APPENDIX. ON DISPUTED POINTS.

By suggesting elementary regulations, and by improvements on the best plans of his predecessors, Philidor laid a foundation for investing the theory of the game with stability and excellence; and there wants only the concurrent efforts of reasoning players, to give the few principles which remain afloat, or which rest, by sufferance, on bases that do not harmonize, a settlement that by an agreement of parts, and a coincidence with order, shall be entitled to permanence.

As the object of the game is to convey into the mind a facility at resource by exercise, it seems peculiarly worthy to receive, from time to time, all the improvement, as a system, that experience and reflection can bestow. But the thinking votary of Chess, in the cultivation of this slow maturity, will guard it from all radical changes; because the history of its progress, through successive ages, and in various countries, allows no hope of producing all at once, by any effort of mind, a combination of study with amusement, to be pursued as a game, that shall rival it in utility and interest.

As a prelude to a complete adjustment of principles, the Nomenclature of Chess, circumscribed in subjects, but redundant in obscurity and error, deserves attention. Care should be taken to distinguish, by appropriate terms, the Elementary Institutes which fix the powers, and modes of action of the pieces, from the General Maxims, or Directions for Playing, which communicate, as far as theoretic indications can, the most dextrous ways of using them; and these, again, should be distinguished from those Laws or Regulations which obviate or decide disputes between players, respecting punctilios in the management of the pieces, and the board. In Treatises of Chess, these have been indiscriminately blended under the general name of Rules; to the impediment of the student, exploring publications for a lucid path to the game. A neglect of division and arrangement, was the less pardonable in works professed to be scientific compendiums of Chess, because discretionary liberty was afforded, in the local position of the materials, by the extent of the plan. The framers of the Laws of Chess⁠[36], on the contrary, had it not in contemplation to compose a system for the uninitiate; which is a satisfactory apology for their mixing decisions on a few disputed points, which belong to the class of Elementary Institutes, with Provisions, or Laws, to prevent the errors or inadvertencies of players, from obstructing the game.

It is not intended to call in question the justness of the general tenor of their short code, which administers corrections of incidental informalities, perfectly equitable. Sections IX, X, XI, XII, however, are employed in regulating the powers and modes of action of peculiar pieces, embracing the most problematical points. Separating these, we investigate their propriety, in the order there pursued.

Section IX. enacts, that a pawn may become a queen, when ALL the pieces remain on the board. Consequently a player may have two, or a greater plurality of queens. How, enquires the player recently entered on the study of the game, is each additional queen to be represented and distinguished? By placing two pawns on one square, and pushing them about in company; a solecism in theory, a barbarism in practice. Against it, Philidor, in the first edition of his work, violently inveighs. His reasons and his poignant ridicule are recorded; but he has not favoured us with the arguments by which he was afterwards induced to give it countenance. Perhaps he was overborne by a majority, prepossessed in favour of a practice, to which, from their first acquaintance with the game, they had been accustomed.

The Editor begs leave to suggest, that by limiting the promotion of the pawn to the highest office or, power, vacant, an incongruity revolting against method, may be avoided; and a moderate share of skill will still enable the player, to derive the utmost preponderance from a pawn on the eve of promotion. It is only necessary previously to offer an exchange of queens, which can seldom be refused, without surrendering the advantage of position: not to mention that the conversion of a pawn merely into a rook, would prove, in the hands of an able player, an effective acquisition.

We now enter on the consideration of Section X. It must be owned that Philidor was always an advocate for the principle which pervades it, inculcating it before it was engrafted in the English code. It professes to establish, that an unmoved pawn may be disqualified from advancing two squares, by the circumstance of an adverse pawn having penetrated to the fourth square of an adjoining file. There is a refinement in this decision, which, while the mistake on which it rests lay undetected, recommended it to the ingenious. Expose the mistake which probably gave rise to it, and the rule is left without foundation. The phrase "two steps the first move," or "two moves the first step," an occasional substitution, was current through chess books, and with players. Hence a habit was implicitly contracted, of contemplating a pawn exercising this power, as making TWO moves of ONE square each, not ONE continued integral move of TWO squares. The Editor observes, that if the former idea be right, every one must admit the rule to be right; for who could make a journey of 20 miles, that is precluded from going the first 10. But if the latter idea be the correct one, if the pawn, at its first move, have really the power of going two squares at one effort, it is as irregular to prohibit the exercise of that power, because the pawn, were it to halt on its way, would be taken; as it would be to prohibit the bishop, the rook, or the queen, the full exercise of their greater powers, whenever there is a square in the line of their passage, at which they could not rest without being taken. Ought any of the latter pieces to be precluded from passing such a square? The absurdity of the phraseology which supports the rule is conspicuous, when extended to the queen; it would be grotesque to say, that she makes seven moves. For these reasons, in describing the properties of the pawn, in the INTRODUCTION TO CHESS, in the first volume, no notice is taken of this disqualification.

Section XI. involves nothing that can materially offend the advocate of order, except that in pursuing one species of uniformity, it loses sight of another. By confining the king to move precisely the same distance from his original square, whether he castles on the king’s side or the queen’s side, his relation to the covering pawns, when castled, and the space from the exterior of the board, is not on each side uniform. If the rule be intended to restrain a piece from exerting unnecessary license, in leaping over another piece, it should be remembered, that either the king or the rook must vault three squares in castling on the queen’s side, and the king is entitled to the prerogative of taking this flight once in a campaign, in preference to the rook. Under the mode here prescribed, the king is not equally shielded on the queen’s side as on the king’s. In the inceptive games of the Introduction, the castled king is invariably placed on the knight’s square, and the rook on the bishop’s. The object, however, is of less importance than the two preceding; and as to any striking influence on the aspect of the game, does not furnish materials for a cogent argument, founded on a comparison of effects. The reader having surveyed both modes, will induct that which he approves, into his own practice.

Section XII. embraces several objects. It is therefore recapitulated, with the points which the Editor invites to be considered, distinguished by Italics. "The king cannot castle when in check, nor after having been moved, nor if in passing he was exposed to a check, nor with a rook which has been moved: and he that castles when he should not, must play his rook touched, or his king, at his own choice." Is not the prohibition upon the king from castling, when in check, as extraordinary as if a general were prevented from flying under the guns of a fort, when the efforts of a numerous enemy were concentrated on him? If this disability be essential to a tactical conduct of the game, let it be continued. It seems, however, to have been transmitted from player to player, after the reasons which occasioned it ceased to exist. In past eras of Chess, the king and rook had such a latitude in castling, that the assailant might be defied to conjecture to what part they would be transported. The most expedient qualification of this license, that then presented itself, was to restrict the king from castling when in check, in order that an elaborate attack might not be entirely eluded. Succeeding legislators of Chess have defined the place of castling, and the distance to be passed; and the original argument, for the prohibition under discussion, has vanished. Reason will not oppose a repeal of one of the restrictions on the chief piece on the board, at the multiplicity of which every person, on a first introduction to the game, feels surprise. It is to be added, that very interesting situations occur, by allowing the king to castle when in check; and that trains of operation parallel, cannot be induced under a contrary practice.

With respect to the prohibition from castling, if the king in passing would be exposed to a check, it rests precisely on the same grounds as the disability imposed on the pawn; and a restriction from passing a square on which an adverse piece acts, should be imposed on all the pieces, or on none; now if it were general, it would be impossible to pursue the game, from the wearying and minute examination of every square, in all possible tracks, which would be incumbent on the player; and the consequent paralysis of the leading pieces, which it would occasion. If this excessive refinement controlled all the movements on the board, chess would have a constitution most ingeniously impracticable.

FINIS.

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