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King Lear and the Celts.
BT PROP. CHARLES DOD.
The noble tragedy of King Lear has long
stood,by the unanimous judgment of critics,pre
eminent for sublimity aud pathos, among the
mighty creations of the ‘myriad-minded’ Shake
speare.
The subject of this drama is drawn from a
period far-removed among the mists of antiquity
and obscured by the shadows of legend and tra
dition—an age of heathenism
fancies. His merit certainly does not consist in
accuracy of statement, or in that critical spirit
of careful investigation which leads the philo
sophical historians of modern times to weigh all
evidence with judicial severity and demand that
it be in accordance with the recognized laws of
testimomy before admitting to record events
which claim to have been facts. Still, the old
monk has merits as an historian which it would
be unjust to overlook. His merit consists in
having collected a body of legends highly sus
ceptible of poetic embellishment, which, with
out his intervention, would probably have per
ished utterly, or existed only in the absolete and
and barbarism ^ ^
r0U j?^ ston ® 3 j inaccessible writings of the Welsh bards and
~~ "" “ “ historians. These weird and wild legends,
quarry, the master mason has constructed a
shapely and imposing editice, which has been
the delight of all the generations of worshipers
that have crowded the shrines of his genius. It
is curious, too, to observe how many inferior
intellects, how many ordinary workmen, co-op
erated with the great architect in achieving the
final result.
The dependency of genius upon antecedent
laborers to provide it with the raw material to
be woven into its wondrous fabrics, has been
frequently illustrated in literary history, but in
ao case made more clearly than in the history
of this particular {flay of Shakespeare's. The
original of the story is found in Goeffrey of
Monmouth, an old Wklsh chroaioler, who, dur
ing the twelfth century, occupied the leisure of
his convent life in recording, in his monkish
Latin, the legendary narratives in the Cymric
tongue which were said to have been collected
by a certain Tysilio, in the sixth or seventh cen
tury of our era, from oral tradition, ballads, and
such sources. This history — entitled ‘The
Chronicle of the Kings of the Isle of Britain’—
goes back almost to the Deluge. It deduces the
Britons of later times from a Trojan ancestry,
and derives their name from ‘Brutus,’ an imag
inary great-grandson of .lEaeas, who came to
the shores of aland called at first ‘Albion,’ (af
ter, it is said, a son of Neptune who was its first
King) where, conquering the aborginal inhabi
tarns, he founded a dynasty, ‘sprung from old
Anchises’line,’that ruied old Britain in unin
terrupted succession till the landing of Julius
Caesar in the year 55 b o. Then we have the
Celtic wars, first with the Romans and after
wards with the Saxons, down to the death of
Cadwallader, King of Wessex, who flourished in
the seventh century after Christ. Goeffrey’s
account of Brutus and the subsequent
British kings professes to be a direct translation
of a manuscript in the Armerioaa or Breton di
alect of the Cymric tongue, which his friend,
the Archdeacon Waiter of Oxford, discovered
about the year 1125, during a journey of his
through French Bratagne. The Bretons of
France and the Britons or Welsh across the
Channel were closely kindred branches of the
same Cvmrie stock. This manuscript was en
titled Brut-Breuhined, or King Brutus, (Brenhin
being the generic title of royalty among the
Cymri, and appearing iu the name Breunus,’
which the Romans supposed to be the proper
name of the leader of the Gallic hosts who
burnt Rome in the year 390 b c.) But that
Goeffrey had, in addition, other sources of in
formation, and that the legends connected with
the Trojan invasion had long been current
among the mountains of Wales, and were not
the fabrication either of Goeffrey or of Arch
deacon Walter’s Armorican manuscript, is evi
dent from the fact that the outline of the same
story, in all its parts, from the Trojan descent
to the wars of King Arthur, is found in Neunius,
a writer who flourisned at least three centuries
before Goeffrey.
To us this all looks like the very witchcraft
of history; and as we read the name of one king
after another in these legendary annals that go
buck to the very night of time, they pass before
ny like the vi denary shadows of die k’.ngs that
the wired sisters showed to Macbeth. 4nd yet,
fantastic and fanciful a3 the narrative seems to
us, we are almost startled into a belief in it by
the bold and confident chronology of these an
cient chroniclers. They deal with their eras of
a thousand years, with a magnificent assurance,
and marshal their kings and dynasties in com
plete chronological order and exact succession,
carrying their elaborate genealogies so far be
yond the Olympiads that Greek and Roman his
tory seems a thing of yesterday and British an
tiquity is made to run parallel with Egyptian.
