Chess History And Reminiscences
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
25th 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,
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