Somewhere about the year 1820, a tobacconist, named Gliddon, opened a room in the rear of his shop, King Street, Covent Garden, which he fitted up in Oriental style, and supplied with papers, chess periodicals and chess-boards, calling the establishment "Gliddon's Divan." Amongst his patrons was a Mr. Bernhard Ries, who soon perceived that there was room in London for a similar undertaking on a much larger scale. He accordingly opened a grand chess saloon in the building now occupied by the Divan. This was so far back as 1828. It was, at first, on the ground-floor, in the room known as Simpson's Restaurant, but when Mr. Ries gave up the establishment to his brother, the present proprietor, in 1836, that gentleman transferred the Divan to the vast saloon up stairs. In 1838, Mr. Ries (No. 2) found the Westminster Chess Club suffering from paralysis, its sinews (of war) being grievously affected. He purchased the good-will and furniture of the club, giving the members private rooms on the first floor of his house for their exclusive use. The boards and men now in use at the Divan were made expressly for the Westminster Club when first established. The members in their new locale soon found that whilst some twenty boards would be going in the public room, the game languished with them; and in the course of two years the club broke up and became absorbed in the Divan. This will invariably be the case when a private and exclusive chess association holds its meetings contiguous to a public resort devoted to the same game. During the past year, the Paris _Cercle des Echecs_, which met in rooms over the Café de la Régence, found that the influence of the arena down stairs was too great for them, and they broke up their meetings, and are now to be found _en masse_ in the public café.
In 1842 Mr. Ries invited Labourdonnais to come over from Paris, and play exclusively at the Divan, which offer that great master accepted. But his constitution was already shattered, and the malady which eventually carried him off interfered with his devoting much time to chess, and no matches of importance were played by him during the period. It was next door to the Divan, at No. 6 Beaufort Buildings, in rooms taken for him by Mr. Ries, that Labourdonnais finally succumbed to that terrible antagonist who, whatever the opening may be, brings the game of life to one inevitable ending--death!