The Life of Philidor, Musician and Chess-Player

Cornell Uniucrstty library 3tljaca, SJmu fork FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY , COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library ML. , 410.P54A42. The life of Phllldor, musician and chess 3 1924 017 593 694 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017593694 LIFE OF PHILIDOR GEORGE ALLEN A few Large Paper copies have been printed on French vellum paper (Papier •v'elin a" Annonay,') on Dutch laid paper (Papier merge de Hollande^) and on American toned paper. Two copies have been printed on VELLUM: The first Book-Printing on Vellum executed in America. LIFE OF PHILIDOR MUSICIAN AND CHESS-PLAYER GEORGE ALLEN Greek Profeflbr in the Univerfity of Pennfyfvania WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY ON PHILIDOR AS CHESS-AUTHOR AND CHESS-PLAYER BY Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa Envoy Extraordinary and Minifter Plenipotentiary of the' King of >Pruffia at the Court of Saxe-Weimar PHILADELPHIA E. H. BUTLER & CO. Cie LONDON C. J. SKEET PARIS G. BOSSANGE & LEIPZIG ERNST SCHAFER 1863 U Entered, according to Aft of Congrefs, in the year 1863, BY GEORGE ALLEN, In the Clerk's Office of the DiftricT: Court of the United States in and for the Eaftern Diftrict of Pennfylvania. P HI1ADI1 p ft 1 a : CAXTON PRESS OF C. SHERMAN, SON & CO. ; PREFACE. ro^HE fpecial and indifpenfable original fources -7_\k of information for the life of Philidor are the following:—I. A biographical notice in the work of his pupil, La Borde (Effai fur la Mufique, 4 vols. 4to. Paris 1760.) This notice was bafed on memoranda furniftied by Philidor himfelf, rather over fifteen years before his death ; but it brings his /erj"on a I hiftory down no lower than 1754, tne date of his return from England.—II. The "Anecdotes of Mr. Philidor, communicated by himfelf" in Chefs [by Richard Twifs, F.R.S.] vol. i. 1787, pp. 149-71, with the additional anecdotes in Chefs, vol. ii. 1789, pp. 215-18, and the " Clofure of the account of Mr. Phili- dor,"'in Twifs's Mifcellanies, 1805, vol. ii. pp. 105-14. Thefe anecdotes, while they confirm the notice of La Borde, are far more copious, and conftitute the chief reliance of the biographer.—III. The article Philidor peint par lui-meme, in the feventh volume of Saint- Amant's Palamede, (pp. z-16,) compofed by J. Lardin from matter prepared by Philidor's eldeft fon, Andre, who furvived until 1845. It embraces a biographical notice, which the fon had completed, and a number of random anecdotes. The notice contains little beyond what appears to have been derived from Twifs's Chefs vi PREFACE. but the anecdotes, worthlefs as a portion of them may be, are of, peculiar intereft and value, for the light which they throw upon Philidor's perfonal character and habits.—IV. A#fpecimen of the letters which Phi- lidor was in the habit of writing home, during his annual viiits to London. Thefe important documents are found in the Palamede for 1847, pp. 172-8. Now many Lives of Philidor have been written, in the fliape of articles in works of general and fpecial Biography; but they differ Angularly from each other, in reference to the ufe made in them of the above- defcribed original authorities. Of courfe, none but fuch as have been written fince 1847 could exhibit anything derived from the matter furniflied in Saint-Amant's Palamede. But of the others—and they are nearly all— • it is a curious faft, that none but fuch as have been written by Chefs-authors (and I might even fay by Englijh Chefs-authors) have lhewn any knowledge whatever of the Anecdotes of Twifs. Hence Mr. George Walker's very agreeable Biographical Sketch (prefixed to his edition of the Analyfis, in 1832) and the appro- priate chapter in Mr. Tomlinfon's delightful Amufe- ments in Chefs, both bafed upon Twifs, are by far the bed of all that appeared before Andre Philidor's .pofthu- mous notice. As to French Chefs-authors, all they have of Twifs has been obtained at fecond hand : the flight and inaccurate Biographic, for example, in the firft volume of La Bourdonnais's Palamede—the production, moll likely, of the lazy and care'lefs "King of the Chefs- board" himfelf—is made up from the Biographical Sketch of Mr. Walker; and the brief notice in the Comte de Bafterot's moil attra&ive Nouveau Trait'e 'el'e- mentaire appears to be bafed direclly upon the cor- refponding chapter in the Amufements of Mr. Tom- linfon. As for the numerous lives of Philidor, written by PREFACE. vii other than Chefs-authors—articles in Encyclopaedias, Biographical Dictionaries, and Dictionaries of Mufical Hiftory and Biography—thefe, whether French or Eng- lish, are, for the mod part, mere tracings after the flcetdi of La Borde, with only fo much of unauthentic anecdote or goffip, as each