in swimming and skating, their talents in poetry, and their knowing all the stars by their names. (Mallet, Introd. Hist. Denmark, chap. xiii). Mr. Barrow informs us that the chess of the Chinese1 is totally different from that both of the Hindus and Persians. Travels in China, p. 158. It has been therefore probably, in each of those cases, a separate invention. The idea that chess was invented by the Hindus was, we believe, first started by Hyde 2 (de Relig. Vet. Pers. ii.), and therefore it has been taken for granted. That there are books in India containing the doctrine of chess proves nothing.3 There are books in Icelandic, on the art of poetry, but the Icelanders were not the inventors of poetry."

REMARKS.

With regard to the Araucanians, and their claims to the invention of Chess, I have merely to repeat what I said respecting the Irish,

1 of the Chinese game, the reader will easily judge for himself by perusing the last portion of our seventeenth chapter of the preceding work. To assert that it is "totally different" from that both of the Hindus and Persian (which, by the way, are precisely the same game), is altogether erroneous. The Chinese Chess is simply the Medieval game in a bewitched or stereotype condition, like everything else belonging to the "soi disant" Celestials.-F.

2 This is a gross error-the idea was not first started by Hyde. It existed in the writings of the Persian and Arabian authors for at least a thousand years before Hyde lived. Surely Mr. Mill might have seen, from the numerous examples quoted by Hyde, together with his Latin translation of the same, (for of "Oriental languages Mill knew nothing and cared less,) that this idea of the Hindu origin of Chess was not of Hyde's own starting. Finally, so far as I am myself concerned, I beg to state, that I take nothing of the kind "for granted." I have carefully examined Hyde's original authorities, and I find, that, with a few trifling exceptions, his deductions throughout are perfectly sound and satisfactory; and I trust it is not too much on my part to say that I cannot pay Mr. Mill the same compliment. Finally, Mr. Mill's reference to Hyde "de Relig. Vet. Pers. II." is doubly wrong. In the first place there is nothing said in that work of Hyde's respecting Chess; and, secondly, the work is only in one volume, 4to., not two, as here indicated. This can hardly be called a mere error of the press."-F.

.

3 This is contemptible cavilling on the part of Mill. He conjures up a shadow of an argument in order to show how easily he can blow it away. The existence of Hindu treatises on Chess, alluded to by Sir W. Jones, is not, as Mill well knows, intended to prove anything-it is simply an incidental remark, hence this last assertion by Mill is a mere truism. If the multitude of books "containing the doctrine of Chess," were of any avail as an argument for the invention of the game; then most assuredly the honour would have belonged to the English, who so far as I know, have as yet very modestly refrained from putting forth their claims on such grounds.-F.

viz. the probability that two nations, independent of each other, should have invented a game so ingenious, so scientific, and so complex as Chess, is so extremely small as to amount almost to an impossibility; nor can we for a moment suppose that the Araucanians had any intercourse with the Hindus, whose claim to the invention is indisputable. Equally untenable is Mr. Mill's assertion respecting the "Chess of the Chinese," when he says that it is "totally different from that both of the Hindus and Persians,” and that "it has been, therefore, probably in each of those cases, a separate invention!" We must in charity suppose that Mr. Mill really knew nothing of Chess, whether Hindu, Persian, or Chinese.

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I now come to what I believe to have been the fact. The Araucanians, for the last three hundred years, had for their neighbours, both to the north and south, the Spaniards, from whom they adopted all improvements in agriculture, &c., then known to the latter. We are told in "Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography "(Art. Chili), that they raise Indian corn in abundance: they grow most admirable potatoes, which are probably indigenous; and have a good stock of horses and horned cattle." Now what is more natural and probable than the fact that the Araucanians acquired their knowledge of Chess from their Spanish neighbours, some two to three hundred years ago? As to the assertion of the Rev. Abbate Giovanni Ignazio Molina, that "Chess has been known to them from time immemorial," I hold it to be of no greater weight than that of his contemporary, the Abbé Mac-Geoghegan-in re Cathir Mòr, &c. Besides, what does the expression “time immemorial" amount to? Simply this, some indefinite period beyond the recollection of that trustworthy personage who occasionally figures among us under the appellation of the "oldest inhabitant."

Lastly. Mr. Mill's remark on the passage from Paul Diaconus, expressive of the manners of the Heruli," viz., "dum ad tabulam luderet," is not worth one moment's consideration. Here, however, it must be confessed, that he has some excuse, for the learned multitude are, generally speaking, on his side. To all such I recommend a careful perusal of my friend Mr. Coleridge's masterly "Essay on Greek and Roman Chess," given in Appendix B.

It may be supposed by those unacquainted with the subject that I have spoken with undue severity of Mr. Mill's History. I therefore subjoin the late Professor Wilson's opinion of it, viz.-" Of the proofs which may be discovered in Mr. Mill's history of the operation of preconceived opinions, in confining a vigorous and active under

standing to a partial and one-sided view of a great question, no instance is more remarkable than the unrelenting pertinacity with which he labours to establish the barbarism of the Hindus. Indignant at the exalted, and it may be granted, sometimes exaggerated descriptions of their advance in civilization, of their learning, their sciences, their talents, their virtues, which emanated from the amiable enthusiasm of Sir William Jones, Mr. Mill has entered the lists against him with equal enthusiasm, but a less commendable purpose, and has sought to reduce them as far below their proper level, as their encomiasts may have formerly elevated them above it. With very imperfect knowledge, with materials exceedingly defective, with an implicit faith in all testimony hostile to Hindu pretensions, he has elaborated a portrait of the Hindus which has no resemblance whatever to the original, and which almost outrages humanity. As he represents them, the Hindūs are not only on a par with the least civilized nations of the Old and New World, but they are plunged almost without exception in the lowest depths of immorality and crime. Considered merely in a literary capacity, the description of the Hindūs, in the History of British India, is open to censure for its obvious unfairness and injustice; but in the effects which it is likely to exercise upon the connexion between the people of England and the people of India, it is chargeable with more than literary demerit its tendency is evil; it is calculated to destroy all sympathy between the rulers and the ruled."1

1 History of British India, by James Mill, Esq., fourth edition, with Notes and Continuation, by Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., F.R.S., &c., &c. London, 1840. 9 vols. 8vo. Vide Preface by Professor Wilson, page vii., &c.

Explanation of the three folding Plates inserted at the end of the Volume.

PLATE I., page 140.

A representation of Timür's Great Chess-board and Men, as described by the anonymous author of the Persian MS., No. 260, belonging to the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. The three ranks at the top of the Plate contain the Persian names of the various pieces, &c., corresponding to those given in the three lower ranks.

PLATE II

The letters H, C, and G, respectively denote the Horse or Knight, Camel, and Giraffe. Each is supposed to have started from the central square marked thus ; hence their various ranges and powers, are

at once seen.

PLATE III.

Representation of Timur's Complete Chess, with all the additional pieces and Pawns filled in-as given in the Arabic MS., No. 7,322, belonging to the British Museum. The four ranks at the top contain the Arabic names of the various pieces, &c., corresponding to those in the four lower ranks.