strength. In order to play well, you must toil through the humiliating
task of being frequently beaten by those who can give you odds. These
odds, when you have fairly mastered them, may be gradually diminished as
your strength increases. Do not, however, deceive yourself by imagining,
that if you cannot win from one of the _great players_ when he gives you
the odds of a rook, you would stand a better chance with the odds of a
knight. This is a very common error. It is true that, when a knight is
given, the attack made upon you is not so sudden and so violent, as it
usually is when you receive a rook--but your ultimate defeat is much
more certain. If, in the one case, you are quickly killed, in the other
you will die in lingering torments.
XXVIII.
When you hear of a man from the country, who has beaten every body whom
he has ever played with, do not suppose, as a matter of course, that he
is a truly good player. He may be only a "Triton of the Minnows." All
his fame depends upon the skill of the parties with whom he has hitherto
contended; and provincial Philidors seldom prove to be very good
players, when their strength is fairly measured at the London Chess
Club, particularly such of them as come there with the reputation of
having never been beaten.
XXIX.
An elderly gentleman, lately returned from India, is apt to suppose that
his skill has been much impaired by the change of climate, or some other
cause, when he finds, to his great surprise, that his style of play does
not produce such an alarming effect in the Chess Clubs of London or
Paris, as it used to do at Rumbarabad.
XXX.
When you can decidedly win, at the odds of a rook given by a first-rate
player, you will rank among the chosen few. It would be very difficult
to name twenty-five persons in London to whom Mr. Lewis could not fairly
give these odds, although there are many hundreds who would be much
offended at its being supposed to be possible that any one could give
them a knight.
XXXI.
A first-rate player, who is to give large odds to a stranger, derives
great advantage from seeing him first play a game, or two, with other
persons. His style of play is thus shown, and the class of risks which
may be ventured on is nicely calculated. That which, before, might have
been difficult, thus becomes comparatively easy.
XXXII.
There is as much difference between playing a game well, by
correspondence, and playing one well over the board, as there is between
writing a good essay, and making a good speech.
XXXIII.
No advantages of person and voice will enable a man to become a good
orator if he does not understand the grammatical construction of the
language in which he speaks: nor will the highest degree of ingenuity
make any man a good chess player, unless his preparations for the
exercise of that ingenuity are made upon the soundest principles of the
game.
XXXIV.
Every game perfectly played throughout on both sides would be by its
nature drawn. Since, then, in matches between the most celebrated
players and clubs of the day some of the games have been won and lost,
it seems to follow that there _might_ be better players than have been
hitherto known to exist.
XXXV.
Most of the persons who occasionally "play at Chess" know little more
than the moves and a few of the general rules of the game. Of those who
have had more practice, some have acquired a partial insight into the
endless variety of the combinations which may be formed, and their
beautiful intricacy:--a few play moderately well; but, however small the
number of good players may be, it would be difficult to find any one
who, after having played a few hundred games, would not think it an
imputation on his good sense to be considered a very bad player;--and
this is the universal feeling, although it is well known that men of the
highest attainments have studied Chess without great success; and that
the most celebrated players have not always been men of distinguished
talents.
XXXVI.
He who after much practice with fine players remains for a long time
without taking his station amongst them, will find at last that there is
a point which he cannot pass. He is obliged to confess his incurable
inferiority to players of the higher order, and he must be content with
easy victories over a large majority of those whom he meets with in
society.
[Illustration]
CONCLUSION.
Chess holds forth to the philosopher relaxation from his severer
studies,--to the disappointed man, relief from unavailing regret,--and
to the rich and idle, an inexhaustible source of amusement and
occupation. It has, however, been frequently urged as an objection to
the study of the game, that no man can pursue it, with a fair prospect
of becoming a good player, without devoting to it much time and
attention which might be more beneficially employed.
