﻿GAME OF CHESS, ScC. 499 



the four T have adduced are the principal, to which 

 all the others may he referred. 



I shall conchide this long and irregular disserta- 

 tion with noticing the various etymologies of the 

 terms, pieces, kc. &c. 



The Honourahle Mr. Daines Barrington has taken 

 conside'-able pains on this subject in the essay above 

 iioticetl ; an(l the reason he assiu;ns for the uncouth 

 form of the pieces as made in Europe is very just, 

 viz that we received the game from the Arabs, who, 

 as Mahninedfins, being proliibited the use of paint- 

 ings or engraved images, merely gave to their chess 

 pieces such distinct forms as enabled them to readily 

 recognize them in play ; and such arbitrary variation 

 being once introduced, others naturally followed, ac- 

 cording to the caprice or taste of each new in- 

 novator. 



But he differs from Doctor Hyde and Sir William 

 Jones in respect to our Exchequer beiiig named 

 from the chess-table ; proving that the term was 

 not directly so derived; but that is not proving it 

 Avas not derived indirectly; for although the game 

 of chess miglit not have been known to the nations 

 of modern Europe, so early as the Norman Conquest ; 

 yet it appears from tlie check or reckoning board 

 found at Pompeii, and from the Latin name Scac- 

 cario, that the use of the table was very early 

 known in Europe; and therefore Sir William Jones 

 may still be right in deriving exchequer from C/ia- 

 tu7Yuioa. One remarkable coincidence in the Asiatic 

 tables may be noticed ; they are all subdivided into 

 sixty-four squares, but not checkered. 



The piece we call the King is also so styled in all 

 the games that 1 know, except the Chinese, who call 

 it the Choohung, or scientific in war. 



The piece we call the Queen, the honourable Mr. 

 K K 2 Barringtoa 



