come to inquire into the state of the Game itself during the 13th century; in the prosecution of which inquiry many interesting situations in Chess will be given, and various specimens of scientific play adduced to prove that the knowledge of Chess at that early period was neither contemptible nor superficial. Prior to my entering into this part of the Essay, I will here present the reader with a specimen of one position taken from the Cotton MS. and the MS. in the King's library, as it will show the manner in which the Games are set down in those MSS., and the different methods also adopted by the writers to explain the moves of the Diagrams;-as the Game is unimportant, it is considered unnecessary to explain it by modern terms:

Li reis neir. tret premirement.
Sinun. tost eust sun iugement.
Del vn des alfins eschek dirra.
Mes li vermeil aler porra.
En langle. mes si il iert ale.
Tost serreit del roc mate.
E sil delez langle veit.
Li roc sempre li muneraz plait.
En sun le boro eschek li dirra.
E delez le chiualer le valera.
Al tierz trait en la garde del chiualier.
Li dirra li roc. eschek plenir.
Si ke li estuuera le chiu al prendre.
Mes al quart tret uoldra descendre.
Li roc. en la garde de sun poun.
E fra le rei aler uoille il v nun.
Entre le poun e le neir alfin.
Ki enkiu li ert m'lt mal reisun.
E al q'nt treit lencuntera.
Li neir poun . e munter le fra.
Al sime. li suit le roc al dos.
Al setime nel serra auer repos.
A iuz le vet en la garde escheckier,
Del alfin quil trait premir.
Al v'time ne se uolt celer.
La fierce le fet al bord aler.

Al neofime viet auant le cornuz.

Si li mostre ses corns aguz.
Si compainz comenca la medlee.
J cist cornu corne la menee.

Meschef fet hom penser.

28. Meschef fet hom pe'ser ceo guy
ad nou'.

E nest meruelie. il ad enchesou'.
Le neyr rey si li ne vst pe'se de bon
defe'siou'.

Vnkes ne vst eschape de mat la c'fu-
siou'.

Mes cy ad il pe'se ke le mat eschapera.
E a le tret neofime laltre matera.
Ou le aufin. a o. pimes eschec dira.
Si le rey vet en langle del Roc mat

serra.

Pur ceo le rey coue't en . bj. aler.
Puys eschec ou Roc deuez nu'cier.
En. cj. le tierce eschec. ou mesmes
le roc seyt.

Issi ke a force le ch'r prendre deyt.
Le quarte eschec en. cl. ou mesme
le roc frey.

Ou le pou'. do. le qinte eschec dirrez.
Le sime eschec & setime ou le Roc

serra.

Le v'time ou le ferce. puys le alfin matera.

There was no species of game more generally known during the 13th and 14th centuries, than that in which one player agreed to mate the other in a given number of moves in the middle of the chessboard: from the frequency of this game, players gave it the appellation of guy cotidian, and the old writers on Chess preface the instructions they give on this Ludus quotidianus, by remarking that,

Ceste guy du't ore No. dirou'.

Guy cotidian si appellou'.

E

pur ceo ke il est si comou'. » Guy cotidian si ad anou'.

Chaucer, in the first Dream or Book of the Duchesse, makes express mention of this Mate in the middle of the board, or, as he terms it, a Mate in the mid point of the checkere;

and I shall insert the passage at length without apology.

My boldnesse is turned to shame,

For false fortune hathe played a game
At the chesse with me-

By our Lord I will thee say,

At the Chesse with me she gan to play,
With her false draughtes full divers
She stale on me, and toke my fers,
And when I sawe my fers away,
Alas I couth no longer play,

But said farewell sweet ywis,

And farewel all that ever there is:

Therewith fortune said, checke here,

And mate in the mid point of the checkere,

With a paune errant, alas,

Full craftier to play she was

Than Athalus that made the game
First of the Chesse, so was is name:
But god wolde I had ones or twise,
I conde, and know the ieoperdise,
That coude the greke Pythagores,
I shulde haue plaide the bet at ches,
And kept my feers the bet thereby.
For this I say, yet more thereto,
Had I be God, and might have do
My will, when she my feers caught,

I wolde have drawe the same draught.

It is evident from these lines that Chaucer was but little skilled in the game of Chess, or he would not have suffered his antagonist to have won the game by so very common a species of Check-mate. This is more than probable from the following lines taken from the same poem:

Now of late this other night
Upon my bed I sate upright,
And bade one reach me a booke,
A Romaunce, and it me tooke

To rede, and drive the night away:

For methought it better play,

Than either at Chesse or Tables,

And in this book were written fables.

None but those conscious of the inferiority of their skill at Chess would prefer an idle book of fables to the entertainment arising from so interesting and scientific a pastime as Chess. A few examples of this species of Mate may be considered curious.

