Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860», sayfa 3

"You want to know about that alarming conversation? Well,"—(here Mr. Glover was so overcome with merriment, that, after a proper time, the interposition of official authority became necessary,)—"well, I am an engraver. My business is mainly to cut heads. Sometimes I use steel, sometimes copper. My brother, who is also an engraver, and I were discussing a new commission. I told him I should make use of a good bit of steel, which had already been engraved upon, but not so deeply but that the lines could be easily removed, excepting the eyes, which would have to be scraped away. My allusion to proof is easily explained: it is common for engravers to have a proof-impression taken of their work after it is finished, by which they are enabled to detect any imperfections, and remedy them.

"I am very sorry that my young friend should have considered me so much of a blood-thirsty ruffian. But the ale of Boston is no doubt strange to him, and his confusion at finding himself in a large city quite natural. Besides, his suspicions were in some degree reciprocated. When I saw him flying out of the window, I was convinced that he must be an ingenious burglar, and instantly ran back to examine my tools. I am glad to find that I was wrong. If he will return now with me, he shall be welcome to his share of the bed."

Mr. Lorrimer politely, but positively, declined.

Captain Morrill urbanely apologized to Mr. Glover, and engaged himself to make it right in the morning; whereupon Mr. Glover withdrew in cachinnatory convulsions. Mr. Lorrimer was instructed to resume his proper garments, and was then conveyed safely to his hotel, where he remained in deep abstraction until Monday, when, after transacting his business, he took the afternoon return-train for New York.

The case was not entered upon the records of the Third District Police.

* * * * *

THE GRANADAN GIRL'S SONG

 
All day the lime blows in the sun,
All day the silver aspens quiver,
All day along the far blue plain
Winds serpent-like the golden river.
From clustering flower and myrtle bower
Sweet sounds arise forever,
From gleaming tower with crescent dower
Our banner floats forever.
 
 
Its purple bloom the grape puts on,
Pulping to this Granadan summer,
And heavy dews shake through the globes
Scarce stirred by some bright-winged new-comer,
On gyon brown hill, where all is still,
Where lightly rides the muleteer,
With jangling bells, whose burden swells
Till shaft and arch rise fine and clear.
 
 
As one by one the shadows creep
Back to their lairs in hilly hollows,
A broader splendor issues forth
And on their track in silence follows;
A fuller air swims everywhere,
A freer murmur shakes the bough,
A thousand fires surprise the spires,
And all the city wakes below.
 
 
What morn shall rise, what cursed morn,
To find this bright pomp all surrendered,
These palaces an empty shell,
This vigor listless ruin rendered,—
While every sprite of its delight
Mocks fickle echoes through the court,
And in our place a sculptured trace
Saddens some stranger's careless sport?
 
 
Oh, gay with all the stately stir,
And bending to your silken flowing,
One day, my banner-poles, ye creak
Naked beneath the high winds blowing!
One day ye fall across the wall
And moulder in the moat's green bosom,
While in the cleft the wild tree left
Bursts into spikes of cruel blossom!
 
 
Ah, never dawn that day for me!
O Fate, its fierce foreboding banish!
When all our hosts, like pallid ghosts
Blown on by morning, melt and vanish!
Oh, in the fires of their desires
Consume the toil of those invaders!
And let the brand divide the hand
That grasps the hilt of the Crusaders!
 
 
Yet idle words in such a scene!
Yon rosy mists on high careering,—
The Moorish cavaliers who fleet
With hawk and hound and distant cheering,—
The dipping sail puffed to the gale,
The prow that spurns the billow's fawning,—
How can they fade to dimmer shade,
And how this day desert its dawning?
 
 
Forget to soar, thou rosy rack!
Ye riders, bronze your airy motion!
Still skim the seas, so snowy craft,—
Forever sail to meet the ocean!
There bid the tide refuse to slide,
Glassing, below, thy drooping pinion,—
Forever cease its wild caprice,
Fallen at the feet of our dominion!
 

* * * * *

THE HUMMING-BIRD

May 9th.

To-day, Estelle, your special messenger, the Humming-Bird, comes darting to our oriel, my Orient. As I sat sewing, his sudden, unexpected whirr made me look up. How did he know that the very first Japan-pear-bud opened this morning? Flower and bird came together by some wise prescience.

