“A case exactly in point,” exclaimed the major. “Must not the classical character of our entertainment convey instruction? I vow it runs parallel in every particular with the Syssitia of Lacedemon; and I therefore affirm, that it would be illegal, according to the law of Lycurgus, to prevent the presence of the young Seymours.”
“Your argument has colour, major; I must admit that Mr. Seymour’s lessons are too valuable to be lost: well, I consent; it shall be a Lacedemonian entertainment, and my young friends shall be accordingly accommodated with seats.”
On their return from the banqueting-tables, the party inspected the preparations for the fire-works, and the ships constructed for the naumachia; we shall, however, at present decline offering any description, as we prefer explaining them in operation.
The reader will now be pleased to imagine that the party having returned to the mansion, had partaken of the hospitable repast which the major had provided for them; he may farther suppose that tea had been served up, and the amusements of the evening commenced; for it is at this moment that the course of our narrative is resumed. Mrs. Beacham was delighting the assembly by a splendid display of her musical talents; the major and Mr. Seymour were engaged in a game of chess.
“There you sit, gentlemen,” exclaimed the vicar, “so absorbed in your game, as to have remained quite insensible to the sweet sounds with which Mrs. Beacham has been charming us; but you stand excused, for Seneca admits the fascinating power of the ‘ludus latrunculorum,’ or game of chess. You no doubt remember the story that he tells us of one Canius Julius, who, having been sentenced to death by Caligula, was found by the centurion, when he came to conduct him to execution, so interested in a game of the ‘latrunculi,’ as at first to be insensible to the summons, and that he did not prepare to depart until he had counted his men, and desired the centurion to bear witness to his having one more piece on the board than his adversary, so that the latter might not boast of a victory after his death.”
“Indeed!” said the major; “but unfortunately for your story, the ancients were not acquainted with the game of chess.”
“What absurd proposition am I next to expect?” cried Mr. Twaddleton. “You surely cannot have read the poem to Piso, which some will have to be Ovid’s, others Lucian’s: but no matter; it is an ancient poem, and accurately describes the game of ‘latrunculi.’ I myself believe, from a particular line in Sophocles, that chess was invented by Palamedes, at the siege of Troy; although Seneca attributes it to Chilon, one of the seven Grecian sages. My friend Mr. Seymour, who is, upon all occasions, desirous of imparting wisdom through the medium of games, and of ‘turning sport into science,’ will no doubt agree with those who fancy that it was contrived by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, as a method of instructing his soldiers in the military art; and I must admit that the game expresses the chance and order of war so very happily, that no place can lay so just a claim to its invention as the camp: ‘ludimus effigiem belli,’[[71]] as Vida says.”
“Check to your king!” cried the major; “while you are considering of the best way to get his majesty out of the scrape, I will endeavour to extricate the vicar out of the quagmire in which he is floundering. My dear Mr. Twaddleton,” continued the major, “you speak as if it were an admitted fact that the ‘ludus latrunculorum’ was synonymous with our chess. I admit that it was a game played with Tesseræ or squares, and Calculi or pieces; but it does not follow that it must have been chess; indeed, the learned Dr. Hyde, whose researches into Oriental games are as much distinguished for accurate discrimination as for profound scholarship, considers it to have resembled our draughts.”[[72]]
“You are to move, major,” said Mr. Seymour.
“Then I shall take your castle, and open a fresh battery upon the vicar,” replied Major Snapwell.