Chess World Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 Excerpt: ...der Tonhmst. That Philidor was capable of every kind of generosity, or rather that he was incapable of anything else, appears also by his efforts in behalf of Gretry in 1767, when he used all his influence to procure him a poem to work upon, and, failing, invited him to unite his music and his name with his own, now so celebrated, in Le Jardinier de Sidon. (Gretry, Memoiret, Tome I. p. 428.) tenor of his professional labors, when in 1772, the current of his remaining years received a new direction. "This year (says Mr. Twiss) he came to England, and passed a month with his friends." It seems, however, hard to believe, that Philidor, at the age of fifty-six--after the wandering spirit of his youth had been, for eighteen years, thoroughly laid and smothered by wife and children and professional success--should have suddenly undertaken, of his own accord, to visit a scene, from which the most of his old friends--stout Sir Abraham, dark Stamma, and their contemporaries--must have long since disappeared. It is far more likely, that Philidor was drawn from his regular and industrious way of life by a special and pressing invitation. A younger generation of amateurs had grown up in England, that seemed disposed to aim at being "better than their fathers." In 1770 a new club, at the Salopian Coffeehouse, had superseded the heroic rendezvous of Old Slaughter. Count Briihl, on whose boyish path we have fancied that the light of Philidor's countenance may have fallen in 1752, had now been for several years resident in England, where, in 1709, he had married an English wife. Now we know that he occasionally visited Paris; f and we may be certain that he did not visit Paris without visiting all that made Paris Paris to a Chess-player, the Cafe de la ...