intricacy and beauty. We have witnessed, in our day, contests brilliant with skillful manoeuvres unknown to the sagacious and dexterous chess artists of the eighteenth century. Within the last thirty years we have seen the invention of an opening as correct in theory and as elegant in practice as any upon the board, and of which our fathers were utterly ignorant. The world is not likely to tire of an amusement which never repeats itself, of a game which presents to-day features as novel, and charms as fresh as those with which it delighted, in the morning of history, the dwellers on the banks of the Ganges and Indus. Chess Monthly Correspondence. -We should be glad to receive the Analysis from H. of St. Louis, and if the amount of new matter warrants it we shall publish it with pleasure. -A still finer board and set of men than that mentioned by F. H. R. of Augusta, are described in an old French poem of which the following rough translation will give an idea: The squares are of fine gold artfully joined ; The dark Pawns are emeralds, green as the grass of Spring; On one side, King, Fers, Knight, Alphin and Rook On the other of topaz of beauty unimagined. -The poem sent us by L. C. of Middletown, is altogether too long for our pages. -What seems to be so ardently desired by Checkmate will hardly happen for some time. The diplomatic duties of the distinguished Prussian will, we presume, detain him at Brazil for a long period. -O. C. T of Dunkirk and others, desirous of obtaining copies of the New York Club Laws, should enclose twelve cents in postage stamps to Robert J. Dodge Esq., Secretary, 137 East Thirteenth St. The new edition (1857) of von der Lasa's Leitfaden can be ordered through Westermann of this city. J. H. D. of Waterville will find not only the variations which we gave but many others relative to the same Gambit in its pages. —E. J. W.'s pleasant sketch has been received and we shall endeavor to find room for it next month. -We willingly comply with W. L. R's request; the translation is, Light and Chess come from the East. -The inexpressible modesty of the person in question prohibits the publisher from acceding to the demand of the Old Lovers of Chess at present. At some future time (say next year) perhaps. -We commend to such of our readers as have a fondness or aptitude for mathematical studies the commencement of the admirable article by Jænisch in our present number. The whole essay forms only a single chapter in a work of immense research which is destined to prove conclusively the intimate relations subsisting between our game and the most exact of all the sciences. -That the method of deciding the first move was the same two centuries ago as that which is usually adopted now is shown by the title page of Barbier's edition of Saul's Famous Game of Chesse-play, published in 1640. The lower half of the page is occupied by a cut representing two men with the chess-board between them. The men are arranged in the order of battle, but a white and Black pawn are wanting. One of the combitants is holding up his closed hands and saying: If on your man you light The first draught shall you play ; If not, 'tis mine by right At first to leade the way. Draught, it will be remembered signified in old English, move. -The letter of J. R. of Utica was duly forwarded as requested. -S. T. of Ann Arbor, Samuel of New London, and four or five other beginners who inquire for a proper manual for the tyro will find the Chess Player's Instructor, by Charles H. Stanley a proper and pleasant work. It costs only half a dollar and may be ordered through the publisher of the Chess Monthly. -We shall soon publish an entertaining and interesting article by Mr. Löwenthal of London, with whose great abilities as an analyst and writer our readers are already familiar. -We congratulate the Charleston Courier upon the zeal and ability which characterize its chess column. -The author of A Morality on Chess, composed about the year 1400, does not appear to have thought very highly of the fair sex. At that time the Queen only moved diagonally and the writer says: "The Queen, whom we call Fers, goes and takes in an oblique line; because women being of an avaricious nature, take whatever they can ; and often, being without merit or grace, are guilty of rapine and injustice." -The ever admirable Schachzeitung of Berlin is issued this year in a new, enlarged and beautiful form. No living person possesses so many of the characteristics of a real chess-editor as its chief conductor, Mr. Max Lange. The number for January contains an Article on Problems, the commencement of Von der Lasa's translation of Lucena, critiques on Allen's Philidor and on the Morphybuch, besides the usual variety of news, games and problems. -We have observed the notice of J. L. in The Era and shall receive the promised matter with delight. Who edits the C. P. C.? We have not yet seen it. -A letter has been sent to M. L. of Berlin. -Will L. C. of Genoa give us the address of some Modenese player? We wish to ascertain if some