We are gravely told of one British king flourish
ing in the time of Saul, King of Israel, and of
another being contemporary with Solomon; and
that it was about a hundred years before the
birth of the prophet Isaiah that King Lear was
rnler in the “fast anchored isle.” (900 B. G.)
Ludicrous as this mythical, chronology ap
pears to us, it was devoutly believed iu by our
forefathers uutil as lute as the sixteenth century,
before which epoch nobody presumed to doubt
that the Britons were descended from Brutus
the Trojan.
This legendary history bad so long formed
part of the popular literature of England, aud
had taken such tenacious root in the popular
znind. that it was not relinquished until with
the advent of the skeptical spirit introduced by
the reformation, a more critical standard of his
torical belief was adopted, and scientific investi
gation began to take the place of an uninquiring
and passive credulity.
Even in the seventeenth century, the age of
the Puritans, an age certainly very far from
feeling any reverence for monastic legendary
lore, we find so strong and acute au intellect as
Milton’s expressing a lingering respect for these
time honored legends and hesitating to avow a
total disbelief in them. In the “History of
Britain” which the great Puritan poet has left
us. he dutifully and precisely enumerates the
series of ancient sovereigns according to the
traditions, though with some expressions of
doubt—as when he writes: “I neither oblige the
belief of other persons, nor hastily subseribe
my own. Nor have I stood with others com
puting, or collating yeirs and chronologies, lest
I should be vainly curious about the time and
oircumstance of things whereof the substance is
so mnch in doubt.” This remark he intends
for the stories, anterior to the Trojan legend; the
subsequent chronicle he seems to regard as con
siderably less mixed with fable and romance.
He says:
“Of Brutus and his line, with the whole proge
ny of Kings to the entrance of Julius Grosar, we
cannot so easily be discharged—descents of an
cestry long continued, laws and exploits not
plainly seeming to be borrowed or devised,
which on the common belief have wrought no
small impression, defended by many, denied
utterly by few. For what through Brutus and
the whole Trojan pretence were yielded up,
(seeing they who first devised to bring us from
some noble ancestor, were content at first with
Brutus the Consul, till better inventions, though
not willing to forego the name taught thorn to
remove it higher into a more fabulous age; and
by tbe same remove lighting on the Trojan tales,
in affection to make the Briton of one original
with the Roman pitched there), yet those old
and unborn names of successive kings never
any to have been real persons, or done in their
lives at least some part of what has been so long
remembered, cannot be thought without too
strict an incredulity. . . . For these and
the causes above mentioned, that which has re
ceived approbation from so many I have chosen
not to omit Certain or uncertain—be that upon
the credit of those whom I must follow—so far
as keeps aloof from impossible and absurd, at
tested by ancient writers from books more anci
ent, I refuse not as the dne and proper subject
of story.
Let os not, then abuse old Geoffrey of Mon
mouth too much for his easy faith, or stigmatise
hup as a mere garrulous babbler of fables and
trembling on the verge of extinction, were ar
rested by the loving hated of old Geoffrey, and
restored to a new and larger life; for the nar
rative in which he has interwoven them has
exerted a powerful influence on the feelings
and literature, not only of the English people,
but of the coutinent of Europe. The popu
larity of his work is proved bv the numerous
adaptations, translations and imitations which
successive authors gave of it.
Wace, a chaplain of the Court of Henry I..
transformed the chronicle into a poem of 151,-
000 liues in which Anglo-Norman verse, for
the delight of the rude baroas to whom the
monk’s Latin was an impenetrable obstacle.
Layamon, another ecclesiastic, who flourished
iu what is called the “Semi-Saxon” period of
English literature, viz., the latter half of the
twelfth century and first part of the thirteenth,
worked up the materials which Geoffrey and
lVace had furnished him. into a poem of thir
ty-thousand lines, iu honest Saxm measure,
for the edification of those of his coua-
trymen who understood neither Geoffrey’s
Latin nor Wace’s French. Lastly, the work
from which Shakespeare more immediately
drew his material and kindled his imag
ination with the historic conception of King
Lear, was a work issued in two folio volumes
ia 1577 by Holinshed, entitled “The Chroni
cles of Englaud, Scotland, and Ireiaud—” a
work ranging over a vast field, and em
bodying the narratives of all previous histo
rians. it was regarded in its day as a monu
ment of industry and learning, and is still
resorted to as an indispensable book of refer
ence in stndying the early English annals.