He has been sipping honey from your passion-flowers, and now has come to taste my blossoms. What bright-winged thought of yours sent him so straight to me, across that wide space of sea and land? Did he dart like a sunbeam all the way? There were many of them voyaged together; a little line of wavering light pierced the dark that night.

A large, brave heart has our bold sailor of the upper deep. Old Pindar never saw our little pet, this darling of the New World; yet he says,—

"Were it the will of Heaven, an osier-bough Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."

Here he is, safe enough, not one tiny feather ruffled,—all the intense life of the tropics condensed into this one live jewel,—the glance of the sun on emeralds and rubies. Is it soft downy feathers that take this rich metallic glow, changing their hue with every rapid turn?

Other birds fly: he darts quick as the glance of the eye,—sudden as thought, he is here, he is there. No floating, balancing motion, like the lazy butterfly, who fans the air with her broad sails. To the point, always to the point, he turns in straight lines. How stumbling and heavy is the flight of the "burly, dozing bumblebee," beside this quick intelligence! Our knight of the ruby throat, with lance in rest, makes wild and rapid sallies on this "little mundane bird,"—this bumblebee,—this rolling sailor, never off his sea-legs, always spinning his long homespun yarns. This rich bed of golden and crimson flowers is a handsome field of tournament. What invisible circle sits round to adjudge the prize?

What secret does he bring me under those misty wings,—that busy birring sound, like Neighbor Clark's spinning-wheel? Is he busy as well, this bit of pure light and heat? Yes! he, too, has got a little home down in the swamp over there,—that bit of a knot on the young oak-sapling. Last year we found a nest (and brought it home) lined with the floss of willow-catkin, stuck all over with lichens, deep enough to secure the two pure round pearls from being thrown out, strongly fastened to the forked branch,—a home so snug, so warm, so soft!—a home "contrived for fairy needs."

Who but the fairies, or Mr. Fine-Ear himself, ever heard the tiny tap of the young bird, when he breaks the imprisoning shell?

The mother-bird knows well the fine sound. Hours? days? no, weeks, she has sat to hear at last that least wave of sound.

What! this tiny bit of restless motion sit there still? Minutes must be long hours to her quick panting heart.

I will just whisper it in your ear, that the meek-looking mother-bird only comes out between daylight and dark,—just like other busy mothers I have known, who take a little run out after tea.

Can it be, that Mr. Ruby-Throat, my preux chevalier, keeps all the sunshiny hours for himself, that he may enjoy to the full his own gay flight?

Ah! you know nothing, hear nothing of woman's rights up there, in that well-ordered household. Were it not well, if we, too, could give up our royal right of choice,—if we could fall back on our strong earth-born instincts, to be, to know, to do, one thing?

See how closely our darling curls up his slender black feet and legs, that we may not see this one bit of mortality about him! No, my little immortal does not touch the earth; he hangs suspended by that long bill, which just tethers him to its flowers. Now and then he will let down the little black tendrils of legs and feet on some bare twig, and there be rests and preens those already smooth plumules with the long slender bodkin you lent him. Now, just now, he darts into my room, coquets with my basket of flowers, "a kiss, a touch, and then away." I heard the whirr of those gauzy wings; it was not to the flowers alone he told his story. You did well to trust this most passionate pilgrim with your secret; the room is radiant with it. Slow-flying doves may well draw the car of Venus; but this arrow tipped with flame darts before, to tell of its coming. What need of word, of song, with that iridescent glow? Some day I will hear the whole story; just now let the Humming-Bird keep it under his misty wings.

I have heard of a lady who reared these little birds from the nest; they would suck honey from her lips, and fly in and out of her chamber. Only think of seeing these callow fledglings! It is as if the winged thought could be domesticated, could learn to make its nest with us and rear its young.

Bountiful Nature has spared to our cold North this one compact bit from the Tropics.

* * * * *

I believe we allow that birds are very highly organized creatures,—next to man, they say. We, with our weary feet plodding always on the earth, our heavy arms pinioned close to our sides!—look at this live creature, with thinnest wing cutting the fine air! We, slow in word, slow in thought!—look at this quivering flame, kindled by some more passionate glance of Nature! Next to man? Yes, we might say next above. Had it not been for that fire we stole one day, that Promethean spark, hidden in the ashes, kept a-light ever since, it had gone hard with us; Nature might have kept her pet, her darling, high, high above us,—almost out of roach of our dull senses.

