Chess History and Reminiscences | Page 9

present
year. We refer not to lines of poets such as Pope, Dryden and others,
with whom the ancient order of fiction is permissible, or to writers of
previous periods, from Aben Ezra to Ruy Lopez, Chaucer and Lydgate,
or Caxton and Barbiere, but to presumably studied and special articles,
such as those given in Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences and in
Encyclopaedias. The great work of 1727 dedicated to the King-- which
claimed to embody a reasonable and fair account--and even the best
knowledge on all subjects referred to in it; contains an article on chess
of some dimensions, which may well be taken as an example of the
average ignorance of the knowledge of information existing at the time.
The Chinese, it says, claim to date back their acquaintance with chess
to a very remote period; so with the best testimonies of that country,
which acknowledge its receipt from India in the sixth century the writer
seems to have been quite unacquainted. Nothing occurs in the article as
to the transit of chess from India into Persia, next to Arabia and Greece,
and by the Saracens into Spain; neither does a line appear as to
Egyptian probabilities, or the nature of the game inscribed on edifices
in that country. Though abounding in traditional names of Trojan
heroes, and others equally mythical as regards chess, the more genuine
ones of Chosroes of Persia, Harun, Mamun and Mutasem of Bagdad,
Walid of Cordova, the Carlovingian Charlemagne of France, Canute
the Dane, William of Normandy the English kings are entirely absent,
nor is there a word concerning Roman games or the edict which refers
to them in which Chess and Draughts (both mentioned) were specially
protected and exempted from the interdiction against other games;
which has escaped all writers, and would certainly, if known about,
have been deemed of some significance. The Persian and Arabian
periods from the time of Chosroes, to Harun, covers the Golden Age of

Arabian literature, which is more prolific in chess incident than any
other; yet even this and Firdausi's celebrated Persian Shahnama, and
Anna Comnena's historical work escapes notice. We may perhaps, not
implicitly trust or credit, all we read of in some of the Eastern
manuscripts biographical sketches; but there is much of reasonable
narrative we need not discredit nor reject. We may feel disposed to
accept, with some reservation, the account of the 6,000 male and 6,000
female slaves, and 60,000 horses of Al Mutasem, (the eighth of
Abbasside). The prodigious bridal expenditure, comprising gifts of
Estates, houses, jewels, horses, described in the history of Al Mamun
(the seventh of Abbasside, and the most glorious of his race), may seem
fabulous to us; the extraordinary memories of certain scholars narrated
in biographies, who could recite thousands of verses and whole books
by heart may appear worthy of confirmation; the composition of two
thousand manuscripts by one writer, and the possession of forty
thousand volumes by another, may somewhat tax our credulity. We
may feel a little surprised to hear that Chosroes' chess men were worth
an amount equivalent to one million of our money in the present day;
we may doubt, or disagree with the opinions attributed to Hippocrates,
or to Galen; that cures were effected, or even assisted of such
complaints as diarrhea and erysipelas by the means of chess; or, that, as
the Persian suggests it has been found a remedy of beneficial in many
ailments from the heart ache to the tooth ache. We may doubt whether
the two Lydian brothers, Lydo and Tyrrhene, in the story of Herodotus
really diminished the pangs of hunger much by it; but, amidst all our
incredulity, we can believe, and do believe, that Chosroes and chess,
Harun and chess, Charlemagne and chess, Al Mamun and chess,
Canute and chess, are as well authenticated and worthy of credit, as
other more important incidents found in history, notwithstanding that
encyclopaediasts and writers down from the days of the Eastern
manuscripts, the Persian Shahnama and Anna Comnenas history to the
days of Pope and Philidor, and of the initiation of Sanskrit knowledge
among the learned, never mention their names in connection with chess
as exponents of which the Ravan, king of Lanka of the Hindoo law
books, the famous prince Yudhisthira and the sage Vyasa of the
Sanskrit, and Nala of the poems, and in more modern accounts, Indian
King Porus, Alexander the Great and Aristotle, are far more reasonable

names inferentially, if not sufficiently attested, than those cherished by
traditionists such as Palamedes, Xerxes, Moses, Hermes, or any of the
Kings of Babylon or their philosophers.
NOTE. The ever growing popularity of chess is forcibly and
abundantly proved in a variety of ways. One conclusive proof of it is
afforded by the enormous and ever increasing sale