iiiiiii li ■liiii iii» ill 11 ^'^tiH^l THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. WASHINGTON IRVING. If REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION, NEW YORK: JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY. 1883. fs (y EXCHANGE ■on I TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bvrt., THIS WORK IS DEDICATED, IN TESTIMONY OF THE ADMIRATION AND AFFECTION OF THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. Page. Advertisement to the First American Edition ..... 5 Adverstisement to the First English Edition 7 The Author's Account of Himself 9 The Voyage 13 Roscoe 20 The Wife 27 Rip Van Winkle 37 English Writers on America 55 Rural Life in England 65 The Broken Heart 73 The Art of Book-making 79 A Royal Poet 87 The Country Church 102 The Widow and her Son 108 The Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap 116 The Mutability of Literature 128 Royal Funerals 140 The Inn Kitchen 152 The Spectre Bridegroom 155 Westminster Abbey , . . ... 172 Christmas 184 The Stage-Coach , . . . . 190 Christmas Eve 197 Christmas Day 209 Christmas Dinner 223 Little Britain 239 Stratford -on- Avon . 25 c Traits of Indian Character 274 Philip of Pokanoket 289 John Bull 305 The Pride of the Village .317 The Angler ........... 327 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 337 Postscript 370 L'Envoy 372 ADVERTISEMENT FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. The following writings are published on experiment ; should they please, they may be followed by others. The writer will have to contend with some disadvantages. He is unsettled in his abode, subject to interruptions, and has his share of cares and vicissitudes. He cannot, therefore, promise a regular plan, nor regular periods of publication. Should he be encouraged to proceed, much time may elapse between the appearance of his numbers ; and their size will depend on the materials he may have on hand. His writin2;s will partake of the fluctuations of his own thoughts and fee- ings ; sometimes treating of scenes before him, sometimes of others purely imaginary, and sometimes wandering back with his recollections to his native country. He will not be able to give them that tranquil attention necessary to finished composition ; and as they must be transmitted across the Atlantic for publication, he will have to trust to others to cor- rect the frequent errors of the press. Should his writings, however, with all their imperfections, be well received, he cannot conceal that it would be a source of the purest grati- fication ; for though he does not aspire to those high honors which are the rewards of loftier intellects ; yet it is the dearest wish of his heart to have a secure and cherished, though humble corner in the good opinions and kind feelings of his countrymen. London^ 1819. - tate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood. His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they be- longed to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes 40 WORKS OF WASHINGTON- IRVING. of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. ■ Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve oh a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away, in perfect contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly go- ing, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a tor- rent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of reply- ing to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, al- ways provoked a fresh volley from his wife, so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house — the only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband. Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master ; for Dame Van Winkle re- garded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods — but what courage can withstand the ever- during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue ? The moment Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation. Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle, as SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 41 years of matrimony rolled on : a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to con- sole himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade of a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands, from some passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the school- master, a dapper learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary ; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months after they had taken place. The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree : so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe in- cessantly. His adherents, however, (for every great man has his adherents,) perfectly understood him, and knew how to ^gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and sometimes taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation. 4iJ WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage, and call the members all to nought ; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Ved- der himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible vi- rago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness. Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair, and his only alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and the clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in perse- cution. " Poor Wolf," he would say, " thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart. In a long ramble of the kind, on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favourite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re- echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees, he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with frag- ments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the SKETi^H-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 43 reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay mu- sing on this scene ; evening was gradually advancing ; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys ; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village ; and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. As he was about to descend he heard a voice from a dis- tance hallooing, " Rip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! " He looked around, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air, " Rip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! "—at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him ; he looked anx- iously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the sin- gularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short square- built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion— a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist — several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoul- ders a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip com- plied with his usual alacrity, and mutually relieving each other, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended. Rip every now and then heard long jolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed 44 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient thunder-showers which often take place in the mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which, im- pending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky, and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time. Rip and his companion had labored on in silence ; for though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something strange and incomprehen- sible about the unknown, that inspired awe, and checked familiarity. On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder pre- sented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a com- pany of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion : some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guide's. Their visages too, were peculiar : one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. They ail had beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Schaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement. What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they main- SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 45 tained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. As Rip and his companion approached them, they sud- denly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such a fixed statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling ; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game. By degrees. Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another, and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. On waking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. " Surely," thought Rip, " I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — the wild retreat among the rocks — the wo-begone party at nine pins — the flagon—" Oh ! that wicked flagon ! " thought Rip—" what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle ? " He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel encrusted v/ith rust, the lock fallins: off, and tb'; 46 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. s ock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in vain ; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his u§ual activity. " These moun- tain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen ; he found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening ; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel ; and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape vines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path. At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog ; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in the air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their eleva- tion, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's per- plexities. What was to be done ? The morning was passing SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 47 away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun ; he dreaded to meet his wife j but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward. As he approached the village, he met a number of people, but none whom he new, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the coun- try round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recur- rence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long ! He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and point- ing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he re- cognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered : it was larger and more popu- lous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen be- fore, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disap- peared. Strange names were over the doors — strange faces at the windows — everything was strange. His mind now mis- gave him ; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but a day before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains — there ran the silver Hudson at a dis- tance — there was every hill and dale precisely as 'it had al- ways been — Rip was sorely perplexed — " That flagon last night," thought he, " has addled my poor head sadly ! " It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay — the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half- ^3 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. Starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, ■ and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. — " My very dog," sighed poor Rip, " has forgotten me ! " He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears — he called loudly for his wife and children — the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn — but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes — all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly meta- morphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, General Washington. There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but rone that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranqu'Uity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke, instead of idle speeches ; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean bilious-looking SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 49 fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens — election — members of Congress — liberty — Bunker's hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other words, that were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot, with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and drawing him partly aside, in- quired, " on which side he voted ? " Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, " whether he was Federal or Democrat." Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkie, with one arm a-kimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, de- manded in an austere tone, " what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village ? " "Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat disma3^ed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal sub- ject of the King, God bless him ! " Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — " a tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with him ! " It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order ; and having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern. 4 50 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. Well — who are they ? — name them." Rip bethought himself a moa^'^jat, and inquired, " Where's Nicholas Vedder ? " There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice, " Nicholas Vedder ? why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! There was a wooden tomb-stone in the church-yard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too." " Where's Brom Butcher 1 " " Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war ', some say he was killed at the storming of Stony-Point — others say he was drowned in the squall, at the foot of Antony's Nose. I don't know — he never came back again." " Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster .? " " He went off to the wars, too ; was a great militia general, and is now in Congress." Rip's heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand : war — Congress — Stony-Point ! — he had no cour- age to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, *' Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle ? " " Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three. ** Oh, to be sure ! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree." Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as he went up the mountain ; apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name ? " God knows," exclaimed he at his wit's end ; " I'm not myself — I'm somebody else — that's rne yonder — no — that's somebody else, got into my shoes — I was myself last night, SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. SI but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell what's my name, or who I am ! " The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their fore- heads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief ; at the very suggestion of which, the self-important man with the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh comely woman passed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. " Hush, Rip," cried she, " hush, you little fool ; the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. " What is your name, my good woman ? " asked he. "Judith Gardenier," "And your father's name ? " " Ah, poor man, his name was Rip Van Winkle ; it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since — his dog came home without him j but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." Rip had but one question more to ask ; but he put it with a faltering voice : " Where's your mother ? " Oh, she too had died but a short time since : she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England pedler. There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your father ! " cried he — "Young Rip Van Winkle once — old Rip Van Winkle now — Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle ! " All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering 52 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. under it m his face for a moment, exclaimed, " Sure enough \ it is Rip Van Winkle — it is himself. Welcome home again, old neighbor — Why, where have you been these twenty long years ? " Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it ; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks ; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head — upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote bne of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hud- son, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in the hollow of the mountain ; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder. To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her ; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 53 husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to cUmb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm ; but evinced a hereditary dis- position to attend to anything else but his business. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor. Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench, at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times '' before the war." It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war — that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England — and that, instead of being a subject of his majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician ; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him ; but there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was — petticoat government. Happily, that was at an end ; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. When- ever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes ; which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance. He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was doubtless owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down pre- 54 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. cisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabi- tants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day, they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hud- son and his crew are at their game of nine-pins ; and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon. Note. — The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart Tiwd. the Kypphauser mountain; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity. " The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson ; all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt." SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 55 ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA. " Methinks I see in my mind a noble puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks ; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her endaz- zled eyes at the full mid-day beam." Milton on the Liberty of the Press. It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America. Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press has teemed with vol- umes of travels through the Republic ; but they seem in- tended to diffuse error rather than knowledge ; and so suc- cessful have they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there is no people concerning whom the great mass of the British public have less pure in- formation, or entertain more numerous prejudices. English travellers are the best and the worst in the world. Where no motives of pride or interest intervene, none can equal them for profound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphical descriptions of external objects ; but when either the interest or reputation of their own country comes in collision with that of another, they go to the oppo- site extreme, and forget their usual probity and candor, in the indulgence of splenetic remark, and an illiberal spirit of ridicule. Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more remote the country described. I would place implicit confidence in an Englishman's description of the regions be- yond the cataracts of the Nile ; of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea : of the interior of India ; or of any other tract ^6 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. which other travellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their fancies. But I would cautiously receive his account of his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices. It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous nations, with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure ; it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Man- chester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respecting America. From such sources she is content to receive her information respecting a country in a singular state of moral and physical development ; a country in which one of the greatest political experiments in the history of the world is now performing, and which presents the most profound and momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher. That such men should give prejudiced accounts of America, is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contem- plation, are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a state of fermentation : it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome : it has already given proofs of powerful and generous qualities ; and the whole promises to settle down into something substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indica- tions of admirable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers ; who are only affected by the little asperities inci- dent to its present situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of things ; of those matters which come in contact with their private interests and personal gratifica- tions. They miss some of the snug conveniences and petty SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 57 comforts which belong to' an old, highly-finished, and over- populous state of society ; where the ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many earn a painful and servile subsistence, bv studying the very caprices of appetite and self-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all-important in the esti- mation of narrow minds ; which either do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings. They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some un- reasonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have pic- tured America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the natives were lacking in sagacity ; and where they were to become strangely and suddenly rich, in some unforeseen but easy manner. The same weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations, produces petulance in disappointment. Such persons become embittered against the country on finding that there, as everywhere else, a man must sow before he can reap ; must win wealth by industry and talent ; and must contend with the common difficulties of nature, and the shrewdness of an intelligent and enter- prising people. Perhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospitality, or from the prompt disposition to cheer and countenance the stranger, prevalent among my countrymen, they may have been treated with unwonted respect in America ; and, having been accustomed all their lives to consider themselves below the surface of good society, and brought up in a servile feel- ing of inferiority, they become arrogant, on the common boon of civility ; they attribute to the lowliness of others their own elevation ; and underrate a society where there are no artifi- cial distinctions, and where by any chance, such individuals as themselves can rise to consequence. One would suppose, however, that information coming from such sources, on a subject where the truth is so desirable, would be received with caution by the censors of the press ; that the motives of these men, their veracity, their opportuni- 58 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. ties of inquiry and observation, and their capacities for judg- ing correctly, would be rigorously scrutinized, before their evidence was admitted, in such sweeping extent, against a kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with which English critics will examine the credibility of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant, and comparatively unimportant, country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin ; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge ; while they will receive, with eager- ness and unhesitating faith, the gross misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, concerning a country with which their own is placed in the most important and delicate rela- tions. Nay, they will even make these apocryphal volumes text-books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability worthy of a more generous cause. I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and hackneyed topic ; nor should I have adverted to it, but for the undue in. terest apparently taken in it by my countrymen, and certain injurious effects which I apprehend it might produce upon the national feeling. We attach too much consequence to these attacks. They cannot do us any essential injury. The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our country continually outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day we live a whole volume of refutation. All the writers of England united, if we could for a moment suppose their great minds stooping to so unworthy a combination, could not conceal our rapidly growing importance and matchless prosperity. They could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and local, but also to moral causes ; — to the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious principles, which give force andsustained SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT, ^g energy to the character of a people ; and which, in fact, have been the acknowledged and wonderful supporters of their own national power and glory. But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England ? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the contumely she has endeavored to cast upon us ? It is not in the opinion of England alone that honor lives, and reputation has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of a nation's fame : with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory or national disgrace established. For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but little importance whether England does us justice or not ; it is, per- haps, of far more importance to herself. She is instilling anger and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. If in America, as some of her writers are laboring to convince her, she is hereafter to find an invidious rival, and a gigantic foe, she may thank those very writers for having provoked rival- ship, and irritated hostility. Every one knows the all-per- vading influence of literature at the present day, and how much the opinions and passions of mankind are under its control. The mere contests of the sword are temporary ; their wounds are but in the flesh, and it is the pride of the generous to forgive and forget them ; but the slanders of the pen pierce to the heart ; they rankle longest in the noblest spirits ; they dwell ever present in the mind, and render it mor- bidly sensitive to the most trifling collision. It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations ; there exists, most commonly, a previous jealousy and ill-will, a predisposition to take offence. Trace these to their cause, and how often will they be found to originate in the mischievous effusions of mercenary writers ; v;ho, secure in their closets, and for ignominious bread, concoct and circulate the venom that is to inflame the generous and the brave. I am not laying too much stress upon this point j for it 6o WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. applies most emphatically to our particular case. Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America ; for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader. There is nothing published in England on the subject of our country, that does not circulate through every part of it. There is not a calumny dropt from an English pen, nor an unworthy sar- casm uttered by an English statesman, that does not go to blight good-will, and add to the mass of latent resentment. Possessing, then, as England does, the fountain-head from whence the literature of the language flows, how completely is it in her power, and how truly is it her duty, to make it the medium of amiable and magnanimous feeling — a stream where the two nations might meet together, and drink in peace and kindness. Should she, however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness, the time may come when she may repent her folly. The present friendship of America may be of but little moment to her j but the future destinies of that country do not admit of a doubt : over those of England, there lower some shadows of uncertainty. Should, then, a day of gloom arrive — should those reverses overtake her, from which the proudest empires have not been exempt — she may look back with regret at her infatuation, in repulsing from her side a nation she might have grappled to her bosom, and thus de- stroying her only chance for real friendship beyond the bound- aries of her own dominions. . There is a general impression in England, that the people of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is one of the errors which has been diligently propagated by designing writers. These is, doubtless, considerable political hostility, and a general soreness at the illiberality of the Eng- lish press ; but, collectively speaking, the prepossessions of the people are strongly in favor of England. Indeed, at one time they amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd degree of bigotry. The bare name of Englishman was a pass- port to the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 6l often gave a transient currency to the worthless and the un- grateful. Throughout the country, there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration, as the land of our forefathers — the august repository of the monu- ments and antiquities of our race — the birth-place and mau- soleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own country, there was none in whose glory we more de- lighted — none whose good opinion we were anxious to possess — none toward which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm consanguinity. Even during the late war, whenever there was the least opportunity for kind feelings to spring forth, it was the delight of the generous spirits of our country to show, that in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of future friendship. Is all this to be at an end t Is this golden band of kindred sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever ? — Perhaps it is for the best — it may dispel an allusion which might have kept us in mental vassalage ; which might have interfered occasionally with our true interests, and prevented the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard to give up the kindred tie ! — and there are feelings dearer than inter- est — closer to the heart than pride — that will still make us cast back a look of regret as we wander farther and farther from the paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel the affections of the child. Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the conduct of England may be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on our part would be equally ill-judged. I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindication of our country, or the keenest castiga- taion of her slanderers — but I allude to a disposition to retali- ate in kind, to retort sarcasm and inspire prejudice, which seems to be spreading widely among our writers. Let us guard particularly against such a temper ; for it would double the evil, instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is so easy and inviting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm ; but it is a 62 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, paltry and unprofitable contest. It is the alternative of a morbid mind, fretted into petulance, rather than warmed into indignation. If England is willing to permit the mean jealousies of trade, or the rancorous animosities of politics, to deprave the integrity of her press, and poison the fountain of public opinion, let us beware of her example. She may deem it her interest to diffuse error, and engender antipath)^, for the purpose of checking emigration j we have no purpose of the kind to serve. Neither have we any spirit of national jealousy to gratify ; for as yet, in all our rivalships with Eng- land, we are the rising and the gaining party. There can be no end to answer, therefore, but the gratification of resent- ment — a mere spirit of retaliation ; and even that is impotent. Our retorts are never republished in England ; they fall short, therefore, of their aim ; but they foster a querulous and peev- ish temper among our writers ; they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and sow thorns and brambles among its blos- soms. What is still worse, they circulate through our own country, and, as far as they have effect, excite virulent national prejudices. This last is the evil most especially to be depre- cated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge ; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, wilfully saps the foundation of his country's strength. The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid and dispassionate. They are, individually, portions of the sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should be en- abled to come to all questions of national concern with calm and unbiassed judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations with England, we must have more frequent questions of a difficult and delicate character with her, than with any other nation ; questions that affect the most acute and excit- able feelings : and as, in the adjusting of these, our national measures must ultimately be determined by popular sentiment, we cannot be too anxiously attentive to purify it from all latent passioi; or prepossession. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT, 63 Opening too, as we do, an asylum for strangers from every portion of the earth, we should receive all with impartiality. It should be our pride to exhibit an example of one nation, at least, destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not merely the overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and noble courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion. What have we to do with national prejudices ? They are the inveterate diseases of old countries, contracted in rude and ignorant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, and looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and hostility. We, on the contrary, have sprung into national ex- istence in an enlightened and philosophic age, when the differ- ent parts of the habitable world, and the various branches of the human family, have been indefatigably studied and made known to each other ; and we forego the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off the national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old world. But above all, let us not be influenced by any angry feel- ings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really excellent and amiable in the English character. We are a young people, necessarily an imitative one, and must take our examples and models, in a great degree, from the existing nations of Europe. There is no country more worthy of our study than England. The spirit of her constitution is most analogous to ours. The manners of her people — their intel- lectual activity — their freedom of opinion — their habits of thinking on those subjects which concern the dearest interests and most sacred charities of private life, are all congenial to the American character ; and, in fact, are all intrinsically ex- cellent : for it is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep foundations of British prosperity are laid ; and however the superstructure may be time-worn, or overrun by abuses, there must be something solid in the basis, admirable in the materials, and stable in the 'structure of an edifice that so long has towered unshaken amidst the tempests of the world. Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, discarding all 64 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. feelings of irritation, and disdaining to retaliate the illiberality of British authors, to speak of the English nation without prej- udice, and with determined candor. While they rebuke the indiscriminating bigotry with which some of our countrymen admire and imitate everything English, merely because it is English, let them frankly point out what is really worthy of approbation. We may thus place England before us as a perpetual volume of reference, wherein are recorded sound de- ductions from ages of experience ; and while we avoid the errors and absurdities which may have crept into the page, we may draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, where- with to strengthen and to embellish our national character. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT, 6^ RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. Oh ! friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural pleasures past ! COWPER. The stranger who would form a correct opinion of the Eng- lish character, must not confine his observations to the me- tropoHs. I^ must go forth into the country ; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets ; he must visit castles, villas, farm- houses, cottages ; he must wander through parks and gardens ; along hedges and green lanes ; he must loiter about country churches ; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals ; and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humors. In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation ; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering place, or general rendez- vous, of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and having in- dulged this kind of carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most retired neighborhoods afford speci- mens of the different ranks. The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a c^uick sensibility to the beauties of nature, aaj^ 5 66 WORKS OF WASHING TOI^ IRVING. a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bus- tling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the conduct of his business, and the success of a commercial enterprise. Even those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing- room window resembles frequently a bank of flowers ; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass-plot and flower-bed ; and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with refreshing verdure. Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this huge metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly, a look of hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else ; at the moment he is talk- ing on one subject, his mind is wandering to another ; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the morning. An immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meetings, they can but deal briefly in commonplaces. They present but the cold superfices of character — its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow. It is in the country that the Englishma«h gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold for- malities and negative civilities of town ; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 67 manages to collect round him all the conveniences and ele- gancies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retire- ment, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint, either upon his guests or him- self, but, in the true spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves everyone to partake according to his inclination. The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied Nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes. Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets cf vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them ; the hare, bounding away to the covert ; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake — the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fear- lessly about its limpid waters : while some rustic temple, or sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives an ail* of classic sanctity to the seclusion. These are but a few of the features of park scenery : but what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty por- tion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes 68 WORKS OF WASHINGTOI^ IRVING. at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand j and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees ; the cautious pruning of others ; the nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage ; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf ; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water — all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervad- ing yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture. The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy, that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass- plot before the door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice ; the pot of flowers in the window ; the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside ; — all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high sources, and per- vading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever Love, "as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cot- tage of an English peasant. The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the English, has had a great and salutary effect upon the na- tional character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English gentlemen. Instead of the softness -and effeminacy which characterize the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit an union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country. The hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind and SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT 69 spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distinction between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable, as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms, has established a regular gradation from the noblemen, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmer, down to the laboring peasantry ; and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of indepen- dence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was forroerly ; the larger estates hav- ing, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, alnrost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned. In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty ; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, op- erated upon by the purest and most elevating of external in- fluences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he can- not be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds noth- ing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring men more and more to- gether j and the sound of hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the no- bility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England, than they are in any other country : and why the lat- ter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities. y O WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VING. without repining more generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege. To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society, may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature ; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life ; those incomparable descriptions of Nature, that abound in the British poets — that have continued down from " the Flower and the Leaf " of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms ; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her — they have wooed her in her most secret haunts — they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze — a leaf could not rustle to the ground — a diamond drop could not patter in the stream — a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality. The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural oc- cupations, has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is rather level, and would be monot- onous, were it not for the charms of culture ; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and em- broidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture j and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness. The great charm, however, of English scenery, is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Everything SKE TCH-BOOK OF GEOFFRE V CRA YOIV, GENT. 7 1 seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful ex- istence. The old church, of remote architecture, with its low massive portal ; its gothic tower ; its windows, rich with tra- cery and painted glass, in scrupulous preservation — its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, an- cestors of the present lords of the soil — its tombstones, re- cording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose pro- geny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar — the parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and oc- cupants — the stile and footpath leading from the church-yard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedge-rows, according to an immemorable right of way — the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green, sheltered by trees, un- der which the forefathers of the present race have sported — the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the sur- rounding scene — all these common features of English land- scape evince a calm and settled security, a hereditary trans- mission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation. It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church ; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and ap- pearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them. It is this sweet home feeling, this settled repose of affec- tion in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments ; and I cannot close these desultory remarks better, than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity. ^2 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IR VI JVC. Through each gradation, from the castled hall, The*city dome, the villa crowned with shade. But chief from modest mansions numberless, In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof'd shed. This western isle has long been famed for scenes Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place : Domestic bliss, that like a harmless dove (Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard), Can centre in a little quiet nest All that desire would fly for through the earth ; That can, the world eluding, be itself A world enjoyed ; that wants no witnesses But its own sharers, and approving Heaven. That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft. Smiles, though 'tis looking only at the sky.* * From a poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Rev- erend Rann Kennedy, A. M. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 73 THE BROKEN HEART. I never heard Of any true affection, but 'twas nipt With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose. MiDDLETON. It is a common practice with those who have outhved the susceptibiUty of early feeUng, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated Ufe, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me, that however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall I confess it ? — I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love ! I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex ; but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave. Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thought, and dominion over his fel- low-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affec- 74 WORJCS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. tion. The heart is her world ; it is there her ambition strives for empire — it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure ; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection ; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart. To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs : it wounds some feelings of tenderness — it blasts some prospects of felicity ; but he is an active being ; he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure ; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, can " fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest." But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and a meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings ; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation ? Her lot is to be wooed and won ; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate. How many bright eyes grow dim — how many soft cheeks grow pale — how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness ! As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals — so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself ; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her, the desire of her heart has failed — the great charm of existence is at an end. She ne- glects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in healthful cur- rents through the veins. Her rest is broken — the sweet re- SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 75 freshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams — " dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest external injury. Look for her, after a while, and you find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should so speedily be brought down to " darkness and the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her low — but no one knows the mental malady that previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler. She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove : graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it droop- ing its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf ; until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the foiest ; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay. I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven ; and have re- peatedly fancied, that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me ; the circumstances are well known in the country where they hap- pened, and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were related. Everyone must recollect the tragical story of young E , the Irish patriot : it was too touching to be soon for- gotten. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, con- demned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young — so intelligent — so generous — so brave — so everything y6 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. that we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his coun- try — the eloquent vindication of his name — and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation- all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his exe- cution. But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be im- possible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the dausrhter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him ; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her, whose whole soul was occupied by his image ? Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth — who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, from whence all that was most lovely and loving had de- parted. But then the horrors of such a grave 1 — so frightful, so dishonored ! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation — none of those ten- der, though melancholy circumstances, that endear the parting scene — nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish. To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attach- ment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shecked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 77 no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her, by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occu- pation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her loves. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul — i^hat penetrate to the vital seat of happiness — and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but she was as much alone there, as in the depths of solitude. She walked about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and " heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." The person who told me her story had seen her at a mas- querade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay — to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and wo-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice ; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching — it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness — that she drew a crowd, mute and silent, around her, and melted everyone into tears. The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his ad- dresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could 78 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his at- tentions, for her thoughts were irrecoverably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was exist- ing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length suc- ceeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance, that her heart was unalterably another's. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one ; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart. It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines : She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers around her are sighing ; But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, For her heart in his grave is lying. She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, Every note which he loved awaking — Ah ! little they think, who delight in her strains, How the heart of the minstrel is breaking 1 He had lived for his love— for his country he died, They were all that to life had entwined him — Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried. Nor long will his love stay behind him ! Oh 1 make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, When they promise a glorious morrow ; They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the wes^ From her own loved island of sorrow ! SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 79 THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. " If that severe doom of Synesius be true—* it is a greater offence to steal dead men's labors than their clothes,'— what shall become of most writers ? " Burton's Ajiatomy of Melancholy. I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, yet teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey o£ life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a scene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of the book-making craft, and at once put an end to my astonish- ment. I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons of the British Museum, with that listlessness with which one is apt to saunter about a room in warm weather ; sometimes lolling over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the allegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. While I was gazing about in this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant floor, at the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now and then it would open, and some strange-favored being, generally clothed in black, would steal forth, and glide through the rooms, without noticing any of the surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid 8o WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. curiosity, and I determined to attempt the passage of that strait, and to explore the unknown regions that lay beyond. The door yielded to my hand, with all that facility with which the portals of enchanted castles yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I found myself in a spacious chamber, sur- rounded with great cases of venerable books. Above the cases, and just under the cornice, were arranged a great num- ber of black-looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room were placed long tables, with stands for reading and writing, at which sat many pale, cadaverous personages, por- ing intently over dusty volumes, rummaging among mouldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their contents. The most hushed stillness reigned through this mysterious apart- ment, excepting that you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, or, occasionally, the deep sigh of one of these sages, as he shifted his position to turn ov^r the page of an old folio ; doubtless arising from that hollowness and flatu- lency incident to learned research. Now and then one of these personages would write some- thing on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and return shortly loaded with ponder- ous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth and nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of occult sciences. The scene reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philosopher, who was shut up in an enchanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, that opened only once a year ; where he made the spirits of the place obey his commands, and bring him books of all kinds of dark knowledge, so that at the end of the year, when the magic portal once more swung open on its hinges, he issued forth so versed in for- bidden lore, as to be able to soar above the heads" of the multitude, and to control the powers of Nature. My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one of the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged SKE TCH-B OK OF GEOFFRE V CRA YON, GENT. g I an interpretation of the strange scene before me. A few words were sufficient for the purpose : — I found that these mysterious personages, whom I had mistaken for magi, were principally authors, and were in the very act of manufacturing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the great British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read. To these sequestered pools of obso- lete literature, therefore, do many modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or " pure English, undefiled," wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought. Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a corner, and watched the process of this book manufactory. I noticed one lean, bilious-looking wight, who sought none but the most worm-eaten volumes, printed in black-letter. He was evidently constructing some work of profound erudition, that would be purchased by every man who wished to be thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, or laid open upon his table — but never read. I observed him, now and then, draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw ; whether it was his dinner, or whether he was endeavoring to keep off that exhaustion of the stomach, produced by much pondering over dry works, I leave to harder students than myself to determine. There was one dapper little gentleman in bright colored clothes, with a chirping gossiping expression of countenance, who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with his bookseller. After considering him attentively, I recog- nized in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneous works, which bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see how he manufactured his wares. He made more show and stir of business than any of the others ; dipping into various books, fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out of another, " line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." The contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches* 6 82 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a finger and there a thumb, toe of frog and blind worm's sting, with his own gossip poured in like " baboon's blood," to make the medley "slab and good." After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be implanted in authors for wise purposes ? may it not be the way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowl- edge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced \ We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsi- cally provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds ; so that animals, which, in them- selves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the law- less plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact. Nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate her blessings. In like manner, the beauties and fine thoughts of ancient and obsolete writers are caught up by these flights of predatory authors, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works, also, undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance — an 'old legend changes into a modern play — and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands ; where we burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place ; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree, mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi. Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient writers descend ; they do but submit to the great law of Nature, v;hich declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which decrees, also, that their elements shall never perish. Generation after generation, both in animal and vegetafble life, passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON", GENT. 83 species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep with their fathers ; that is to say, with the authors who preceded them — and from whom they had stolen. Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the soporific emanations from these works ; or to the profound quiet of the room ; or to the lassitude arising from much wandering ; or to an unlucky habit of nap- ping at improper times and places, with which I am grievously afflicted, so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my imagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene re- mained before my mind's eye, only a little changed in some of the details. I dreamt that the chamber was still decorated with the portraits of ancient authors, but the number was in- creased. The long tables had disappeared, and in place of the sage magi, I beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such as may be seen plying about the great repository of cast-off clothes, Monmouth-street. Whenever they seized upon a book, by one of those incongruities common to dreams, me- thought it turned into a garment of foreign or antique fashion, with which they proceeded to equip themselves. I noticed, however, that no one pretended to clothe himself from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a cape from an- other, a skirt from a third, thus decking himself out piecemeal, while some of his original rags would peep out from among his borrowed finery. There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed ogling several mouldy polemical writers through an eye-glass. He soon contrived to slip on the. voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers, and having purloined the gray beard of an- other, endeavored to look exceedingly wise j but the smirk- ing commonplace of his countenance set at naught all the trappings of wisdom. One sickly-looking gentleman was busied embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of several old court-dresses of the reign of Queen 84 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. Elizabeth. Another had trimmed himself magnificently from an illuminated manuscript, had stuck a nosegay in his bosom, culled from " The Paradise of Dainty Devices," and having put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on one side of his head, strutted off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who was but of puny dimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely with the spoils from several obscure tracts of philosophy, so that he had a very imposing front, but he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had patched his small- clothes with scraps of parchment from a Latin author. There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who only helped themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among their own ornaments, without eclipsing them. Some, too, seemed to contemplate the costumes of the old writers, merely to imbibe their principles of taste, and to catch their air and spirit \ but I grieve to say, that too many were apt to array themselves, from top to toe, in the patch-work manner I have mentioned. I should not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breeches and gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity to the pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had been confined to the classic haunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the Regent's Park. He had decked himself in wreaths and ribbons from all the old pastoral poets, and hang- ing his head on one side, went about with a fantastical, lack- a-daisical air, "babbling about green fields." But the per- sonage that most struck my attention, was a pragmatical old gentleman, in clerical robes, with a remarkably large and square, but bald head. He entered the room wheezing and puffing, elbowed his way through the throng, with a look of sturdy self-confidence, and having laid hands upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept majestically away in a formidable frizzled wig. In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly resounded from every side, of " thieves ! thieves ! " I looked, and lo ! the portraits about the walls became animated ! The old authors thrust out first a head, then a shoulder, from the SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 85 canvas, looked down curiously, for an instant, upon the motley throng^- and then descended, with fury in their eyes, to claim their rifled property. The scene of scampering and hubbub that ensued baffles all description. The unhappy culprits en- deavored in vain to escape with their plunder. On one side might be seen half-a-dozen old monks, stripping a modern pro- fessor ; on another, there was sad devastation carried into the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont and Fletcher, side by side, raged round the field like Castor and Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a volun- teer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little com- piler of farragos, mentioned some time since, he had arrayed himself in as many patches and colors as Harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of claimants about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see many men, whom I had been accustomed to look upon with awe and reverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. Ju'stthen my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with half a score of authors in full cry after him. They were close upon his haunches ; in a twink- ling off went his wig ; at every turn some strip of raiment was peeled away ; until in a few moments, from his domineering pomp, he shrunk into a little pursy, *' chopp'd bald shot," and made his exit with only a few tags and rags fluttering at his back. There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this learned Theban, that I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, which broke the whole illusion. The tumult and the scuffle were at an end. The chamber resumed its usual appearance. The old authors shrunk back into their picture- frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short, I found myself wide awake in my corner, with the whole assemblage of bookworms gazing at me with astonishment. Nothing of the dream had been real but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard in that grave sanctuary, and 86 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. SO abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify the fra- ternity. The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded wheth- er I had a card of admission. At first I did not comprehend him, but I soon found that the library was a kind of literary " preserve," subject to game laws, and that no one must pre- sume to hunt there without special license and permission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole pack of authors let loose upon me. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 87 A ROYAL POET. Though your body be confined And soft love a prisoner bound, Yet the beauty of your mind Neither cheek nor chain hath found. Look out nobly, then, and dare Even the fetters that you wear. Fletcher. On a soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I made an excursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied and poetical associations. The very^ external aspect of the proud old pile is enough to inspire high thought. It rears its irregular walls and massive towers, like a mural crown around the brow of a lofty ridge, waves its royal banner in the clouds, and looks down with a lordly air upon the sur- rounding world. On this morning, the weather was of this voluptuous ver- nal kind which calls forth all the latent romance of a man's temperament, filling his mind with music, and disposing him to quote poetry and dream of beauty. In wandering through the magnificent saloons and long echoing galleries of the castle, I passed with indifference by whole rows of portraits of warriors and statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where hang the likenesses of the beauties that graced the gay court of Charles the Second ; and as I gazed upon them, depicted with amorous half-dishevelled tresses, and the sleepy eye of love, I blessed the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, which had thus enabled me to bask in the reflected rays of beauty. In travers- 88 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. ing also the " large green courts," with sunshine beaming on the gray walls and glancing along the velvet turf, my mind was engrossed with the image of the tender, the gallant, but hapless Surrey, and his account of his loiterings about them in his stripling days, when enamoured of the Lady Geraldine — *' With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower, With easie sighs, such as men draw in love." In this mood of mere poetical susceptibility, I visited the ancient keep of the castle, where James the First of Scotland, the pride and theme of Scottish poets and historians, was for many years of his*youth detained a prisoner of state. It is a large gray tower,that has stood the brunt of ages, and is still in good preservation. It stands on a mound which elevates it above the other parts of the castle, and a great flight of steps leads to the interior. In the armory, which is a Gothic hall, furnished with weapons of various kinds and ages, I was shown a coat of armor hanging against the wall, which I was told had once belonged to James. From hence I was con- ducted up a stair-case to a suite of apartments of faded mag- nificence, hung with storied tapestry, which formed his prison, and the scene of that passionate and fanciful amour, which has woven into the web of his story the magical hues of poetry and fiction. The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate prince is highly romantic. At the tender age of eleven, he was sent from his home by his father, Robert III., and destined for the French court, to be reared under the eye of the French mon- arch, secure from the treachery and danger that surrounded the royal house of Scotland. It was his mishap, in the course of his voyage, to fall into the hands of the English, and he was detained a prisoner by Henry IV., notwithstanding that a truce existed between the two countries. The intelligence of his capture, coming in the tram of many sorrows and disasters, proved fatal to his unhappy fa- ther. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. gg "The news," we are told, "was brought to him while at supper, and did so overwhelm him with grief, that he was almost ready to give up the ghost into the hands of the ser- vants that attended him. But being carried to his bed-cham- ber, he abstained from all food, and in three days died of hun- ger and grief, at Rothesay." * James was detained in captivity above eighteen years ; but, though deprived of personal liberty, he was treated with the respect due to his rank. Care was taken to instruct him in all the branches of useful knowledge cultivated at that period, and to give him those mental and personal accomplishments deemed proper for a prince. Perhaps in this respect, his im- prisonment was an advantage, as it enabled him to apply him- self the more exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to imbibe that rich fund of knowledge, and to cherish those elegant tastes, which have given such a lustre to his memory. The picture drawn of him in early life, by the Scottish histo- rians, is highly captivating, and seems rather the description of a hero of romance, than of a character in real history. He was well learnt, we are told, " to fight with the sword, to joust, to tournay, to wrestle, to sing and dance ; he was an expert mediciner, right crafty in playing both of lute and harp, and sundry other instruments of music, and was expert in grammar, oratory, and poetry." t With this combination of manly and delicate accomplish- ments, fitting him to shine both in active and elegant life, and calculated to give him an intense relish for joyous existence, it must have been a severe trial, in an age of bustle and chiv- alry, to pass the spring-time of his years in monotonous cap- tivity. It was the good fortune of James, however, to be gifted with a powerful poetic fancy, and to be visited in his prison by the choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds corrode, and grow inactive, under the loss of personal Lberty; others grow morbid and irritable ; but it is the nature of the * Buchanan. t Ballenden's translation of Hector Boyce. go WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, poet to become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody. Have you not seen the nightingale A pilgrim coop'd into a cage, How doth she chant her wonted tale, In that her lonely hermitage ! Even there her charming melody doth prove That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove. * Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable ; that when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and, with necromantic power, can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions, to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem ; and we may conceive the " King's Quair," t composed by James during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful break- ings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison-house. The subject of his poem is his love for the lady Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and a princess of the blood-royal of England, of whom he became enamoured in the course of his captivity. What gives it peculiar value, is, that it may be considered a transcript of the royal bard's true feelings, and the story of his real loves and fortunes. It is not often that sovereigns write poetry, or that poets deal in fact. It is gratifying to the pride of a common man, to find a monarch thus suing, as it were, for admission into his closet, and seeking to win his favor by administering to his pleas- ures. It is a proof of the honest equality of intellectual com- petition, which strips off all the trappings of factitious dignity, brings the candidate down to a level with his fellow-men, and * Roger L'Estrange. t Quair, an old term for book. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. ^t obliges him to depend on his own native powers for distinction. It is curious, too, to get at the history of a monarch's heart, and to find the simple affections of human nature throbbing under the ermine. But James had learnt to be a poet be- fore he was a king ; he was schooled in adversity, and reared m the company of his own thoughts. Monarchs have seldom time to parley with their hearts, or to meditate their minds into poetry ; and had James been brought up amidst Ihe adula- tion and gayety of a court, we should never, in all probability, have had such a poem as the Quair. I have been particularly interested by those parts of the poem which breathe his immediate thoughts concerning his situation, or which are connected with the apartment in the Tower. They have thus a personal and local charm, and are given with such circumstantial truth, as to make the reader present with the captive in his prison, and the companion of his meditations. Such is the account which he gives of his weariness of spirit, and of the incident that first suggested the idea of writ- ing the poem. It was the still midwatch of a clear moonlight night ; the stars, he says, were twinkling as the fire in the high vault of heaven, and " Cynthia rinsing her golden locks in Aquarius " — he lay in bed wakeful and restless, and took a book to beguile the tedious hours. The book he chose was Boetius' Consolations of Philosophy, a work popular among the writers of that day, and which had been translated by his great prototype Chaucer. From the high eulogium in which he indulges, it is evident this was one of his favorite volumes while in prison ; and indeed, it is an admirable text-book for meditation under adversity. It is the legacy of a noble and Enduring spirit, purified by sorrow and suffering, bequeathing to its successors in calamity the maxims of sweet morality, and the trains of eloquent but simple reasoning, by which it was enabled to bear up against the various ills of life. It is a talisman which the unfortunate may treasure up in his bosom, or, like the good King James, lay upon his nightly pillow. g2 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. After closing the volume, he turns its contents over in his mind, and gradually falls into a fit of musing on the fickleness of fortune, the vicissitudes of his own life, and the evils that had overtaken him even in his tender youth. Suddenly he hears the bell ringing to matins, but its sound chiming in with his melancholy fancies, seems to him like a voice exhorting him to write his story. In the spirit of poetic errantry, he de- termines to comply with this intimation ; he therefore takes pen in hand, makes with it a sign of the cross, to implore a benediction, and sallies forth into the fairy land of poetry. There is something extremely fanciful in all this, and it is in- teresting, as furnishing a striking and beautiful instance of the simple manner in which whole trains of poetical thought are sometimes awakened, and literary enterprises suggested to the mind. In the course of his poem, he more than once bewails the peculiar hardness of his fate, thus doomed to lonely and inac- tive life, and shut up from the freedom and pleasure of the world, in which the meanest animal indulges unrestrained. There is a sweetness, however, in his very complaints ; they are the lamentations of an amiable and social spirit, at being denied the indulgence of its kind and generous propensities ; tkere is nothing in them harsh or exaggerated ; they flow with a natural and touching pathos, and are perhaps rendered more touching by their simple brevity. They contrast finely with those elaborate and iterated repinings which we sometimes meet with in poetry, the effusions of morbid minds, sickening under miseries of their own creating, and venting their bitter- ness upon an unoffending world. Jamea speaks of his priva- tions with acute sensibility ; but having mentioned them, passes on, as if his manly mind disdained to brood over un- avoidable calamities. When such a spirit breaks forth into complaint, however brief, we are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the murmur. We sympathize with James, a romantic, active, and accomplished prince, cut off in the lustihood of youth from all the enterprise, the noble uses and SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON GENT. 93 vigorous delights of life, as we do with Milton, alive to all the beauties of nature and glories of art, when he breathes forth brief but deep-toned lamentations over his perpetual blindness. Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic artifice, we might almost have suspected that these lowerings of gloomy reflection were meant as preparative to the brightest scene of his story, and to contrast with that effulgence of light and love- liness, that exhilarating accompaniment of bird and song, and foliage, and flower, and all the revel of the year, with which he ushers in the lady of his heart. It is this scene in particu- lar which throws all the magic of romance about the old castle keep. He had risen, he says, at day-break, according to cus- tom, to escape from the dreary meditations of a sleepless pillow. ** Bewailing in his chamber thus alone," despairing of all joy and remedy, '' for, tired of thought, and wo-begone," he had wandered to the window to indulge the captive's mis- erable solace, of gazing wistfully upon the world from which he is excluded. The window looked forth upon a small garden which lay at the foot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, and pro- tected from the passing gaze by trees and hawthorn hedges. Now was there made fast by the tower's walk A garden faire, and in the corners set An arbour green with wandis long and small * Railed about, and so with leaves beset Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet That lyf * was none, walkyng there forbye That might within scarce any wight espye. So thick the branches and the leves grene, Beshaded all the alleys that there were, And midst of every arbour might be seen, The sharpe, grene, swete juniper, Growing so faire with branches here and there, That as it seemed to a lyf without, The boughs did spread the arbour all about. * Z;)^ person. Note.— The language of the quotations is generally modernized. 54 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. And on the small green twistis * set The lytel swete nyghtingales, and sung So loud and clere, the hymnis consecrate Of lov's use, now soft, now loud among. That all the garden and the wallis rung Ryght of their song — It was the month of May, when everything was in bloom, and he interprets the song of the nightingale into the language of his enamoured feeling : Worship all ye that lovers be this May ; For of your bliss the kalends are begun, And sing with us, away, winter, away. Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun. As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes of the birds, he gradually lapses into on of those tender and unde- finable reveries, which fill the youthful bosom in this de- licious season. He wonders what this love may be, of which he has so often read, and which thus seems breathed forth in the quickening breath of May, and melting all nature into ecstasy and song. If it really be so great a felicity, and if it be a boon thus generally dispensed to the most insignif- icant of beings, why is he alone cut off from its enjoyments ? Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be That love is of such noble myght and kynde ? Loving his folk, and such prosperitee, Is it of him, as we in books do find ; May he oure hertes setten t and unbynd : Hath he upon oure hertes such majstrye ? Or is all this but feynit tantasye ? For giff he be of so grete excellence That he of every wight .hath care and charge, What have I gilt % to him, or done offence. That I am thral'd and birdis go at large ? * Twistis, small boughs or twigs. t Setten^ incline. X Gilt, what injury have I done, &c. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 95 In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eyes downward, he beholds " the fairest and the freshest young floure " that ever he had seen. It is the lovely Lady Jane, walking in the garden to enjoy the beauty of that " fresh May morrowe." Breaking thus suddenly upon his sight in a moment of loneli- ness and excited susceptibility, she at once captivates the fancy of the romantic prince, and becomes the object of his wandering wishes, the sovereign of his ideal world. There is in this charming scene an evident resemblance to the early part of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, where Palamon and Arcite fall in love with Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of their prison. Perhaps the similarity of the ac- tual fact to the incident which he had read in Chaucer may have induced James to dwell on it in his poem. His de- scription of the Lady Jane is given in the picturesque and mi- nute manner of his master, and being, doubtless, taken from the life, is a perfect portrait of a beauty of that day. He dwells with the fondness of a lover on every article of her apparel, from the net of pearl, splendent with emeralds and sapphires, that confined her golden hair, even to the " goodly chaine of small orfeverye " * about her neck, whereby there hung a ruby in shape of a heart, that seemed, he says, like a spark of fire burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of white tissue was looped up to enable her to walk with more freedom. She was accompanied by two female attendants, and about her sported a little hound decorated with bells, probably the small Italian hound, of exquisite symmetry, which was a parlor favorite and pet among the fashionable dames of ancient times. James closes his description by a burst of general eulogium : In her was youth, beauty with humble port, Bountee, richesse, and womanly feature, God better knows than my pen can report, Wisdom, largesse, t estate, % and cunning § sure. * Wrought gold. t Largesse, bounty. J Estate, dignity. § Cunning, discretion. 96 WORKS OF WASHINGTON- IRVING. In every point so guided her measure, In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance, That nature might no more her child advance. The departure of the Lady Jane from the garden puts an end to this transient riot of the heart. With her departs the amorous illusion that had shed a temporary charm over the scene of his captivity, and he relapses into loneliness, now rendered tenfold more intolerable by this passing beam of unattainable beauty. Through the long and weary day he repines at his unhappy lot, and when evening approaches and Phoebus, as he beautifully expresses it, had "bad farewell to every leaf and flower," he still lingers at the window, and laying his head upon the cold stone, gives vent to a mingled flow of love and sorrow, until gradually lulled by the mute melancholy of the twilight hour, he lapses, " half-sleeping, half swoon," into a vision, which occupies the remainder of the poem, and in which is allegorically shadowed out the history of his passion. When he wakes from his trance, he rises from his stony pillow, and pacing his apartment full of dreary reflections, questions his spirit whither it has been wandering; whether, indeed, all that has passed before his dreaming fancy has been conjured up by preceding circumstances, or whether it is a vision intended to comfort and assure him in his despond- ency. If the latter, he prays that some token may be sent to confirm the promise* of happier days, given him in his slum- bers. Suddenly a turtle-dove of the purest whiteness comes fly- ing in at the window, and alights upon his hand, bearing in her bill a branch of red gilliflower, on the leaves of which is written in letters of gold, the following sentence : Awake ! awake ! I bring, lover, I bring The nevvis glad, that blissful is and sure, Of thy comfort ; now laugh, and play, and sing, For in the heaven decretit is thy cure. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT, gy He receives the branch with mingled hope and dread ; reads it with rapture, and this he says was the first token of his succeeding happiness. Whether this is a mere poetic fic- tion, or whether the Lady Jane did actually send him a token of her favor in this romantic way, remains to be determined according to the fate or fancy of the reader. He concludes his poem by intimating that the promise conveyed in the vision and by the flower, is fulfilled by his being restored to liberty, and made happy in the possession of the sovereign of his heart. Such is the poetical account given by James of his love adventures in Windsor Castle. How much of it is absolute fact, and how much the embellishment of fancy, it is fruitless to conjecture ; do not, however, let us always consider what- ever is romantic as incompatible with real life, but let us sometimes take a poet at his word. I have noticed merely such parts of the poem as were immediately connected with the tower, and have passed over a large part which was in the allegorical vein, so much cultivated at that day. The lan- guage of course is quaint and antiquated, so that the beauty of many of its golden phrases will scarcely be perceived at the present day, but it is impossible not to be charmed with the genuine sentiment, the delightful artlessness and urbanity, which prevail throughout it. The descriptions of Nature, too, with which it is embellished, are given with a truth, a discrim- ination, and a freshness, worthy of the most cultivated period of the arts. As an amatory poem, it is edifying, in these days of coarser thinking, to notice the nature, refinement, and exquisite deli- cacy which pervade it, banishing every gross thought, or im- modest expression, and presenting female loveliness clothed in all its chivalrous attributes of almost supernatural purity and grace. James flourished nearly about the time of Chaucer and Gower, and was evidently an admirer and studier of their writings. Indeed, in one of his stanzas he acknowledges 7 gS WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. them as his masters, and in some parts of his poem we find traces of similarity to their productions, more especially to those of Chaucer. There are always, how^ever, general feat- ures of resemblance in the works of contemporary authors^ which are not so much borrowed from each other as from the times. Writers, like bees, toll their sweets in the wide world ; they incorporate with their own conceptions, the anecdotes and thoughts which are current in society, and thus each gen- eration has some features in common, characteristic of the age in which it lives. James in fact belongs to one of the most brilliant eras of our literary history, and establishes the claims of his country to a participation in its primitive honors. Whilst a small cluster of English writers are constantly cited as the fathers of our verse, the name of their great Scottish compeer is apt to be passed over in silence; but he is evidently worthy of being enrolled in that little constellation of remote, but never-failing luminaries, who shine in the highest firma- ment of literature, and who, like morning stars, sang together at the bright dawnirg of British poesy. Such of my readers as may not be familiar with Scottish history (though the manner in which it has of late been woven with captivating fiction has made it a universal study), may be curious to learn something of the subsequent history of James, and the fortunes of his love. His passion for the Lady Jane, as it was the solace of his captivity, so it facilitated his release, it being imagined by the Court, that a connection with the blood-royal of England would attach him to its own inter- ests. He was ultimately restored to his liberty and crown, having previously espoused the Lady Jane, who accompanied him to Scotland, and made him a most tender and devoted wife. He found his kingdom in great confusion, the feudal chief- tains having taken advantage of the troubles and irregularities of a long interregnum, to strengthen themselves in their pos- sessions, and place themselves above the power of the laws. James sought to found the basis of his power in the affections SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 99 of his people. He attached the lower orders to him by the reformation of abuses, the temperate and equable administra- tion of justice, the encouragement of the arts of peace, and the promotion of everything that could diffuse comfort, com- petency, and innocent enjoyment, through the humblest ranks of society. He mingled occasionally among the common people in disguise ; visited their firesides ; entered into their cares, their pursuits, and their amusements ; informed himself of the mechanical arts, and how they could best be patronized and improved; and was thus an all-pervading spirit, watching with a benevolent eye over the meanest of his subjects. Hav- ing in this generous manner made himself strong in the hearts of the common people, he turned himself to curb the power of the factious nobility ; to strip them of those dangerous immu- nities which they had usurped ; to punish such as had been guilty of flagrant offences ; and to bring the whole into proper obedience to the crown. For some time they bore this with outward submission, but with secret impatience and brooding resentment. A conspiracy was at length formed against his life, at the head of which was his own uncle, Robert Stewart, Earl of Athol, who, being too old himself for the perpetration of the deed of blood, instigated his grandson. Sir Robert .Stewart, together with Sir Robert Graham, and others of less note, to commit the deed. They broke into his bedchamber at the Dominican convent near Perth, where he was residing, and barbarously murdered him by oft-repeated wounds. His faithful queen, rushing to throw her tender body between him and the sword, was twice wounded in the ineffectual attempt to shield him from the assassin ; and it was not until she had been forcibly torn from his person, that the murder was ac- complished. It was the recollection of this romantic tale of former times, and of the golden little poem, which had its birth-place in this tower, that made me visit the old pile with more than common interest. The suit of armor hanging up in the hall, richly gilt and embellished, as if to figure in the tournay, 100 IVORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. brought the image of the gallant and romantic prince vividly before my imagination. I paced the deserted chambers where he had composed his poem ; I leaned upon the window, and endeavored to persuade myself it was the very one where he had been visited by his vision ; I looked out upon the spot where he had first seen the Lady Jane. It was the same genial and joyous month : the birds were again vying with each other in strains of liquid melody : everything was bursting into vegetation, and budding forth the tender promise of the year. Time, which delights to obliterate the sterner memorials of human pride, seems to have passed lightly over this little scene of poetry and love, and to have withheld his desolating hand. Several centuries have gone by, yet the garden still flourishes at the foot of the tower. It occupies what was once the moat of the keep, and though some parts have been separated by dividing walls, yet others have still their arbors and shaded walks, as in 'the days of James ; and the whole is sheltered, blooming, and retired. There is a charm about the spot that has been printed by the footsteps of departed beauty, and con- secrated by the inspirations of the poet, which is heightened, rather than impaired, by the lapse of ages. It is, indeed, the gift of poetry, to hallow ever}^ place in which it moves; to breathe round nature an odor more exquisite than the per- fume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more magical than the blush of morning. Others may dwell on the illustrious deeds of James as a warrior and a legislator ; but I have delighted to view him merely as the companion of his fellow-men, the benefactor of the human heart, stooping from his high estate to sow the sweet flowers of poetry and song in the paths of common life. He was the first to cultivate the vigorous and hardy plant of Scottish genius, which has since been so prolific of the most wholesome and highly flavored fruit. He carried with him mto the sterner regions of the north, all the fertilizing arts of southern refinement. He did everything in his power to win his countrymen to the gay, the elegant, and gentle arts which SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT, loi soften and refine the character of a people, and wreathe a grace round the loftiness of a proud and warlike spirit. He wrote many poems, which, unfortunately for the fulness of his fame, are now lost to the world ; one, which is still pre- served, called "Christ's Kirk of the Green," shows how dil- igently he had made himself acquainted with the rustic sports and pastimes, which constitute such a source of kind and social feeling among the Scottish peasantry ; and with what simple and happy humor he could enter into their enjoyments. He contributed greatly to improve the national music ; and traces of his tender sentiment and elegant taste are said to exist in those witching airs, still piped among the wild moun- tains and lonely glens of Scotland. He has thus connected his image with whatever is most gracious and endearing in the national character; he has embalmed his memory in song, and floated his name down to after-ages in the rich stream of Scottish melody. The recollection of these things was kind- ling at my heart, as I paced the silent scene of his imprison- ment. I have visited Vaucluse with as much enthusiasm as a pilgrim would visit the shrine at Loretto ; but I have never felt more poetical devotion than when contemplating the old tower and the little garden at Windsor, and musing over the romantic loves of the Lady Jane, and the Royal Poet of Scot- land. 102 . WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, THE COUNTRY CHURCH. A gentleman ! What o' the wool pack ? or the sugar-chest ? Or lists of velvet ? which is't, pound, or yard, You vend your gentry by ? Beggar's Bush. There are few places more favorable to the study of character, than an English country church. I was once pass- ing a few weeks at the seat of a friend, who resided in the vicinity of one, the appearance of which particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels of quaint antiquity, which gives such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood in the midst of a country filled with ancient families, and contained, within its cold and silent aisles, the congregated dust of many noble generations. The interior walls were en- crusted with monuments of every age and style. The light streamed through windows dimmed with armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in stained glass. In various parts of the church were tombs of knights, and high-born dames, of gor- geous workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble. On every side, the eye was struck with some instance of aspiring mortality ; some haughty memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust, in this temple of the most hum- ble of all religions. The congregation was composed of the neighboring people of rank, who sat in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded prayer-books, and decorated with their arms upon the pew doors ; of the villagers and peasantry, SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT, 103 who filled the back seats, and a small gallery beside the organ \ and of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on benches in the aisles. The