In the early part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Middleton wrote a comedy styled "A Game at Chess," which was acted at the Globe (Shakspeare's) nine times successively. It seems to have been a severe tirade on the religious aspects of the times. The stage directions are significant: for example:--Act I., Scene 1. _Enter severally, in order of the game, the White and Black houses_. Act II., Scene 1. _Enter severally White Queen's Pawnes and Black Queen's Pawnes_. The Prologue is as follows:-- "What of the game called Chesse-play can be made To make a stage-play shall this day be played. First you shall see the men in order set, States, and their Pawnes, when both the sides are met; The houses well distinguished: in the game Some men entrapt, and taken to their shame, Bewarded by their play: and in the close You shall see checque-mate given to Virtue's foes. But the fair'st jewel that our hopes can decke Is so to play our game t'avoid your checke." The play excited indignation in the partisans of the Romish Church, and was not only suppressed by James I., but at the demand of the Queen its author was imprisoned, and was relieved only by a witty verse sent to the King. The last which we have room to quote is anonymous, and of date near 1632. It may have been written by the celebrated divine, Thomas Jackson, of Corpus-Christi College, whose discourse comparing the visible world to a "Devil's Chess-board" evidently suggested the familiar etching in which Satan contends with a youth for his soul. The lines are entitled: THE PAWNE. "A lowly one I saw, With aim fist high: Ne to the righte, Ne to the lefte Veering, he marchèd by his Lawe, The crested Knyghte passed by, And haughty surplice-vest, As onward toward his heste With patient step he prest, Soothfaste his eye: Now, lo! the last doore yieldeth, His hand a sceptre wieldeth, A crowne his forehead shieldeth! "So 'mergeth the true-hearted, With aim fixt high, From place obscure and lowly: Veereth he nought; His work he wroughte. How many loyall paths be trod, Soe many royall Crownes hath God!" It is very clear that the pawns in chess represent the common soldiers in battle. The Germans call them "peasants" (_Bauern_); the Hindoos call them _Baul_, or "powers" (in the sense of _force_); and that each of these, if he can pursue his file to its end, should win a crown has always given to this game a popular stamp. These pawns are doubtless, next to knights, the most interesting pieces on the board: Philidor called them "the soul of chess."