Chess History and Reminiscences Part 8

THEORIES AS TO THE INVENTION OF CHESS

In the second volume of the "History of British India," by James Mill, Esq., we are told that the Araucanians invented the game of chess.

Forbes sums up an article upon this claim by saying, "We must in charity suppose that Mr. Mill really knew nothing of chess, whether Hindu, Persian, or Chinese."

Professor Wilson's opinion of Mr. Mill's work is better worth recording. "History of British India," by James Mill, Esq., fourth edition, with notes and continuation, by Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., F.R.S., &c., London 1840, 9 vols., 8 vo., Vide Preface by Professor Wilson, page vii, &c.

Of the proofs which may be discovered in Mr. Mill's history of the operation of preconceived opinions, in confining a vigorous and active understanding to a partial and one-sided view of a great question, no instance is more remarkable than the unrelenting pertinacity with which he labours to establish the barbarism of the Hindus. Indignant at the exalted, and it may be granted, sometimes exaggerated descriptions of their advance in civilization, of their learning, their sciences, their talents, their virtues which emanated from the amiable enthusiasm of Sir William Jones, Mr. Mill has entered the lists against him with equal enthusiasm, but a less commendable purpose, and has sought to reduce them as far below their proper level as their encomiasts may have formerly elevated them above it. With very imperfect knowledge, with materials exceedingly defective, with an implicit faith in all testimony hostile to Hindu pretensions, he has elaborated a portrait of the Hindus which has no resemblance whatever to the original, and which almost outrages humanity.

As he represents them, the Hindus are not only on a par with the least civilized nations of the old and new world, but they are plunged almost without exception in the lowest depths of immorality and crime. Considered merely in a literary capacity, the description of the Hindus, in the history of British India is open to censure for its obvious unfairness and injustice, but in the effect which it is likely to exercise upon the connexion between the people of England and the people of India, it is chargeable with more than literary element, its tendency is evil, it is calculated to destroy all sympathy between the rulers and the ruled.

A writer in Fraser's Magazine, observes: "The native of India is defective in that mental and moral energy, that restless enterprise, which distinguishes the Anglo Saxon genius, and which gives him such a preponderance over the impa.s.sive and contemplative Oriental, but, on the other hand, the native of India possesses in a high degree that acute perception and common sense strengthened by numerical traditions and maxims, which enable him to judge correctly of both the acts and motives of his Foreign superior. It should be recollected to their credit, that the germ of almost every known invention, the original idea of nearly every useful secret in arts, the knowledge of the highest branches of the abstract sciences, had been familiar to the wise men of the East, and were taught in the most perfect language in the world, the mother of all other languages, the Sanskrit.

The anonymous or rather unknown author of the Asiatic Society's M.S. often declares that the Hindus were far too stupid a people to have invented chess.

SALVIO, DOCTOR OF CIVIL LAWS

The inventor as some authors declare, and among them Jacobus de Cessolus, a Friar and Master of the Dominican Order, is Xerxes, a philosopher and minister of Ammolius, King of Babylon whose object was to admonish his monarch of the errors that had been committed in the government of the realm. This opinion is followed by many, of whom the author of the Historia del Mondo is one. St. Gregory of n.a.z.ianzen in his third oration, Ca.s.siodorus the Great in his thirty-first epistle and eighth book, Allesandri Allesandro in the third book and twenty first chapter of his Dies Geniales, Torquato Ta.s.so in his Romeo del Gioco, Thomas Actius in his Tractatus de Ludo Scaccherum, and other legal authors who have treated of play, say that chess owes its origin to Palamedes who at the siege of Troy, employed it in order that his soldiers should not remain inactive, and not being able to practice actual warfare, they might amuse themselves with mimic conflicts. For which reason Palamedes played it with Thersites, as Homer tells us in the second book of the Iliad, so also did the other heroes of the Grecian armies, as is related by Euripides in his tragedies.

Carrera 1617, published a large volume concerning the origin of chess, in which he attempts to prove from Herodotus, Euripides, Sophocles, Philostratus, Homer, Virgil, Aristotle, Seneca, Plato, Ovid, Horace, Quintilian, and Martial Vida, that Palamedes invented chess at the siege of Troy.

The Encyclopaedia or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, dedicated to the King in 1727, contains an account of chess, but it is neither a well informed nor useful article beyond the statement that Schach is originally Persian, and that Schachmat in that language, signifies the king is dead, it vouchsafes neither reasonable nor useful information.

The traditionary names mentioned in the article are Schatrinscha a Persian philosopher, Palamedes, Diogenes and Pyrrhus, its authorities, Nicod, Bochart, Scriverius, Fabricius, and Donates, and it concludes with a sample of the stereotyped character, with which we are so familiar of the trace of chess origin, being lost in the remote ages of antiquity. Chess is thus described in it:

"An ingenious game, played or performed with little round pieces of wood, on a board divided into 64 squares, where art and address are so indispensably requisite, that chance seems to have no place, and a person never loses but by his own fault. On each side are eight n.o.blemen and as many p.a.w.ns, which are to be moved and shifted, according to certain rules and laws of the game."

The same work specifies the various ancient opinions upon the origin of the game, inclining to those of Nicod and Bochart, supported by Scriverius, who state that Schach is originally Persian, and Schachmat in that language signifies the king dead.

Another opinion is that of all the theories enunciated, the most probable is that of Fabricius, who avers that a celebrated Persian astronomer, one Schatrinscha, invented the game, and gave it his own name, which it still bears in that country. It adds, Donatus observes, that Pyrrhus the most knowing and expert prince of his age, ranging a battle, made use of the men at chess, to form his designs, and to shew the secrets thereof to other. The common opinion was that it was invented by Palamedes at the siege of Troy, others attributed it to Diomedes, who lived in the time of Alexander, but the text concludes by remarking, "The truth appears to be that the game is so very ancient, there is no tracing its author."

