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." [1] [Footnote 1: Translated in that excellent periodical, which no lover of chess should be without, _The Chess Monthly_, edited by Fiske and Morphy, New York. (Vol. i. p. 92.)] 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." "My boldnesse is turned to shame, For false Fortune hath played a game At the Chesse with me. "At the Chesse with me she gan to play, With her false draughts full divers Sho stale on me, and toke my fers:[1] And when I sawe my fers away, Alas! I couth no longer play. "Therewith Fortune said,' Checke here, And mate in the mid point of the checkere With a paune errant.' Alas! Full craftier to play she was Than Athalus, that made the game First of the Chesse, so was his name." [Footnote 1: Mediaeval name for the Queen, (originally the Counsellor,)--the strength of the board.]