Chess Player's Chronicle/Series 3/Volume 1/Number 2/The Progress of Chess

The Progress of Chess

A quarter of a century ago, when the two champions of the rival countries, whose mortal remains now peaceably repose, side by side, in Kensall Green Cemetery, were astonishing the Chess world by their prowess, unrivaled till then, unsurpassed even now, the literary department of Chess was far from being in a flourishing state. The hundred battles, in which, by turns, the high-spirited Frenchman defeated the stern and unyielding Englishman, "who did not know when he was beaten," or he still smarting from the infliction of late and severe punishments, which the son of Albion sometimes administered to him with no sparing hand, was returning to the battle-field with the same unbroken spirit, ready for either victory of defeat, both games to the last, these splendid specimens of Chess strategy scarcely found a chronicler, and a great many of them were entirely lost to posterity. It was then considered an event when a meagre and solitary Chess treatise at distant periods made its appearance. A Chess magazine was a thing as unheard of as an electric telegraph. No weekly paper had as yet opened its columns to regular Chess articles. The Chess editor was destined to be an invention of more recent days. When we now consider that, at the present moment, in the Metropolis alone, we have, besides this magazine, eleven weekly papers with regular Chess columns, we are once struck by the immense progress Chess literature has made during the last twenty-five years.

Unimportant as this fact may seem to the casual observer, we find therein good reasons to congratulate ourselves upon it. The Chess has found its way into so many periodical publications, in so short a space of time, proves (as the demand is always in the same ratio as the consumption) the rapid increase of Chess players. Now, Chess being a merely intellectual amusement, requiring already a higher and more refined mental standard, the extensive practice of the game shows a more extended civilization. A Chess tournament is a more refined spectacle than a cockfight or a pugilistic encounter, nay, even than a hunt by torch-light. Measuring, therefore, our social progress by our intellectual amusements, we have of late years outstripped all European nations. Even intellectual Germany cannot boast of an equal number of Chess publications, Chess institutions, or Chess players. As to France, alas! it has remained far behind in the lists; it has, we believe, but one single periodical where Chess occasionally makes a sullen appearance. As to Chess authors, whilst Germany has only its Heydebrandt, von der Lasa, and Russia its Jaenisch, that have produced works of merit, we have Lewis, Walker, and Staunton, each of whom has largely contributed to Chess literature. Our transatlantic brethren, altough thy have as yet no Chess authors, are the only nation that can rival us in periodical Chess literature; they are (and this speaks greatly in their favor) "going ahead" in Chess as well as in other things. Their Chess Monthly, although as yet in its infancy, promises to become, in time, a valuable resource to the Chess student, especially if the country sends forth other knights errant of the same stamp and valor as the one who is now filling Europe with his renown, and whose high deeds they will have the good fortune to chronicle.

It is not an unpleasant consideration, that even in Chess literature, the English nation stands in the foremost ranks—rivalled by few, surpassed by none

---