The following article, from a newspaper
of the period, was thought to reflect with tolerable accuracy the
general impression prevailing at the time in regard to these
performances.
The World, a London newspaper in its issue of the 28th May,
1783, makes the following remarks upon Philidor's performance
of playing two games simultaneously without sight of the board.
It scarcely, however, comes up to our American cousin's views of
Morphy in 1858, just three-quarters of a century later. It says:
"This brief article is the record of more than sport and fashion,
it is a phenomenon in the history of man and so should be hoarded
among the best samples of human memory, till memory shall be
no more. The ability of fixing on the mind the entire plan of two
chess tables without seeing either, with the multiplied vicissitudes
of two and thirty pieces in possible employment on each table, is a
wonder of such magnitude as could not be credible without
repeated experience of the fact."
Philidor himself notes also, being of opinion that an entire
collection of the games he has played without looking over the chess
board would not be of any service to amateurs, he will only publish
a few parties which he has played against three players at once,
subjoining the names of his respectable adversaries in order to
prove and transmit to posterity a fact of which future ages might
otherwise entertain some doubt.
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