ingly illustrative of the change from large to small, from complication to simplicity. The projecting squares of the Great Chess, or ancient game, having been abolished, either from their inconvenience in the practice of the game, or for greater uniformity in the shape of the board, a compensation seems to have been made to the King, first, by the allotment of the squares distinguished as his place of refuge in the more modern Eastern board described in Hyde, p. 74, and, later, by the anomalous process of Castling, an expedient evidently of such modern invention as not to be allowed even in the present game, as played among the natives of the East. This latter change is particularly remarkable, as admitting no possible question of inversion, and as, apparently, having accompanied, and kept pace with, a corresponding diminution in size, form, and power, in the Board and Pieces, and in the whole system of chess-play. Before, then, we bow to this opinion of the Hindu origin of Chess, or allow the four-headed divinity of the Brahmans to appropriate the wisdom of all the quarters of the globe, and their many-handed monsters to clutch every invention of the East as their own, a few queries suggest themselves, which claim an answer from those who consider their position too strong to be disputed. These objections may be classed under three general heads, and, to follow the arrangement of the work which gave rise to this discussion, they may be divided into an historical, a philological, and a practical difficulty in connection with the game itself. If Chess, in any near resemblance to that which we now play, was known in early ages to the Hindus, where are their historical or romantic records of its invention or its use? Does any ancient Sanscrit treatise exist on its principles or practice? And, as the Persians are supposed to acknowledge its introduction into their country from India, do the annals of the Hindus themselves equally relate their share in the transaction? If Chess is of Indian birth, and even allowing Chaturanga to be its parent, how did it retain the name of the game only, and yet change all the names of the pieces? Why should the Rat'h or Rot'h alone remain untranslated? The Persian terms endure in all the languages of Europe, although their powers have been modified and their original attributes forgotten. If Chaturanga was the origin of all Eastern Chess, where and at what period did it undergo that sudden and almost total transformation necessary to obtain a resemblance to the Persian form under which it makes its next appearance? Was, then, the Chaturanga its purer state of being, and Shatranj only its Avatar among its more distant wor Though of trifling importance to real science or profound literature, there is an interest in Chess and in its history, which repays a more critical investigation than it has yet received. Learned antiquaries have illustrated its existence of the last ten centuries, but there are still links wanting to connect it with its earliest origin, and to complete our knowledge of this ancient and universal game, which presents so remarkable on instance of etymologies surviving the Babel of ages, and historically, as well as in philology, constitutes one of the most intimate points of union between Europe and the East. Considered merely as a chapter in the social history of mankind, Chess is equally worthy of admiration; a game which, having established its mimic images in defiance of the persecutors of idolatry, has triumphed alike over the denunciations of Coranic moral and the zealous rage of the Byzantine Iconoclast, and for whose support law and theology have been strained alike by Muslim Mulla and by Western Priest; from which kings have given names to their sons and to the cities they have founded, nor hesitated to ascribe their glories to its practice, when they made it a principle in the education of their children; and which, as an image of war, or an exercise of wisdom, has been the royal sport of lawgiver and conqueror, from the Haruns and Cosroes of the East to the Charlemagnes and Canutes of our own climes; from the shepherd warrior of Tartary to the fugitive hero of Poltava, or his more modern rival in boundless empire and lawless ambition, the Tamerlane of France, Napoleon. |