Chess History And Reminiscences
Forbes introduces this article by observing: "Pope has much to
answer for as the originator of a vast deal of rhetorical rubbish
upon us in chess lectures and chess articles in periodicals.
Here (he says), for example, is a fair stereotype specimen of
this sort," and he concludes: "We recommend the above eloquent
moreceaux, taken from a chess periodical now defunct, to the
attention of chessmen at chess reunions, chess lectures, and
those who are ambitious to do a spicy article for a chess
periodical."
This appears somewhat severe on Pope, even if it be reasonable
and consistent, which may be doubted; for Forbes himself, writing
to the "Chess Player's Chronicle," in 1853, about 120 years
after Pope, and seven years before the appearance of his own
"History of Chess," thus expressed himself:
"In the present day it is impossible to trace the game of chess
with moral certainty back to its source amidst the dark shades of
antiquity, but I am quite ready to prove that the claim of the
Hindoos as the inventors, is far more satisfactory than that of
any other people."
Pope needs no defenders. There are writers of more recent date,
who have inflicted what Forbes would probably call more rhetorical
rubbish upon chess readers. Here is one other example, which
appeared in 1865:
"Though the precise birth and parentage of chess are absolutely
unknown, yet a light marks the track of this royal personage adown
the ages, by which we may clearly enough discern one significant
note of his progress, that he has always kept the very best of
company. We find him ever in the bosom of civilization, the
companion of the wise and thoughtful, the beloved of the studious
and mild. Barbarous men had to be humanized and elevated before
he would come to them. While the East remained the better part
of the world he confined himself to the East; when the West was
to be regenerated he attended with the other agents of beneficial
destiny, and helped the good work on. He seems to have entered
Europe on two opposite sides. Along with philosophy and letters
Spain and Portugal received him, with other good gifts, from their
benefactors the Saracens; and he is seen in the eighth century
at Constantinople, quietly biding his time for a further advance.
>From that time to the present, chess has been the delight of
kings and kaisers, of the reflecting, the witty, and the good."
------
The Indian and American views will be found in the sequel.
It is a peculiar and distinguishing characteristic in the very
long life of chess, that at no period of its existence has any
attempt ever been made to place on record a narrative of its
events, either contemporary or retrospective, or to preserve its
materials and to construct a lasting history for it; and,
notwithstanding, the enormous advance and increase in chess
appreciation and chess reporting in 19th century ages, it will
not, perhaps, be very rash to predict that a future generation
will be scarcely better informed of our chess doings than we are
of the past, and that the 20th century will, in this respect, be
to the 19th as that is to the 18th and preceding ones. The
valuable scientific and weighty works of Dr. Hyde, Sir William
Jones, and Professor Duncan Forbes were mostly devoted to chess
in the East, and to arguments on the probabilities of its origin
and proofs that it came from India. The book of Forbes, the most
elaborate and latest of them, is much devoted to the Sanskrit
translations of the accounts of the ancient Hindu Chaturanga;
and descriptions of other games which, however able and
interesting from a scientific point of view, observation and
experience seem to indicate to us, few care to follow or study
much in the present day.
The period of 750 to 1500 is dismissed by Forbes in less than a
single page. His work contains no account of Philidor or his works,
nor of the progress of chess in this century up to 1860 when his
own book appears, and makes no mention of modern chess events or
players and it is an expensive work when viewed by popular notions
on the subject. These foregoing works with the admirable
contributions and treatises of the Rev. R. Lambe, the Hon. Daines
Barrington, F. Douce, H. Twiss, P. Pratt, Sir F. Madden,
W. Lewis, Sarratt, George Walker, C. Kenny, C. Tomlinson,
Captain Kennedy, Staunton and Professor Bland all combined fail
to supply our wants, besides which there is no summing up of them
or their parts, or attempt to blend them into one harmonious
whole, and each writer has appeared too well satisfied with his
own conclusions to care to trouble himself much about those of
anybody else.
The Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French writers who refer
to chess, and in our own country Chaucer, Lydgate, Caxton,
Barbiere, Pope, Dryden, Philidor, and the Encyclopaediasts deal
mainly with traditions, each having a pet theory; all, however,
conclude by declaring in words, but slightly varied, that the
origin of chess is enshrouded in mist and obscurity, lost in
the remote ages of antiquity, or like Pope pronounce it a problem
which never will be solved.
The incomparable game of chess, London, 1820, says, under
"Traditions of Chess." Some historians have referred to the
invention of chess to the philosopher Xerxes, others to the
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