640 OUH CORRESPONDENTS ON CHKSS. 



All the details of the siege of Antwerp will be classical to the sol- 

 dier. Such an opportunity for practical study under circumstances 

 so favourable may never occur again. The defence, considering the 

 strength and composition of the garrison and the reputation of the 

 governor, disappointed many. It was marked by great bravery and 

 patient endurance, but it was not scientific; such at least is the point 

 of view under which it is considered in the military circles on the 

 continent. But it must be borne in mind that the governor was 

 during its whole duration labouring under the most severe bodily in- 

 firmity ; that he was exposed to the devastating fury of a new pro- 

 jectile, which his defences were inadequate to resist, and that he knew 

 from the first that there was not the most remote chance of relief, a 

 circumstance which alone is sufficient to demoralize the bravest gar- 

 rison. 



Shortly after the surrender, an old French gentleman arrived at 

 head-quarters, to solicit permission to transport to Paris the body of 

 his son, a lieutenant of engineers, who had been killed in the trenches, 

 in order that his disconsolate mother might once again look upon the 

 countenance of her child ere he was committed to the tomb. The 

 request being granted, the body, placed in an open shell, was put 

 into the old gentleman's calashe, and with his arm round the neck of 

 his lifeless boy, we saw the bereaved father take the road to the 

 French frontiers. 



OUR CORRESPONDENTS ON CHESS. 



THE article entitled " Chess Clubs and Chess Players, British and 

 Foreign," which appeared in a recent number of this magazine, ap- 

 pears to have excited considerable interest. We have received a 

 large mass of proposed additions and corrections ; of these we deem 

 it expedient to publish the following selection, which not only cor- 

 rects a few errors into which our contributor appears to have fallen, 

 but affords much additional information on a subject of considerable 

 interest to the most intellectual portion of mankind. ED. 



LETTER I. 



Sir, The writer of a paper on Chess in your March number, although 

 clever, is not quite a master of his subject, of which I confess scarcely any 

 individual possesses personal experience enough to give a satisfactory bird's 

 eye view. To do so, would require a corps composed of men, each of whom 

 had obtained great local eminence, without being bitten with the ambition of 

 attempting to depict any thing beyond the circumference of his personal 

 coup-d'ceil. The kingdom of Chess, in order to map it out with precision, 

 should be divided into sections and arrondissements, and each of these 

 must be allotted to one accomplished in the science, before we can expect to 

 obtain an accurate survey. In fact, such a desideratum it would be scarcely 

 possible to achieve, and in default of a better, we ought doubtless to be 

 grateful for the rude though occasionally erroneous outline which your con- 

 tributor has traced. Permit me, if you please, at some points to enlarge it. 

 The modes of playing Chess are various. Marinelli, an Italian, invented 