See, then, what a long train of anthors con
tributed to the Siiakespearim consummation !
First, the legendary annals in the ragged Welsh
tongue, supposed to have been found in the
sixth centnry by Tysilio -though the author is
perhap.i as much of a myth as the heroes whose
exploits he recounts. N 'Xt, we have the Latin
version by Geoffrey, of Monmouth in the be
ginning of the twelfth century; then the Nor
man French poetical version of Wace, about
the middle of the twelfth century; Next,
Layamon’s Saxon version of the same poem in
the beginning of the thirte with century; then,
Holinshed’s Chronicle iu toe Elizabethan Eng
lish; and, closing the procession, the stately
figure of Shakespeare's Lear !
It took a thousand years for the germ which
had first been planted among the rugged moun
tains of Wales to develop into that perfect flow
er whose bloom and fragrance we so much ad
mire to-day.
Let old Greoffrey of Monmouth, then, credu
lous fabulist as be was, receive his share of
the praise which is lavished upon the great
dramatist Let the humble laborer who broke
the ground and sowed the seed be not forgot
ten in the greater glory of him who reaped the
noble harvest. The old monks ‘Chronicle’ be
came one of the cornerstones of romance; and
there is scarcely a tale of chivalry down to the
sixteenth century which has not directly or in-
fi.rectly jeceived from it m%ch of. its coloring.
Some matter-of-fact people may not think this
particular effect of its influence very beneficial.
But we must remember that whatever may be
the blemishes of this species of literature, it is
better for a people to have the literature of le
gend and romance than to have no literature
at all. Such a literature was suited to the
wants and requlments of that age, aud tended
to keep up a high and honorable tone of feel
ing that often manifested itself in correspond
ing actions. And even if we should concede
that the Wale and Layamon and the whole cy
cle of Romances of the Round Table might
have been consigned to oblivion without auy
regret of their loss based upon their own mer
its, still this does not prove that their extinc
tion would not have inflicted a serious injury
upon the cause of literature; for it is to the pre
vious existence of this class of composition
that we are indebted for some of the finest pro
ductions of the human intellect—not only pro
ductions, which, like Sheakspear’s ‘Lear’ and
‘Cymbeline’ and Tennyson’s ‘Idyls of the King’
drew their materials directly from the great
store-house of popular legend, but also such
productions as the Don Quixote’ of Cervantes,
and the ‘Orlando Farioso’ of Ariosto, which
were intended to caricature the romances of
chivalry so popular iu their day.
We have said that the legendary chronicles
and tales of chivalry, which constituted the
mental pabulum of the English people daring
the middle ages, were snited to the popular
temper aud spirit of that day. We go father
and say that their influence was more benefi
cial than would have been the influence
of a more exact and critical literature. The
age of faith must always precede the age of
reason. National legends invariably fill a large
space iu historical literature, and they spring
not from accident but from a deep and prevail
ing principle in human nature—not from the
mere propensity to falsehood, but from that
aoble sentiment which causes all of us to reve
rence the past. The heart of every people
craves a knowledge of its ancestry; and if no
authentic records be forthcoming, imagination
will work upon such slight hints as tradition
affords, and out of these misty, gossamer, un
substantial threads wili weave its legendary
fabrics, its heroic lays, its ballad minstrelsy,
its romances and its epics, with which to cov
er the bare nakedness of the past.
In accordance with this principle, early his
tory abounds with prodigies and portents, mi
raculous agencies and supernatural interposi
tions—stories that are often grotesque, but some
times impressive; for underneath all their ab
surdities and extravagances frequently lies a
truth essential to humanity, a moral that all
subsequent generations may study with profit,
or an illustration of manners and customs and
character more vivid thau we can get from the
soberer pages of philosophical history. Phi
losophical history too often presents nations to
our view under the aspect of so many insen
sate machines moved by military force or the
craft of kings, instead of that inner life of the
nation which develops its character and shapes
its career in accordance with those principles
which are best discovered in the histories which
the people have written for themselves. For
instance do not the heroic legends of early
Rome furnish us with a key to the subsequent
greatness of Rome ? It matters not that the
details of this early history are fabulous, they
show us what was the favorite type of charac
ter among a people whose self-saorifioing devo
tion to the cause of their country was the source
of their unexampled career of conqaest,
In another aspect, legendary history is often
truer than critical history. The legends have
at least the merit of showing us human beings—
it may be only fabulous men and women, but
■till beings with human hearts actuated by the
passions aud motives of humanity ; whereas, in
many a stately history of authentio timea we
find only names—names of real personages, it is
true, but still nothing more than ^ames without
a principle of life in them, so that they are to
ns as unreal as if they belonged to another or
der of beings, or had enacted their history on
another planet, existing in our hazy concep
tions of them with outlines a great deal more
shadowy and indistinct than those in which our
memory clothes the fictitious beings with whose
joys and sorrows we have learned to fee, a warm
human sympathy, through the medium of the
legend monger, the romancer and the poet.
