The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ 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

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      1

      The statistics of the English railways given in this article are taken from the volume here referred to. Because some cunning English contractors in South America took advantage of the statements in this book to depreciate the American railway system and American civil engineers, for their own private advantage in obtaining work, some Americans have been so foolish as to decry the book altogether, as traitorous to the interests of the country. Such mingled bigotry and conceit, shrinking from just criticism, would fet

1

The statistics of the English railways given in this article are taken from the volume here referred to. Because some cunning English contractors in South America took advantage of the statements in this book to depreciate the American railway system and American civil engineers, for their own private advantage in obtaining work, some Americans have been so foolish as to decry the book altogether, as traitorous to the interests of the country. Such mingled bigotry and conceit, shrinking from just criticism, would fetter all progress but fortunately it is rare.

2

The cost of operating this railway for 1859, as per last Report, was only 37.4 per cent. of the receipts, while that of the railways of Massachusetts for the same year was 56.9 per cent. The result is a dividend of 8-1/2 per cent. on capital, after paying the interest on bonded debt.

3

Translated in that excellent periodical, which no lover of chess should be without, The Chess Monthly, edited by Fiske and Morphy, New York. (Vol. i. p. 92.)

4

Mediaeval name for the Queen, (originally the C СКАЧАТЬ