171 



C IT E S S. 



and which was nothing cite originally than the title of 

 *~"~ . ~^* iho kini* himself; and it accounts for the origin of the 

 rokeof the game check mate, which it com- 

 pounded of tchach, " the king," and mat, a word expres- 

 tin? " dead" in Persian and other Eastern language!. 



Tiic tfhach or king has retained hit name and dignity 

 throughout every variation of the game of chess. The 

 nrxt piece in dignity, however, which hat long been cal- 

 led the queen in Europe, was never o denominated in 

 the Eatt ; but had the rank of minister, or vit'r, orjrrz, 

 among the Persiant ; a name which it has been tuppoicd, 

 with great probability, was corrupted into vier<*e by the 

 French ; whence the origin of a female upon the chess- 

 board. The old French poets, such as the author of the 

 Roman de la Ross, call this piece Jiercc,ficrche, and Jt- 

 rrge ; and, in a manuscript of Lyd^ate, monk of St 

 Edmund's Bury, quoted by Dr Hyde, the fate of the 

 king in a game of chess it thus described : 



" Ws of tfcri so fortunate. 

 Into a corner drive and maat." 



The rook or rok has his name, according to Sir Wil- 

 liam Jones, from the Bcngalese rot'h, or Persian rok'h, 

 tignifying an armed chariot ; and such, we have seen, is 

 the designation of this piece among the Chinese, accord- 

 ing to Mr Irwin. Others deduce it from the Indian 

 name of a camel, by which the chariot was drawn ; and 

 if we tuppose the chariot fitted up like the castle which 

 is fixed on the elephant's back, when he is equipped for 

 battle, we get a plausible origin of the term castle, as well 

 as of the form now commonly given to this piece. The 

 Luightf, or horses as they are frequently called, have con- 

 tinued unchanged in all the variations of the game ; but 

 the same hat not been the fate of the piece which we now 

 strangely enough call a bishop. Among the Chinese he 

 was a mandarin ; among the Indians an elephant, called 

 in that language JH, whence seems to have come thejbl 

 or fool of the French. By old English writers, this piece 

 is called alphin iinsin, or rl])hyn, from an Arabic word 

 signifying an elephant ; and he still is called an elephant 

 by the Russians and Swedes. Sometimes he has been 

 an archer ; and, among the Germans, he is a hound or 

 runner. The Poles call him the priest, and the English 

 the bishop ; for what reason it is not easy to say ; pos- 

 sibly from an accidental conversion of the cap and bells 

 of the French fol, into the bifurcated mitre of a bishop. 

 The pawns arc supposed to receive their name from pe- 

 dones, a barbarous Latin term for foot soldiers ; but it is 

 more probable that the word comes from an Eastern 

 term of the same import. In China, we have seen that 

 they are called pi"g, which is almost identical with the 

 French pion. The Germans, Danes, and Swedes, have 

 converted these subordinate pieces into peasants. 



It would be impossible, in a work like ours, to give 

 any thing like a treatise on this interesting game ; and 

 we must therefore refer our readers to the work of Phi- 

 lidor; and to an Introduction to l/ic Came of C/iets, Lon- 

 don, 1809, a work which contains an excellent selection 

 of games. 



At it is often necessary, however, to refer to the laws 

 of chess, the powers of the pieces, the possibility of 

 winning, and the conclusions of games, we subjoin the 

 following from the above-mentioned work : 



Lairs of Chess. 



1. If you touch a piece or pawn you must play it; 

 but if it is displaced, or overturned by accident, you arc 

 allowed to rettore it to ilt place. 



After quitting hold of a piece or pawn, you can- 

 not take it again to play it to another place ; but so s 

 long as you keep hold of it, you are at liberty to play it 

 whtire you please. 



S. If you touch one of your adversary's pieces or 

 pawns, he has a right to oblige you to lake it, if in your 

 power ; if not, to move your king, if you can without 

 putting it upon check. 



4-. If by mistake, or otherwise, you make a false 

 move, your adversary may insist on your moving your 

 king (as in Art. 3.) ; but if he takes no notice of it un- 

 til he has played his next move, neither of you can re- 

 cal it ; the position must remain as if it had been just. 



5. If you touch a piece or pawn, which you cannot 

 play without exposing your king to check, you must 

 then move your king ; which if you cannot do, the fault 

 is of no consequence. 



6. If your adversary gives check without warning, you 

 are not bound to ward it off, and may consequently play 

 as if such check did not exist ; but if on his next move 

 he warns you, each must then retract his last move, as 

 being faUe, and you must remove your king off check. 



7. If your adversary warn you of a check, without 

 however giving it, and you in consequence touch or 

 move either your king or any other pjece or pawn, you 

 are allowed to retract, provided your adversary has not 

 completed his next move. 



8. You cannot give check to your adversary's king 

 with a piece, which, by your so doing, would discover 

 check on your own king. 



9. If you attempt to castle your king when you have 

 no right, that is, after it, or the rook with which you 

 purpose castling it, has moved, your adversary may in- 

 sist on your moving either your kini^ or that rook. 



10. After the first game, the players have the first 

 move alternately. If the advantage of a piece or pawn 

 is given, the player giving such advantage is entitled to 

 the first move. 



The Value and Power of the Pieces. 



King, 



Queen 23J 



Rook, 15 



Bishop 9? 



Knight, 9| 



Pawn, power of, ... 2 



value of, .... 3f 



From the very principle of the game, the king is in- 

 valuable ; but its power for attack and defence may be 

 estimated as above. 



From the chance which every pawn has of being con- 

 verted into a more valuable piece, when it reaches the 

 adversary's royal line, its value is estimated at 3|, though 

 its power is only 2. 



Conclusions of Garnet. 



1. A single pawn cannot win if the adverse king be 

 placed in opposition to it. 



2. A single pawn may win, if the king be placed be- 

 fore its pawn. 



3. Two pawns against one must win, almost in all 

 cases ; but the player that has the two pawns must avoid 

 changing one of them for his adversary's pawn. 



4. A pawn and any other piece must win in all cases; 

 except a pawn and a bishop, when the pawn it on a 

 rook's file, and the bishop doet not command the square 

 on which the pawn will reach the royal line. 



."). Two knights, without any other piece or pawn, 

 cannot give check-mate. 



