———

BUCKLE'S CHESS REFERENCES

Buckle's Chess References, which are not so full as we could wish contain the names of Gerbert (Pope Sylvester, 2) (992, 1003), Cranmer, Wolsey, Pitt and Wilberforce, as chess players, but do not refer in any way to Beckett, Luther, or Voltaire, names mentioned in Linde, neither think of Alcuin, or consider the chess probabilities of the contemporary reigns of Offer, Egbert, Charlemagne, Harun, and Irene.

Van der Linde assigns the 13th Century for first knowledge of chess in England, and places it under the head of Kriegspiel, but on what grounds, or what he conceives this Kriegspiel to be, or how it differs from chess does not clearly appear in his book, his space being rather devoted to sneers or dissent from the statements and conclusions of previous writers, than at advancing any distinct theory of his own.

He labours much to cast doubts on Charlemagne's knowledge of chess, and to infer that the chess men preserved and considered to have belonged to him, reported upon by Dr. Hyde, F. Douce, and Sir F. Madden, are of comparatively recent date.

Einhard, the historian of Charlemagne, he says does not mention chess, Cranmer, Wolsey, Pope, Pitt, Chatham, Fox, Wilberforce, and other well accredited names which interest us are absent from his list, which is surprising, considering his mass of petty detail.

More than two-thirds of these volumes are devoted to descriptive catalogues of books and magazines from Jacobus de Cessolus, the first European work devoted to chess in the 13th century, down to the various editions of Philidor, Sarratt, Allgaier, W. Lewis, G. Walker, the German handbooks, and Staunton's popular works.

———

INTERDICTIONS OF CHESS

Al Hakem Biamri Llah, or Abu Ali Mansur, sixth Khalif of the dynasty of the Fatimites or Obeydites of Egypt, 996-1021, according to some authorities interdicted chess. Mr. Harkness in Notes to Living Chess implies that he had some put to death for playing it. Sprenger, Gayangoz, and Forbes do not mention or confirm this, besides, though this Khalif did not much regard the Koran, kept dancing-women and singers, indulged in all sorts of frivolous pastimes, and was very much addicted to drinking, as well as cruelty and tyranny, he was not a bigot. The more famous Al Mansur (962-1002), the celebrated General and Minister of Hisham II, tenth Sultan of Cordova, of the dynasty of Ummeyah, was more likely to have issued such a mandate, for we read "in order to gain popularity with the ignorant multitude, and to court the favour of the ulemas of Cordova, and other strict men, who were averse to the cultivation of philosophical sciences, Al Mansur commanded a search to be made in Al Hakem's library, when all works treating on ethics, dialectics, metaphysics, and astronomy, were either burnt in the squares of the city, or thrown into the wells and cisterns of the palace. The only books suffered to remain in the splendid library, founded by Al Hakem, II (fourth of Cordova, 822-852, the enlightened humane and just Rahman, II) were those on rhetoric, grammar, history, medicine, arithmetic, and other sciences, considered lawful."

Any scholar found indulging in any of the prescribed studies, was immediately arraigned before a Court composed of kadhis and ulemas, and, if convicted, his books were burnt, and himself sent to prison.

I can find no other notice of a ruler or Khalif likely to have forbidden chess, but in 1254 Lewis, IX, in France, is recorded to have interdicted the game.

———

IRELAND

The word, chess, whatever it may have signified, was common in Ireland long before it is ever found in English annals. The quotation from the Saxon Chronicle, of the Earl of Devonshire and his daughter playing chess together, refers to the reign of Edgar, about half a century before Canute played chess; but in Ireland the numerous references and legacies of chess-boards are of eight hundred years' earlier date.

Several scholars in Ireland have discussed the question of probable early knowledge of chess there.

Fitchell, a very ancient game in that country, was uniformly translated, chess.

O'Flanagan, Professor of the Irish language in the University of Dublin, writing to Twiss about the end of last century in Reference to Dr. Hyde's quotations, thought Fitchell meant chess.

J. C. Walker wrote:—"Chess is not now (1790) a common game in Ireland; it is played at and understood by very few; yet it was a favourite game among the early Irish, and the amusement of the chiefs in their camps.

"It is called Fill, and sometimes Fitchell, to distinguish it from Fall, another game on the Tables, which are called Taibhle Fill.

"The origin of Fill in Ireland eludes the grasp of history."

The Chess King preserved by Dr. Petrie, L.L.D., bears no small resemblance to those found in the Isle of Lewis, now in the British Museum, and which have been graphically reported upon by Sir F. Madden.