What is our boasted speech, with its harsh, rude sounds, to their gushing melody? We learn music, certainly, with much pains and care. The bird cannot tell if it be A sharp or B flat, but he sings.

Our old friend, the friend of our childhood, Mr. White of Selborne, (who had attended much to the life and conversation of birds,) says, "Their language is very elliptical; little is said, and much is meant and understood." Something like a lady's letter, is it not?

How wise we might grow, if we could only "the bird-language rightly spell"! In the olden times, we are told, the Caliphs and Viziers always listened to what the birds said about it, before they undertook any new enterprise. I have often thought I heard wise old folk discoursing, when a company of hens were busy on the side-hill, scratching and clucking together. Perchance some day we shall pick up a leaf of that herb which shall open our ears to these now inarticulate sounds.

Why may we not (just for this summer) believe in Transmigrations, and find some elder civilization embodied in this community of birds,—all those lost arts taken wings, not to fly away, but to come flitting and building in our trees, picking crumbs from our door-steps?

Do they say birds are limited? Who are we that set bounds to this direct knowledge, this instinct? Mathematical, constructive, they certainly are. What bold architect has builded so snug, so airy a house,—well concealed, and yet with a good outlook? We make our dwellings conspicuous; they hide their pretty art.

We wiseacres, who stay at home, instead of following the seasons round the globe, should learn the art of making happy homes; yet what housekeeper will not hang her head in shame and despair, to see this nice adaptation of use to wants, shown each year in multitudes of nests? Now, only look at it! always just room enough,—none to spare. First, the four or five eggs lie comfortably in the small round at the bottom of the nest, with room enough for the mother robin to give them the whole warmth of her broad red breast,—her sloping back and wings making a rain-proof roof over her jewels. Then the callow younglings rise a little higher into the wider circle. Next the fledglings brim the cup; at last it runs over; four large clumsy robins flutter to the ground, with much noise, much anxious calling from papa and mamma,—much good advice, no doubt. They are fairly turned out to shift for themselves; with the same wise, unfathomable eyes which have mirrored the round world for so many years, which know all things, say nothing, older than time, lively and quick as to-day; with the same touching melody in their long monotonous call; soon with the same power of wing; next year to build a nest with the same wise economy, each young robin carrying in his own swelling, bulging breast the model of the hollow circle, the cradle of other young robins. So you see it is a nest within a nest,—a whole nest of nests; like Vishnu Sarma's fables, or Scheherazade's stories, you can never find where one leaves off and another begins, they shut so one into the other. No wonder the children and philosophers are they who ask, whether the egg comes from the bird, or the bird from the egg. Yes, it is a Heimskringla, a world-circle, a home-circle, this nest.

You remember that little, old, withered man who used to bring us eggs; the boys, you know, called him Egg Pop. When the thrifty housewife complained of the small size of his ware, he always said,—

"Yes, Marm, they be small; but they be monstrous full."

Yes, the packing of the nest is close; but closer is the packing of the egg. "As full as an egg of meat" is a wise proverb.

Let us look at these first-fruits which the bountiful Spring hangs on our trees.

"To break the eggshell after the meat is out we are taught in our childhood, and practise it all our lives; which, nevertheless, is but a superstitious relict, according to the judgment of Pliny, and the intent hereof was to prevent witch-craft [to keep the fairies out]; for lest witches should draw or prick their names therein, and veneficiously mischief their persons, they broke the shell, as Dalecampius hath observed." This is what Sir Thomas Browne tells us about eggshells. And Dr. Wren adds, "Least they [the witches] perchance might use them for boates to sayle in by night." But I, who have no fear of witches, would not break them,—rather use them, try what an untold variety of forms we may make out of this delicate oval.

By a little skilful turning and reversing, putting on a handle, a lip here, a foot there, always following the sacred oval, we shall get a countless array of pitchers and vases, of perfect finished form, handsome enough to be the oval for a king's name. Should they attempt to copy our rare vases in finest Parian, alabaster, or jasper, their art would fail to hit the delicate tints and smoothness of this fine shell; and then those dots and dashes, careless as put on by a master's hand!

