The results of so much labor and skill cannot, of course, be fully criticized by us. The merits of the volume can be fairly tested only by long and constant use. We shall, however, venture to point out some faults in Mr. Spayth's treatment, premising that his is by far the best treatise upon the game yet published, and the only treatise worthy of the name that has ever appeared in this country. Anderson's arrangement of the games, which Mr. Spayth has adopted, is both clear and concise; and we are glad to see that our author has adhered to the old system of draught-notation, which is infinitely superior to any of the new plans. The condensation and clear presentation of Paterson's somewhat abstruse essay on "The Move and its Changes" is every way admirable, and many of the problems are remarkable for beauty and difficulty.
We think that too much prominence has been given to certain openings. While glad to see that model of all openings, the Old Fourteenth, which is to draughts what the Giuoco Piano is to chess, illustrated by 186 games, of which 127 are original with the author, the brilliant Fife (the Muzio of chess-players) explained by 67 games, the Suter by 72 games, and the Single Corner by 258 games, we regret that only 24 specimens should be given of the Double Corner, 42 (and only 11 of these original) of the Defiance, and 51 (with but 14 original) of the fascinating and intricate Ayrshire Lassie, an opening of which American students know very little. We regret this meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr. Spayth.
The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical treatment. The Whilter is not "formed by the first three or five moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will understand that the Whilter is formed by the first three moves, namely, 11.15—23.19—7.11, or else, 10.15—23.19—7.10, which is really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11; there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14—22.17, which may intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a Fife, a Suter, or even an Old Fourteenth; but the move of 7.11 determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of the Double Corner the author includes several distinct openings,—and so, too, under the Bristol. In this latter case, the Scottish treatises are right and Mr. Spayth is wrong. A strange confusion is also caused by the attempt to include a number of different openings under the head of "Irregular."
It is useless to linger over the exhaustive plan of all our draught-writers, but, in adopting their plan, Mr. Spayth's fault has been merely that of his predecessors, and his merits are all his own. The true plan for a draught-treatise is that adopted by Staunton in his chess-writings. No man has time to write a treatise which shall embody the entire practice of the game; and even if such an exhaustive treatise were written, no man would ever have time to master its instructions. But the theory can be fully set forth, and is as yet almost entirely undeveloped. The subject of odds alone presents an extensive field for future investigations.
We have found fault with Mr. Spayth's new volume wherever we honestly could; and we dismiss it with an emphatic repetition of the opinion, that it is by far the best work upon the game that has ever been published.
The Adopted Heir. By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.
Miss Pardoe ought to do better than this. There is much ability displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon formed, but shrouded in an impenetrable mystery, which is open to the usual objection to the novelist's impenetrable mysteries, of being perfectly transparent. Having divined who will be the heir, after reading forty pages, we are a little impatient that Miss Pardoe should cherish the secret with every imaginable precaution until the 350th page, when she brings it out with a flourish, as if no human sagacity could possibly have discovered it.
This keeping secrets that are no secrets, the besetting weakness of novelists, was once quite affecting. When Nicholas Nickleby acted at Mr. Crummles's theatre, a thrill of terror ran through the unsophisticated spectators, as the wicked relation poked a sword at him in the dark in every direction except where his legs were plainly visible. But readers are more exacting now. And we are all frightfully sagacious. Long reading of novels gives a fatal skill in anticipating their issues. If in the first chapter the poor little brother runs away to sea, his anxious friends may bewail his loss, but we remain calm in the conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author is ready to present him to our (theoretically) astonished eyes. The whole village may be deceived by the venerable stranger, with his white hair and benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate that Mr. Burke's periods are trifles in comparison. And we know all this, simply because there are certain things to be done, and only so many people to do them. Miss Austen, indeed, could keep her secrets impenetrable; but the art died with her, and our common sense is daily insulted by these weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author would have lost nothing and gained much by taking us into his confidence.
The style of the "Adopted Heir" is at once pompous and feeble. From writers of the Mrs. Southworth school we should expect nothing else; but Miss Pardoe was capable of something better.
Fanny. From the French of ERNEST FEYDEAU. New York: Evert D. Long & Co.