Although it may perhaps be true in the abstract, that even a high degree
of skill is not _per se_ worth the time and trouble which it must have
cost, it should be remembered that on this "mimic stage" of life much
besides chess may be seen and studied with advantage. The real character
of a man's mind may, almost always, be known by his behaviour under the
varying circumstances of this most interesting game. The triumph of the
winner, and the vexation of the loser, are often coarsely displayed
amongst inferior players; and, although good players very rarely give
way to this degrading weakness, still, the good breeding of some of
them, towards the end of a difficult match, is not always quite perfect.
The temper of the student cannot fail to derive very material benefit
from the severe discipline to which it will be subjected. When he begins
to play well he will find that he has learnt to submit patiently to
contradiction; and that he has become convinced of the necessity of
abandoning his most favourite schemes, whenever he sees that from a
change of circumstances they can be no longer pursued with safety.--He
will have felt the full value of using caution and circumspection, when
called upon to exercise his judgment in cases of complicated difficulty,
and he will have acquired the faculty of fixing his undivided attention
on the business in which he is engaged.
If such qualities of the mind are called forth and strengthened in the
pursuit of a harmless and delightful recreation, the time cannot have
been wholly wasted, although the professed object of study may have been
only the art of giving CHECK-MATE.
R. P.
_Whitehall, March, 1839._
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[F] _Infandum Regina jubes renovare dolorem._
MAXIMS AND HINTS
ON
SHOOTING
AND
OTHER MATTERS.
[Illustration: Drawn by the late Sir FRANCIS CHANTREY, R.A.]
MAXIMS AND HINTS
ON
SHOOTING,
_&c. &c._
I.
LET the person to whose care a young dog is intrusted for education be
furnished with an instrument like a short trumpet, which produces a few
harsh and discordant notes; and whenever it may be necessary to correct
the dog, in order to enforce obedience, let such correction be
accompanied by the noise of this instrument rather than by "the
thundering voice and threatening mien" usually employed on such
occasions. When the dog's education has been properly completed under
this system, although you may be comparatively a stranger to him on
first taking him into the field, you will find that by carrying with
you a duplicate of the _un_musical instrument you will have his master's
voice in your pocket, and you will be able at once to make a very
commanding impression upon him, by sounding a few of the harsh and
discordant tones which he has been taught to fear and obey.
II.
You must not insist upon its being admitted without dispute, that the
man who made _your_ gun is the best maker in London. This town is a very
large place, and it contains a great many gunmakers. You must also
remember that it "stands within the prospect of belief" that there may
be other persons who think themselves as competent to select a good gun,
and to shoot well with it afterwards as you are.
III.
In like manner, although you may prefer using one kind of wadding to
another, or may perhaps like to wear shoes and gaiters rather than
trousers and laced boots, you must not suppose that every man who takes
the liberty of forming a different opinion from yours on these subjects
is a mere bungler.
IV.
However steady your pointer may be, remember that he is but a dog. If
you encourage him to run after one hare because it has been wounded by
yourself, you must not be angry with him for chasing another which may
be shot at by your friend. Canine flesh and blood cannot bear this.
V.
Although you may be a very agreeable gentleman, generally speaking, you
will choose an unlucky moment for making yourself particularly so, if
you should on some fine morning after breakfast volunteer to accompany
two of your friends who are preparing to leave the house for a day's
partridge-shooting without any expectation of being joined by a third
person.
VI.
When you are obliged to walk on the left-hand side of a man who carries
the muzzle of his gun too low, do not be so very polite as to take no
notice of this dangerous habit. He will, perhaps, appear quite offended
when you venture to question your perfect safety. But be that as it may,
your position was so awfully unpleasant whilst you were constantly
stared at by the eyes of a double-barrelled gun that your friend's
looking rather cross at you is a matter of much less consequence.
VII.
When a long search amongst high turnips has been made, at your
particular request, for a bird which you erroneously suppose that you
have brought down, and which (naturally enough under such circumstances)
cannot be found, you must not say that your friend's retriever has a
very bad nose, or fancy that "poor old Trigger, if he had been still
alive, could have easily found the bird."
