Anonymous French nineteenth-century handbill poem, containing precepts on the game of chess, entitled 'Le Jeu d'Échecs.'

4 pp, 16mo. Paginated [1] to 4. On a bifolium of wove paper. Fair, on lightly-aged and creased paper, with thin strip of previous mount adhering to inner margin of first page. A 96-line poem, written in rhyming alexandrine couplets, beginning 'Du noble jeu d'échecs la tactique savante | Bannit de sa manoeuvre une ardeur imprudente, | Et dans sa stratégie il importe avant tout | De juger et prévoir l'importance du coup.' The poem briefly sketches out the game's precepts and the merits of the individual pieces, with reference to the following political and military figures: 'Le fameux Talleyrand' (who possessed 'le grand talent d'attendre'), Xenophon, Moreau, Varus, Murat ('Les brillans cavaliers iront comme Murat | Caracoler partout au plus fort du combat, [...]'). Scarce no copy listed in the catalogue of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, or on COPAC.