John O'Donovan, Esq., author of our best Irish Grammar, in "Leabhar na'q Ceart, or the Book of Rights," 1847, from MS. of 1390 to 1418, frequently refers to the game, and the legacies of Cathaeir Mor, who reigned 118 to 148, contain, among other remarkable bequests, thirteen of chess-boards. Once a set of chess-men is specified—and, again, a chess-board and white chess-men. The bequests of the said Cathaeir Mor are also cited by O'Flaherty, who mentions to have seen the testament in writing, and in Patrick O'Kelly's work, Dublin, 1844, "The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern," taken from the most authentic records, and dedicated to the Irish Brigade, translated from the French of Abbe McGeoghegan (a work of rather more than a century ago).

Col. Vallancey, in his "Collectanea de Reb. Hib.," seems to insinuate that the Irish derived it with other arts from the East. "Phil," says he, "is the Arabic name of chess, from Phil, the Elephant, one of the principle figures on the table."

In the old Breton Laws we find that one tax levied by the Monarch of Ireland in every province was to be paid in chess-boards and complete sets of men, and that every Burgh (or Inn-holder of the States) was obliged to furnish travellers with salt provisions, lodging, and a chess-board, gratis. (NOTE. That must have been very long ago.) In a description of Tamar or Tara Hall, formerly the residence of the Monarch of Ireland—it stood on a beautiful hill in the county of Meath during the Pagan ages—lately discovered in the Seabright Collection, Fidche-allaigh, or chess-players, appear amongst the officers of the household.

"Langst ver der Erfindung," says Linde; and again, "Wenn die ganze geschicte von Irland ein solches Lug-gund Truggewebe ist, wie das Fidcill Gefasel ist sie wirklich Keltisch."

———

THE GERMAN CHESS THEORISTS

Dr. A. Van der Linde's great work (Berlin, 1874), following Weber, Berlin, 1872, Der Lasa and others, containing 1,118 pages, 540 diagrams, 4,098 names, and 2,500 catalogue items.

In Linde's book, no less than 500 of the 540 diagrams are on the eight times eight square board, with the 32 pieces used in Modern Chess (i.e., examples of the game with positions or problems thereat as we understand it).

It is also curious as affecting Linde's consistency, that Al Suli and Adali, whose problems he gives at chess as we now play it, were dead before the time he assigns for the first knowledge of the same. His own pet authority, Masudi, 890-959, gives the story of Al Suli's chess, to which nothing could be compared without declaring it to be any other game (pages 58 and 59).

———

ITALY

Opposite Italienisch Linde has 1,348 to 1,358, but the story of the rebuke of the Bishop of Florence by Cardinal Damianus, for playing chess in a tavern when he should have been at prayers, given by Forbes and repeated by Linde, is of earlier date (1061), Buzecca's blindfold play at chess on the invitation of Dante's patron, the Master of Ravenna, before a distinguished company, is attributed to the year 1266.

———

KRIEGSSPIEL

To Sanskrit Tschaturanza (column 1) under the head of "Kriegsspiel," A.D. 954, is affixed to Arabisch (column 10), the same year 954 appears. (NOTE. To this date of 954 I cannot help adding for once a query mark like those in which Linde's book abounds (!!).

To Persich (column 7) 1000 (!) Fransofitch 12 Jht, English 13 Jht, Spanisch 1283, Italien 1348-1358.

To Tschinesich, Japanisch, Siamesich, Birmesich, and Tibetisch, under Aeltestes Datum Columns, 2 to 6 Unbekannt appears as well as to Tschaturanga column 1, notwithstanding the date of 954 in another place. An the above are under the one head of "Kriegsspiel."

———

SCHACHSPIEL

Under this head Italienisch is 1512, Latienisch 1525, Franzofitch 1560, Englisch 1562, Deutsch 1606, Danisch 1752-1757, Schwedisch 1784, Ungarish 1861.

Dr. Van der Linde has nothing about the Roman edict of 115 B.C., or the other three points, which first caused our desire to invite a little more attention to the subject of the probable origin of chess, viz.: (1) Alcuin and Egbert's contemporary records, with Pepin, Charlemagne, Harun, the Princess Irene, and Emperor Nicephorus, the humane enlightened and glorious Al Mamum, with his treasures of learning, Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit translations (2 & 3). Fortunately for the encyclopaedia writer of 1727, and the poet Pope, their articles have escaped his notice. We naturally try to discover what Bretspiel and Nerdspiel was, according to Linde's own notions, and when they ceased and chess began, both chess and Nerdspiel had been heard of and were terms used before Al Masudi and Ibn Khallekun wrote. Why does not Linde attempt to explain why Harun, Walid, Razi, Al Suli, the Khalifs, and others up to the Shahnama poem, Anna Comnena and Aben Ezra call it chess, and nothing else, and again we ask how can he reconcile his own author, Masudi's statement that Al Suli's chess was declared more beautiful than all in the Caliph's garden (he died in 946), with his own statement that chess was first known in Arabia, in 954.

