They commanded the admiration and enthusiasm of all
lovers of chess at the time, besides securing press notice and
arousing a taste for its practice, and a genuine emulation never
witnessed before this great example, and the appreciation of the
games is now as great as ever, and few modern matches can bear
comparison with them.
Different versions of the score have appeared; it was probably
finally La Bourdonnais 43, McDonnell 29, and draws 13.
------
The Chess Congress of the North of Ireland, which will sound
yet more familiar to many ears, under the title of the Belfast or
Belfast and Holywood Chess Congress (for it is to the spirit and
liberality of these two places that the meeting owes its origin)
commenced in the Central Hall, Belfast, on September 12th, and
concluded with one of Mr. Blackburne's marvellous blindfold
performances on September 24th, an ordinary simultaneous
competition of twenty-one games by Mr. Bird, on September 21st,
having also apparently afforded some pleasure and satisfaction.
The Belfast meeting must, owing to the originality and
enterprise of its conception, and the complete success which has
attended it form a unique item in Great Britain's local chess
records, and will not form one of the least interesting and
significant features in the national chess history of this
generation, for it is the first occasion in the record of the
forty-eight counties gatherings held since the first of 1841, in
Leeds, that the idea has been conceived of adding a contest between
the greatest living masters in the country on terms the most
liberal and deeply appreciated.
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