ON CHESS
XII - Biographical Sketch of Philidor
IT has been remarked, as a curious circumstance, that while the talent for playing chess bears no relation to the general talent of the player, yet that every one has an individual maximum of talent for chess, to which, by study and practice he may be brought but beyond which he cannot pass.
This remark ought to be extended to every mental pursuit, for it expresses a principle of our nature, instead of a curious solitary fact. Those whose chief object it is to improve their mental powers, always find delightful occupation in striving after excellence. We are most fortunately denied the power of foreseeing how far our faculties will carry us in the cultivation of a particular subject, but by slow degrees we gradually get nearer and nearer to a certain point, beyond which we find we do not advance. Before this point, however, is attained, we can appreciate the powers of the great masters in the thing studied, for doubtless it requires a certain portion of the same faculties to appreciate excellence as to attain it, and if we cannot equal, we are at least qualified, to admire.
The general progress of knowledge is for the most part made by those gifted men who appear at intervals few and far between, and excel all others in the particular pursuit to which their inclination leads them. We look back upon such men with respect and admiration: we desire to know their history, their modes of study, their general conduct in the world and in private life, and we thus fondly imagine that by endeavouring to imitate them we may gain some of the skill for which they were so famed. It would be unwise to check such feelings, but it is necessary that young people should be cautious in the choice of their models: they should remember that the most eminent men, notwithstanding their eminence, have still the errors and weaknesses of our nature, and that these, being often mistaken for the offshoots of genius, are more easily adopted than their better parts, and prove exceedingly injurious to their imitators.
The subject of our present notice is known to us only as a kind, amiable man, who, had he not been the best chess player of his own, and, perhaps, of any other time, would probably have been known as an eminent musician.
ANDRÉ DANICAN PHILIDOH was born in the year 1726, at Dreux, a small town about forty-five miles from Paris. His grandfather, whose name was Danican, was celebrated as an oboe player at the court of Louis the Thirteenth. An Italian musician named Philidor was admired at that court for his performance on the same instrument; and after his departure the king gave M. Danican the soubriquet or nickname of Philidor, which afterwards continued as an appendage to the family name. The father, and several of the brothers of Philidor, belonged to the band of Louis the Fourteenth and Louis the Fifteenth.
At the age of six years Philidor was admitted into the choir of the Chapel Royal at Versailles, where being obliged to attend daily, he had an opportunity of learning chess from the musicians in waiting, of whom there were about eighty. Games of chance not being allowed in the sanctuary, a long table inlaid with six chess-boards was provided, with which they amused themselves during their leisure hours.
In 1737, when Philidor had only completed his eleventh year he produced a motet for a full choir, which so much pleased the grand monarque that he gave him five louis, and thanked him for his performance: this encouraged the lad to compose four more motets; but we do not learn that the royal condescension was followed by any more solid acknowledgment; for at the age of fourteen, when his voice began to change, and he quitted the band, we find him submitting to the drudgery of copying music for his subsistence, and giving a few lessons. When he left the chapel he had the reputation of being the most skilful chess player of the whole band. In 1740 several motets of his composition were performed at the famous concert spirituel, established by his uncle in 1726, and these were favourably received by the public as the productions of a child, who was already master of music and of chess. At this time Philidor might have established for himself a lucrative practice as teacher of music; but the fascinations of the chequered field caused him to neglect his musical pupils, and they, in consequence, soon procured other more attentive "masters. This induced Philidor to pursue the study of chess, rather than that of music. At this time the game was played in almost every coffee-house in Paris. M. de Kermur, sire de Legalle, was then esteemed the best chess player in France, and young Philidor sought every opportunity of receiving his instructions, by which he improved so essentially, that in three years he played as well as his master.
M. de Legalle once asked Philidor whether he had ever tried to play by memory without, seeing the board. The pupil replied that he had calculated moves, and even whole games at night in bed, and he thought he could do it. He immediately played a game with the Abbé Chenard, which he won without seeing the board, and without hesitation upon any of the moves. This circumstance was much talked of in Paris, and consequently he often repeated this method of playing.
Finding it so easy to play a single game without seeing the board, he offered to play two games at the same time. This feat he performed in a public coffee-room, and won both games. In the middle of one of the games a false move was designedly made, which after a great number of moves, he discovered, and placed the piece where it ought to have been at first.
