Forster thus describes the MS. of this poem in his _Life of Goldsmith_:—‘It is a small quarto manuscript of thirty-four pages, containing 679 lines, to which a fly-leaf is appended in which Goldsmith notes the differences of nomenclature between Vida’s chessmen and our own. It has occasional interlineations and corrections, but such as would occur in transcription rather than in a first or original copy. Sometimes indeed choice appears to have been made (as at page 29) between two words equally suitable to the sense and verse, as “to” for “toward”; but the insertions and erasures refer almost wholly to words or lines accidentally omitted and replaced. The triplet is always carefully marked; and seldom as it is found in any other of Goldsmith’s poems. I am disposed to regard its frequent recurrence here as even helping, in some degree, to explain the motive which had led him to the trial of an experiment in rhyme comparatively new to him. If we suppose him, half consciously, it may be, taking up the manner of the great master of translation, Dryden, who was at all times so much a favourite with him, he would at least, in so marked a peculiarity, be less apt to fall short than to err perhaps a little on the side of excess. Though I am far from thinking such to be the result in the present instance. The effect of the whole translation is pleasing to me, and the mock-heroic effect I think not a little assisted by the reiterated use of the triplet and alexandrine. As to any evidence of authorship derivable from the appearance of the manuscript, I will only add another word. The lines in the translation have been carefully counted, and the number is marked in Goldsmith’s hand at the close of his transcription. Such a fact is, of course, only to be taken in aid of other proof; but a man is not generally at the pains of counting, still less, I should say in such a case as Goldsmith’s, of elaborately transcribing, lines which are not his own.’ (Forster’s _Goldsmith_, 1871, ii. 235–6). When Forster wrote the above, the MS. was in the possession of Mr. Bolton Corney, who had not been aware of its existence when he edited Goldsmith’s Poems in 1845. In 1854 it was, with his permission, included in vol. iv of Cunningham’s _ Works_ of 1854, and subsequently in the Aldine _ Poems_ of 1866. Mark Jerome Vida of Cremona, 1490–1566, was Bishop of Alba, and favourite of Leo the Magnificent. Several translators had tried their hand at his _Game of Chess_ before Goldsmith. Lowndes mentions Rowbotham, 1562; Jeffreys, 1736; Erskine, 1736; Pullin, 1750; and _Anon_. (Eton), 1769 (who may have preceded Goldsmith). But after his (Goldsmith’s) death appeared another Oxford anonymous version, 1778, and one by Arthur Murphy, 1786.