Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/282

 274

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. AI-WL 7. im

the Egyptians were acquainted with a game analogous to our chess may be thus stated. Chambers ('Encyclopaedia,' ii. 798) remarks that it "may now be considered as certain

that a game essentially the same as

modern chess was played in Hindustan nearly 5,000 years ago." This immense antiquity makes it easy and natural for the game to have been depicted on Egyptian monuments. Indeed, if anything like this be the antiquity of the game, it would rather be surprising if it did not appear depicted on ancient Egyptian monuments than if it did ; and this surprise would be increased by remembering what a great number of various games are found thus commemorated. And when we actually find among them two games bearing analogies to chess and draughts outwardly, it seems reasonable to conclude that such a people as the ancient Egyptians must have known chess. In the game drawn in the Art Journal it must be allowed that the pieces bear not the slightest resemblance in form to draughtsmen, which are simply round discs of two colours. But they are manifestly up- right figures of some sort, similar in general appearance to chessmen ; and the drawing being on so small a scale may have prevented the artist distinguishing any different forms they may have had, specially as his Egyptian customers would know the game.

But even if these upright pieces were all of the same form (though, like modern chess- men, of two colours), their respective values could easily have been marked upon them. Pamphilius Maurilianus, in the poem attri- buted to him, connects the pieces with the planets thus : Sol, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Luna, Saturnus, respectively with king, queen bishop, knight, castle, pawn (Archoeologia xxiv. 226). Trie cipher emblems of these planets could easily have been painted, or inlaid, on these several pieces.

But among the Egyptian paintings are seen two persons playing at a game with pieces on a board, and these are small discs, similar to modern draughtsmen ; and I believe I have seen another where the pieces are cubes. W< have therefore here, apparently, a game o draughts similar to ours, but quite distinc from the so-called draughts game in the Ar Journal, the two drawings together appear ing to represent Egyptian chess and draughts On examining the game with upright chess like pieces the action and appearance of th< game and players remind us forcibly of chess not draughts. The game seems just concluded Leo has won and is grasping the stakes. H holds up some important piece, and with opei

nouth appears to be giving checkmate, as f he had taken the adversary's queen and pened a final check. But in draughts there s no equivalent to such a position or repre- entation. And I think that any person who would say at once that they were playing a a;ame similar to chess. Considering the minute letail of most Egyptian paintings, it seems more reasonable to conclude that these two games thus drawn on Egyptian remains represented two distinct sorts of play rather and that these were analogous to what we enow as chess and draughts. A. M.
 * vas not told these two were playing draughts
 * han that both (or all three) merely figured
 * hesame rather monotonous game of draughts,

SUFFOLK NAME FOR LADYBIRD (9 th S. v. 48, 154). There is an insect called "bishop's mitre," but it is not, I believe, of the Coleoptera. The name "bishop" for the ladybird is found in many dictionaries, and Halliwell gives also 'bishop-barnabee," with the alternative forms of benebee and benetree. May not the word have irst been burn-a-bee, in reference to the in- sect's glowing colour, which makes English children chant to it, "Your house is on fire and your children will burn," and leads German children to call it " bird of the sun " and "sun-chick"? At one time I made a iittle collection of names given to the lady- bird in various countries, and of some child- rimes about it. Among the English names, besides those mentioned, were lady-bug, lady- clock, lady-cow, lady-fly, and golden knob. One of the oddest of the child-rimes was :

Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home,

Your house is on fire and your children alone,

All burned but one,

And that is Brown Betty that sits in the sun.

M. C. L.

New York.

PROCESS FOR REMOVING PAINT (9 th S. iii. 308, 392). A London firm of consulting chemists has recently patented in England and France a novel liquid preparation for quickly removing coats of old paint from carved woodwork, or from ironwork of any description, leaving the surfaces quite clean. This preparation is now being manufactured in Paris, and is expected to be one of the many clous of the approaching Exposition.

J. P. S.

Paris.

"HuRGiN" (9 th S. v. 87, 213). The Orcens in 'Beowulf are mentioned with giants and elves. It is, I believe, not quite clear what the Orcens are ; but they have been supposed to be dwarfs, which are much the same as