In 1745 Philidor went to Holland to join some musical brethren in a scheme for giving concerts to the Dutch; but the death of one of the party terminated the plan, and Philidor found himself alone in a foreign land without means to support himself. His skill in chess and in Polish draughts procured him enough to supply his wants: he gave lessons in chess to the Prince of Waldeck, who then commanded the Dutch army, and after remaining about a year, chiefly at the Hague, he left Holland.
In 1747 he visited England for the first time. The principal London chess club then held its meetings at Old Slaughter's coffee-house in St. Martin's Lane. Sir Abraham Janssen was then the best player in England, and with the exception of M. de Legalle, probably the best player Philidor ever encountered. After remaining about a year in England, Philidor returned to Holland, where he composed his celebrated Analysis of the Game of Chess. At Aix-la-Chapelle he was advised by Lord Sandwich to visit Eyndhoven, a village between Bois-le-duc and Maestricht, where the British army was encamped. He there had the honour of playing with the Duke of Cumberland, who, not only himself subscribed liberally for a number of copies of the work, but procured many other subscribers. The analysis was published in French, in London, 1749, and has been since reprinted or translated in almost every capital of Europe.
Philidor frequently played chess at the house of the French ambassador, the Duke of Mirepoix, who gave a weekly dinner to the lovers of the game, at which he himself was expert. The king of Prussia also enjoyed the reputation of being a chess-player, and in 1751 Philidor visited Berlin, by invitation of that monarch, who took great interest in seeing Philidor play, although he did not encounter him himself.
During these chess excursions Philidor did not neglect his musical profession. In 1753 he set to music Congreve's Ode to Harmony, which was performed in London. The great Handel was present at the performance, and approved of the chorusses, but thought the melody defective. Two years after he returned to Paris with the intention of devoting himself entirely to his musical profession: he composed some sacred music, and solicited the appointment of maître de la chapelle, but as his productions were thought by the Court to savour too much of the Italian style, his application was unsuccessful.
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It would be out of place here to follow Philidor through his musical career. Suffice it to say that his compositions comprise more than twenty-five complete operas, some of which were performed with eminent success, besides numerous other musical publications. M. de Laborde, in his voluminous Essay on Music, does not hesitate to pronounce Philidor one of the greatest of French composers.
Philidor visited England for the fourth time in 1769. He found chess had now become fashionable: a new club had been formed at the Salopian Coffee House, where he frequently played. Another club was afterwards formed in St. James's Street, next door to the Thatched-house Tavern. The members of the latter club formed a subscription among themselves in order to remunerate Philidor for attending their meetings. The best players in this club, and at that time in Loudoti, were Count Bruhl, the Hon. H. Conway afterwards Lord Henry Seymour, Lord Harrowby, Mr. Bowdler, and Mr. Jennings. In playing over the board, the pawn and two moves, or the knight in exchange for the first two moves, were the fair odds between these gentlemen and Philidor.
The first match played by Philidor in public without seeing the board is recorded in the Morning Post, of May 28, 1782. This notice is curious as showing the great sensation occasioned by an exhibition which was then regarded as equally new and wonderful.
The celebrated M. Philidor, whose unrivalled excellence at the game of chess has long been distinguished, invited the members of the chess club, and the amateurs in general of that arduous amusement to be present on Saturday last at a spectacle of the most curious kind, as it was to display a very wonderful faculty of the human mind, which faculty, however, is perhaps at present exclusively his own.
In consequence of this invitation, thirty gentlemen and three ladies attended M. Philidor, at Parsloe's, in St. James's street, where, in their presence, with his eyes closed, he contended with two gentlemen at the same time, who had each a chess-board, and who may be deemed among the first players in Europe next himself. Count Bruhl was his adversary at one board, and Mr. Bowdler at the other, and to each was allowed the first move. The games lasted one hour and forty minutes. The game with the Count was drawn, and Mr. Bowdler won the other, owing to the exact similarity in the openings, for if the two games had less resembled each other, M. Philidor would have preserved a distinct recollection.
The idea of the intellectual labour that was passing in the mind of M. Philidor suggested a painful perception to the spectator, which, however, was quite unnecessary, as he seldom paused half a minute, and seemed to undergo little mental fatigue, being somewhat jocose through the whole, and uttering occasionally many diverting pleasantries. The whole passed in the French language.
