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THE LATE GRAND CHESS MATCH
Since the playing of the great match between the two editors of the Chess
Magazines, The Chess Player’s Chronicle, and Le Palamède,
sufficient time has now elapsed for prejudice to evaporate-passion to cool
Down - the song of victory to have passed away-the wail of the vanquished to
be heard no more. The proper moment has then now arrived to present a few
remarks, not so much on the match itself, as on the conduct of the French
party under defeat; and this particularly as regards the Paris press.
Certain paragraphs have therein appeared which we should long since have
noticed, but we waited for the Palamède first, to see how far the
vanquished champion, St. Amant, was connected therewith; for we cannot
reasonably hold individuals responsible for newspaper remarks, unless
subsequently by them sanctioned, if not altogether adopted. In the Palamède,
then, we at length have the official bulletin of the battle, drawn up by M.
Delannoy, and on this we must now comment. M. D. writes in a hearty,
enthusiastic tone, which we cannot too much admire. He loves his chief, and
is proud to proclaim his respect and affection.
His personal observations on Mr. S., the British champion, are passed in
great freedom, but with all due courtesy. In all he writes, French politesse
is never forgotten; and this is much. We admire the tone of M D.'s
apostrophe to those French players who, it would seem, jealous of St. A.'s
reputation, were delighted at his defeat. Do not these gentlemen see that
strength is only in unity? Some one man in a club must take the lead for the
sake of keeping things together. Can they set up a better chief than St.
Amant? Not as regards his Chess play merely, but in respect of his urbanity,
his general acquirements, his constant efforts to promote the cause. Without
him, where would have been the Paris club at all? We doubt whether it would
not long since have fallen to pieces, and the players would then be driven
back to the cafes, the confined rooms, the holes and corners, from which St.
A, and his friends redeemed them by hoisting the Chess flag at M. Vielle's.
From M D’s spiritual article we gather this fact that the French do not
admit the match to have been decisive, and wish it to be renewed. We are
sure that Mr. S. himself wishes this as much as any one, but we are also
quite sure that any other match must be played in London. Mr. S. cannot be
again expected to go to Paris for six weeks, and has been strangely
misapprehended should the French suppose he has ever made even half a
promise to such effect, no such idea having ever crossed Mr. S.'s mind for
one moment. Mr. S. we know would be happy to play a match here with any
player who may present himself, preferring of course St. A. or M. Des
Chappelles to all others as antagonists; the stake to be, we presume, the
same as before, or increased, if deemed reasonable by mutual friends. The
motto of Mr. S. is to play, not to talk, and we should be
proud to see him now confronting any living player.
M Delannoy is critical on Mr. S.'s game, and
this is all fair; but to use a metaphor which breaks down as you ride it
places you in the mud indeed. Thus M. D. gravely tells us that our
champion's game possesses the solidity of iron and steel, but wants the
brilliancy of gold, the lustre of the diamond. We cannot, ourselves,
imagine a better blade than one of Sheffield steel, and fancy every soldier
would prefer it on the day of battle to the court sword of gold with its
diamond hilt! The truth is, Mr. Staunton is the most brilliant player of his
day, but the openings of the games left little room for brilliancy in this
match. Indeed, in any future match we sincerely hope it may be stipulated
that each party begins with the King’s Pawn two, and this to give greater
scope on both sides, to the gold and diamond qualities of the
combatants. In one or two points M. D. states, in mistake we are sure, that
which is simply false, and for the correction of which he will be the first
to thank us. He fancies that Mr. S., since the match was made, has been
constantly practicing with our best players. Mr. S. never played a single
game of the kind; his time is equally filled up with business matters as
that of St. A., Mr. S. has never in his life played with the strongest men
of the day as much as has St. A.; and we believe from this very circumstance
that his game is yet capable of prodigious improvement. In Mr. S. we
recognize a player worthy to succeed M’Donnell. Slow to receive, conviction,
because careful and experienced, we long doubted the existence of the great
excellence we now gladly admit. Mr. S. is the first player in Great Britain,
and unequivocally stronger than St. Amant. M D. considers St. Amant was
wrong to agree to play with English Chess-men. M D. does not know that St.
A. pronounced our Chess-men, here, to be the best he had ever played with,
because clear, well defined, and placed upon an extensive field of action.
Had the match been longer, M D. feels assured St. A. would have won. We have
read in Froissart, of the Burgundian knight, who came to London in quest of
fame, and fought with Lord Scales, before Edward Longshanks. After breaking
sundry lances they fought with battle-axes, and it was agreed they should
continue the contest till one of them should confess himself defeated. After
thumping one another about with their hatchets for an hour or two, they were
brought to a stand by the spike of Lord Scales’s axe having pierced the
visor of the Frenchman’s helm, so that the least additional thrust would
have lodged it in his brain. The Englishman naturally hesitated to murder
his gallant foe, and at the moment our king threw down the truncheon of
peace to save a life. The French knight was affronted at the interference,
and demanded a renewal of the combat. The question was referred to a court
of honour, and gravely discussed Their decision was, that Mr. Burgundy was
perfectly en regle in demanding the fight to recommence; but that in
such case, parties must be placed exactly as they were when the king
interfered, with Lord Scales’s axe at his forehead as before. The French
knight declined this, and returned to Burgundy, doubtless considering
himself an injured man. So with M. Delannoy. Let the players renew the
match, recommencing at any one move of any one game, and let it be then seen
what would be the result; otherwise all is mere matter of opinion. M
Delannoy closes with an allusion, poetical enough, to Des Chappelles. May it
inspire this mighty Chess chief with resolution to come to the rescue!