Associated with that innocent docility of be
lief which gives prevalence to legends and tra
ditions, there undoubtedly exists a vast amount
of stupid superstition. Later ages outgrow all
this ; but the growth is not always a healthy
and salutary one ; for if unthinking credulity
is to be avoided, there is an error in the oppo
site extreme, viz : an unthinking skepticism,
equally absurd and far more dangerous. It is
just as irrational to believe too little as to be
lieve too much.
The first reactionary movement against his
torical legends leads to the rejection of them
in.toto, as composed entirely of fable, and befrn
altogether of superstition and credulity. But
a calmer and wiser criticism detects ia them
the genial materials of history, monstrously
shapen, it is true, but still resting upon a solid
foundation, from which it ia tbe^uty of the
true historian to clear the rubbiseTnot by in
culcating a sweeping skepticism, Itot by a just
aud sagacious discrimination betwe&a what was
actual and what was fabulous. Eminent his
torical minds, like Niebuhr’s, have been able to
do this, and have actually made di-scoveries of
historic truth in what used to appeap.so inextri
cably fabulous as the early history Rome.
In like manner, buried beneatu the mass of
old British legends, we are able now to say that
there are some grains of truth. Philology
coming to the aid of the kindred science of
history, pronounces that the claims of the
British Celts to a remote antiquity are not so
absurb as one might suppose.
That the Celtic languages are among the old
est of the great Argan, or Indo-European stock
—far older than either the Greek or Latin —is
now a well-established doctrine of comparative
philology ; and that the first wave of emigra
tion that rolled over Europe from the primeval
home of the Argan race iu Asia w,>s Celtic, is
abundantly clear from the evidence of geo
graphical names. The liaes in which Mrs.
Sigourney has alluded to the aboriginal no
menclature of the rivers of America, may be
applied with equal truth to the Celtic river
names of Europe. ^
‘Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave, j
‘That the light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
That mid th- forest where they walk
There rings no hunters shout: $
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out - '
The home of the Celt is no longer the whole
boundless continent; they breathe their native
air only among the Hihglands of Scotland, the
green fields of Erin, and the rugged mountains
of Wales and in the Isle of Man, and in Breta
gne, in France. But the fierce Gauls, or Gaels,
who tried the mettle of Ciesar s veterans, and
who three centuries before vJtB->ar’s day had
reduced Rome to ashes, once dwelt on the banks
of nearly every stream in Europe, and have left
the rooord of their migrations on mountain-
peaks as mile-stones.
That all proper names were originally signi
ficant epithets, we need not stop to argue. Now,
European river-names, in the vast majority of
cases, can be snown to be significant only in the
Celtic dialects. Thus, the five chief Celtic
words for‘water,’viz, Avon, Dwr, Uisge, Rbe,
and Don, appeared in the names of nearly all
the larger and many of the sm .Her streams of
Eojjope (F'^r.details a »e ‘Words
aud Places,’ Chapter IX.) So Msothe various
Celtic adjectives for rough, gentle, smooth,
croked, broad, swift, clear, muddy, black, white,
yellow &c are found in the names of a large
proportion of European rivers. Not only in the
British Isles, but throughout Spain, France,
Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, we fiud vil
lages which have Teutonic or Romanic names
standing on the banks of streams which still
retain their ancient Celtic appellations. And
as for monuments compare Mount Pindus in
Greece, and the Apennines in Italy, with Pen-
ruos, &e., in Wales, and Bennevis, «fcc., in Scot
land, Pen is the Cymric and Ben the Gaelic
for ‘head.’
The first populations of Europe being thus
proved to have beau Celtic, we cannot dismiss
with a sneer the claims of the British Celts to a
history as old, and probably as authentic, as
that of the Greeks before Pisistratus (5Gl), B. C.)
