The American Chess Congress, at New York, in October, 1857, by the wide-spread interest which it awakened, revealed what was not very generally suspected,--that the game of chess is played and studied in the New World more generally, and on the present occasion, we may say more thoroughly and successfully, than in the Old. This interest in chess the subsequent career of Paul Morphy, the prime hero of that grand encounter, has greatly widened and deepened; and to all who had the chess-fever before his advent, or who have caught it since, this book will be welcome. It fulfils all the promises of its title-page, and tells the story of Paul Morphy's modestly achieved victories at home and abroad with authority and intimate knowledge. Chess-players, and all who take even an incidental interest in Mr. Morphy's adventures abroad, will be glad to find here a particular account of his engagements with Harrwitz, Anderssen, and especially of the match which he did not play with Mr. Stanton, and why he did not play it. The whole of the Stanton affair is recounted with much minuteness of date and circumstance, and a production of all the letters which passed upon the subject; and we must say, that upon the facts, (about which there appears to be no room for dispute,) aside from any color given to them by the writer's manner of stating them, the case has a very bad aspect for the English champion. How much better would Mr. Stanton now be standing before his brother chess-players, and, so much attention has the affair attracted, before the world, had he been fairly beaten, like Professor Anderssen! His reputation as a chess-player would have suffered no diminution by such a result of an encounter with Mr. Morphy; that would only have shown, that, well as Stanton played, Morphy played better,--as to which the world is as well satisfied now as then it would have been. And as to his reputation as a man,--what need to say a word about it? This chess-flurry has been fraught with good lessons by example. The frankness, the entire candor, and simple manliness of Professor Anderssen, who went from Breslau to Paris for the purpose of meeting Mr. Morphy and there contending for the belt of the chess-ring, and who played his games as if he and his opponent were two brothers, playing for a chance half-hour's amusement, is charming, and has won him regard the world over. Such generosity is truly noble, and it appears yet nobler by contrast with the endeavors of Harrwitz to worry and tire his opponent into defeat, and his final contrivance to avoid a confession that he was beaten. Mr. Stanton's conduct is a warning that cannot be entirely lost upon men not utterly depraved, who are tempted into petty duplicity to serve petty ends; and in the midst of all, how Paul Morphy's modesty, dignity of carriage, generosity, and entire honesty of purpose shine out and make us proud to call him countryman!