644 OUR CORRESPONDENTS ON CHESS. 



bers, all preux chevaliers, with Captain Medwin at their head, and com- 

 prising some very excellent players in their ranks. Should the Nottingham 

 club be passed over without notice, graced as it is by such a player as Mr. 

 Newham? Should not the Chess-club at Leeds and its best players, 

 Cochran and Muff, be mentioned ? 



The only German work with which your correspondent professes to be 

 acquainted, is by Stein; who, by-the-bye, though a German, wrote in 

 French, and published his book at the Hague ; but I have at least fifty 

 volumes, and many of them " considerably thick," in German, on Chess, 

 both practical and theoretical. He gives the name of Bingham, Cunning- 

 ham, and Walker, as Chess authors : now Mr. Walker is certainly well 

 known to the Chess world as a young author of great merit ; his works on 

 the subject need not> indeed, shrink from competition with the proudest ; 

 and practical men have justly appreciated their value : but Cunningham 

 never wrote a word on Chess in his life, and Bingham is merely the " nom 



de guerre" under which Mr. published a bad translation of a clever 



Italian author. A MEMBER OF THE WESTMINSTER CHESS-CLUB. 



i 'to 

 "~ ~"~ 



LETTER III. 



SIR, I have just read in the Monthly Magazine for the month of March, an 

 interesting article, headed " Chess-Clubs, and Chess-Players, British and 

 Foreign," in which, after some appropriate remarks on the intellectual 

 nature of the game of Chess, and a detailed account of the present cultiva- 

 tion of this game in Great Britain, as well as on the continent, I find the 

 following passages : 



" But what a falling off occurs, when we come, in parliamentary phrase, 

 ' to consider the state of Ireland.' There is no club in Dublin, nor elsewhere, 

 that I am aware of, and the number of respectable players is certainly below 

 par : the Irish, in fact, are engaged in a more absorbing game ; they use 

 real bishops, instead of ivory ones ; like Don John, of Austria, they play 

 Chess with men." 



Now, Sir, without offering any remarks on the political allusion contained 

 in this passage, as I am convinced you would not wilfully give insertion to 

 any unfounded reflection on any portion of your fellow-subjects, I trust you 

 will not refuse giving insertion in the next number of your respectable 

 periodical to these few lines, written solely for the purpose of correcting the 

 mis-statement of facts contained in the foregoing passage, and setting your 

 readers and the public right with respect to the present state of Chess- 

 playing in the city of Dublin; for I do not profess to be sufficiently acquainted 

 with the rest of Ireland, as far as Chess is concerned, to speak with certainty 

 on the subject. So far from there being any foundation for asserting that 

 " there is no club in Dublin," it so happens, there are no less than four 

 different Chess-clubs at present established in this city: first, is the 

 Philidorian Society, a long-established club, consisting of upwards of twenty 

 members, several of whom are players of great repute : next, is the Chess- 

 club attached to the Dublin Institution. in Sackville- Street, which contains a 

 still greater number of members : a third club, for private ^Chess-playing, 

 is formed in Trinity College, which, I understand, consists of from thirty to 

 forty members, thus holding out an example worthy of imitation to the 

 Universities of England and Scotland: while, a fourth Chess-club, of 

 which I had the honour to be the originator, has been recently established in 

 the Dublin Library Society, and which, although not many months in exist- 

 ence, already reckons no less than sixty-nine members, some of whom would 

 not shrink from a contest with any players of the Edinburgh, or, of course, 

 the London Chess-clubs. 



