Tournaments of that year, and were destined with Zukertort and
Gunsberg of ten years later growth, to rank as conspicuously
successful among even the score or so of the pre-eminently
distinguished players of the highest class the world has ever
produced, the Rev. G. A. MacDonnel1 and Barnes were of five and
Boden of 12 years earlier reputation, all were competing in the
1862 contest, Buckle died in this year, and his opponent Bird
had retired from chess, other pursuits entirely absorbing his
time mostly abroad. He had been the hardest fighter and most
active of the English combatants of 15 years before, and it was
his fate about four years later, once more to become not the
least prominent and interesting of the leading chess players.

Chess as now played with the Queen of present powers, imported
into the game dates back about four centuries, to near the time
when the works of the Spanish writers, Vicenz and Lucena,
appeared in 1495, and shortly before that of Damiano the
Portuguese in 1512. In 1561 Ruy Lopez, the Spanish priest of
Cafra, a name familiar to the present generation, from one of the
openings most approved in modern practice being named after
him, wrote the best work of a scientific character which had
appeared in Europe to that time, and he was considered in Spain
the very best player in the world, until the memorable contests
between him and Leonardo da Cutri, and Paolo Boi of Syracuse
left the question of supremacy doubtful. These famous struggles
are reverted to not without interest in our days, when the not
very profitable task of attempting to institute comparisons between
past and present great players is indulged in, for in the absence
of a single published complete and annotated game until the 19th
century, there is little advantage in conjecturing whether Al Suli