Celebrated Chess-players.

Tuapeka Times, Issue 851, 30 June 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

Celebrated Chess-players.

Chess has included among its votaries the following celebrated men : Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy), Earl Chatham, Helvetius, Commeniur, the grammarian, Conde, the French General, Cowley, Denham, Lydgate, poets, Sir W. Jones, Leibnitz, Charles XII., of Sweden, Sir Walter Scott, Ealeigh, Eousseau, ("Jean Jacquez''), Voltaire, Frederick the Great, S. Warren, Warton, Benjamin Franklin, Buckle the historian, Tameriane, Richelieu Edmund Burke, Wallaston, Chamfort, 3t. Foix Marmontel, Grimm, Marshal Saxe: Philidor, the musioal composer, Dr. Eoget, the mathematician, Ferdinand, of Arragon," Holbach, Dilderot D'Alenbert, A. Gaubert, Duo de Bassano, Murat, Bertheir, Eugene deßeauharnais. Most of Napoleon's Marshals were chess-players. In philosophy, science and art it claimed such representatives as Lord Bacon, Euler, Schumacher, Wolff and Tomlinson. The eminent astronomer, E. A, Proctor, is known as a chess problem composer ; Eobespierre, the French revolutionist was very partial to the game. Henry 1., was a chessplayer ; so was each of the following great names; Charlemange, Sebastian, King of Portugal, Phillip 11., of spain, and his favorite prelate; Buy Lopez, the chess Bishop, the Emperor Charles V., Catharine de Medicis, Pope Leo X., Henri Quatre, Queen Elizabeth, James I. of England, Louis XIII., XIV., William of Orange, the witty Sydney Smith, General Haxo, Mery, the poet ; Lacretele, the naturalist; Flaxman, the sculptor; Sir W. Jones, the poet and linguist ; Vida, the Latin poet ; the late eccentric Duke of Brunswick was a strong player and liberal patron of the game; the late Howard Staunton, whose knowledge of Shakspeare and Elizabethan literature was as great as of chess; the late Mortimer Collins, poet and novelist ; Cunningham, the historian ; Kempelen, the mechanician ; Studigl, the opera singer ; Hyde, Douce, Barrington, Sir F. Madden. Prof. D. Farbes, orientalist ; Sir John Harrington, the learned and brilliant godson of Queen Elizabeth; Admiral Tchiohakoff, who opposed Napoleon's passage of the Befesina. The late Lord Littleton was a strong player, and 'was President of the British and Counties Chess Associations. Baron Eothschild, of Vienna, one of the wealthiest men in the world, is a lavish supporter of chess, and so was the late American millionaire, Commodore Vanderbilt. Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India, has a strong liking for the game. The Duke of Wellington was a chess-player of more than the moderate skill of his great rival, Napoleon. The lamented Prince Albert cultivated the pastime. Her Majesty, the Queen, also plays chess. H. E. H., Prince Leapold, distinguished himself at Oxford as an excellent player. Napoleon IH., patronized the game, and gave a trophy known as the " Emperor's Prize," at the Chess Congress held in Paris in 1867. . The Emperor, Francis Joseph, imitated his example at the Chess Congress in Vienna, in 1873 and 1882. — [Chess Record.