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BUCKLE’S CHESS REFERENCES
Buckle’s Chess References, which are not so full as we could wish contain the names of Gerbert (Pope Sylvester, 2) (992, 1003), Cranmer, Wolsey, Pitt and Wilberforce, as chess players, but do not refer in any way to Beckett, Luther, or Voltaire, names mentioned in Linde, neither think of Alcuin, or consider the chess probabilities of the contemporary reigns of Offer, Egbert, Charlemagne, Harun, and Irene.
Van der Linde assigns the 13th Century for first knowledge of chess in England, and places it under the head of Kriegspiel, but on what grounds, or what he conceives this Kriegspiel to be, or how it differs from chess does not clearly appear in his book, his space being rather devoted to sneers or dissent from the statements and conclusions of previous writers, than at advancing any distinct theory of his own.
He labours much to cast doubts on Charlemagne’s knowledge of chess, and to infer that the chess men preserved and considered to have belonged to him, reported upon by Dr. Hyde, F. Douce, and Sir F. Madden, are of comparatively recent date.
Einhard, the historian of Charlemagne, he says does not mention chess, Cranmer, Wolsey, Pope, Pitt, Chatham, Fox, Wilberforce, and other well accredited names which interest us are absent from his list, which is surprising, considering his mass of petty detail.
More than two-thirds of these volumes are devoted to descriptive catalogues of books and magazines from Jacobus de Cessolus, the first European work devoted to chess in the 13th century, down to the various editions of Philidor, Sarratt, Allgaier, W. Lewis, G. Walker, the German handbooks, and Staunton’s popular works.
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