And even Shakspeare must be ranged in the same category. The most English of poets has not one laudatory phrase for
wherewith his life should sail' wasted 'to a thread.' Polonius tells Laertes, 'the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail'a technical expression, the singular propriety of which a naval critic has recently established; whilst some of the commentators on the passage in King Lear , descriptive of the prospect from Dover Cliffs, affirm that the comparison as to apparent size, of the ship to her cock-boat, and the cock-boat to a buoy, discover a perfect knowledge of the relative proportions of the objects named. In Hamlet , Othello , The Tempest , The Merchant of Venice , The Comedy of Errors , Twelfth Night , Winter's Tale , Measure for Measure , and Pericles , sea-storms are made accessory to the development of the plot, and sometimes described with a force and truthfulness which forbid the belief that the writer had never witnessed such scenes: however, like Horace, it is in the darkest colours that Shakspeare uniformly paints 'the multitudinous seas.'
In the Winter's Tale , we read of
The genius of 'Old Coila,' in sketching the poet's early life, says
One sea-picture, and one alone, is to be found in Burns, and this, it is freely admitted, is exquisite:
and has been preferred by the philosopher, its inventor, to all other means by which we arrive at wisdom.' The second advantage is in the promotion and cultivation of religion; predestination and free-will are both exemplifiedthe player being able to move where he will, yet always in obedience to certain laws. 'Whereas,' says the writer, 'Nerdthat is, Eastern backgammonon the contrary, is mere free-will, while in dice, again, all is compulsion.' The third and fourth advantages relate to government and war; and the fifth to astronomy, illustrating its several phenomena as shewn by the text, according to which 'the board represents the heavens, in which the squares are the celestial houses, and the pieces, stars. The superior pieces are likened to the moving stars; and the pawns, which have only one movement, to the fixed stars. The king is as the sun, and the wazir in place of the moon, and the elephants and taliah in the place of Saturn, and the rukhs and dabbabah in that of Mars, and the horses and camel in that of Jupiter, and the ferzin and zarafah in that of Venus; and all these pieces have their accidents, corresponding with the trines and quadrates, and conjunction and opposition, and ascendancy and declinesuch as the heavenly bodies have; and the eclipse of the sun is figured by shah caim or stale mate;' and much more to the same purport. We question whether the astronomer-royal ever suspected he was illustrating his own science when engaged in one of his quiet games of chess with the master of trinity.
The sixth advantage is somewhat astrological in character: as there are four principal movements of chess, these answer to the four physical temperaments, Cold, Warm, Dry, and Wet, which are ruled by their respective planets; and thus each piece on the board is made to have its peculiar significance in relation with the stars. It is further shewn, that chess-playing is remedial against many of the lesser bodily ailments; 'and no illness is more grievous than hunger and thirst, yet both of these, when the mind is engaged in chess, are no longer thought of.' Next in order, the seventh advantage, is 'in obtaining repose for the soul;' as the author observes: 'The soul hath illnesses like as the body hath, and the cure of these last is known; but of the soul's illness there be also many kinds, and of these I will mention a few.' These are ignorance, disobedience, haste, cunning, avarice, tyranny, lying, pride, deceit, and envy. Deceit is said to be of two kinds: that which deceives others, and that which deceives ourselves. But of all evils, ignorance is the greatest; 'for it is the soul's death, as learning is its life; and for this disease is chess an especial cure, since there is no way by which men arrive more speedily at knowledge and wisdom; and in like manner, by its practice, all the faults which form the diseases of the soul are converted into their corresponding virtues.' It is not to be doubted that chess-playing may keep individuals out of mischief; but, whatever may have been the case in ancient times, we do not hear of its transforming vicious characters into virtuous ones in our days.