repeats the old belief that "The Game of Chess" was the first book
printed in England, and gives the date of 1474, it is really a reprint
of the second edition of Caxton.

(_Sloane's version_.)

The Buke of the Chesse. Auchinleck Press. 1818. 4to.

This is printed from 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 mediæval
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