In a subsequent page of the Palamède we have a letter from M.
Lecrivain, which merits some attention, because he was one of St. A.'s
umpires. He takes the ground already occupied by certain French papers. “The
parties are now even, each has gained a match; the third, therefore, remains
to be played.” We regret that party spirit prevents these gentlemen from
drawing a just line between the five games played here last spring between
Mr. S. and St. A., when we admit the latter most honourably won three to
two; and the twenty-one games now played, of which Mr. S. won eleven, lost
only six, and drew four; the present match being for two hundred pounds, the
former for a sovereign! Mr. S., too, upon that occasion having declared
himself to be unwell, and St. A. now throughout admitting he never himself
played so hard in his life, and was never better disposed. But we wish the
French papers had not gone beyond this. When Mr. S. had won all the first
six or seven games running, his attention possibly relaxed, and very
naturally so. At least, this is as fair to suppose as it is to admit St. A.
could have made better openings, and that, in consequence, he did not at
first play his full game. But when a game or two were won by St. A. what a
shout was raised by the French press! In the National (or Debats) we read
that the first half dozen games never count in a match! “It is only now (say
they) that St. A. is beginning to play, and we have no fear of the result”-
“We would as soon lose as win the first few games, and so would St. A."
Such was really the stuff gravely put forth by these learned scribes. At the
close of the Palamède, we regret to see St. A. lauding Galignani [Galignani's
Messenger] . He cannot, surely, have seen all which appeared in that
paper. Galignani's notes on the games throughout were ridiculously
one-sided; leaning towards France till they quite tumbled over. They are
indeed too weak, as well as silly, to do more than raise a smile; but one
assertion appeared in Galignani, which was a thumper indeed;
and this was, that Mr. S. was a slower player than his rival. Never was
grosser untruth penned. We are authorized by Mr. Wilson, Mr. S.'s umpire, to
state, that he timed the moves played, and that throughout the match St. A.
took just three hours to one. Now, we really admit it does not hence follow
that it would be strictly right to say that St. A. is therefore slower than
Mr. S. as three are to one; because when one player is much slower than his
opponent, the latter has the advantage of working while his adversary is
thus slowly labouring, and might, perhaps, be himself Compelled to take more
time were his rival faster. We content ourselves, therefore, by simply
asserting, that throughout the match St. A. took fully twice the time which
Mr. S. used. We find no fault with playing slowly, and merely reply to a
false assertion. St. A. is a very slow player; we think him none the worse
for it, except that certainly throughout this match his great slowness made
him look sometimes, as it were, at too much, and his calculations became so
exceedingly refined, they broke down with their own weight. It is frequently
a fault in Mr. S.'s game, that he plays too fast. In this match, had he
played a little slower, he would assuredly have won two of the games he
lost; the one is where he refuses to take the offered Queen, and the other
the game in which each has King and four Pawns, and Mr. S. loses (as we have
proved) by not taking Pawn. Had these two positions presented themselves to
St. A., he would have booked them both from his greater slowness of play. If
St. A.'s adherents found their opinions of his having been defeated solely
through his bad openings at first, we may reasonably bring forth these two
games as two we ought to have won. Had St. A. played from the first as well
as he did at last, we are persuaded he would have been equally beaten,
though he might have made a better fight, winning, perhaps, one or two more
games. Mr. S. has proved himself the better player at every point. His last
games must have been contested under a disadvantage equal to the loss of a
Pawn in each; absent from home and England so long a time, anxious to
return, and necessarily left in Paris without the presence of the friends on
whom constant attendance he had counted.. Nothing can be better than the
notes St. A. gives upon these games in the Palamède. He personally
bears up under his defeat. now with the same manly spirit which sustained
him in his heroic struggle at the last. No cavilling, no querulous complaint
escapes him. The result of the match, however unfavourable as to Chess, is.
highly honourable to him in a far higher point of view-honourable to him as
a man and a philosopher. We ardently hope another match may be made up, to
be played here the coming spring. It was rumoured that Des Chappelles would
play, but only for a large sum, something like three hundred thousand
francs. Des Chappelles is far above ever having sanctioned such an absurd
statement. We must conclude by again deprecating all bickerings and
personalities. Let the parties be again seated at the Chess-board; and let
us thus personally have an opportunity of courteously greeting St. A., and
such friends as he may choose to accompany him to London- By playing a game
daily the match might be concluded in three weeks.
GEORGE WALKER
London, Feb. 1844.
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