When the intrinsic difficulty of the game is considered, as well as the great skill of his adversaries, who of course conducted it with the most subtle complications, this exertion seems absolutely miraculous, and certainly deserves to be recorded as a proof, at once interesting and astonishing, of the power of human intelligence.
The periodical called The World of the same date, after giving similar details of the match concludes thus:
This brief article is the record of more than sport and fashion: it is a phenomenon in the history of man, and go should be hoarded among the best samples of human memory, till memory shall be no more. The ability of fixing on the mind the entire plan of two chess-tables, with the multiplied vicissitudes of two-and-thirty pieces in possible employment upon each table, that a man should maintain the two games at once, without seeing either, but merely from the report of move after move upon both; and this contending not with bad and inexperienced play, but with two of the best and most practised players in Europe, all this makes up a wonder of such magnitude as could not be credited, perhaps would not be credible, without repeated experience of the fact.
This has been had from M. Philidor again and again, but never with more struggle, for his antagonists were Count Bruhl and Mr. Bowdler. They never were more excellent! how much resource there was, and guarded enterprise, may be imagined from the time they took in playing. During the whole of that period the memory of this astonishing man was never for a moment absent nor confused: he made not one mistake.
These wonderful performances procured Philidor more fame than profit; and he himself seems to have been roused to the conviction that his exertions would have been better directed had he acquired a competence for himself and family instead of such unrivalled skill in chess: for we are told that he would never allow any one of his numerous family to learn the game. With a wife and nineteen children entirely dependent upon his labours for support, he found it difficult for many years to procure them more than a very meagre income.
During the latter years of Philidor's life he continued to reside in London in the winter, and with his family at Paris in the summer, occasionally playing matches in public without seeing the board, and generally winning of the best players opposed to him. The following notice appeared in the London newspapers in May, 1783:
Yesterday at the chess-club in St. James's Street, Mr. Philidor performed one of those wonderful exhibitions for which he is so much celebrated. He played three differeut games at once without seeing either of the tables. His opponents Were Count Bruhl, Mr. Bowdler, (the two best players in London) and Mr. Maseres. He defeated Count Bruhl in one hour and twenty minutes, and Mr. Maseres in two hours; Mr. Bowdler reduced his game to a drawn battle in an hour and three quarters. To those who understand chess, this exertion of M. Philidor's abilities must appear one of the greatest of which the human memory is susceptible. He goes through it with astonishing accuracy and often corrects mistakes in those who have the board before them.
Between the years 1788 and 1792 Philidor played eight similar matches, each match consisting, in general, of three games; and in 1792 two such matches were played in the presence of the Turkish ambassador. In 1795 when he was at the age of sixty-nine he played three blindfold matches in public, the last of which was thus announced in the daily papers:
CHESS CLUB, 1795, PARSLOE'S, ST. JAMES'S STREET. By particular desire, Mons. Philidor, positively for the very last time, will play on Saturday, the 20th of June, at 2 o'clock precisely, three games at once against three good chessplayers; two of them without seeing either of the boards, and the third looking over the table. He most respectfully invites all the members of the chess-club to honour him with their presence. Ladies and gentlemen not belonging to the club may be provided with tickets at the above-mentioned house to see the match, at five shillings each.
On Saturday, August 29th, 1795, the following sad intelligence appeared in the daily papers.
MONS. PHILIDOR, THE CHESS-PLAYER.
On Monday last, the 24th of August, this long celebrated foreigner made his last move into the other world. For two months, he was kept alive merely by art and the kind attentions of an old and worthy friend. To the last moment of his existence he enjoyed, though nearly seventy years of age, a strong and retentive, memory, which long rendered him remarkable in the circle of his acquaintance in this capital.
M. Philidor was a member of the chess-club near thirty years, and was a man of those meek qualities that rendered him not less esteemed as a companion, than admired for extraordinary skill in the game of chess, for which he was pre-eminently distinguished.
It is only two months since he played two games blindfold at the same time, against two excellent chess-players, and was declared the victor. He was, besides, an admirable musician and a composer.
What seemed to have shaken the poor old man's constitution, and to have precipitated his exit, was not being able to procure a passport to return to Paris to see his family (who reside there,) before he paid the last debt of nature. This refusal was rendered still more bitter, on its being intimated to him that he was denounced by the blood-thirsty committee of French Revolutionists as a suspected character. From the moment he was made acquainted with this circumstance he became a martyr to grief his philosophy forsook him, his tears were incessant and he sank into the grave.
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Chess Archeology 