It was not until this epoch that the art of writ
ing (except on such materials as stone and met
al) began to be used in Greece. Previous to the
Pisistratidal, the knowledge of historic events
was kept alive just as it was among the Celts,
by the recitations of bards. The ‘Homeric
question,’ as it ia called, has enlisted, on ad
verse sides, scores of learned disputants. Wo
have had volume npon volume to prove or to
disprove the reality of the Trojan war ana its
heroes; but no critic, so far as we know, has
deemed the ancient British annals worthy of
his attention. Yet Achilles, on Homer’s page,
is not so grand a figure as Lear on Shakspeare’s.
The Bard of Avon has followed very closely the
leading incidents given him by the historian—
the chief variation being in the catastrophe of
the tragedy; according to the legend the heart
broken king ‘again after three years obtained
the orown.’ Now, how much of truth there was
in the narrative as Shakspaare found it, is pre
cisely on a par with the question, how much
of truth was there iu the legend of iEaeas as
Virgil found it. This Niebuhr and others have
shown to be, so far as his voyage to Italy is con
cerned, a pure fabrication; and perhaps the
legend of King Lear may have as ljttle founda
tion in truth. But until this is 'hsoertained—
though it is doubtful whether sufficient mate
rials exist in this case to throw any light on the
subject—we must rest the question on the gen
eral principle that applies to ali popular legends;
it is much more likely that reality was at least
the thread upon which the legendary incidents
were strung, than that everything^was invented.
Pure fiction is a product of modern times. The
aucients had no novels. We believe King Lear
was a real personage. This seems to have been
the belief of Dr. Zachary Grey, who in 1857,
published in London some ‘ Notes on Shaks-
peare, ’ in which he makes the following obser
vation on the line in Shakspeare’s Lear, where
Edgar says that ‘Nero is an angler iu the lake
of darkness:’ ‘ This is one of S'takspeare’s most
remarkable anachronisms. King Lear succeed
ed his father, Bladud, anno mundi 3105; and
Nero, anno mundi 4017, was sixteen years old
when he married Oetavia, Caesar’s daughter.’
If Lear were altogether a fabulous personage,
there could be no anachronism in placing his
era subsequent to that of Nsro.
virtuous woman. He may offer her his fortune,
and, in a worldly point of view, elevate her to
a level with his own, but is this promotion ?
What is the foundation of his lofty position ?
Is it not avarice for sordid gain? So, unless she
be an exception to the standard of excellence in
womanhood, and he be beyond the hope of re
form, the elevation is, even in that case, on his
side. She may teach him to center his affec
tions not on his wealth, but the Giver from
whence its proceeds ; she may inspire him with
benevolent principles, and induce him to make
abetter disposition of his money than for mere
selfish purposes. It is only refined natures that
can elevate the soul,
Promoted indeed ! I should like to know to
what step of advancement a woman attains
when she weds a gambler, drunkard, or any
villainous species of mankind. It is all very
well for men to talk of “promoting” some femi
nine creature, but it is a little strange that he
should be able to do so, when he can scarcely
exist without the smiles of the very being whom
he desires to elevate. Only let her hint that
she does not desire any snch elevation, and he
is ready to take an overdose of laudanum, or
morphine, or terminate his existence more
speedily by blowing out his brains. But if the
chosen'one be ambitious and consent to become
thus “promoted,” the lofty position to which
she is raised, without her support and influence,
would be like a house built upon sand. In the
hour of adversity, it is she who i3 the stony
foundation.
I wonder which cur cynic thinks was tbe
most promoted by the union, Queen Victoria
by marrying Prince Albert, or Prince Albert in
wedding England’s queen? Aud in our own
country, if asked upon which the greater honor
had been conferred,Mr. Hayes for wedding such
a woman as his noble companion is represented
to be, or Mrs. Hayes in marrying our President?
I should unhesitatingly attribute the highest
degree to the former. There is many a woman
who is a ‘crown to her husband,'but I have never
heard of a man being a crown to his wife. She
it is who brings the crown, and she wins it, ac
cording to Solomon, by her virtue ; so her hus
band has no part in conferring it.
This masculine desire to promote some female,
must be well nigh universal, for the whole
world Is engaged in that kind of business. Pity
that so many of them fail in their mission.
And a still greater pity that there are so many
hundreds and thousands of women waiting for
some‘lord of creation’to come along and pro
mote them to wifehood. How exalted the mar
ried one s must feel!
