Can this mean aught else than, "Come over to England and I will play you?"
[B] Illustrated London News, December 26th, 1857.
Most of us know how "Box," when called upon by "Cox," to give explanations of the improper attentions he (Box) was paying to C.'s wife, hums and haws and begins, "Towards the close of the sixteenth century;" when Cox very properly cries out, "What the deuce has the sixteenth century to do with my wife?" Many of my readers may, like Cox, want to know what a great deal my book contains has to do with Paul Morphy; all I have to say, in reply, is,--if you don't like it, skip it; more especially the following thirty pages, which, nevertheless, will be interesting to all chess-players.
Chess seems to have first acquired social importance in England during Philidor's residence in that country. Judging from the number of titled names attached to his work as subscribers, the British aristocracy were, in his time, much given to the game, but "nous avons changé tout cela," and the English nobility nowadays, with but a few notable exceptions, confine their abilities to "Tattersall's" and "Aunt Sally."
Surely the "King of Games," which has enlisted amongst its votaries such names as that of the victor of Culloden, and his rival, Maréchal Saxe; without enumerating those of all the greatest warriors of many centuries, might still offer inducements to their comparatively unknown descendants. We have thousands of men, composing the British aristocracy, at a loss to get rid of their time; sauntering down to their clubs at mid-day; listlessly turning over the leaves of magazines and reviews, until their dinner-hour arrives. Why, in the name of common sense, do not these men learn something of chess, and thus provide themselves with a pastime which not merely hastens Time's chariot-wheels, but quickens the intellect? One gets tired of billiards, cards, horse-racing, etc., but your chess-player becomes more enamored of his game, the more he knows of it.
It may have been that gentlemen and nobles affixed their names to Philidor's book, out of compliment or charity, but it is doubtful whether their descendants would now do so, even from those considerations. Must we measure the capacity of dukes and lords by that intellectual standard, "Aunt Sally?"