no chess competitions of any kind in France, Germany, or England.  It was not till a century later that the debut and successes of the brilliant Greco the Calabrian, in Paris, began to cause a little more chess ambition in France and gave the ascendancy in the game to that country which it still held in Legalle and Philidor’s time in 1750, and continued to maintain until the matches of 1834, between Alex.  McDonnell of Belfast and the famous Louis de La Bourdonnais of Paris, followed in 1843 by Staunton’s victory over M. S. Amant, first advanced British claims to a first class position in chess, and left our countryman Staunton the admitted world’s champion in chess, until the title was wrested from him by Professor Anderssen of Breslau, in the International tournament held in London during the Exhibition year 1851.

The career of England’s champion, Staunton, for about ten years successful as it was, is considered generally to have been even surpassed by that of Anderssen which lasted till his death in 1879 near thirty years.  Their chess performances like those of Philidor from 1746 to 1795, and of Paul Morphy from 1855 to 1858, would well merit full record in a longer work.

Note.  A translation of Greco was published in London in 1656, with a likeness of Charles the First in it.

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Space precludes the admission of the sketches and comparisons of the chess careers of Philidor, Staunton, Anderssen, and Morphy, and confines us to the brief account of Philidor’s extraordinary support and influence on the future of chess and such references as occur in the sketches of Simpson’s.

Continuously from the date of Philidor’s death in 1795, to the ascendancy of Deschapelles in 1820, France maintained the lead in chess which she had held for one hundred and fifty years, producing in the interval the famous de La Bourdonnais, who for genius, invention and force has never been excelled, and may be ranked with Anderssen, whose supremacy for Germany first became manifested in 1851, and the unparalleled Paul Morphy, of New Orleans, who in 1857 and 1858, electrified the whole chess world by his signal successes in New York, London and Paris.

Taking strength, style, and rapidity of conception combined, these are probably the three greatest players which the world has produced since Al Suli in the Tenth century who was considered a marvel among the best of the Eastern players, and Paolo Boi, Leonardo and Ruy Lopez in the Sixteenth century.

Even in the pools at Paris in 1820, when Deschapelles essayed to give the pawn and move to La Bourdonnais and Cochrane, and in a boastful manner challenged the whole world on the same terms the superiority of La Bourdonnais was already manifested, and for succeeding years became unquestionable.