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CHAPTER II.

I. Sedentary Games.-II. Dice-playing;-Its Prevalency and bad Effects.-III Ancient Dice-box ;-Anecdote relating to false Dicc.-IV. Chess ;-Its Antiquity. -V. The Morals of Chess.-VI. Early Chess-play in France and England.VII. The Chess-board.-VIII. The Pieces, and their Form.-IX. The various Games of Chess.-X. Ancient Games similar to Chess.-XI. The Philosopher's Game.-XII. Draughts, French and Polish.-XIII. Merelles, or Nine Mens'. Morris.-XIV. Fox and Geese.-XV. The Solitary Game.-XVI. Backgammon, anciently called Tables;-The different Manners of playing at Tables.-XVII Backgammon, its former and present estimation.-XVIII. Domino.-XIX. Cards, when invented.-XX. Card-playing much practised.-XXI. Forbidden.-XXII. Censured by Poets.-XXIII. A specimen of ancient Cards.-XXIV. Games formerly played with Cards.-XXV. The Game of Goose-and of the Snake.XXVI. Cross and Pile

1.-SEDENTARY GAMES.

THIS chapter is appropriated to sedentary games, and in treating upon most of them I am under the necessity of confining myself to very narrow limits. To attempt a minute investigation of their properties, to explain the different manners in which they have been played, or to produce all the regulations by which they have been governed, is absolutely incompatible with my present design. Instead, therefore, of following the various writers upon these subjects, whose opinions are rarely in unison, through the multiplicity of their arguments, I shall content myself by selecting such of them as appear to be most cogent, and be exceedingly brief in my own observations.

II.-DICE PLAY-ITS PREVALENCY AND BAD EFFECTS.

There is not, I believe, any species of amusement more ancient than dice-playing; none has been more universally prevalent, and, generally speaking, none is more pernicious in its consequences. It is the earliest, or at least one of the most early pastimes in use among the Grecians. Dice are said to have been invented, together with chess, by Palamedes, the son of Nauplius, king of Euboea. Others, agreeing to the time of the invention of dice, attribute it to a Greek soldier named Alea,

Palamed. de Alea. lib. i. cap. 18.

But

and therefore say that the game was so denominated. Herodotus 2 attributes both dice and chess to the Lydians, a people of Asia; in which part of the world, it is most probable, they originated at some very remote but uncertain period. We have already seen that the ancient Germans, even in their state of barbarism, indulged the propensity for gambling with the dice to a degree of madness, not only staking all they were worth, but even their liberty, upon the chance of a throw, and submitted to slavery if fortune declared against them.3 The Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans their descendants, were all of them greatly addicted to the same infatuating pastime. One would not, at first sight, imagine that the dice could afford any great variety of amusement, especially if they be abstractedly considered; and yet John of Salisbury, in the twelfth century, speaks of ten different games of dice then in use; but as he has only given us the names, their properties cannot be investigated. He calls it," The damnable art of dice-playing." Another author, contemporary with him, says, "The clergymen and bishops are fond of dice-playing."5

III. ANCIENT DICE-BOX-ANECDOTE RELATING TO FALSE DICE.

The common method of throwing the dice is with a hollow cylinder of wood, called the dice-box, into which they are put, and thence, being first shaken together, thrown out upon the table; but in one of the prints which occur in the Vocabulary of Commenius, we meet with a contrivance for playing with the dice that does not require them to be numbered upon their faces. This curious machine7 is copied below.

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The dice are thrown into the receptacle at the top, whence they fall upon the circular part of the table below, which is

Isidorus Originum, lib. xviii. cap. 60.

3 See the Introduction.

2 Lib. i.

De Nug. Curialium, lib. i. cap. 5. $ Orderic. Vital. p. 550. • Orbis Sensualium Pictus, translated by Hoole, 1658. "La Latin, Pyrgus, Turricula, et Frittillus.

divided into six compartments, numbered as the dice usually are; and according to the value of the figures affixed to the compartments into which they fall the throw is estimated. Perhaps the inner part of the circle, with the apparatus above it, was so constructed as to move round with great rapidity when the dice were put into the tunnel. It would then be analogous to the E O tables of the present day, wherein a ball is used, and the game is determined by the letters E or O being marked upon the compartment into which it falls. The E O tables may have derived their origin from the above contrivance.

Dice-playing has been reprobated by the grave and judicious authors of this country for many centuries back; the legislature set its face against it at a very early period; ' and in the succeeding statutes promulgated for the suppression of unlawful games, it is constantly particularised and strictly prohibited.