VIII.
Should a farmer's boy come running to you with a partridge which he has
lately picked up after seeing it fall in the next field, your companion
in arms will perhaps assure you that this bird can be no other than that
which _he_ shot at, as you may remember, immediately after you had both
of you passed through the last hedge, and which he afterwards saw flying
very low, and very badly wounded, exactly in the direction which the boy
has come from. An _enfant trouve_ like this seldom waits long for a
father to adopt it.
IX.
Sometimes towards the end of a fatiguing day, when you feel like an
overloaded gun-brig, labouring against a heavy sea of turnips, you may
perchance espy a large covey of partridges in the act of settling near a
hedge a long way before you. Supposing in such case that your brother
sportsman should be a much younger man than yourself, and yet should not
have also seen these birds, it is not always quite prudent that you
should announce the fact to him immediately. If you wish to have a shot
at them, you would, perhaps, do well to say nothing about them till your
weary limbs have borne you unhurried a little nearer to the hedge in
question. The good old rule of _seniores priores_ is sometimes reversed
in a large turnip-field.
X.
In the case of a double shot a gamekeeper never hesitates an instant in
deciding whether the bird was killed by his master's gun or by another
person's, fired at the same moment.
XI.
When you are making your way through a thick wood with too large a
party, it is better that you should be scolded by some of your friends
because you trouble them with very frequent notice of your individual
locality, than that you should be shot by any of them because you do
not.
XII.
On the day of a great battue, if one of the party (not you) should shoot
much better than the others, and if this should by chance be talked of
after dinner (as such matters sometimes are), do not say much about the
very large number of hares and pheasants killed by you--on some other
occasion.
XIII.
When you are shooting in a wood, if some hungry fox, in pursuit of his
prey, should chance to cross your path, it depends entirely upon the
"custom of the country" whether you ought to kill him or not. Bob Short
says, in his Rules for Whist, "When in doubt, win the trick."
XIV.
Never ask beforehand whether or not you are to shoot hares in the cover
into which you are going, but never shoot one after you have been told
not to do so.
XV.
A singular species of optical delusion often takes place in the case of
a man shooting at a woodcock in a thick cover. According to the
impression said to be made upon the shooter's eye, the bird appears to
fall dead more frequently than he can afterwards be found--so that the
truth of this appearance must never be relied on when the evidence of
the bird himself cannot be brought forward to support it.
XVI.
On a grand occasion you need not always trouble yourself to keep an
account of the number of head killed by you, particularly if you do not
dine with the party on that day; because, in your absence, the total
number brought home may perhaps be accounted for after dinner, without
any reference being made to the amount of your[G] performances.
XVII.
When you sit down (_horresco referens_) in a dentist's chair,[H] in
order to have your teeth cleaned, and point out to him, with fear and
trembling, one of them which you think must be drawn;--if he should tell
you that the tooth can be easily stopped, and may still be of much
service to you, do not immediately thereupon feel quite bold and very
comfortable. After a moment's further inspection he may, perhaps, add
very quietly, in a kind of whispering soliloquy, "Here are two others
which must be removed."
XVIII.
If you should stop, with a tired horse, at the door of the "King's Head"
anywhere, and should say to the bowing landlord thereof, that, unless
you can find some other means of pursuing your journey, you shall be
obliged to have a chaise immediately, you must not expect to be told by
him that a very good coach, which is going your way, will change horses
at the "Red Lion," nearly opposite, in less than ten minutes. Should
this be the real state of the case, he will feel that he has no time to
lose; and therefore, instantly seizing the handle of the hostler's bell,
and ringing a louder peal than usual, he will at once show you into a
back parlour, for fear that you should see the coach before a chaise can
be got ready for you.
XIX.
