King me!
Samuel Johnson — poet, lexicographer, checkers-player? Indeed. Although Boswell reports that Johnson did not play checkers later in life, he was fond of it in college, and in fact wrote the dedication and preface to the first English language book on the rules, William
Payne’s An Introduction to the Game of Draughts. In the dedication he neatly defends the study of a mere game with words that
will stir the souls of Civilization IV and Dungeons & Dragons addicts the world over:
“Triflers may find or make any thing a trifle; but since it is the
great characteristic of a wise man to see events in their causes, to
obviate consequences, and ascertain contingencies, your Lordship will
think nothing a trifle by which the mind is inured to caution,
foresight, and circumspection.”