Supposing the play to be fair on either side, the chances upon the dice are equal to both parties; and the professed gamblers being well aware of this, will not trust to the determination of fortune, but have recourse to many nefarious arts to circumvent the unwary; hence we hear of loaded dice, and dice of the high cut. The former are dice made heavier on one side than the other by the insertion of a small portion of lead; and the latter may be known by the following anecdote in an anonymous MS. written about the reign of James I., and preserved in the Harleian Collection. "Sir William Herbert, playing at dice with another gentleman, there rose some questions about a cast. Sir William's antagonist declared it was a four and a five; he as positively insisted that it was a five and six; the other then swore, with a bitter imprecation,3 that it was as he had said: Sir William then replied, Thou art a perjured knave; for give me a sixpence, and if there be a four upon the dice, I will return you a thousand pounds;' at which the other was presently abashed, for indeed the dice were false, and of a high cut, without a four." The dice are usually made of bone or ivory, but sometimes of silver, and probably of other metals. The wife of the unfortunate Arden of Feversham, sent to Mosbie, her paramour, a pair of silver dice, in order to reconcile

"Nec ludant ad aleas vel taxillos." Decret. Concil. Vigorn. A. D. 1240, directed to the clergy.

No. 6395, Art. 69.

"As false as dicers' oaths," is a proverbial expression, and used by Shakspeare in Hamlet, act iii. scene 4.

a disagreement that had subsisted between them, and occasioned his abstaining from her company.'

IV. CHESS-ITS ANTIQUITY.

This noble, or, as it is frequently called, royal pastime, is said, by some authors, to have originated, together with diceplaying, at the siege of Troy; and the invention of both is attributed to Palamedes, the son of Nauplius, king of Eubœa; 2 others make Diomedes, and others again, Ulysses, the inventor of chess. The honour has also been attributed to Ledo and Tyrrheno, two Grecians, and brothers, who being much pressed by hunger, sought to alleviate their bodily sufferings by diverting the mind. None of these stories have any solid foundation for their support; and I am inclined to follow the opinion of Dr. Hyde and other learned authors, who readily agree that the pastime is of very remote antiquity, but think it first made its appearance in Asia.

V. THE MORALS OF CHESS.

John de Vigney wrote a book which he called The Moralization of Chess, wherein he assures us that this game was invented by a philosopher named Xerxes in the reign of Evil Merodach, king of Babylon, and was made known to that monarch in order to engage his attention and correct his manners. "There are three reasons," says de Vigney, "which induced the philosopher to institute this new pastime: the first, to reclaim a wicked king; the second, to prevent idleness; and the third, practically to demonstrate the nature and necessity of nobleness." He then adds, "The game of chess passed from Chaldea into Greece, and thence diffused itself all over Europe." I have followed a MS. copy at the Museum in the Harleian Library. Our countryman Chaucer, on what authority I know not, says it was -Athalus that made the game

First of the chesse, so was his name."

The Arabians and the Saracens, who are said to be admirable players at chess, have new-modelled the story of de Vigney

1 An. 5 Ed. VI. A. D. 1551, Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 1062.

2 Palamed. de Aleatoribus, cap. 18.

Lepistre Othea, MS. "Ulixes fu un baron de Grece de grant soubtillete, et en temps du siege de Troye il trouva le gieu des esches," &c. Ulysses was a baron of Greece, exceedingly wise, and during the siege of Troy invented the game of chess. Harl. Lib. 4431. 4 Ency. Brit. word Chess.

• No. 1275.

• Dream of Love.

and adapted it to their own country, changing the name of the philosopher from Xerxes to Sisa.'

VI.-EARLY CHESS-PLAY IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

It is impossible to say when the game of chess was first brought into this kingdom; but we have good reason to suppose it to have been well known here at least a century anterior to the Conquest, and it was then a favourite pastime with persons of the highest rank. Canute the Dane, who ascended the throne of England A. D. 1017, was partial to this pastime.2 The following story is told of William, duke of Normandy, afterwards king of England. When a young man, he was invited to the court of the French king, and during his residence there, being one day engaged at chess with the king's eldest son, a dispute arose concerning the play; and William, exasperated at somewhat his antagonist had said, struck him with the chess-board; which obliged him to make a precipitate retreat from France, in order to avoid the consequences of so rash an action. A similar circumstance is said by Leland to have happened in England. John, the youngest son of Henry II., playing at chess one day with Fulco Guarine, a nobleman of Shropshire, a quarrel ensued, and John broke the head of Guarine with the chess-board, who in return struck the prince such a blow that he almost killed him. It seems, however, that Fulco found means of making his peace with king Henry, by whom he was knighted, with three of his brethren, a short time afterwards. John did not so easily forgive the affront; but, on the contrary, showed his resentment long after his accession to the English throne, by keeping him from the possession of Whittington Castle, to which he was the rightful heir. It is also said of this monarch, that he was engaged at chess when the deputies from Rouen came to acquaint him that the city was besieged by Philip king of France, but he would not hear them out till he had finished the game. In like manner Charles I. was plaving at chess when he was told that the final resolution of the Scots was to sell him to the parliament; and he was so little discomposed by the alarming intelligence, that he continued the game with great composure. Several other instances to the same purpose might be produced, but these may suffice; and in truth, I know not what interpretation to put upon such Encyclop. Françoise, in voce Echecs.

3 See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
Ibid.

2 See the Introduction.
Collect. vol. i. p. 264.

6. Ency. Brit. word Chess.

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