Should it have been your fate to travel often, _more majorum_, on the
box of a stage-coach, more than one coachman has probably told you a
story, two miles long, about some mare so vicious and unmanageable that
she had been rejected by every other coachman on the road, and that
nobody but himself had ever been able to drive her, saying at the same
time, "She is now, as you see, Sir, as quiet as a lamb." You must not
believe all this, although it may perhaps be very true that the mare
kicks sometimes, and that the man is not a bad coachman.
XX.
Although our friend the coachman is supposed to have been so very
communicative to you on the last occasion, he may not perhaps be equally
so on all others: for instance, if, when the roads are very bad, and the
coach is heavily laden, he should, near the end of a difficult stage,
pull up at some turnpike, and enter into a long talk apparently about a
bad shilling or a lost parcel, he is very likely not to explain to you
and the other passengers that his real reason for thus stopping is
because his horses are so much distressed that they would otherwise be
scarcely able to reach the end of their ground. The conference at the
gate is held in order to facilitate the ratification of the treaty for
fresh horses to be exchanged in the next town.
XXI.
On arriving at the place where "the coach dines," walk to the nearest
baker's shop, and there satisfy your hunger in a wholesome manner. At
the dinner which is prepared for the passengers it frequently happens
that if there should have been any cock-fighting in the town lately,[I]
the winner and the loser of the last battle appear at the top of the
table as a couple of boiled fowls; and whenever there is a roast goose
at the bottom, it is probably some old gander, who, after having lived
for many years in the parish, is at last become so poor that he is
obliged to be "taken into the house."
XXII.
If you have children, who are clever, do not question them too closely
in company. Supposing, for example, that at the close of a social meal
in the country, you should be sitting at table with your guests, on the
eve of their departure from your hospitable roof: if, under these
circumstances, some nice little fellow, who has lately rushed into the
room, and is now busily employed with a bunch of grapes, should be
called upon by you to join in the general expression of regret that your
friends are to leave you to-morrow, he may perhaps say, "Yes, papa, we
shall have no grapes after dinner to-morrow."
XXIII.
If you are thought to excel in any particular game or sport, do not too
often lead to it as a subject of conversation: your superiority, if
real, will be duly felt by all your acquaintance, and acknowledged by
some of them; and you may be sure that "a word" in your favour from
another person will add more to your reputation than "a whole history"
from yourself.
XXIV.
On seeing a new invention for the first time, do not instantly suggest a
material alteration of it, as if you felt quite sure that this sudden
thought of yours must be a very clever one. It may be reasonably
supposed that the inventor did not hastily build up his work in its
present form; and it would, therefore, be very unkind that you should
bring the whole broadside of your intellectual guns to bear upon it in a
moment. Besides, after all, it is just possible that the thing may be
better as it is--without your improvement.
XXV.
The great merit of an important discovery frequently consists in the
first application of some well-known principle of action to a class of
objects to which it had not before been applied. When such discovery has
been brought before the public in one instance, the application of the
same principle to other nearly similar objects requires a much lower
degree of inventive talent. A sub-inventor of this sort often views the
result of his labour with all the pride of a mother, when he is only
entitled to the praise due to an accoucheur.
XXVI.
When your friends congratulate you on your recovery from the effects of
a serious accident, it is very proper that you should thank them
sincerely for their kindness in so doing: but it is by no means
necessary that you should give a very detailed description of all your
sufferings, and of every symptom attending the gradual progress of your
recovery; nor need you explain exactly what was at first said by Mr.
Drugger, the apothecary, and what was afterwards the opinion of Sir
Astley Cooper. You had better not do this; although some persons think
that what the nurse occasionally said ought not, in a case like theirs,
to be omitted.
XXVII.
On the same principle, if you should have lately been robbed, and should
feel disposed to communicate the particulars of this sad affair, you
really must not begin your account of it by telling us every thing which
you were dreaming about just before you first heard the noise of thieves
in your house on the eventful night of the robbery, adding always in
conclusion, by way of appendix to your copious narrative, a correct list
of the articles stolen. If you do this too often, you must not be
surprised if some of your hearers should at last be almost tempted to
regret that when you were robbed you were not murdered also.