White agrees to mate the Black at the seventh move in the middle of the board.

Besides these, there are several other Games wherein the Mate is effected in the middle of the board; some possess considerable beauty, and exhibit a superiority of play little to be expected at so early a period. One specimen I will give, called by the writer bien troue, and who thus describes it:

White to mate the Black in the middle of the board by force in six moves.

1. Chiv. to Q. 4th square.

2. Roc to K. R. sq.

Rey to adv. Q. R. 2nd square.
Rey to adv. Q. R. 3rd sq.

I am compelled to make use of the modern method of setting down positions in chess, as the too frequent repetition of the old names of the pieces would sound harshly, and possibly create obscurity, where it is wished to be very clear and intelligible.

Another kind of game, similar to the above, was that called “Li Meruelious:"-whether the Mate will now be considered marvellous is rather problematical; it was evidently thought so during the thirteenth century, for the writer says,

3. Ferce at adv. K. Kt. 4th sq.

Two Pouns at adv. K. 3rd and 4th squares.

White to mate the Black at the fifth move in the middle of the Board.

4th squares.

White to check-mate Black at the fourth move in the middle of the board.

1. 1. Ferce to adv. K. B. 2nd square,

checking.

1. Roc to adv. Q. sq. checking.
3. Ferce to adv. K. R. 3rd sq.
4. Roc to adv. K. B. sq. and gives
check-mate.

Rey to B. square.

Rey takes the Ferce.
Rey takes the Poun.

"Le guy de couenau't" was the name of the next species of play most generally used, and was so called from a covenant or agreement entered into between the players, that the one should not take, nor the other be permitted to move, a particular piece. There are several of these games in Chess MSS.; but, as they possess very little (if any) merit, I shall pass them by unnoticed. There is also a game of covevant, called "couenau't fet ley," which is no otherwise remarkable than from its being mentioned in the Romance of Sir Tristram under the appellation of the long Assise. In this game the whole of the chess-men are placed on the board, and on the black agreeing to move none of his men, the white engages to mate him at the eleventh move: as it affords, however, no specimen of good play, it is needless to dwell longer on it.

A SUMMER'S DAY AT OXFord.

I INVITE the reader to pass a summer's day with me, in exploring a few of the beauties of the most beautiful city in Europe-beautiful on all accounts-actual as well as fanciful-natural as well as artificialimmediate and present, as well as remote and associate. But it would ask a volume even to glance at all these beauties; and I can reckon on but a few pages. I must, therefore, in this our first walk together, notice but a few; and these merely external ones: and if my companion, the reader, relishes these, and my manner of bringing them before him (or rather of bringing him before them), he may command my future services as a cicerone; for, to point out to others the good, of whatever kind, with which I have long been familiar, is almost as pleasant to me as it was to discover it for myself.

We will, if the reader pleases, contrive to reach Oxford rather late over-night; and after having received the civil greetings of kind Mrs. Peake, at the Mitre, and taken an egg and a glass of cold sherry negus in her snug coffee-room, will retire to our comfortable nests, and, rising from them in the morning, (not long after the lark leaves his,) will sally forth, and never look behind us till we reach the little elevation on the Henley road, to the east of the city. How delicious is this prime of the morning! It is to a summer's day what the spring is to the year, or childhood to human life. The dew hangs, like a blessing, on the glittering leaves; and the mists are rising from the grass, like the smoke of an acceptable sacrifice, steaming up to the heavens. Hark to those heifers cropping the crisp herbage. I know of no sound more purely pastoral: it is as refreshing to an ear sick of the talk of towns, as a draught of ice-cold water is to a parched palate: And how sweetly it meets and harmonises with the rich melody that comes down from yonder mounting lark! There are no other sounds stirring;—for the sun has not yet awakened the breezes the bee is still wrapped in its honey-heavy slumbers, and the "hum of men" is a thing of memory only.

Turn we now to the most beautiful view of its kind in existence. At the extreme left and right, but not extending far into the distance, lie cultivated lands, laid out in small fields surrounded by hedgerows, and undulating into hill and dale in a manner peculiar to English scenery. In the immediate front these fields take the form of a rich plain, through which wind the two roads from London, till they join and lose themselves in the city. And then (at a distance of about half a mile from where we stand) rises the lovely city itself-steeped in the stillness of the morning, and crowned with the beauty of the clouds, that hang suspended above it, leaving an interval of grey sky between. Follow with your eye the road which runs at our right hand, till it reaches the bridge at the entrance of the city. Here rises the solemn and stately tower of Magdalen college-every where a conspicuous ornament in the general view, but here its principal individual feature. Immediately to the right of this tower stands Maudlin's learned grove;" bearing from this point of view the appearance of a uniform mass of verdure, rising like a living wall, to shut out all the external world, its idle pleasures and senseless cares. Immediately to the left