ERRATA RECEPTA. 405 



tative. Naypelna^ nevertheless been attributed to the initials N. P. 

 of one Nicolao Pepin, who bad something to do witb the introduction 

 or early manufacture of cards, 



" Chess" is a vocable quite English in its sound. It has been ren- 

 dered so by the usual process. It comes to us through the Prench 

 echecs ; in old French, escJiacs, eschas, esoJiies; in old Spanish, axed- 

 res ; and, modern Spanish, xadrez, xaque ; modified into scacco, in 

 Italian ; whence the Late-Latin, scaccus. — The Spanish, axedres, ia 

 an attempt to enunciate the Arabic, al-shatranj* The name of the 

 game, in the old Persian of the 6th century of our era, was chatran^y 

 a terra wholly un Persian, as we shall presently see. This, in the 

 later language, was vernacularized into scJiach-iranj ; with an allusioa 

 insinuated to the scJiach, or king. The true origin of sliatrang, bow- 

 ever, was the Sanskrit, chatur-anga ; the quatuor-membra ; the four 

 arms of a military land -force : elephants, borses, chariots, foot-sol- 

 diers. To these, the Persians added an emperor, with his general- 

 issimo. Here, then, are our English chess-men. But, their respec- 

 tive names have descended to us somewhat disguised, in some in- 

 stances, by vernacularization. 



In the Persian game, the first piece is tbe schacJi ; the second, the 

 pherz, or, vizier — the prime-minister and generalissimo. Then fol- 

 low a set, denominated pliil, the brigade of elephants ; then another, 

 aspen-suar, the cavalry troop ; then another, riich (a misunderstand- 

 ing of the rafh, rofli, " armed chariot," of the Hindu), auxiliary 

 dromedaries ; and last, the heydal, a body of infantry. 



The sCi^(5'c/^ continues, duly translated "king." (' Check-mate '= 

 Schach-mat, "le roi eat mort.") The pherz became, in French, under 

 the influence of popular interpretation, fercie, fierce, fierge, vierge. 

 virgin — this last passing, finally, into da7ne ; abbreviated, of course, 

 from notre-dame. With us, the dame has been converted into gueen. 

 The phil, in Spanish, by incorporating the Arabic article, is alfil ^ 

 which, in Italian, assumes the forms alfido and alfiere. The French 

 made it ^/; then fou. In old French, it was aifin; whence, 

 under the hands of the Latinists of the day, issued the very 

 respectable aJphinus, the alphyn of Caxton's translation of 

 Jacopo Dacciesole's Solatium Ludi Scacchorum. " Tbe alphyns," 

 Caxton there says, anno 1474, " ought to be made and formed in 

 manere of juges syttynge in a chayer, with a book open to-fore their 

 even." From this description we cau see how in England the 



