statues, and subscriptions for his family, for his
name will live long in Britain, France, and
America.

CHESS CHAT.

IT is allowed that, of all the countries of
Europe, Great Britain is the one which contains
the greatest number of chess-players, and where
that game is the most cultivated, not only by
the stronger but also by the gentler sex. In
English society it is far from rare to meet with
ladies who play chess very respectably.

One lady, who had a handsome hand, modestly
attributed her success not so much to her actual
skill as to the magnificent diamond ring she
wore. Not that, as some supposed of Mozart's
piano playing, the gems were a charmed talisman;
but the attention of her adversary, directed
to the brilliants and the hand that wore them,
was less absorbed in the game than it should
have been, and so caused errors and incautious
moves. Chess, in England, is less a pastime
than in France; it is a science studied with
serious earnestness. A thorough-bred English
player is shocked at the French heresy that four
indifferent games, played for amusement, are
better than one good game conducted as hard
work. The French hold that English players
do not play, but labour, at chess, carrying out
their national maxim that whatever is worth
doing at all, is worth doing well. They apply
to the chess-board the same tenacity and
circumspection which makes them so successful
in business.

Of English authors, Cowley mentions chess
in his Ode to Destiny, and Dryden in his verses
On the Young Statesmen. Locke, in his Essay
on the Human Understanding, makes use of
chess in the way of comparison. Lord Chatham,
in a speech made in the House of Lords,
January 20, 1775, after speaking of American
affairs, likened the game of chess to a constitutional
government. It is said by some that the
first book printed in England by William Caxton
was "The game and playe of the chess translated
out of the french. Fynysshid the last day
of marche, the year of our lord God a Thousand
foure hondred and seventy foure." This
translation into English was done from the French
translation of Jacques de Cessoles's Latin work.
Dr. Dibdin, however, believed that it was
printed in the Low Countries, observing that
the same characters have not been found in any
of Caxton's editions, whereas they are
recognised in the two editions of the Recueil des
Histoires de Troye, which he printed in the
Low Countries or at Cologne.*

* For this and other particulars the writer is
indebted to the learned Bibliographie Anecdotique du
Jeu des Echecs, par Jean Gay, and recently
published by Jules Gay, Paris.

That chess should have been invented by
Palamedes, to beguile the tedium of the seige of
Troy, is no more improbable than the fact that
French officers, holding an Algerian fortress,
cut off from all correspondence or friendly
intercourse, without books or other amusement,
unable to venture outside their walls, should while
away the weary hours with worsted-work and
embroidery. Pyrrhus is another claimant of the
honour; Attilus, king of Pergamus, in Asia,
another. But in truth there are at least a score
or more reputed inventors of chess. The
Hebrews, the Chinese, the Hindoos, in general
terms. As individuals, Attalus, the mathematician
who died in the year 200 B.C.; a
Lombard knight and lady, who were present at the
siege of Troy; Chilo, the Lacedemonian, one of
the seven wise men of Greece; Diomenes, a
contemporary of Alexander the Great; Xerxes,
minister of Evilmerodac, Nebuchadnezzar's son;
and not a few other worthies, are believed to be
entitled to our gratitude for the never-ending
amusement supplied by chess.

The Arab account of its origin is as good as
any. At the beginning of the fifth century of
our era there reigned in India a youthful
monarch of excellent disposition, but who had been
strangely corrupted by flatterers. He speedily
forgot that it is the duty of a king to be the
father of his people; that the afi'ection of his
subjects is the only solid support of his throne;
and that they constitute his whole power and
strength. In vain did the Brahmins and the
Rayals insist on those important truths; the
monarch, intoxicated with his greatness and glory,
which he believed immovable and unchangeable,
despised all their sage remonstrances. At that
juncture, an Indian Brahmin or philosopher,
named Sissa, undertook to open the prince's
eyes by an indirect method. He imagined the
game of chess; in which, the king, although the
most important piece, is powerless to attack,
and even to defend himself, without the
assistance of his subjects.

The new game speedily became famous. The
King of India heard speak of it, and naturally
wished to learn it. The Brahmin Sissa, while
explaining the rules, succeeded in inculcating
the maxims to which the royal ear had hitherto
been deaf.

The prince, thus enlightened, reformed his
conduct; and, in his gratitude, allowed the
Brahmin to choose his reward. He asked for
the number of grains of wheat which the squares
of the chess-board would give him—one, for the
first; two, for the second; four, for the third;
and so on, continually doubling the numbers up
to the sixty-fourth. The king readily and
immediately granted so apparently moderate a
request; but when his treasurers made their
calculation, they found that all the resources of the
kingdom were insufficient to pay the debt. In
fact, to supply the promised wheat, there
required sixteen thousand three hundred and
eighty-four cities, each containing one thousand
and twenty-four granaries, in each of which
there should be one hundred and seventy-four
thousand seven hundred and sixty-two measures,
with thirty-two thousand seven hundred and
sixty-eight grains of wheat in each measure. So
the Brahmin administered another admonition,