nor hear a squabbling that is not a question of the chess-board.’  On the other hand, there were ‘rules of politeness in chess,’ which it behoved all persons to follow:—­’He who is lowest in rank is to spread the board, and pour out the men on it, and then wait patiently till his superior has made his choice; then he who is inferior may take his own men, and place all of them except the king, and when the senior in rank has placed his own king, he may also place his opposite to it.’  During the game, ‘all foolish talk and ribaldry’ is to be avoided, and onlookers are ’to keep silence, and to abstain from remarks and advice to the players;’ and an inferior, when playing with a superior, is enjoined to exert his utmost skill, and not ’underplay himself that his senior may win’—­an observation which what is called the ‘flunkey class’ might remember with advantage.  And further, chess is not to be played ’when the mind is engaged with other objects, nor when the stomach is full after a meal, neither when overcome by hunger, nor on the day of taking a bath; nor, in general, while suffering under any pain, bodily or mental.’

Chess-playing without looking at the board, now taught by professors, and supposed to be a comparatively modern art, was, as we have seen above, known and practised many centuries ago; and among the instructions last quoted are those for playing the ‘blindfold-game.’  The player is ’to picture to himself the board as divided first into two opposite sides, and then each side into halves, those of the king and the queen, so that when his naib, or deputy, announces that ’such a knight has been played to the second of the queen’s rook,’ or ’the queen to the king’s bishop’s third,’ he may immediately understand its effect on the position of the game.  This mode of playing, however, is not recommended to those who do not possess a powerful memory, with great reflection and perseverance, ’without which no man can play blindfold.’  These, with other instructions, are followed by the author’s remark, ’that some have arrived to such a degree of perfection as to have played blindfold at four or five boards at a time, nor to have made a mistake in any of the games, and to have recited poetry during the match;’ and he adds:  ’I have seen it written in a book, that a certain person played in this manner at ten boards at once, and gained all the games, and even corrected his adversaries when a mistake was made.’

Besides their conventional value, the pieces had a money value, which was essential to be known by all who desired to win.  The rook and knight were estimated at about sixpence each; the queen, threepence; the pawns, three-halfpence; and the ‘side-pawns,’ three farthings.  The value of bishops varied, while the king was beyond all price.  The regulations respecting odds were also well defined, in degrees from a single pawn up to a knight and rook; but any one claiming the latter odds was held not ‘to count as a chess-player.’  And it was not