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Female Promotion.
tBY BOSA V. BALSTON.
I once heard a surly reoluse, of the masculine
type, say that every woman became ‘promoted’
when one of the apposite sex led her to the ma
trimonial altar. This assertion, no doubt echoed
by others, I most emphatically deny. The or
der is at least rerersable; for many a iran has
been elevated by marriage, and some women
raised to a Bphere higher thau that which they
originally occupied. But, as a rule, it is the
man who has the greatest need of reformation,
and some one to soften his beastly nature, and
nothing does this so effectually as a pare and
White to play and mate in three mores.
(Continuation of notes from last week.)
ifi Nearly half au hour was spent in discussing the
situation here. Mr. Masou suggested P R li as promis
ing, but it was at once tateoad on the ground that Black
might capture both Pawns and still establish a success
ful defense. He then proposed P Kt 6, feeling sure that
the pushing of either Pawn was essential to the main
tenance of the attack, but Mr. DeVaux, after a careful
examination, pronounced against it. Mr, Benginger
was neutral, and the discussion went on.
Finally, admonished by tbe lapse of time, that some
thing had to be done, R K Kt was indicated, underwent
a close scrutiny of full thirty seconds’ duration, was
th‘ ught ‘•safe,’’ approved aud made. The result shows
it did not sustain the expectations formed of it; the sub
joined * analysis, for which we are indebted to Mr. I. E.
Orchard, proves that one of the moves above referred
to, viz: P K R 6 should have been adopted instead, aud
the following likely continuation shows the other, P K
Kt 6 to be not inferior; S2. P K Kt 6, B PXP.’ 23. Q R 3,
R B 3; 24. PXP, PXP; 25. B q 5. and theugh Black has
a Pawn, Plus their position is not enviable.
(g) Ou a par with its predecessor. The Bishop should
have been left at Kt 8.
(b) The game is now decidedly in favor of Black, and
remains so to the end.
(i) Precipitating the catastrophe; but if they had acted
wholly ou the defensive they would have sacrificed what
ever chanoe of escape such a move affords. It is better
to die in tbe field than starve in a fortress.
(k) The final mistake ! Even now B to Q might have
led to a draw.
*In corroboration of the opinion expressed upon the
22d move for White, we present the following letter,
received from Mr. Orchard, who is well known as a skill
ful and careful analyist:
Columbia, S. C., Jan. 8, 1878.
To the editor of American Chess Journal—Dear Sir:
1 have just carefully examined the second game in the
“consultation match” betwesn Messrs. Brenginger, De
Vaux and Mason, vs. Messrs. Delmar, Mackenzie and
Teed. I find that this party, up to the 22d move, was
played with commendable accuracy and spirit by both
sides; but at that juncture it seems to me, and I think
the subjoined analysis will make it apparent to others
that the Waite allies ma te a fatal error. If, instead of
playing: 22. K R K Kt, the attack had advanced P K R 0,
they must have won the game by force.
White Black. | White. Black.
22. PKK6 KtxP 26. KPKR5 QRQ3
This is evidently Black’s j This is as good as they
best reply. [have.
23. Q K B 5 Q K Kt 3 (a) 127. K RXKt R K Kt 3 ! I
24. PXKc P QXP I ! 28. RXU QXR
25. Q R K Kt F K R 3 I t |29. QXQ wins.
a
23. QKB5 QKB3 I the former variation (but
24. PXKt P QXP i this seems to be inferior to
aud this brings about the'KXP.—-Ed. Ameriean Chess
same position as in I Jour.
b
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Black has one more de
fence which is worth exam
ining. though it likewise is
insufficient, viz:
22. P K R 6 KtXP
23) Q KBS PXP
This is the best looking 26. RXK R P
24. Q R K Kt Q K Kt 3 ! !
25. QXP. Now Black has
only two lines of play worthy
of consideration: P Q B 5
and Q R Q.
25. P g B 5
move for the defense, and at; This amounts to the same
first sight seems to be an thing as QxK.
adequate resource, but upon 27. RXQ+ PXB
careful examination it too!28. QKKtS PXB
will be fouud useless. 29. PXP and Black has no
Ichanee.
1 he above are, I think, sufficient to demonstrate the
trutu of my assertion that, if the attack had discarded
B Kt for their 2id move and adopted the move suggest
ed, the result of this Important contest would have been
different. Reepeotfully.
I. Edward Orchard.
(The American Chees Jour., March '71
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