CHESS GOSSIP.

NE of the reputed origins of chess is, that it was expressly invented for the purpose of teaching a youthful despot that a king, after all, although of course the most important personage in the realm, is still able to effect little or nothing without the assistance and support of his subjects. The Indian sage, who thus undertook the joint duties of reformer of royalty and professor of chess, improved the occasion both to convey other truths and to render access to the presence easier.

If chess at the outset served as a lesson and also as an opportunity of communication between great personages and those below them, it has subsequently not less frequently answered the same purposes of introduction. When noble Ebbeson went to Bohemia to seek a wife for his master, king Valdemar of Denmark, they dressed the princess in blue silk, and led her into the great hall. They then brought the chess-board and the table of massive gold, that the noble Ebbeson might play with the princess and converse with her alone. At the third move they were agreed; noble Ebbeson had won a good wife for his king.

Ferdinand and Miranda's game, in the Tempest,' had much the same sort of character, with the pleasant difference, however, of love-making in person, instead of by proxy.

MIRANDA. Sweet lord, you play me false.
FERDINAND. No, my dearest love,

I would not for the world.

MIRANDA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play.

A similar desire for semi-official téte-à-tétes with gentlemen attached to her court, might be one reason of our queen Elizabeth's fondness for chess. She even flirted by means of chessmen; as when she sent Sir Charles Blount, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, a golden chessman, and that the queen, which he wore with a red favour; and which caused the Earl of Essex to remark, with affected contempt, I perceive now that every fool will have his favour.' The consequence was that Sir Charles challenged him. They fought in Marybone Park, where Essex was disarmed and wounded in the thigh.

In good old times, when Charlemagne was the existing providential man, it was prudent to mind your moves, and what you were about, while playing chess. The 'Histoire de Gallien Restauré' relates that one day, when the hero was playing with his uncle Tibert, he cried in a loud voice, 'I say "mate!" and took the king. The uncle, beaten, fell into a rage, pommelled his nephew's head with the chessboard till the blood flowed freely, and called him unpolite names, bastard' for instance. Gallien, naturally, went and told his mother, who comforted his sorrows and healed his wounds, but admitted that the title applied to him was true. At which, Gallien philosophically remarked, Better to be a bastard and a bold cavalier, than a cowardly lout born in lawful wedlock.' Oh, the refinement of the good old times!

In western Europe the game of chess is played by two adversaries only; and never, like dominoes, cribbage, and some other games, by one against one or by two partners against two, at pleasure. But the Russians