service was performed by a snuffling, well-fed vicar, who had a snug dwelling near the church. He was a privi- leged guest at all the tables of the neighborhood, and had been the keenest fox-hunter in the country, until age and good liv- ing had disabled him from doing anything more than ride to see the hounds throw off, and make one at the hunting dinner. Under the ministry of such a pastor, I found it impossible to get into the train of thought suitable to the time and place ; so having, like many other feeble Christians, compromised with my conscience, by laying the sin of my own delinquency at another person's threshold, I occupied myself by making observations on my neighbors. I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice the manners of its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that there was the least pretension where there was the most ac- knowledged title to respect. I was particularly struck, for instance, with the family of a nobleman of high rank, consist- ing of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be more simple and unassuming than their appearance. They gener- ally came to church in the plainest equipage and often on foot. The young ladies would stop and converse in the kindest manner with the peasantry, caress the children, and listen to the stories of the humble cottagers. Their countenances were open and beautifully fair, with an expression of high refine- ment, but at the same time, a frank cheerfulness, and engag- ing affability. Their brothers were tall, and elegantly formed. They were dressed fashionably, but simply ; with strict neat- ness and propriety, but without any mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor was easy and natural, with that lofty grace, and noble frankness, which bespeak free-born souls that have never been checked in their growth by feelings of inferiority. There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads contact and communion with others, how- 104 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. ever humole. It is only spurious pride that is morbid and sen- sitive, and shrinks from every touch. I was pleased to see the manner in which they would converse with the peasantry about those rural concerns and field sports, in which the gentlemen of the country so much delight. In these conversations, there was neither haughtiness on the one part, nor servility on the other ; and you were only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual respect of the peasant. In contrast to these, was the family of a wealthy citizen, who had amassed a vast fortune, and having purchased the es- tate and mansion of a ruined nobleman in the neighborhood, was endeavoring to assume all the style and dignity of a he- reditary lord of the soil. The family always came to church en prince. They were rolled majestically along in a carriage emblazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver radiance from every part of the harness where a crest could possibly be placed. A fat coachman in a three-cornered hat, richly laced, and a flaxen wig, curling close round his rosy face, was seated on the box, with a sleek Danish dog beside him. Two foot- men in gorgeous liveries, with huge bouquets, and gold-headed canes, lolled behind. The carriage rose and sunk on its long springs with a peculiar stateliness of motion. The very horses champed their bits, arched their necks, and glanced their eyes more proudly than common horses ; either because they had got a little of the family feeling, or were reined up more tightly than ordinary. I could not but admire the style with which this splendid pageant was brought up to the gate of the churchyard. There was a vast effect produced at the turning of an angle of the wall ; a great smacking of the whip ; straining and scrambling of the horses ; glistening of harness, and flashing of wheels through gravel. This was the moment of triumph and vain- glory to the coachman. The horses were urged and checked, until they were fretted into a foam. They threw out their feet in a prancing trot, dashing about pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering quietly to church, opened pre- SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 105 cipitately to the right and left, gaping in vacant admiration. On reaching the gate, the horses were pulled up with a sud- denness that produced an immediate stop, and almost threw them on their haunches. There was an extraordinary hurry of the footmen to alight, open the door, pull down the steps, and prepare everything for the descent on earth of this august family. The old citi- zen first emerged his round red face from out the door, look- ing about him with the pompous air of a man accustomed to rule on 'change, and shake the stock-market with a nod. His consort, a fine, fleshy, comfortable dame, followed him. There seemed, I must confess, but little pride in her composition. She was the picture of broad, honest, vulgar enjoyment. The world went well with her ; and she liked the world. She had fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine children, every- thing was fine about her : it was nothing but driving about and visiting and feasting. Life was to her a perpetual revel j it was one long Lord Mayor's day. Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. They certainly were handsome ; but had a supercilious air that chilled admiration, and disposed the spectator to be critical. They were ultra-fashionables in dress, and, though no one could deny the richness of their decorations, yet their appro- priateness might be questioned amidst the simplicity of a country church. They descended loftily from the carriage, and moved up the line of peasantry with a step that seemed dainty of the soil it trod on. They cast an excursive glance around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the peas- antry, until they met the eyes of the nobleman's family, when their countenances immediately brightened into smiles, and they made the most profound and elegant curtseys, which were returned in a manner that showed they were but slight acquaintances. I must not forget the two sons of this aspiring citizen, who came to church in a dashing curricle, with outriders. They were arrayed in the extremity of the mode, with all that ped- lo6 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. antry of dress which marks the man of questionable preten- sions to style. They kept entirely by themselves, eyeing every one askance that came near them, as if measuring his claims to respectability ; yet they were without conversation, except the exchange of an occasional phrase. They even moved ar- tificially, for their bodies, in compliance with the caprice of the day. had been disciplined into the absence of all ease and freedom. Art had done everything to accomplish them as men of fashion, but nature had denied them the nameless grace. They were vulgarly shaped, like men formed for the common purposes of life, and had that air of supercilious as- sumption which is never seen in the true gentleman. I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures of these two families, because I considered them specimens of what is often to be met with in this country — the unpretending great, and the arrogant little. I have no respect for titled rank, unless it be accompanied by true nobility of soul ; but I have remarked, in all countries where these artificial distinctions exist, that the very highest classes are always the most cour- teous and unassuming. Those who are well assured of their own standing, are least apt to trespass on that of others : whereas, nothing is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity, which thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its neighbor. As I have brought these families into contrast, I must notice their behavior in church. That of the nobleman's family was quiet, serious, and attentive. Not that they ap- peared to have any fervor of devotion, but rather a respect for sacred things, and sacred places, inseparable from good-breed- ing. The others, on the contrary, were in a perpetual flutter and whisper ; they betrayed a continual consciousness of finery, and the sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural congre- gation. The old gentleman v/as the only one really attentive to the service. He took the whole burden of family devotion upon himself ; standing bolt upright, and uttering the responses with a loud voice that might be heard all over the church. It was • SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 107 evident that he was one of these thorough church and king men, who connect the idea of devotion and loyalty ; who consider the Deity, somehow or other, of the government party, and religion " a very excellent sort of thing, that ought to be con- tenanced and kept up." When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed more by way of example to the lower orders, to show them, that though so great and wealthy, he was not above being religious ; as I have seen a turtle-fed alderman swallow publicly a basin of charity soup, smacking his lips at every mouthful, and pro- nouncing it " excellent food for the poor." When the service was at an end, I was curious to witness the several exits of my groups. The young noblemen and their sisters, as the day was fine, preferred strolling home across the fields, chatting with the country people as they went. The others departed as they came, in grand parade. Again were the equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was again the smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the glittering of harness. The horses started off almost at a bound ; the villagers again hurried to right and left ; the wheels threw up a cloud of dust, and the aspiring family was wrapt out of sight in a whirlwind. io8 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. Pittie olde age, within whose Silver haires Honour and reverence evermore have raign'd. Marlowe's Tamburlaine. During my residence in the country, I used frequently to attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering monuments, its dark oaken panelling, all reverend with the gloom of departed years, seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn meditation. A Sunday, too, in the country, is so holy in its repose — such a pensive quiet reigns over the face of Nature, that every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel all the natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. " Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright. The bridal of the earth and sky I " I cannot lay claim to the merit of being a devout man ; but there are feelings that visit me in a country church, amid the beautiful serenity of Nature, which I experience nowhere else ; and if not a more religious, think I am a better man on Sunday, than on any other day of the seven. But in this church I felt myself continually thrown back upon the world, by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms around me. The only being that seemed thoroughly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true Christian, was a poor decrepit old woman, bending under the weight of years and infirmities. She bore the traces of something better than abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were visible SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 109 in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the extreme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone on the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, all society ; and to have nothing left her but the hopes of heaven. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer ; habitually conning her prayer-book, which her palsied hand and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which she evidently knew by heart ; I felt persuaded that the faltering voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far be'^ore the responses of the clerk, the swell of the organ, or the chanting of the choir. I am fond of loitering about country churches ; and this was so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It stood on' a knoll, round which a small stream made a beauti- ful bend, and then wound its way through a long reach of soft meadow scenery. The church was surrounded by yew trees, which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows gen- erally wheeling about it. I was seated there one still sunny morning, watching two laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of the most remote and neglected cor- ners of the churchyard, where, by the number of nameless graves around, it would appear that the indigent and friend- less were huddled into the earth. I was told that the new- made grave was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was meditating on the distinctions of worldly rank, which ex- tend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell announced the approach of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A cofhn of the plainest materials, without pall or other covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe, but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased — the poor old woman whom I had seen seated 1 1 o WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VING. on the steps of the altar. She was siipported by an humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort her. A few of the neighboring poor had joined the train, and some children of the village were running hand in hand, now shouting with un- thinking mirth, and now pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity, on the grief of the mourner. As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson issued from the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer-book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been destitute, and the survivor was penniless. It was shuffled through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well-fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door ; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave ; and never did I hear the funeral service, that sublime and touching ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of words. I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the deceased — "George Somers, aged 26 years." The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer ; but I could perceive, by a feeble rocking of the body, and a convulsive motion of the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with the yearnings of a mother's heart. Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth. There was that bustling stir, which breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affection : directions given in the cold tones of business ; the striking of spades into sand and gravel ; which, at the grave of those we love, is of all sounds the most withering. The bustle around seemed to waken the mother from a wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked about with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords to lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended her, took her by the arm, endeavoring to raise her from the earth, and to whisper something like consola- SKE TCH-BOOK OF GEOFFRE Y CRA YON, GENT. 1 1 1 tion — " Nay, now — nay, now — don't take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake her head, and wring her hands, as one not to be comforted. As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the cords seemed to agonize her ; but when, on some accidental obstruction, there was a jostling of the coffin, all the tenderness of the mother burst forth ; as if any harm could come to -him who was far beyond the reach of worldly suf- fering. I could see no more — my heart swelled into my throat — my eyes filled with tears — I felt as if I were acting a barbar- ous part in standing by and gazing idly on this scene of maternal anguish. I wandered to another part of the church- yard, where I remained until the funeral train had dispersed. When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quitting the grave, leaving behind her the remains of all that was dear to her on earth, and returning to silence and destitution, my heart ached for her. What, thought I, are the distresses of the rich ? They have friends to soothe — pleasures to beguile — a world to divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the sorrows of the young ? Their growing minds soon close above the wound — their elastic spirits soon rise beneath the pressure — their green and ductile affections soon twine around new objects. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward appliances to soothe — the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is but a wintry day, and who can look for no after- growth of joy — the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, destitute, mourning over an only son, the last solace of her years ; — these are indeed sorrows which make us feel the impotency of consolation. It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way homeward, I met with the woman who had acted as com- forter : she was just returning from accompanying her mother to her lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars connected with the affecting scene I had witnessed. The parents of the deceased had resided in the village 112 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. from childhood. They had inhabited one of the neatest cot- tages, and by various rural occupations, and the assistance of a small garden, had supported themselves creditably, and com- fortably, and led a happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who had grown up to be the staff and pride of their age — *' Oh, sir ! " said the good woman, " he was such a comely lad, so sweet-tempered, so kind to everyone around him, so duti- ful to his parents ! It did one's heart good to see him of a Sunday, drest out in his best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, sup- porting his old mother to church — for she was always fonder of leaning on George's arm, than on her good man's ; and, poor soul, she migfit well be proud of him, for a finer lad there was not in the country round." Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of scarcity and agricultural hardship, to enter into the service of one of the small craft that plied on a neighboring river. He had not been long in this employ, when he was entrapped by a press-gang, and carried off to sea. His parents received tid- ings of his seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. Is was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was al- ready infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind of feeling towards her throughout the village, and a certain respect as being one of the oldest inhabi- tants. As no one applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many happy days, she was permitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were chiefly supplied from the scanty produc- tions of her little garden, which the neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. It was but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she heard the cottage-door which faced the garden suddenly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in seamen's clothes, was emaciated SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 1 13 and gliastl}^ pale, and bore the air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her, and hastened towards her, but his steps were faint and faltering ; he sank on his knees be- fore her, and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with a vacant and wandering eye — " Oh my dear, dear mother ! don't you know your son ? your poor boy George ? " It was, indeed, the wreck of her once noble lad j who, shattered by wounds, by sickness, and foreign imprison- ment, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs homeward, to repose among the scenes of his childhood. I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meet- ing, where sorrow and joy were so completely blended : still he was alive ! — he was come home ! — he might yet live to com- fort and cherish her old age ! Nature, however, was exhausted in him ; and if anything had been wanting to finish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been sufficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again. The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had returned, crowded to see him, oflering every comfort and as- sistance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk — he could only look his thanks. His mother was his constant attendant ; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any other hand. There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood ; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in ad- vanced life, in sickness and despondency ; who that has pined on a weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land ; but has thought on the mother " that looked on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness ? Oh ! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor 8 114 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. Stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoy- ment j she will glory in his fame, and exult in his prosperity ; — and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune ; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace ; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him. Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sickness, and none to soothe — lonely and in prison, and none to visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight ; if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and looking anxiously up until he saw her bending over him, when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tran- quillity of a child. In this way he died. My first impulse, on hearing this humble tale of affliction, was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer pecu- niary assistance, and, if possible, comfort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do everything that the case admitted ; and as the poor know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not venture to intrude. The next Sunday I was at the village church ; when, to my surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar. She had made an effort to put on something like mourning for her son ; and nothing could be more touching than this struggle between pious affection and utter poverty : a black ribbon or so — a faded black handkerchief — and one or two more such humble attempts to express by outward signs that grief which passes show. — When I looked round upon the storied monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble pomp, with which grandeur mourned magnificently over de- parted pride, and turned to this poor widow, bowed down by K SKE TCH-BOOK OF GEOFFRE V CRA YON, GENT. 1 1 5 age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious, though a broken heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief was worth them all. I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the congregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her situation more comfortable, and to lighten her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the neighborhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known, and friends are never parted. n 6 WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VING, THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. A SHAKSPERIAN RESEARCH. " A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good fellows. I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his great-great-grandfather should say, that it was an old proverb when his great-grandfather was a child, that 'it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine.' " Mother Bombie. It is a pious custom, in some Catholic countries, to honor the memory of saints by votive lights burnt before their pictures. The popularity of a saint, therefore, maybe known by the number of these offerings. One, perhaps, is left to moulder in the darkness of his little chapel : another may have a solitary lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine of some beatified father of renown. The wealthy devotee brings his huge luminary of wax ; the eager zealot, his seven- branched candlestick ; and even the mendicant pilgrim is by no means satisfied that sufficient light is thrown upon the deceased, unless he hangs up his little lamp of smoking oil. The consequence is, in the eagerness to enlighten, they are often apt to obscure ; and I have occasionally seen an unlucky saint almost smoked out of countenance by the officiousness of his followers. In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakspeare. . Every writer considers it his bounden duty, to light up some portion of his character or works, and to rescue some merit from oblivion. The commentator, opulent in words, produces SKE TCH-BOOK OF GEOFFRE Y CRA VO/V, GENT. 1 1 7 vast tomes of dissertations j the common herd of editors send up mists of obscurity from their notes at the bottom of each page; and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rush-light of eulogy or research, to swell the cloud of incense and of smoke. As I honor all established usages of my brethren of the quill, I thought it but proper to contribute my mite of homage to the memory of the illustrious bard. I was for some time, however, sorely puzzled in what way I should discharge this duty. I found myself anticipated in every attempt at a new reading ; every doubtful line had been explained a dozen different ways, and perplexed beyond the reach of elucida- tion ; and as to fine passages, they had all been amply praised by previous admirers : nay, so completely had the bard, of late, been overlarded with panegyric by a great German critic, that it was difficult now to find even a fault that had not been argued into a beauty. In this perplexity, I was one morning turning over his pages, when I casually opened upon the comic scenes of Henry IV., and was, in a moment, completely lost in the mad- cap revelry of the Boar's Head Tavern. So vividly and natur- ally are these scenes of humor depicted, and with such force and consistency are the characters sustained, that they be- come mingled up in the mind with the facts and personages of real life. To few readers does it occur, that these are all ideal creations of a poet's brain, and that, in sober truth, no such knot of merry roisterers ever enlivened the dull neighbor- hood of Eastcheap. For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusions of poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed, is just as valua- ble to me as a hero of history that existed a thousand years since : and, if I may be excused such an insensibility to the common ties of human nature, I would not give up fat Jack for half the great men of ancient chronicle. What have the heroes of yore done for me, or men like me ? They have con- quered countries of which I do not enjoy an acre ; or they Ii8 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. have gained laurels of which I do not inherit a leaf ; or they have furnished examples of hair-brained prowess, which I have neither the opportunity nor the inclination to follow. But old -Jack Falstaff! — kind Jack Falstaff ! — sweet Jack Falstaffj has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment; he has added vast regions of wit and good-humor, in which the poorest man may revel ; and has bequeathed a never-failing inheritance of jolly laughter, to make mankind merrier and better to the latest posterity. A thought suddenly struck me : " I will make a pilgrimage to Eastcheap," said I, closing the book, " and see if the old Boar's Head Tavern still exists. Who knows but I may light upon some legendary traces of Dame Quickly and her guests ; at any rate, there will be a kindred pleasure, in treading the halls once vocal with their mirth, to that the toper enjoys in smelling to the empty cask, once filled with generous wine." The resolution was no sooner formed than put in execu- tion. I forbear to treat of the various adventures and wonders I encountered in my travels, of the haunted regions of Cock-lane ; of the faded glories of Little Britain, and the parts adjacent ; what perils I ran in Cateaton-street and Old Jewry ; of the renowned Guildhall and its two stunted giants, the pride and wonder of the city, and the terror of all unlucky urchins ; and how I visited London Stone, and struck my staff upon it, in imitation of that arch-rebel, Jack Cade. Let it suffice to say, that I at length arrived in merry Eastcheap, that ancient region of wit and wassail, where the very names of the streets relished of good cheer, as Pudding- lane bears testimony even at the present day. For Eastcheap, says old Stow, " was always famous for its convivial doings. The cookes cried hot ribbes of beef roasted, pies well baked, and other victuals ; there was clattering of pewter pots, harpe, pipe, and sawtrie." Alas } how sadly is the scene changed since the roaring days of Falstaff and old Stow ! The mad- cap roisterer has given place to the plodding tradesman ; the clattering of pots and the sound of " harpe and sawtrie," to SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 119 the din of carts and the accurst dinging of the dustman's bell ; and no song is heard, save, haply, the strain of some syren from Billingsgate, chanting the eulogy of deceased mackerel. I sought, in vain, for the ancient abode of Dame Quickly. The only relict of it is a boar's head, carved in relief stone, which formerly served as the sign, but, at present, is built into the parting line of two houses which stand on the site of the renowned old tavern. For the history of this little empire of good fellowship, I was referred to a tallow-chandler's widow, opposite, who had been born and brought up on the spot, and was looked up to as the indisputable chronicler of the neighborhood. I found her seated in a little back parlor, the window of which looked out upon a yard about eight feet square, laid out as a flower- garden ; while a glass door opposite afforded a distant peep of the street, through a vista of soap and tallow candles ; the two views, which comprised, in all probability, her prospects in life, and the little world in which she had lived, and moved, and had her being, for the better part of a century. To be versed in the history of Eastcheap, great and little, from London Stone even unto the Monument, was, doubtless, in her opinion, to be acquainted with the history of the uni- verse. Yet, with all this, she possessed the simplicity of true wisdom, and that liberal, communicative disposition, which I have generally remarked in intelligent old ladies, knowing in the concerns of their neighborhood. Her information, however, did not extend far back into antiquity. She could throw no light upon the history of the Boar's Head, from the time that Dame Quickly espoused the valiant Pistol, until the great fire of London, when it was un- fortunately burnt down. It was soon rebuilt, and continued to flourish under the old name and sign, until a dying land- lord, struck with remorse for double scores, bad measures, and other iniquities which are incident to the sinful race of publicans, endeavored to make his peace with Heaven, by 1 2 o WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VI NG. bequeathing the tavern to St. Michael's church, Crooked-lane^ toward the supporting of a chaplain. For some time the vestry meetings were regularly held there ; but it was ob- served that the old Boar never held up his head under church government. He gradually declined, and finally gave his last gasp about thirty years since. The tavern was then turned into shops ; but she informed me that a picture of it was still preserved in St. Michael's church, which stood just in the rear. To get a sight of this picture was now my de- termination ; so, having informed myself of the abode of the sexton, I took my leave of the venerable chronicler of East- cheap, my visit having doubtless raised greatly her opinion of her legendary lore, and furnished an important incident in the history of her life. It cost me some difficulty, and much curious inquiry, to ferret out the humble hanger-on to the church. I had to ex- plore Crooked-lane, and divers little alleys, and dark elbows, and dark passages, with which this old city is perforated, like an ancient cheese, or a worm-eaten chest of drawers. At length I traced him to a corner of a small court, surrounded by lofty houses, where the inhabitants enjoy about as much of the face of heaven, as a community of frogs at the bottom of a well. The sexton v/as a meek, acquiescing little man, of a bowing, lowly habit ; yet he had a pleasant twinkling in his e3^e, and if encouraged, would now and then venture a small pleasantry ; such as a man of his low estate might venture to make in the company of high churchwardens, and other mighty men of the earth. I found him in company with the deputy organist, seated apart, like Milton's angels ; discours- ing, no doubt, on high doctrinal points, and settling the affairs of the church over a friendly pot of ale ; for the lower classes of English seldom deliberate on any weighty matter, without the assistance of a cool tankard to clear their under- standings. I arrived at the moment when they had finished their ale and their argument, and were about to repair to the church to put it in order ; so, having made known my SKE TCH-BOOK OF GEOFFRE Y CRA YON, GEN T. 121 wishes, I received their gracious permission to accompany them. The church of St. Michael's, Crooked-lane, standing a short distance from Billingsgate, is enriched with the tombs of many fishmongers of renown ; and as every profession has its galaxy of glory, and its constellation of great men, I pre- sume the monument of a mighty fishmonger of the olden time is regarded with as much reverence by succeeding generations of the craft, as poets feel on contemplating the tomb of Virgil, or soldiers the monument of a Marlborough or Turenne. I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious men, to observe that St. Michael's, Crooked-lane, contains also the ashes of that doughty champion, William Walworth, Knight, who so manfully clove down the sturdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smithfield ; a hero worthy of honorable blazon, as almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of arms ; the sovereigns of Cockney being generally renowned as the most pacific of all potentates."^ * The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great conflagration. Hereunder lyth a man of fame, Wiliiam Walworth cailyd by name Fishmonger lie was in lyfftime here, And twise Lord Maior, as in books appears ; "Who, with courage stout and manly rnyght, Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's sight, For which act done, and trew entent, The Kyng made him knyght incontinent ; And gave him armes, as here you see, Tp declare his fact and chivaldrie : He left this lyff the year of our God Thirteen hondred fourscore and three odd. An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the vener- able Stow: " Whereas," saith he, " it hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler^ I thought good to reconcile this rash conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. The principal leaders, or captains, of the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first man ; the second was John, or Jack, Straw, &c., «Scc. — Stow's London. 122 WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VING, Adjoining the churcli, in a small cemetery, immediately under the back windows of what was once the Boar's Head, stands the tombstone of Robert Preston, whilome drawer at the tavern. It is now nearly a century since this trusty drawer of good liquor closed his bustling career, and was thus quietly deposited within call of his customers. As I was clearing away the weeds from his epitaph, the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air arid informed me, in a low voice, that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling and whistling, bang- ing about doors and windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of hon- est Preston, which happened to be airing itself in the church- yard, was attracted by the well-known call of " waiter," from the Boar's Head, and made its sudden appearance in the midst of a roaring club, just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the " mirrie garland of Captain Death ;" to the discomfiture of sundry train-band captains, and the conversion of an infidel attorney, who became a zealous Christian on the spot, and was never known to twist the truth afterwards, ex- cept in the way of business. I beg it may be remembered, that I do not pledge myself for the authenticity of this anecdote ; though it is well known that the churchyards and by-corners of this old metropolis are very much infested with perturbed spirits ; and everyone must have heard of the Cock-lane ghost, and the apparition that guards the regalia in the Tower, which has frightened so many bold sentinels almost out of their wits. Be all this as it may, this Robert Preston seems to have been a worthy successor to the nimble-tongued Francis, who attended upon the revels of Prince Hal ; to have been equally prompt with his " anon, anon, sir," and to have transcended his predecessor in honesty ; for Falstaff, the veracity of whose taste no man will venture to impeach, flatly accuses francis of putting lime in his sack ; whereas, honest Preston's SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 125 epitaph lauds him for the sobriety of his conduct, the soundness of his wine, and the fairness of his measure.* The worthy dignitaries of the church, however, did not appear much captivated by the sober virtues of the tapster : the deputy organist, who had a moist look out of the eye, made some shrewd remark on the abstemiousness of a man brought up among full hogsheads ; and the little sexton corroborated his opinion by a significant wink, and a dubious shake of the head. Thus far my researches, though they threw much light on the history of tapsters, fishmongers, and Lord Mayors, yet disappointed me in the great object of my quest, the picture of the Boar's Head Tavern. No such painting was to be found in the church of St. Michael's. " Marry and amen ! " said I, " here endeth my research ! " So I was giving the mat- ter up,. with the air of a baffled antiquary, when my friend the sexton, perceiving me to be curious in everything relative to the old tavern, offered to show me the choice vessels of the vestry, which had been handed down from remote times, when the parish meetings were held at the Boar's Head. These were deposited in the parish club-room, which had been transferred, on the decline of the ancient establishment, to a tavern in the neighborhood. A few steps brought us to the house, which stands No. 12, Mile-lane, bearing the title of The Mason's Arms, and is kept by Master Edward Honeyball, the "bully-rock" of the * As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe it for the admonition of delinquent tapsters. It is, no doubt, the production of some choice spirit, who once frequented the Boar's Head. Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise, Produced one sober son, and here he lies. Though rear'd among full hogsheads, he defied The charms of wine, and every one beside. O reader, if to justice thou 'rt inclined, Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind. He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots, Had sundry virtues that excused his faults. You that on Bacchus have the like dependence, Pray copy Bob, in measure and attendance. 