Are not these rare lines? They look to me as wise as hieroglyphics. Who knows what rhyme and reason are written there,—what subtile wisdom rounded into this small curve,—repeated on the breasts and backs of the birds,—their own notes, it may be, photographed on their swelling breasts like the musical notes on the harp-shell,—written in bright, almost audible colors on the petals of flowers,—harmonies, melodies, for ear and eye? Has this language, older than Erse, older than Sanscrit, ever got translated? I am afraid, dear, the key has been turned in the lock, and thrown into the well.

The ornithologists tell us that some birds build nicer nests, sing sweeter songs, than their companions of the same species. Can experience add wisdom to instinct? or is it the right of the elder-born,—the birthright of the young robin who first breaks the shell? Who has rightly looked into these things?

I half remember the story of a beautiful princess who had all imaginable wealth in her stately palace, itself builded up of rare and costly jewels. She had everything that heart could desire,—everything but a roc's egg. Her mind was contracted with sorrow, till she could procure this one ornament more to her splendors. I think it turned out that the palace itself was built within the roc's egg. These birds are immense, and take up three elephants at a time in their powerful talons, (almost as many as Gordon Cumming himself, on a good day's hunt,) and their eggs are like domes.

Now, do not you be like the foolish princess, and desire a roc's egg; it will prove a stone, the egg of a rock, indeed. Be content rather with this ostrich-egg I send you; with your own slender fingers lift the lid;—pretty, is it not, the tea-service I send you? The tidy warblers threw out the emptied shells; one by one I picked them up, and have made cups and saucers, bowls and pitchers for you: a roc's egg never held anything one-half so fine.

You will say I am a fairy, as brother Evelyn says, when I relate to him the fine sights and sounds I have seen and heard in the woods. No, but the little silent people are very good to me.

Let me, then, go on my bird's-egging and tell you one more fact about our fairy, our Humming-Bird. Audubon says "that an all-wise Providence has made this little hero an exception to a rule which prevails almost universally through Nature,—namely, that the smallest species of a tribe are the most prolific. The eagle lays one, sometimes two eggs; the small European wren fifteen; the humming-bird two: and yet this latter is abundantly more numerous in America than the wren in Europe." All on account of his wonderful courage, admirable instinct, or whatever it is that guards and guides him so unerringly.

 
You see we may well love him whom
Nature herself loves so dearly.
 

"Ce que Dieu garde est bien gardé."

Ah, Estelle! your bonnie birdie, with his wild whirr, darting back and forth like a weaver's shuttle weaving fine wefts, has got into my head; not "bee-bonneted," but bird-bonneted, I go. Yes, this day shall be given to the king, as our country-folk say, when they go a-pleasuring. I am off with the little wool-gatherers, to see what thorn and brier and fern-stalk and willow-catkin will give me. Good-day! good-day!

Your own

SUSAN, SUSY, SUE.

P. S. "May our friendship never moult a feather!"

* * * * *

CHESS

Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars one by one, who is known to have been borne, (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl,) at midnight, first to the evening star, and then to the moon, and then set down safely in his home,—and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a mystic seer, and had conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets, approaching also, on one occasion, so nigh unto Uriel that his beard was singed by the sun, wherein that angel resideth,—these, ten million years ago, lived in their palaces on adjoining estates and lands. But about the boundary-line atwixt them they could not agree: Schatrenschar maintaining that he had lived there longest, and had a right to choose where the wall should be built between himself and a later comer; Al Kahlminar declaring that the world was not made for Schatrenschar,—furthermore, that the Astronomer had paid nothing for the land, and had already more than he could attend to, since his chief devotion was manifestly to the estates he was reputed to own in Venus and the moon. They came to no decision; and it was beneath the dignity of these men, who prided themselves on being confidants elect of invisible and superior worlds, publicly to wrangle about the gross soil of this. Nevertheless, Schatrenschar, at last, losing patience, cried,—

"Al Kahlminar, 'tis but by the grace of Yezdan, who hath commissioned me to watch the sacred stars, which reveal not themselves to the violent, that I am saved this day from flogging thee!"

To this the Seer: "O Schatrenschar, thou must have left in some of thy other worlds, mayhap in Venus, the limbs which can cope with these."

