ne favour, won all the games.' Here,
singularly enough, we find a Persian Staunton making himself famous
perhaps long before Norman William thought of invading Britain--so
true it is, that in mere intellectual achievements we have scarcely
surpassed bygone generations. He, the Persian, evidently entertained a
comfortable idea of his own abilities; for he boasts largely of the
improvements and new moves or positions which he has introduced into
the game. He disputes, too, the authenticity of the belief, that chess
was originally invented in India, and that it was first introduced
into Persia in the sixth century of our era by a physician, whom
Nushirwan had sent to seek for the work known as Pilpay's Fables. On
the contrary, he contends that chess, in its original and most
developed form, is purely a Persian invention, and that the modern
game is but an abridgment of the ancient one. In how far this
statement is borne out by the fact, we have at present no means of
knowing; and until some more complete manuscript or other work shall
be brought to light which may supply the want, we must rest content
with the account familiar to most readers--that chess was invented by
an Indian physician for the diversion of the monarch, his master, and
the reward claimed in grains of corn, beginning with one grain on the
first square of the board, and doubling the number in regularly
increasing progression up to the last.

We may here briefly state what the ancient, or, as it is commonly
called in the East, 'Timour's Game,' was. It required a board with 110
squares and 56 men--almost as many again as are used in modern
chess--and the moves were extremely complicated and difficult to
learn. The rectangularity of the board was interrupted by four lateral
squares, which served as a fort, or special point of defence for the
king, whose powers, as well as those of the other pieces, were in many
respects different from those at present known. 'Timour's mind,' we
are told, 'was too exalted to play at the Little Chess, and therefore
he played only at the Great Chess, on a board of ten squares by
eleven, with the addition of two camels, two zarafahs,' and other
pieces, with Persian designations.

Next we come to a complete chapter, entitled the 'Ten Advantages of
Chess,' in which the views and reasonings are eminently Oriental and
characteristic. The first explains that food and exercise are good for
the mind as well as for the body, and that