Louis Paulsen arriving from America in 1861, at once visited the Divan and played twelve games blindfold simultaneously there against a very powerful team amid much enthusiasm, it being the earliest exhibition among us on so large a scale.  Morphy had in 1858 played eight games blindfold both in Birmingham and Paris.  This was 63 years after Philidor’s exhibition of two games blindfold (and one over the board) a performance then thought marvellous, and which it was predicted would not be believed or attempted in any future generation.  However we read of A. McDonnell playing without seeing the board and men in 1830.  Bilguer in like manner did so sometime before his death in 1841.  La Bourdonnais in 1842, and Harrwitz at Hull in 1847, but neither more than two games.  Paulsen in the West of America 1855-6-7, was the first to accomplish ten or twelve games blindfold, which he did with very marked success.  Steinitz from Prague, who for twenty-two years, from 1867 to 1889, has been regarded as chess champion of the world, at the usual slow time limit is now residing in Brooklyn, New York.  Soon after his arrival from Vienna in 1862 he became a tolerably regular attendant at Simpson’s, and it was through this that his appointment of Chess Editor to the “Field” arose, as well as that of Mr. Hoffer who superseded him in that post.  Mr. Walsh, chief Editor of the “Field,” had been for many years a constant visitor at Simpson’s, and the column for a long time was not favourable to our chess interests.  Foreign influence and views became far too conspicuously manifested.  The great English chess players were of a retiring nature after the disappearance of the powerful Staunton and Captain Kennedy, and the retirement of the genial McDonnell; Boden was as reserved as Buckle or as Morphy, Bird cared only for his game.  Such eggs of chess patronage as continued to exist, somehow or other always found their way into one and the same basket, to which no British master could have access.  No eminent English player had any voice in chess management, and though the Jubilee year’s proceedings, bid fair to balance matters on a more cosmopolitan basis, the facts remain that for the three last German Tournaments at Frankfort, Breslau and Dresden, neither Lee nor Pollock, the youngest, nor Bird, the oldest master, could on either occasion manage to participate.

Small, but very enjoyable first class Tournaments have been held at Simpson’s, which have always evoked a considerable degree of enthusiasm, and at times stimulated energy in the constituted authorities, and been productive of Tournaments on a larger scale elsewhere.

Notwithstanding that the Mammoth laws of Limited Liability in 1867, absorbed the gorgeous and spacious Divan Saloon, for the present ladies dining room, and somewhat lessened the chess accommodation, the distinguishing characteristics of the place have remained unchanged, while the glorious chess events and reminiscences continue nearly as vividly fixed in the recollection as ever.