You shall see checque-mate given to Virtue's foes.
But the fair'st jewel that our hopes can decke
Is so to play our game t'avoid your checke."

The play excited indignation in the partisans of the Romish Church, and was
not only suppressed by James I., but at the demand of the Queen its author
was imprisoned, and was relieved only by a witty verse sent to the King.

The last which we have room to quote is anonymous, and of date near
1632. It may have been written by the celebrated divine, Thomas Jackson, of
Corpus-Christi College, whose discourse comparing the visible world to a
"Devil's Chess-board" evidently suggested the familiar etching in which
Satan contends with a youth for his soul. The lines are entitled:

THE PAWNE.

"A lowly one I saw,
With aim fist high:
Ne to the righte,
Ne to the lefte
Veering, he marched by his Lawe,
The crested Knyghte passed by,
And haughty surplice-vest,
As onward toward his heste
With patient step he prest,
Soothfaste his eye:
Now, lo! the last doore yieldeth,
His hand a sceptre wieldeth,
A crowne his forehead shieldeth!