"Nay," replied the Astronomer, discerning some truth in that remark, "but I am not alone, Al Kahlminar; I have within my palace two valiant knights, skilled with the steed and the spear, who are ready to go forth in my stead at a word."

"And I," answered the Mystic, warming, "have two godly priests, men skilled by the orthodox beheading of heretics into the aim and valor of Arjoon himself. Your knights cannot stand before these messengers of Heaven; they will tremble like aspen-leaves, lest Allah be wroth, if they receive harm."

"If thou shouldst bring forth thy priests, Al Kahlminar, then would I confront them and thee with the two elephants which my brother sent me lately from Geestan, on each of which I can place a rook with a slave cunning with the javelin, before which thy priests will flee; for the animals see no difference between priests and other mortals;—the elephant is sagacious, neighbor!"

"And I," said the other, "haye riches, which thou hast not. Whatever thou hast wherewith to extend thy line into my lot, I can oppose with an equal force,—nay, with a stronger."

Schatrenschar hereupon paused in deep meditation. Presently a subtile thought struck him. He took a parchment-leaf and drew thereon a diagram; and after inscribing several hieroglyphic characters, he cried out,—

"Hearken, Al Kahlminar; hast thou not heard it among the sayings of Sasan, that the battle is not always to him who hath the superior physical force? Suppose that in our encounter thy forces stood here, as marked on these squares: by what stratagem couldst thou reach me, who stand here with even fewer and weaker men? If thou canst tell as much without my assistance, I will yield the boundary-line; for it will show thee to have a calculation equal to my own, as well as riches."

Al Kahlminar pondered long, suffered manifold headaches, closed not an eyelid for a week, but could not give answer. The Mystic was used to seeing only those things to see which the eyes must be closed. At length Schatrenschar opened the problem to him, which so delighted his heart that he clave unto him, and besought him that their estates should be one, and that he would use his (Al Kahlminar's) riches as his own. A bower was built midway between their houses, wherein they sat for hours over other diagrams, contrived first by the Astronomer afterward by the Mystic: and out of it arose a curious and knightly play which beareth to this day the name Schatrenschar.

* * * * *

Perhaps this last line of the old Sanscrit story is the only veracious thing in it. Perhaps it is all true. Who can answer? Was there ever a great thing whose origin was not in some doubt? If so with the Iliad, with Platonic Dialogues, with Shakspearian Plays, how naturally so with Chess! The historic sinew of the above would seem to be, that Schatrenschar, the Oriental word for Chess, is the name of a very ancient and learned astronomer of Persia; how much mythologic fat has enveloped said sinew the reader must decide. Philological inquisition of the origin of the low Latin Scacchi (whence the French Echecs, Ger. Schach, and our Chess,) has led to a variety of conclusions. Leunclavius takes it from Uscoches, famous Turkish banditti. Sirmond finds the word's parent in German Schächer (robber) and grandparent in Calculus! Tolosanus derives check-mate from Heb. schach (to prevail) and mat (dead). Fabricius favors the idea we have given above, and says, "A celebrated Persian astronomer, one Schatrenschar, invented the game of Chess, and gave it his own name, which it still bears in that country." Nicod derives it from Xeque, a Moorish word for Prince or Lord. Bochart maintains that Schach-mat is originally Persian, and means "the king is dead." We incline to accept this last opinion; and believe, that, though the game must have originated with some person, perhaps Schatrenschar, yet it reached its present form and perfection only through many touchings and retouchings of men and generations. Pope's translation of the "Odyssey" has led many persons to think that chess was known to the ancient Greeks, because, in describing the sports of Penelope's suitors, the translator says,—

 
"With rival art and ardor in their mien,
At Chess they vie to captivate the Queen."
 

But there can be little doubt that this is an anachronism.

