Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/233

 and Sentiments. Rome as early as 1524, and perhaps this was not the iirft. The figures of the chell-men are given in this treatife ; that of the king is vafe- ihaped, not unUke our modern cheff-king, but with two crowns ; the queen is fimilar in fliape, but has one crown ; the delfino (bifliop) differs from them in being fmaller, and having no crown; the cavallo (knight) has the form of a horfe's head ; the rocho, as it is ftill called, is in the form of a tower, like our modern caflle ; and the pedona (pawn) refembles a cone, with a knob at the apex. In England, the game of chefs feems not to have been much in vogue during the iixteenth century ; it is, I believe, only alluded to once in Shakefpeare, in a well-known fcene in the Tempetl, which may have been taken from a foreign llory, to which he owed his plot. The name of the game had been corrupted into c/ie/Is or cheajls. The game of chefs was expreffly difcouraged by our "Solomon," James I., as " overwife and philofophicke a folly." An attempt to bring it into more notice appears to have been made early in the reign of Elizabeth, under the patronage of lord Robert Dudley, afterwards the celebrated earl of Leicefter, who difplayed on many occa- fions a tafte for refinements of this fort. Inftruftions were again fought from Italy through France ; for there was printed and publillied in London, in the year 1562, a little volume dedicated to lord Robert Dudley, under the title of " The Pleafaunt and wittie Playe of the Cheafts reniewed, with Inltruftions both to Learn it Eafily and to Play it Well; lately tranllated out of Italian into French, and now fet forth in Engliilie by James Rowbotham." Rowbotham gives us fome remarks of his own on the chara6ter of the game, and on the diflferent forms of the chell- men, which are not uninterefting. He fays: — "As for the flilhion of the pieces, that is according to the fantafie of the workman, which maketh them after this manner. Some make them lyke men, whereof the kynge is the higheli, and the queene (whiche fome name amafone or ladye) is the next, bothe two crowned. The bilhoppes fome name alphins, fome fooles, and fome name them princes, lyke as alfo they are next unto the kinge and the queene, other fome cal them archers, and thei are falliioned accordinge to the wyll of the workeman. The knights fome call horfemen, and thei are men on horle backc. The rookes fome cal