particulars of the lives of Del Rio and Lolli cannot be obtained. May we encroach upon L. C.'s kindness still further? We have endeavoured, in vain, to procure through the booksellers, a copy of VIII Lettere sopra il Giuoco degli Scachi da G. B. Verci, (Venezia 1778). Should L. C. have a correspondent in Venice, will he be good enough to mention the matter to him, and inform us in his next of the result? -The communication of the 24th of February, from J. P. of Paris has been received and answered by post. The pamphlets asked for have been forwarded to F. E. of London as requested. An arrangement might be easily made with a publisher here to issue the volume mentioned. -We are under many obligations to v. d. L. for the communication received through G. A. -The Chess Monthly is regularly sent to S. S. B. of London. We should be glad to receive The Field in return. Closed March 20th. THE CHESS MONTHLY. MAY, 1859. CHESS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. N the year 1844 I found myself on board the good steamer Mound City, bound for that great Western metropolis. Our boat was named from St. Louis. The captain was an ardent chess player, and having so strong a bond in common, we soon became intimate. Yet the gallant skipper made but a poor score, for he was too good an officer to tender to Caissa that exclusive worship the coy nymph requires from those who seek her favors. If a floating log struck the boat, if some dispute, likely to end in a quarrel, was heard in that Pandemonium, the lower deck; or the pilot's voice rung aloft, answered by " 4 feet 6" from the bows, the skipper was on the hurricane deck in twenty seconds and poor Caissa forgotten for the time. Little disturbed the monotony of that most monotonous of rivers, or the careless, easy life on a Western steamboat, until at Memphis we took on board a young gentleman who seemed to have just stepped out of Broadway, sent, I suppose, by some New York house to accomplish the easy task of getting new orders, and the somewhat more difficult duty of obtaining returns for old ones. Among a certain class of New Yorkers (as one of the Manhattanese, I may say it) there is an intolerable assumption of superiority, a vulgar pretension, that I have never seen equalled, except by that quintessence of snobbishness, the London cockney. This one was a rare specimen. His elaborate toilet (he seemed to have just left Christodoro's) contrasted with the eareless apparel of the gentlemen aboard, as much as his supercilious air differed from that of the quiet gentlemanly planter, or the frank, manly homeliness of the western farmer. Seeing me engaged in play, he stepped up to the table and began to make his comments in a tone of great self confidence. He soon informed us that he belonged to the New York Chess Club, had played with Mead and Thompson, and that Stanley was not able to give him much odds. But what the odds were, he did not volunteer to tell us. Stanley was then in his prime, and the acknowledged champion (about the time he conquered Rousseau). I then recognized the gentleman as one of the habitués of the Carlton, where my uncle used to give him a piece and then make him feel the weight of that terrible Evans attack, which no one forgets who has ever played the defence against it. I invited him to take my seat, and as the Captain, unwisely, accepted the gambit, he was checkmated in a dozen moves. Several other gentlemen encountered him during the next two days, but with very little success, for I soon saw he had Walker's Treatise (the Handbook was not then out) at his fingers' end, and no one on board, but he and I had ever looked into a chess book, or seen any real chess play. I declined playing, under pretence of a headache, until I, had studied the gentleman's play. I saw he was a chess parrot, for if he did not obtain an easy winning position in the opening, or else get a Pawn ending, to play mechanically, he usually lost the game. But it was seldom that the game was not decided in the opening. Like Mercutio, his adversary was killed by the book of arithmetic." Then he began to give odds; but that made little difference, for he generally won before they could use their superior force. It was raw militia against regular, drilled troops, and Walker's tactics were as good as Scott's. Feeling sure of my man, I approached him as he sat, solitary and alone, at the chess table, with his arms over the back of the chair, smoking his regalia, and, no doubt, thinking himself a second Philidor. No one seemed inclined to encounter him, and he had the field to himself. The truth was, that though they were surprised at his apparent skill, and most of them anxious to learn from him, his intolerable, patronizing manner, and ill concealed contempt for their play, had driven every one from the table. Determined to take advantage of my boyish appearance and putting an extra dash of hesitation into my address, I timidly stated that I should like to try a game, as I was anxious to play with a scientific player, who understood book play. |