There do not appear sufficient grounds for estimating one more
highly than the other. Foreign critics sometimes as well as
English ones have been apt for purposes of inferential comparison
to exalt one player and proportionately disparage another; thus
chess critics, with whom Staunton does not stand in the highest
favour in the past, or Steinitz in the present, too often indulge
in the most extravagant statements as to Morphy's immeasurable
superiority, not based on conclusive grounds; when the games and
evidence are closely and impartially tested.
The rapidly advancing chess skill of so many young amateurs
in the present day is a great stimulus to the rising generation of
chess-players, especially to such as aim at a high state of
proficiency; and, though this may be regarded as one of the most
interesting and popular features in the pursuit the author of the
article in question makes no reference to this branch of the
subject. The gradual introduction of the game as a mental
recreation into seats of learning and industrial establishments,
and the formation of many Working Men's Chess Clubs are now
well known; the result is that for the first time within the
recollection of present players several amateurs have come to
the front scarcely inferior in force to the new Master, Pollock,
whilst some in style may compete with him! Anger, Donisthorpe,
Guest, Hooke, Hunter, Jacobs, and Mills, with the most successful
of the past University Chess Teams, Chepmell, Gattie, Gwinner,
Locock, Plunkett, and Wainwright, are names scarcely less
familiar than those of the half dozen older masters left, who form
the remnant of the little band of twenty recognised masters living
in 1854.
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