In short, we may safely conclude that the game is of purely Oriental origin. The Hindoos claim to have originated it,—or rather, say that Siva, the Third Person of their Trinity, (Siva, the Destroyer,—alas! of time?) gave it to them; Professor Forbes has shown that it has been known among them five thousand years; but words tell no myths, and the Bengalee name for Chess, Shathorunch, casts its ballot for Persia and Shatrenschar;—though India may almost claim it, on account of the greater perfection to which it has brought the game, and the lead it has always taken in chess-culture. India rejoices in a flourishing chess-school. The Indian Problem is known as the perfection of Enigmatic Chess. And if Paul Morphy had gone to Calcutta, instead of London and Paris, he would have found there one Mohesh Ghutuck, who, without discovering that he was a P. and move behind his best play, and without becoming too sick to proceed with the match, would have given him a much finer game than any antagonist he has yet encountered. This Mohesh, who was presented by his admiring king with a richly-carved chess-king of solid gold nine inches high, not only plays a fabulous number of games at once whilst he lies on the ground with closed eyes, but games that none of the many fine native and English players of India can engage in but with dismay. Fine, indeed, it would have been, if the world could have seen in the youths of Calcutta and New Orleans the extreme West matched with the extreme East!

There is no call for any one to vindicate this game. Chess is a great, worldwide fact. Wherever a highway is found, there, we may be sure, a reason existed for a highway. And when we find that the explorer on his northward voyage, pausing a day in Iceland, may pass his time in keen encounters with the natives,—that the trader in Kamtschatka and China, unable to speak a word with the people surrounding him, yet holds a long evening's converse over the board which is polyglot,—that the missionary returns from his pulpit, and the Hindoo from his widow-burning, to engage in a controversy without the theologicum odium attached,—the game becomes authentic from its universality. It is akin to music, to love, to joy, in that it sets aside alike social caste and sectarian differences: kings and peasants, warriors and priests, lords and ladies, mingle over the board as they are represented upon it. "The earliest chess-men on the banks of the Sacred River were worshippers of Buddha; a player whose name and fame have grown into an Arabic proverb was a Moslem; a Hebrew Rabbi of renown, in and out of the Synagogues, wrote one of the finest chess poems extant; a Catholic priest of Spain has bestowed his name upon two openings; one of the foremost problem—composers of the age is a Protestant clergyman of England; and the Greek Church numbers several cultivators of chess unrivaled in our day." It has received eulogies from Burton,—from Castiglione,—from Chatham, who, in reply to a compliment on a grand stroke of invention and successful oratory, said, "My success arose only from having been checkmated by discovery, the day before, at chess,"—from Comenius, the grammarian,—from Condé, Cowley, Denham, Justus van Effen, Sir Thomas Elyot, Guillim, Helvetia, Huarte, Sir William Jones, Leibnitz, Lydgate, Olaus Magnus, Pasquier, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rousseau, Voltaire, Samuel Warren, Warton, Franklin, Buckle, and many others of ability in every department of letters, philosophy, and art. We know of but one man of genius or learning—who has repudiated it,—Montaigne. "Or if he [Alexander] played at chess," says Montaigne, "what string of his soul was not touched by this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it because it is not play enough,—that it is too grave and serious a diversion; and I am ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon that as would serve to much better uses." Looked at simply as a diversion, chess might naturally impress a man of intellectual earnestness thus. It is not a diversion; a recreation it may be called, but only as any variation from "the shop" is recreative. But chess has, by the experiences of many, sufficiently proved itself to have serious uses to men of thought, and in the way of an intellectual gymnasium. It is to the limbs and sinews of the mind—prudence, foresight, memory, combination, analysis—just what a gymnasium is to the body. In it every muscle, every joint of the understanding is put under drill; and we know, that, where the mind does not have exercise for its body, but relics simply on idle cessation for its reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon, a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,—such as made Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love, peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."—But we promised not to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine verse of the Oriental bard, Ibn ul Mûtazz:—

 
"O thou whose cynic sneers express
The censure of our favorite chess,
Know that its skill is Science' self,
Its play distraction from distress.
It soothes the anxious lover's care;
It weans the drunkard from excess;
It counsels warriors in their art,
When dangers threat and perils press;
And yields us, when we need them most,
Companions in our loneliness."³
 

Now that the Persian poet has touched his lyre in our pages, we will not at once pass to any cold geographical or analytical realm of our subject, but pause awhile to cull some flowers of song which have sprung up on good English soil, which the feet of Caïssa have ever loved to press. No other games, and few other subjects, have gathered about them so rich a literature, or been intertwined with so much philological and historical lore. Not the least of this is to be found in the English classics, from which we propose to make one or two selections. We begin where English poetry begins, with Dan Chaucer; and from many beautiful conceits turning upon chess, we select one which must receive universal admiration. It is from the "Booke of the Duchesse."