———

Dr. A. VAN DER LINDE

The whole tenor of such reasoning as can be found in Linde's stupendous work, seems to rest on subtle distinctions as to the precise accuracy of the word chess, rather than to valid argument to the effect that no game resembling it ever existed before the time he fixes, yet his diagrams of the Tschaturanga which comes Vol. 1 following page 423, is exactly in accordance with the game as explained to us by Sir William Jones and Professor Duncan Forbes, though Linde seems to call it by the name of Indischer Wurfelvierschach or Indische Kriegsspiel, and there is not a single diagram of what the German writer conceives it to be other than the real Tschaturanga (Chaturanga).

NOTE. From such an assumptive writer, one would like to ask whether he had looked through the pages of Livy Polybius and Tacitus, or explored the treasures in the Fihrist, or the Eastern Works referred to by Lambe, Bland, and Forbes, as well as Dr. Hyde and Sir William Jones.

Forbes in the body of his work roughly estimates the Chaturanga at 3000 B.C., but at page xiii of appendix, he says: "The first period (of chess) is altogether of fabulous antiquity, that is, of three to five thousand years old," in fact, he seems to have been rather loose in his estimation, and not to have sufficiently distinguished between the supposed antiquity of the four sacred Vedas, the Epic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabarata, and the Puranas. Professor Weber and Dr. Van der Linde assume a much more recent date for the Bhavishya Purana, from which the account of the Chaturanga is mainly taken, than that assigned to it by Sir William Jones and Professor Duncan Forbes.

———

The 4,098 name index already referred to includes Adam ten times and even Jesus three times, used, as it appears to me, rather for the purpose of irony, rather than valid or useful argument.

When Forbes gives the earliest chess position, known from British Museum M.S.S. Linde says Adam was the first chess player (??) to Sir F. Madden about 1,150, for the time when Gaimur wrote quoting the incident of the Earl of Devonshire and his daughter being found playing chess together, (Edgar's reign 958 to 975). Linde says Madden about it "Keinen Pfifferling werth." In another place he says, "Forbes natte der Freicheut," "Insolence, Impudence, Audaciousness, Boldness."

It is not pleasing to English ears to be told that George Walker is a humbug and a snob. Professor Duncan Forbes the same, and William Lewis something worse, and to find notes of exclamation and of queries (! !! ?), instead of argument opposed to the statements of such writers as Dr. Hyde, Sir William Jones, the Rev. R. Lambe, Sir Frederic Madden, and Mr. Bland.

Linde's dealing with Forbes' statement concerning his examination of the copies of the Shahnama in the British Museum, puts a crowning touch on his arbitrary and insulting style and furnishes an example of his notions of courtesy and argument.

Forbes in a reply to Alpha having pledged his truth and honour that the account of the moves and pieces in the copies of the Shahnama were precisely as he had given them, Linde after honour has (!!)

Forbes' statement runs as follows:

9th November, 1855, (1860, p. 56,) Zu Antworten. "My answer to Alpha is that the M.S.S. from which I made (not derived) my translations describing the moves of the pieces are precisely those I mentioned, viz., No. 18188 and No. 7724 preserved in the British Museum. At the same time I briefly consulted some nine or ten other M.S.S. of the Shahnama in the British Museum as well as Macan's printed edition, yea more, I consulted the so called copy of great antiquity alluded to by Alpha before it came to the Museum. Well, in all of these, with, I believe, only one exception, the account of the moves does occur exactly (!) as I have given them, always excepting or rather excluding a couplet about two camels (die namliche nicht in die Bude des Tachenspielers passten es weiter unten) Und nun geht es echt fesuitisch weiter, Alpha denies the existence (!) (A hat in Gegentheil Hyde I, p. 63 Citirt) of the account of the moves in every copy of the Shahnama. I, on the other hand pledge my truth and honour (!!) Linde), that the account of the moves does occur in every one of the manuscripts as well as in Macan's printed edition (Vgl. App. p. x. lin. 6 unt.). The misconception on the part of Alpha arose from a very simple (:) circumstance. In Firdausi's account of the game the story happens to be interrupted (:) in the middle of the insertion of two other long stories, as we often see in the Arabian nights.

"In matters of this sort it is only the truth that offends.

