Bird - Chess History and Reminiscences, Szachy

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This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
Second Edition by Umut SAYMAN 2003
CONTENT
THE TEN ADVANTAGES OF CHESS ACCORDING TO THE PERSIAN PHILOSOPHER, ARE THUS GIVEN IN
TRANSLATION. ___________________________________________________________________________ 32
 This etext was produced by Stephen D. Leary
To
My Highly Esteemed
Chess Opponent And Patron
Of Nearly 40 Years
W. J. EVELYN, Esq.,
Of Wotton, Surrey
PREFACE
This little work is but a condensation and essence of a much larger one, containing the result of what can be
discovered concerning the origin and history of chess, combined with some of my own reminiscences of 46 years
past both of chess play and its exponents, dating back to the year 1846, the 18
th
of Simpson's, 9 years after the death
of A. McDonnell, and 6 after that of L. de La Bourdonnais when chivalrous and first class chess had come into the
highest estimation, and emulatory matches and tests of supremacy in chess skill were the order of the day.
English chess was then in the ascendant, three years before Howard Staunton had vanquished St. Amant of France,
and was the recognized world's chess champion, while H. T. Buckle the renowned author of the History of
Civilization was the foremost in skill among chess amateurs, Mr. W. Lewis and Mr. George Walker the well known
and prolific writers on chess, were among the ten or twelve strongest players, but were seldom seen in the public
circle, Mr. Slous and Mr. Perigal were other first rate amateurs of about equal strength. Mr. Daniels who attended
Simpson's had just departed. Captain Evans and Captain Kennedy were familiar figures, and most popular alike
  distinguished and esteemed for amiability and good nature, and were the best friends and encouragers of the younger
aspirants.
At this time Simpson's was the principal public arena for first class chess practice and development: the St. George's
Chess Club was domiciled in Cavendish Square at back of the Polytechnic. The London Chess Club (the oldest) met
at the George and Vulture on Cornhill, when Morphy came in 1858, and Steinitz in 1862, these time honoured clubs
were located at King St., St. James, and at Purssell's, Cornhill respectively.
Other clubs for the practice and cultivation of the game were about thirteen in number, representing not five percent
of those now existing; the oldest seem to have been Manchester, Edinburgh, and Dublin, closely followed by Bristol,
Liverpool, Wakefield, Leeds and Newcastle.
Annual County Meetings commenced with that held at Leeds in 1841. The earliest perfectly open Tournaments were
two on a small scale at Simpson's in 1848 and 1849, and the first World's International in the Exhibition year 1851,
at the St. George's Chess Club, Polytechnic Building, Cavendish Square. In each of these Tournaments the writer
participated.
Three chess columns existed when I first visited Simpson's in 1846, viz., Bells Life managed by Mr. George Walker
from 1834 to 1873. The Illustrated London News from 15
th
February 1845 to 1878, in charge of Howard Staunton,
and the Pictorial Times which lasted from February 1845 to June 1848. The first column started had appeared in the
Lancet 1823, but it continued not quite one year.
The Chess Player's Chronicle issued in 1841 (Staunton), was then the only regular magazine devoted to chess, but a
fly leaf had been published weekly about the year 1840, in rather a curious form of which the following is found
noted:
About the year 1840 the Garrick Chess Divan was opened by Mr. Huttman at No. 4 Little Russell St., Covent
Garden. One of the attractions of this little saloon was the publication every week of a leaf containing a good chess
problem, below it all the gossip of the chess world in small type. The leaf was at first sold for sixpence, including
two of the finest Havannah Cigars, or a fine Havannah and a delicious cup of coffee, but was afterwards reduced to a
penny without the cigars. The problem leaf succeeding well, a leaf containing games was next produced, and finally
the two were merged in a publication of four pages entitled the Palamede.
The Gentleman's Magazine 1824, 1828, British Miscellany 1839, Bath and Cheltenham Gazette 1840, and Saturday
Magazine 1840, 1845, had contained contributions in chess, but of regular columns there were only the three before
mentioned, now there are about one hundred and fifty, mostly of larger dimensions.
Mr. George Walker's 1000 games published in 1844, gives no game of earlier date than 1780, viz., one of Philidor's
of whose skill he gives 62 specimens, and there are 57 games by correspondence played between 1824 and 1844.
The list of chess works of consideration up to Philidor's time, number about thirty, but there were several editions of
Jacobus de Cessolus (1275 to 1290) including translations by J. Ferron and Jean De Vigny, from which last named
Caxton's book of 1474 was derived.
Lucena, Vicenz, Damiano, and Jacob Mennell appeared before 1520, Ruy Lopez in 1561, Polerio, Gianuzio, Greco,
Salvio, Carrera, Gustavus Selenus and the translation of Greco, followed in the interval from 1561 to 1656.
I. Bertin 1735 and the six Italian works of the last century, were the principal which followed with Philidor's
manifold editions, up to Sarratt the earliest of the nineteenth century writers.
Dr. A. Van der Linde, Berlin 1874, 1118 pages, 4098 names in Index, and 540 diagrams includes notice of Cotton's
complete gamester 1664, and Seymour's complete gamester 1720, with editions of Hoyle's games from 1740 to
1871, in fact about one-fourth of Linde's book is devoted to the specification of books and magazines, mostly of the
nineteenth century, even down to the A.B.C. of Chess, by a lady.