writer might happen to pick up from cafual fources of information. Of thefe, that which was contributed to the Biographie Univerfelle of the Brothers Michaud, by Sevelinges, is not merely defective, like the reft, but positively mifchievous : it contains that calum- nious charge of plagiarifm, which has been regularly copied by the fecond-rate compilers, who have ftolen their materials from that vaft quarry. The very able article on Philidor, in M. Fetis's Biographic Univerfelle des Muficiens, for its Angular merits and its very original defefts, ftands entirely by itfelf. It is unique in the value of its criticifm of Philidor's mufical works—made, as it was, after careful ftudy of the engraved fcores, now fo little known and fo difficult to procure; and it is triumphant in its vindication of the probity, as well as of the genius, of Philidor. On the other hand, it is equally unique as a piece of perfonal biography. Fetis knew nothing of Twifs, and he wrote before Andre Philidor. Although a Chefs-player himfelf, and a fre- quenter of the Cafe de la R'egence, he appears never to have read, or to have treated with contempt, the Bio- graphie of La Bourdonnais's Palamede. Nothing was left him, therefore, but La Borde ; and La Borde he regarded with a fcorn fo intolerant and fo abfolute, that he would not accept as fatisfaftory even thofe particulars of Phili- dor's foreign residence, which at the fame moment he tells us were contributed by Philidor himfelf. Nay, when he finds the German, Gerber, repeating thofe fame- particulars, and fubftantiating them by independent teftimony, he as little fcruples to fmother Gerber, as to throw overboard La Borde. To fupply the lack of per- ; viii PREFACE. fonal details, of which he thus robs himfelf, he is forced this, to fill up his fketch with La Regence goffip ; and where it is, in its way, injurious to Philidor, has been unfortunately and unfufpeftingly copied by the mufical writers, who naturally defer to the high authority of Fetis—fuch as Adam, Scudo, and Pougin. From that which I have thus, with all freedom, faid of my predeceffors, it may be fufficiently inferred, what I have myfelf aimed to make the Life of Philidor now prefented to the Reader. It might, perhaps, have been more what it mould be, if it had not been originally, like its fellows, a mere article—the fruit, too, of acci- dental authorftiip in the field of my recreations, rather than in that of my profeflional ftudies. The truth is, that, having fucceeded in collecting a remarkable Chefs- library—now one of the five or fix in exiftence, that ap- proach completenefs— I was induced, in 1857-8, more readily than I could have fuppofed poflible, to contribute to the American Chefs Monthly, (which had then juft been eftablilhed by the able bibliographer and philolo- gift, Mr. Daniel W. Fiske,) a feries of articles on the perfonal biography of Philidor, of which fifty copies were feparately printed for private diftribution. The reception of my biography, in either form, by the Chefs- world, to which alone it was then addrefled, was fo un- expectedly favourable,* that, when my illullrious corre- fpondent, Herr von der Lasa, offered to contribute a fupplementary paper on Philidor as Chefs-author and * The celebrated French Chefs-litterateurs, MM. Doazan and St.- Elme Le Due, in particular, made a more graceful recognition of what I had endeavoured to do for the memory of their great countryman, by publicly inferibing to me—the former his charmingly written mo- nographs entitled La Bourdonnah-Morfhy and M. Alliey, the latter a beautiful article in La Regence on his precious Ceylon Chefs-board and the learned German Mafter, Herr Max Lange, did me the ho- nour to prefent a free verlion of my Biography to his countrymen, (with praife far beyond its deferts,) in the Scbacbzeitung. PREFACE. ix Chefs-player, I decided at once—quite contrary to my original intention—to give the work a careful revifion, and to publifti it in the ordinary mode. To be perfectly frank, however, I muft own, that my decifion was not a little affefted alfo by the temptation to indulge certain philobiblian taftes of mine, long fup- preffed but profoundly inveterate. Laying to my foul the flattering unftion, that better Grecians than I had been bitten with the Bibliomania—that Brunck, for example, (who was a gentleman and a foldier, before he was a fcholar,) never put forth one of his editions without having copies printed on Large Paper and at leafl one for himfelf on Vellum—I accepted it as a good reafon for publilhing my own trifling volume, that I Ihould thereby have the opportunity of " inaugurating" book-printing on Vellum in America.* The fuppofed difficulty of the undertaking gave it the charm of ail adventure.

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