a MS. which is believed to have been written about
the beginning of the sixteenth century. The work is in verse, and ends:
"Heir endis y'e buke of y'e Chess, Script per manu Jhois Sloane." Only
forty copies were reprinted by Sir Alexander Boswell at the
Auchinleck Press.

(_Linde. Lowndes_.)

The "Game and Play of the Chess" is an interesting specimen of mediaeval
English literature. It is so near our own time that the language
prefents few difficulties, in spite of its many Gallicisms, and yet it
is so remote as to seem like the echo of an unknown world. The
distinctly dogmatic portions of the book are but few, and their paucity
is indeed a matter of some surprise, since it is in effect a detailed
treatise on practical ethics, and is, in part if not wholly,
systematized from the discourses of one distinguished preacher, who had
borrowed much of his matter from another eminent ecclesiastic. The
author aims not at the enforcement of doctrine, but at the guidance of
life, though he no doubt assumes that his hearers are all faithful and
orthodox sons of the Church.[22]

The ideal of the commonwealth of the middle ages finds an interesting
expression. The sharp lines of demarcation between class and class are
stated with the frankness that comes of a belief that the then existing
social fabric was the only one possible in the best of worlds. There is
no doubt in the author's mind as to the rightful position of king and
baron, of bishp and merchant. The "rights of man" had not been invented,
apparently, and the maxim that the king reigns but does not govern,
would have perplexed the souls of Cessoles and his translators. They had
no more doubt as to the divine right of the monarch, than the Thibetan
has of the divine right of the grand lama. The Buddhist thinks he has
secured the continuous re-appearance of supernatural wisdom in human
form, and the regular transmission of political ability in the same
family was the ideal for which the devotees of mediaeval despotism had to
hope. Nothing could be further from the aspirations of our author than a
race of mere palace kings seeking enjoyment only in self-indulgence. The
king was to be the ruler and leader of his people. The relation and
interdependence of the several classes is emphatically proclaimed, and
the claims of duty are urged upon each.

The book enables us to gauge the literary culture of the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Poor as it may now see