XXVIII.
If it should be mentioned in conversation that a celebrated mare,
belonging to Mr. Swindle, of Newmarket, has lately trotted sixteen miles
within the hour, in harness, do not think it necessary to recount the
wonderful performances of a famous gig-horse which you once had.
XXIX.
After having lost several games at billiards, when you are playing at a
gentleman's house, it is not polite that you should attribute your
failure to the inaccuracies of the table. These sundry defects of level
are less likely to be complained of by the winner than by you; and he,
therefore, stands less in need of this caution than you do.
XXX.
When the lord of the manor is showing the beauties of his house and
grounds to you, and points out a very fine row of trees for your
particular admiration, make no allusion to the magnificence of the
avenue at Wimpole; and if he should afterwards show to you one of his
pictures, which he values highly as the work of some celebrated master,
remember that, although you may have been told privately, by a good
authority, that the picture is not really what your friend supposes it
to be, you are not called upon to display your borrowed knowledge as
your own, and to make yourself odious by endeavouring to convince him
that he has been deceived in the purchase.
XXXI.
Do not bestow extravagant praise upon every article lately bought by
you, as if you considered that it had acquired increased value from
having fallen into the hands of so distinguished a purchaser. Other
persons will estimate the worth of it rather by its own merits than by
yours.
XXXII.
It is quite unnecessary that you should always, in order to show the
extent of your reading, claim a previous acquaintance with every
expression which may be referred to in conversation as having been used
by some celebrated author in one of his works. It is much easier for
another person to quote lines which never were written than it would be
for you to find them.[J]
XXXIII.
Do not consider it to be at all times your bounden duty to correct every
mistake which may be made in your presence as to a name or an
unimportant date. Some persons are so extremely sensitive on these
points that they never allow the offender to escape a summary
conviction. However interesting the conversation may be, they always
feel justified in interrupting it if they can show that the anecdote
which they have cut short related to the late General A., and not to his
brother the admiral.
XXXIV.
If one of your party should be prevailed upon to sing a comic song for
the amusement of the company, he will of course do it as well as he can,
and it would not be flattering to him that you should immediately
afterwards talk about the great pleasure which you formerly derived from
hearing the same song sung by Mathews, or Bannister.
XXXV.
Beware of the amiable weakness of repeatedly telling long stories about
your late father or uncle. They may have been excellent persons, and
their memory may be deservedly respected by you; but it does not
therefore necessarily follow that a full account of everything which was
said or done by either of these worthy men on some trivial occasion
should be very interesting to other people, not even to such of your
friends as may be lucky enough not to have heard it before.
XXXVI.
If you should have lately suffered any great reduction of income from
causes over which you had no control, it is better that you should bear
your misfortunes quietly than that you should be very extensively
communicative to your acquaintance on the subject of your grievances.
If, for instance, you tell them in confidence that you now have only
600_l._ a-year to live upon, such of them as have but 500_l._ will
perhaps think that you still have at least 100_l._ more than you ought
to have.
XXXVII.
Do not think yourself an accomplished traveller merely because you have
visited places where you _might_ have acquired much information. Many a
man has passed some time in a foreign town without learning more about
the beauties of its cathedral or the manners and customs of its
inhabitants than was previously known to others through the instructive
medium of a book and pair of spectacles at home; and therefore although
you may have really been at Rome, and may have actually seen with your
own eyes both the Apollo Belvidere and Raphael's Transfiguration, you
must not, on that account only, consider yourself qualified to take a
leading part in every conversation on subjects connected with the fine
arts.
XXXVIII.
Many persons who are possessed of much information have a tedious and
unconnected way of imparting it. Such men are like dictionaries, very
instructive if opened in the right place, but rather fatiguing to read
throughout.
XXXIX.