This pastime is well known in the present day; and I believe there are now in London as excellent draught-players as ever existed. Draughts, no doubt, is a modern invention, and easier to be learnt than chess, because it is not so intricate; for the pieces are of equal value till they become kings, and can only move one way, that is, diagonally; but, like chess, it depends entirely upon skill, and one false move frequently occasions the loss of the game. There are two methods of playing at draughts, the one commonly used in England, denominated the French Game, which is played upon a chess-board, and the other called the Polish Game, because, I presume, the first was invented in France and the latter in Poland. This requires a board with ten squares or chequers in each row, and twenty men, for so the pieces are usually named. The draught-man is called in French dame. The men in the Polish game can only move forwards as they do in the French game, but they have the privilege of taking backwards as well as forwards; and the king, if not opposed by two men close together, can move from one corner of the board to the other. The Polish game admits of most variety, and is, in my opinion, infinitely the best; but it is little known in this country, and rarely played, except by foreigners. We have a recent publication upon the French game of draughts, which fully explains the nature of the pastime, and points out most of the important moves, published by Sturges, who, I am told, is an excellent player.
XIII.—MERELLES—NINE MENS' MORRIS.
Merelles, or, as it was formerly called in England, nine mens' morris, and also five-penny morris, is a game of some antiquity. Cotgrave describes it as a boyish game, and says it was played here commonly with stones, but in France with pawns, or men, made on purpose, and they were termed merelles; hence the pastime itself received that denomination. It was certainly much used by the shepherds formerly, and continues to be used by them, and other rustics, to the present hour. But it is very far from being confined to the practice of boys and girls. The form of the merelle-table, and the lines upon it, as it appeared in the fourteenth century, is here represented.
106. Merelles.
These lines have not been varied. The black spots at every angle and intersection of the lines are the places for the men to be laid upon. The men are different in form or colour for distinction sake; and from the moving these men backwards or forwards, as though they were dancing a morris, I suppose the pastime received the appellation of nine mens' morris; but why it should have been called five-penny morris, I do not know. The manner of playing is briefly this: two persons, having each of them nine pieces, or men, lay them down alternately, one by one, upon the spots; and the business of either party is to prevent his antagonist from placing three of his pieces so as to form a row of three, without the intervention of an opponent piece. If a row be formed, he that made it is at liberty to take up one of his competitor's pieces from any part he thinks most to his own advantage; excepting he has made a row, which must not be touched if he have another piece upon the board that is not a component part of that row. When all the pieces are laid down, they are played backwards and forwards, in any direction that the lines run, but only can move from one spot to another at one time: he that takes off all his antagonist's pieces is the conqueror. The rustics, when they have not materials at hand to make a table, cut the lines in the same form upon the ground, and make a small hole for every dot. They then collect, as above mentioned, stones of different forms or colours for the pieces, and play the game by depositing them in the holes in the same manner that they are set over the dots upon the table. Hence Shakspeare, describing the effects of a wet and stormy season, says,
The folds stand empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock,
The nine mens' morris is filled up with mud.