It would be impossible, in a m ork like ours, to give any thing like a treatise on this interesting game ; and we must therefore refer our readers to the work of Phili dor ; and to an Introduction to the Game of Chess, Lon don, 1809, a work which contains an excellent selection of games.
As it is often necessary, however, to refer to the laws of chess, the powers of the pieces, the possibility of winning, and the conclusions of games, we subjoin the following from the above-mentioned work : Laws of Chess.
1. If you touch a piece or pawn you must play it; but if it is displaced, or overturned by accident, you are al lowed to restoi e it to its place.
2. After quitting hold of a piece or pawn, you cannot take it again to play it to another place ; but so long as you keep hold of it, you arc at liberty to play it where you please.
3. If you touch one of your adversary's pieces or pawns, he has a right to oblige you to take it, if in your power ; if ,.ot, to move your king, if you can without putting it upon check.
4. It by mistake, or otherwise, you make a false move, your adversary may insist on your moving your king (as in Art. 3.); but if he takes no notice of it until he has played his next move, neither of you can meal it; the position must remain as if it had been just.
5. If you touch a piece or pawn, which you cannot play without exposing your king to check, you must then move your king ; which if you cannot do, the fault is of no consequence.
6. If your adversary gives check without warning, you are not bound to ward it off, and may consequently play as if such check did not exist ; but if on his next move he warns you, each must then retract his last move, as being false, and you remove your king off check.
7. If your adversary warn you of a check, without however giving it, and you in consequence touch or move either your king or any other piece or pawn, you are al way presently into the modern Persian, and at length in to the dialects of India, where the true derivation of the name is known only to the learned.Thus," adds hc, " has a very significant word in the sacred language of the Brahmans, been transformed by successive changes into axedrez, scacchi, cchecs, chess; and, by a whimsical roneurrence of circumstances, given birth to the English word check; and even a name to the exchequer of Great Britain." The authority of so great an etymologist must be re ceived with the highest respect ; nevertheless it appears almost certain, that the name by which this game was most familiarly known over the East did not import the game of the four angas, but the game of the king, an ho nour not unjustly due to the dignity of this most impor tant of alt the pieces. Sir William Jones himself states
in the same memoir, that the species of chess played in India with four different colours of men, Nv hic h we have already noticed, though also called chaturanga, is more frequently called chaturaji, or the four kings. Mr Irwin informs us, that the Chinese name for chess is thong ke, cr the royal game; and it was known in Persia under the appellation ot schatrak, meaning the game of the schach or king, and bearing a close resemblance to the chaturanga of India. From Persia, chess was introduced among the Constantinopotitan Greeks, and called CaTe1MOV; whence the axed•es and al xadres of the Spaniards and Saracens. The same term has evidently given rise to the scaccorum Indus of the Latins, the scacchi of the Italians, the eehecs of the French, and, finally, the chess of the Eng lish.
This etymology, which is that of Bochart, is at least more plausible than that of Leunclavius, who derives the name from Uscoches, famous Turkish robbers ; or of P. Lermond, from the German scathe, " theft ;" or of G. Tolosanus, from the Hebrew search, " vallavit." It also explains the force of the term check, which is em ployed in the game when the king is in danger from any piece, and which was nothing else originally than the title of the king himself; and it accounts for the origin of the decisive stroke of the game check-mate, which is compounded of schach, " the king," and nzat, a word ex pressing " dead" in Persian and other Eastern lan guages.
The schach or king has retained his name and dignity throughout every variation of the game of chess. The next piece in dignity, how ever, which has long been thc queen in Europe, was never so denominated in the East ; but had the rank of minister, or visir, or fern, among the Persians ; a name which it has been supposed, -.vith great probability, was corrupted into vierge by the French ; whence the origin of a female upon the chess board. The old French poets, such as the author of the Roman de la Rose, call this piece fierce, fierche, and fierge; and, in a manuscript of Lydgate, monk of St Edmund's Bury, quoted by Dr Hyde, the fate of the king ;n a game of chess is thus described : " Was of a fern so fortunate, Into a corner drive and maat." lowed to retract, provided your adversary has not com pleted his next move.