CHAUCER

In the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries, chess continued to be extremely popular, Chaucer in one of his minor poems "The Boke of the d.u.c.h.esse," introduces himself in a dream as playing at chess with Fortune, and speaks of false moves, as though dishonest tricks were sometimes practised in the game.

He tells us:

At chesse with me she gan to playe, With her fals draughts (moves) dyvers, She staale on me and toke my fers (Queen), And wharne I sawe my fers awaye, Allas I couthe no longer playe, But seyde, farewell swete yuys, And farewell ul that ever ther ys, Therwith fortune seyde Chek here, And mayte in the myd poynt of the Chek here, (chess board) WIth a paune (p.a.w.n) errante allas, Ful craftier to playe she was, Than Athalus that made the game, First of the chesse, so was hys name.

(ROBERT BELL)-CHAUCER, Vol. VI. p. 157.

SAUL AND BARBIERE

Barbiere 1640, in his work, "The famous game of chess play,"

dedicated to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, observes:

"For the antiquity of this game, I find upon record, that it was invented 614 years before the Nativity of Christ, so that it is now 2,252 years since it hath been practiced, and it is thought that Xerxes (a puissant King) was the deviser thereof, though some be of opinion that it was made by excellent learned men, as well appeareth by the wonderful invention of the same."

The t.i.tle is quaintly expressed.

The famous game of chesse play, "Being a princely exercise wherein the learner may profit more by reading of this small book, than by playing of a thousand mates. Now augmented by many material things formerly wanting and beautified by a threefold methode of the Chesse men, of the Chesse play, of the Chesse moves."

by J. BARBIERE, P.

To which is added representation of a chesse board and pieces, with two players thereat, in the act of drawing for the move with the following lines:

"If on your man you light, The first draught you may play, If not tis mine by right, At first to leade the way.

Printed in London, for John Jackson, dwelling without Temple Barre, 1460.

The introduction is in the following words:

To The Right Honourable, Thrice n.o.ble, and Vertuous Lady, Lucy Countesse of Bedford, one of the Ladies of Her Majesties Privie Chamber.

This little book, not so much for the subject sake (though much esteemed), as for bearing in front your Honour's honoured name having found that good acceptance with the world, as now to come to be re-imprinted. I have been desired by the printer, my friend, little to review it, and finding it indeed a prettie thing, but with some wants specially or a good methode, I have to my best skill rectified it for him, leaving to the author (now deceased), with the good respect and commendation due to him for his honest and generous endeavour, his phrase and stile whole as farre as I might of this Madame, I now presume to offer your Honour the censure whose singular judgment, and love in and unto this n.o.ble exercise, is reported to be a chief grace to the same, that so both his labour and mine herein, may returne to the sacred Shrine of your Honour's vertues, there still to receive protection against ignorance and malice.

For which attempt of mine, humbly craving pardon I rest, n.o.ble Madame of Your Honour, The most submissive observant, J. BARBIERE, P.

JOHN LYDGATE

The earliest English references to chess, are in the works of Chaucer, Gower, Occreve, Price, Denham, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Walter Raleigh, &c.

John Lydgate the English Monk of St. Edmund's-Bury, calls this game, the Game Royal, and he dedicates his book, written in the manner of a love poem, to the admirers of chess, which he compares to a love battle, in the following words: M.S.

JOHN LYDGATE.

To all Folky's vertuose, That gentil bene and amerouse, Which love the fair play notable, Of the Chesse most delytable, Whith all her hoole full entente, Where they shall fynde, and son anoone, How that I not yere agoone, Was of a Fers so Fortunate, Into a corner drive and maat.

The old English names in Lydgate, are 1, Kynge, 2, Queen or Fers, 3, Awfn, or Alfin, 4, Knyght, or Horseman, 5, Roke or Rochus, 6, Paune.

Although Shakespeare makes no mention of chess in his works, some of his brother dramatists, and other writers who were contemporary with him, were fond of referring to it. Skelton, poet laureate to Henry the Eighth, says:

For ye play so at the chesse, As they suppose and guess, That some of you but late, Hath played so checkmate, With Lords of High estate, And again, Our dayes be datyed, To be check matyed.

Many other poets and writers of that age, drew similes and figures of speech from the chess board, including Spencer, Cowley, Denham, Beaumont and Fletcher, quaint Arthur Saul and John Dryden.

Middleton's Comedy of Chesse, 1624, was acted at the Globe.

It was however a sort of religious controversy, the game being played by a member of the Church of England, and another of the Church of Rome, the former in the end gaining the victory.

The play being considered too political, the author was cast into prison, from which he obtained his release by the following pet.i.tion to the King.

A harmless game, coyned only for delight, T'was played betwixt the black house and the white, The white house won, yet still the black doth brag, They had the power to put me in the bag, Use but your hand, tw'll set me free, T'is but removing of a man, that's me.

Philidor states in his work that historians have commemorated the following Sovereigns as chess players: Charlemagne, Tamerlane, Sebastian, King of Portugal, Philip II King of Spain, The Emperor Charles V, Catherine of Medecis, Queen of France, Pope Leo X, Henry IV of France, Queen Elizabeth, Louis XIII, James I of England (who used to call the game a philosophical folly,) Louis XIV, William III, Charles XII, and Frederick of Russia.

Of these, Charlemagne, who reigned 768 to 814 is the earliest name. Tamerlane or Timur who dominated at the end of the 14th century is the next. The remainder date from the 16th century.