"(Man vergleiche hierzu noch seine Schnapserklurung der Weisheit des Buzurdschmir, p. 54.)"

Forbes also adds p. 56. And I am quite ready to point out the passage in all of them to any gentleman and scholar who may have the least doubt on the matter.

Historians of the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries who lived before Masudi, deemed the game worthy of notice and recommendation, Razi and Firdausi thought so too, and Hippocrates and Galen before them refer very favourably to its advantages, describing it as beneficial in many ailments, and we may reasonably assume that they at least, as well as the poets and philosophers before them, back to the fifth century B.C. deemed the game passing in their minds, and the invention of which they were wont to speculate on, as one of some interest, beauty and significance and worthy of appreciation then as it has been in succeeding ages.

Once more, no example is given of his Kriegsspiel, Nerdspiel, Wulfervierschach, Trictrac, or any Spiel or game implied under the word Bretspiel, the last named being moreover a general term for games played on a chess board, rather than a distinctive appellation for a particular species of game or indication of the pieces or value of forces employed in it.

———

NERDSPEIL

Masudi, born at Bagdad 870, died at Cairo in 959, is Linde's great authority. Linde quotes or deduces from him the following:

"Die alten Hindus wohlten einen Konig uber sich Burahman Dieser regierte, bis er starb, 366 (sic) Jahre, Seine Nackkommen, heisen Brahminen Sein Sohn et Bahbud unter dessen Regierung das Nerdspiel (Gildermeister ubersetzt duodecim scriptorum ludus) ein bloss auf Zufall und nicht auf Scharfsinn beruhendes Gluckspiel erfinden wurde regierte loo Jahre, Andere sagen, dass Azdeshir ibn Balek das Nerdspiel erfund."

Again "Ardashirer Ibn Balek, der Stammvater der letzten persischen Dynastie, erfund das Nerdspiel, das daher nerdashir, (also nerd Ardashirer) genanut wurde."

The copious Index of Linde's work of 4,098 items, also refers Nerdspiel to page 6, but the word does not appear there and the above is all he tells us about his Nerdspiel.

Among the 540 diagrams contained in his work of 1,118 pages, as already observed, there is no representation of Nerdspiel.

The writer hopes to submit an analysis of these diagrams, and of the contents and conclusions of Linde's work in a supplemental pamphlet of 64 pages, price one shilling, in order to notice the manifold inconsistencies contained in it, as well as the wholesale aspersions upon the English historians.

Linde's Book. It includes notice of Hoyle's games, Complete Gamesters, Magazines and trifling publications, down to A.B.C. for a Lady and whatever we may think of the connexion of events and lucidity of his arguments, it may be pronounced an extraordinary monument and memorial of industry.

———

CHESS IN ITALY

Forbes thinks it probable that chess was known in Italy before or during the ninth century, and suggests that it was probably received there from the Saracens rather than the Greeks. The story of Peter Damianus the Cardinal, (Ravenna) who lived 1007 to 1072, and his reproof of the Bishop for playing chess, is given by both of the writers, Forbes and Linde.

NOTE. Swiss in vol. 11, page 77, on the authority of Verci, says that the following adventure happened to a Bishop of Florence, who, according to Ughelli (Ital Sac tem 3), was Gerard, who died in 1061. It is told by Damianus, Bishop of Ostia and Cardinal in his epistles, and is confirmed by Baronius and Lohner. These two prelates were travelling together, and on a certain evening when they arrived at their resting-place, Damianus withdrew to the cell of a neighbouring priest, in order to spend the time in a pious manner, but the Florentine played at chess all night among seculars or laymen, in a large house of entertainment. When in the morning the Cardinal was made acquainted with this, he sharply reproved the prelate, who endeavoured to excuse himself by saying that chess was not prohibited, like dice. Dice, said he, are prohibited by the canon laws; chess is tacitly permitted. To which the zealous Cardinal replied the canons do not speak of chess, but both kinds of games are expressed under the comprehensive name of Alea. Therefore, when the canon prohibits the Alea, and does not expressly mention chess, it is undoubtedly evident that both kinds of games, expressed in one word and sentence, are thereby equally condemned.

The Bishop who was very good-natured stood corrected, and submitted cheerfully to the penance imposed on him by the Cardinal, which was: that he should thrice repeat the psalter of David, and wash the feet of twelve poor men, likewise bestowing certain alms on them, and treating them to a good dinner, in order that he might thus, for the glory of God and the benefit of the poor, employ those hands which he had made use of in playing the game.

It must have taken some considerable time before the game became so common as to be played at houses of entertainment by seculars or laymen.

THE END