Forbes introduces this article by observing: "Pope has much to answer for as the originator of a vast deal of rhetorical rubbish upon us in chess lectures and chess articles in periodicals. Here (he says), for example, is a fair stereotype specimen of this sort," and he concludes: "We recommend the above eloquent moreceaux, taken from a chess periodical now defunct, to the attention of chessmen at chess reunions, chess lectures, and those who are ambitious to do a spicy article for a chess periodical." This appears somewhat severe on Pope, even if it be reasonable and consistent, which may be doubted; for Forbes himself, writing to the "Chess Player's Chronicle," in 1853, about 120 years after Pope, and seven years before the appearance of his own "History of Chess," thus expressed himself: "In the present day it is impossible to trace the game of chess with moral certainty back to its source amidst the dark shades of antiquity, but I am quite ready to prove that the claim of the Hindoos as the inventors, is far more satisfactory than that of any other people." Pope needs no defenders. There are writers of more recent date, who have inflicted what Forbes would probably call more rhetorical rubbish upon chess readers. Here is one other example, which appeared in 1865: "Though the precise birth and parentage of chess are absolutely unknown, yet a light marks the track of this royal personage adown the ages, by which we may clearly enough discern one significant note of his progress, that he has always kept the very best of company. We find him ever in the bosom of civilization, the companion of the wise and thoughtful, the beloved of the studious and mild. Barbarous men had to be humanized and elevated before he would come to them. While the East remained the better part of the world he confined himself to the East; when the West was to be regenerated he attended with the other agents of beneficial destiny, and helped the good work on. He seems to have entered Europe on two opposite sides. Along with philosophy and letters Spain and Portugal received him, with other good gifts, from their benefactors the Saracens; and he is seen in the eighth century at Constantinople, quietly biding his time for a further advance. >From that time to the present, chess has been the delight of kings and kaisers, of the reflecting, the witty, and the good." ------ The Indian and American views will be found in the sequel.