The general remarks on playing by correspondence in this last passage are evidently made to furnish a pretence for introducing the notice of the London and Edinburgh match; and they share the fate of all such forced work. They are absolute nonsense. The probability that a decidedly superior will overcome an inferior player, is not at all diminished by the circumstance that the match is played by correspondence. On the contrary, we should rather be inclined to say that the chance of an inferior player's escape in a single game or so is almost extinguished where the match is played by correspondence; because the time given for deliberation increases the improbability of his antagonist's erring from carelessness, or not taking in the whole position of the game, which sometimes occurs in playing over the board. But there is an inconsequence in the whole argument which surprises us to find in anything sanctioned by a person of Mr Staunton's unquestionable powers of mind. The loss of the match by London is not to be wondered at, it is said, because it was a match by correspondence; and the immediate cause of their losing it was the commission of a ridiculous and vexatious blunder! To make this anything like logic, it would be necessary to hold that ridiculous and vexatious blunders are more likely to be committed when the player has time and opportunity to consider his moves, and to make experiments upon their effect, than where he is under the necessity of moving at once in presence of an adversary, and possibly of spectators, apt to get impatient at long delay. It is plain that the game's being played by correspondence was the very circumstance calculated to render the London Club's particular excuse for losing all the more untenable. It is quite true, however, that at a particular stage of the game opened by the London Club, (being one of the two games with which the match commenced,) the London Club might have won the game, by playing other moves than they did. This may be said of every game; but it is as unusual as it is unhandsome for the unsuccessful party, merely because he has missed such an opportunity of winning, to refuse all credit to his adversary for afterwards defeating him. In the third game, which was drawn, the Edinburgh Club would have won if they had played a different 51st move from that which they did. But this did not lead them to make depreciatory remarks about their antagonists: all that their report bears on this point is, that the London Club "conducted a difficult defence with great skill and dexterity, and finally succeeded in drawing the game."