Poems have been written on chess, of which the most esteemed have been Aben Ezra 1175, (translated by Dr. Hyde)
Conrad Von Ammenhusen and Lydgate's "Love Battle" in the fourteenth century Vida, Bishop of Alba 1525, Sir
William Jones 1761, and Frithiofs Saga by Esaias Tegner 1825.
Of articles which have appeared during the last fifteen years, the Retrospects of Chess in the Times particularly that
of the 25
th
June 1883, (the first on record) mark events of lasting interest in the practice of the game, which would
well merit reproduction. Professor Ruskin's modest but instructive letters (28 in number 1884 to 1892), also contain
much of value concerning chess nomenclature, annotation, ethics and policy combined with some estimable advice
and suggestions for promoting greater harmony in the chess world.
 The able article in Bailey's 1885, on chess competitions and the progress of the game, and that in the Fortnightly
Review of December 1886, entitled "The Chess Masters of the Day," rank as the other most noteworthy productions
of the last seven years' period in chess.
I regret that it is not in my power to produce the more extended work, for to bring that now submitted within
assigned compass and cost, I have had to omit much that would be needful to render such a work complete, and to
give but a Bird's eye view of chapters which would well merit undiminished space. Thus the complete scores and
analyses of the matches, tournaments and great personal tests of skill and statistics of the game would be acceptable
to a few, whilst the full accounts of individual players such as Philidor, Staunton, Anderssen, Morphy, Lowenthal,
Steinitz, Zukertort, Blackburne and perhaps even Bird, (Bailey's and Ruskin's opinions) would be regarded and read
with interest by many chess players.
Respecting the supposed first source of chess the traditional and conjectural theories which have grown up
throughout so many ages, regarding the origin of chess, have not become abandoned even in our own days, and we
generally hear of one or other of them at the conclusion of a great tournament. It has been no uncommon thing
during the past few years to find Xerxes, Palamedes, and even Moses and certain Kings of Babylon credited with the
invention of chess.
The conclusions arrived at by the most able and trustworthy authorities however, are, that chess originated in India,
was utterly unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and was first introduced into Europe from Persia shortly after the
sixth century of our era. In its earliest Asiatic form styled the Chaturanga, It was adapted for four persons, having
four small armies of eight each. King, three pieces answering to our Rook, Bishop, and Knight, Elephant (Chariot or
Ship,) and Horse, with four Pawns. The players decided what piece to move by the throw of an oblong die.
About 1,350 years ago the game under the name Chatrang, adapted for two persons with sixteen piece on each side,
and the same square board of 64 squares, became regularly practiced, but when the dice became dispensed with is
quite unknown.
It may not be possible to trace the game of chess with absolute certainty, back to its precise source amidst the dark
periods of antiquity, but it is easy to shew that the claim of the Hindus as the inventors, is supported by better
evidence both inferential and positive than that of any other people, and unless we are to assume the Sanskrit
accounts of it to be unreliable or spurious, or the translations of Dr. Hyde, Sir William Jones and Professor Duncan
Forbes to be disingenuous and untrustworthy concoctions (as Linde the German writer seems to insinuate) we are
justified in dismissing from our minds all reasonable doubts as to the validity of the claims of the Hindu Chaturanga
as the foundation of the Persian, Arabian, Medieval and Modern Chess, which it so essentially resembled in its main
principles, in fact the ancient Hindu Chaturanga is the oldest game not only of chess but of anything ever shown to
be at all like it, and we have the frank admissions of the Persians as well as the Chinese that they both received the
game from India.
The Saracens put the origin of chess at 226, says the "Westminster Papers," (although the Indians claim we think
with justice to have invented it about 108 B.C. Artaxerxes a Persian King is said to have been the inventor of a game
which the Germans call Bret-spiel and chess was invented as a rival game.
The connecting links of chess evidence and confirmation when gathered together and placed in order form,
combined so harmonious a chain, that the progress of chess from Persia to Arabia and into Spain has been
considered as quite satisfactorily proved and established by authorities deemed trustworthy, both native and foreign,
and are quite consistent with a fair summary up of the more recent views expressed by the German writers
themselves, and with the reasonable conclusions to be deduced even from the very voluminous but not always best
selected evidence of Van der Linde.
So much has a very lively interest in chess depended in modern times upon the enthusiasm of individuals, that the
loss of a single prominent supporter or player, has always seemed to sensibly affect it. This was notably felt on the
death of Sir Abram Janssens and Philidor towards the end of the last century, and of Count Bruhl, Mr. G. Atwood
and General Conway in this. During the last 15 years the loss of Staunton, Buckle, Cap. Kennedy, Barnes, Cochrane
and Boden, and yet more recently of such friends of British chess as F. H. Lewis, I. C. H. Taylor and Captain
Mackenzie left a void, which in the absence of any fresh like popular players and supporters, goes far to account for
the depression and degeneracy of first class chess in England.
Though the game is advancing more in estimation than ever, and each succeeding year furnishes conclusive
evidence of its increasing progress, in twenty years more under present auspices, a British Chess Master will be a
thing of the past, and the sceptre of McDonnell and of Staunton will have crumpled into dust, at the very time when
in the natural course of things according to present indications, the practice of the game shall have reached the
highest point in its development.
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