124 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. establishment. It is one of those little taverns, which abound in the heart of the city, and form the centre of gossip and intelligence of the neighborhood. We entered the bar-room, which was narrow and darkling ; for in these close lanes but few rays of reflected light are enabled to struggle down to the inhabitants, whose broad day is at best but a tolerable twi- light. The room was partitioned into boxes, each containing a table spread with a clean white cloth, ready for dinner. This showed that the guests were of the good old stamp, and divided their day equally, for it was but just one o'clock. At the lower end of the room was a clear coal fire, before which a breast of lamb was roasting. A row of bright brass candlesticks and pewter mugs glistened along the man- telpiece, and an old-fashoned clock ticked in one corner There was something primitive in this medley of kitchen, parlor, and hall, that carried me back to earlier times, and pleased me. The place, indeed, was humble, but everything had that look of order and neatness which bespeaks the superintendence of a notable English housewife. A group of amphibious looking beings, who might be either fishermen or sailors, were regaling themselves in one of the boxes. As I was a visitor of rather higher pretensions, I was ushered into a little misshapen back room, having at least nine corners. It was lighted by a sky-light, furnished with anti- quated leathern chairs, and ornamented with the portrait of a fat pig. It was evidently appropriated to particular cus- tomers, and I found a shabby gentleman, in a red nose, and oil-cloth hat, seated in one corner, meditating on a half-empty pot of porter. The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and with an air of profound importance imparted to her my errand. Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, and no bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses. Dame Quickly. She seemed delighted with an opportunity to oblige j and hurrying up stairs to the archives of her house, where the precious vessels of the parish club were deposit- SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 125 ed, she returned, smiling and curtseying with them in her hands. The first she presented me was a japanned iron tobacco- box, of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry had smoked at their stated meetings, since time immemorial ; and which was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or used on common occasions. I received it with becoming reverence ; but what was my delight, at beholding on its cover the identical painting of which I was in quest ! There was displayed the outside of the Boar's Head Tavern, and before the door was to be seen the whole convivial group, at table, in full revel, pictured with that wonderful fidelity and force, with which the portraits of renowned generals and com- modores are illustrated on tobacco boxes, for the benefit of posterity. Lest, however, there should be any mistake, the cunning limner had warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal and Falstaff on the bottoms of their chairs. On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly obliterated, recording that this box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar's Head Tavern, and that it was " repaired and beautified by his suc- cessor, Mr. John Packard, 1767." Such is a faithful descrip- tion of this august and venerable relic, and I question whether the learned Scriblerius. contemplated his Roman shield, or the Knights of the Round Table the long-sought sangreal, with more exultation. While I was meditating on it with enraptured gaze, Dame Honeyball, who was highly gratified by the interest it excited, put in my hands a drinking cup or goblet, which also belonged to the vestry, and was descended from the old Boar's Head. It bore the inscription of having been the gift of Francis Wythers, Knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding great value, being considered very " antyke." This last opinion was strengthened by the shabby gentleman with the red nose, and oil-cloth hat, and whom I strongly suspected of being a lineal descendant from the valiant Bar- 126 WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VING, dolph. He suddenly aroused from his meditation on the pot of porter, and casting a knowing look at the goblet, exclaimed, " Ay ay, the head don't ache now that made that there article." The great importance attached to this memento of ancient revelry by modern churchwardens, at first puzzled me \ but there is nothing sharpens the apprehension so much as anti- quarian research ; for I immediately perceived that this could be no other than the identical " parcel-gilt goblet " on which Falstaff made his loving, but faithless vow to Dame Quickly : and which would, of course, be treasured up with care among the regalia of her domains, as a testimony ofthat solemn con- tract.* Mine hostess, indeed, gave me a long history how the goblet had been handed down from generation to generation. She also entertained me with many particulars concerning the worthy vestrymen who have seated themselves thus quietly on the stools of the ancient roysters of Eastcheap, and, like so many commentators, utter clouds of smoke in honor of Shakspeare. These I forbear to relate, lest my readers should not be as curious in these matters as myself. Suffice it to say, the neighbors, one and all, about Eastcheap, believe that Falstaff and his merry crew actually lived and revelled there. Nay, there are several legendary anecdotes con- cerning him still extant among the oldest frequenters of the Mason's Arms, which they give as transmitted down from their forefathers ; and Mr. M'Kash, an Irish hair-dresser, whose shop stands on the site of the old Boar's Head, has several dry jokes of Fat Jack's, not laid down in the books, with which he makes his customers ready to die of laughter. I now turned to my friend the sexton to make some * Thou didst swear to me upon 2i parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dol- phin Chamber, at the round table, by z. sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the Prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor ; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. Canst thou deny it ? — Henry IV. part 2. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 127 farther inquiries, but I found him sunk in pensive meditation. His head had declined a httle on one side ; a deep sigh heaved from the very bottom of his stomach, and, though I could not see a tear trembling in his eye, yet a moisture was evidently stealing from a corner of his mouth. I followed the direction of his eye through the door which stood open, and found it fixed wistfully on the savory breast of lamb, roasting in dripping richness before the fire. I now called to mind, that in the eagerness of my recondite investigation, I was keeping the poor man from his dinner. My bowels yearned with sympathy, and putting in his hand a small token of my gratitude and good-will, I departed with a hearty benediction on him. Dame Honeyball, and the parish club of Crooked-lane — not forgetting my shabby, but senten- tious friend, in the oil-cloth hat and copper nose. Thus I have given a " tedious brief" account of this interest- ing research ; for which, if it prove too short and unsatisfactory, I can only plead my inexperience in this branch of literature, so deservedly popular at the present day. I am aware that a more skilful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled the materials I have touched upon, to a good mer- chantable bulk, comprising the biographies of William Walworth, Jack Straw, and Robert Preston ; some notice of the eminent fishmongers of St. Michael's ; the history of Eastcheap, great and little ; private anecdotes of Dame Honeyball and her pretty daughter, whom I have not even mentioned : to say nothing of a damsel tending the breast of lamb ( and whom, by the w^ay, I remarked to be a comely lass with a neat foot and ankle) ; the whole enlivened by the riots of Wat Tyler, and illuminated by the great fire of London. All this I leave as a rich mine to be worked by future commentatorb ; nor do I despair of seeing the tobacco-box, . and the " parcel-gilt goblet," which I have thus brought to light, the subject of future engravings, and almost as fruitful of voluminous dissertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles, or the far-famed Portland vase. 1 28 WORKS OF WASHING TON IR VI NG, THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. I know that all beneath the moon decays, And what by mortals in this world is brought, In time's great periods shall return to nought. I know that all the muses' heavenly layes, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds of few or none are sought, That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. Drummond of Hawthornden. There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries, and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood, I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying the luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to digjiify with the name of reflection ; when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at foot-ball, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merri- rrient. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrat- ing still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library. He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage leading to the Chapter-house, and the chamber in which Doomsday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key ; it was double locked, and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a dark narrow staircase, and passing through a second door, entered the library. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 129 I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the church in his robes hung over the fire-place. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polem- ical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the centre of the library was a solitary table, with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers that echoed soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. The bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a venerable elbow chair. Instead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparentlv never disturbed in their repose, I could not but consider the library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in dusty oblivion. How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some aching head — how many weary days ! how many sleepless nights ! How have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters ; shut themselves up from the face of man, and 9 130 WORKS OF WA SHING TON IR VI NG. the still more blessed face of nature ; and devoted themselves to painful research and intense reflection ! And all for what ? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf — to have the titles of their works read now and then in a future age, by some drowsy churchman, or casual straggler like myself ; and in another age to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound ; like the tone of that bell which has just tolled among these towers, filling the ear for a moment — lingering transiently in echo — and then passing away, like a thing that was not ! While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating these unprof- itable speculations, with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I ac- cidentally loosened the clasps ; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep ; then a husky hem, and at length began to talk. At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb which some studious spider had woven across it ; and having probably contracted a cold from long ex- posure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceedingly fluent conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronuncia- tion what in the present day would be deemed barbarous ; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to render it in modern parlance. It began with railings about the neglect of the world — about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained bitterly that it had not been opened for more than two cen- turies ; — that the Dean only looked now and then into the library, sometimes took down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few moments, and then returned them to their shelves. "What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT, 131 which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric, " what a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up here, and watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the Dean ? Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed ; and I would have a rule passed that the Dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year ; or if he is not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn loose the whole school of Westminster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing." " Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, " you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of your genera- tion. By being stored away in this ancient library, you are like the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which lie enshrined in the adjoining chapels ; while the remains of their contemporary mortals, left to the ordinary course of na- ture, have long since returned to dust." " Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking big, " I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand to hand, like other great contemporary works ; but here have I been clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have si- lently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the very vengeance with my intestines, if you had not by chance given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces." " My good friend," rejoined I, " had you been left to the circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well stricken in years ; very few of your contemporaries can be at present in existence ; and those few owe their lon- gevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries ; which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have compared to those infirm- aries attached to religious establishments, for the benefit of the old and decrepid, and where, by quiet fostering and no 132 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. employment, they often endure to an amazingly good-for-noth- ing old age. You talk of your contemporaries as if in cir- culation — where do we meet with their works ? — what do we hear of Robert Groteste of Lincoln ? No one could have toiled, harder than he for immortality. He is said to have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name : but, alas ! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely dis- turbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giral- dus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher, theo- logian, and poet t He declined two bishoprics that he might shut himself up and write for posterity ; but posterity never inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Huntingdon, who, besides a learned history of England, wrote a treatise on the contempt of the world, which the world has revenged by forgetting him ? What is quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical composition 1 Of his three great heroic poems, one is lost forever, excepting a mere frag- ment ; the others are known only to a few of the curious in literature ; and as to his love verses and epigrams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis, the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree of life ? — of William of Malmsbury ; of Simeon of Durham ; of Benedict of Peterborough ; of John Hanvill of St Albans ; of " " Prithee, friend," cried the quarto in a testy tone, " how old do you think me ? You are talking of authors that lived long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so that they in a manner expatriated themselves, and deserved to be forgotten ;* but I, sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I was written *In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to endyte, and have many noble things f ulfilde, but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in hearing of Frenchmen's Englishe. Chaucer's Testament of Love. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 133 in my own native tongue, at a time when the language had become fixed; and, indeed, I was considered a model of pure and elegant English." [I should observe that these remarks were couched in such intolerably antiquated terms, that I have had infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern phraseology.] " I cry you mercy," said I, " for mistaking your age ; but it matters little ; almost all the writers of your time have likewise passed into forgetfulness \ and De Worde's publi- cations are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon.* Even now, many talk of Spenser's ' well of pure English undefiled,' as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was not rather a mere con- fluence of various tongues perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and the reputation built upon it so fleeting. Unless thought can be committed to something more permanent and unchangeable than such a medium, even thought must share the fate of everything else, and fall into decay. This should serve as a check upon the vanity and ex- ultation of the most popular writer. He finds the language in which he has embarked his fame gradually altering, and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks back, and beholds the early authors of his country, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by modern writers ; * Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, " afterwards, also, by diligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and John Gowrie, in the time of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the same to their great praise and immortal commendation." 134 WORKS OF WASHINGTON- IRVING. a few short ages have covered them with obscurity, and their merits can only be relished by the quaint taste of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be the fate of his own work, which, however it may be admired in its day, and help as a model of purity, will, in the course of years, grow antiquated and ob- solete., until it shall become almost as unintelligible in its na- tive land as an Egyptian obelisk, or one of those Runic in- scriptions, said to exist in the deserts of Tartary. I declare," added I, with some emotion, " when I contemplate a modern library, filled with new works in all the bravery of rich gilding and binding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep ; like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, pranked out in all the splendor of military array, and reflected that in one hun- dred years not one of them would be in existence ! " " Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, " I see how it is ; these modern scribblers have superseded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Sackville's stately plays and Mir- ror for Magistrates, or the fine-spun euphuisms of the ' unpar- alleled John Lyly.' " " There you are again mistaken," said I ; " the writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when you were last in circulation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his admirers,* and which, in truth, was full of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly, though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated *" Live ever sweete booke ; the simple image of his gentle witt, and the golden pillar of his noble courage ; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the honey bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, the pith of morale and the intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the tongue of Suada in the chamber, the spirite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellency in print." Harvey's Pierce's Supererogation. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON GENT. 135 by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled at the time, have likewise gone down with all their writings and their contro- versies. Wave after wave of succeeding Uterature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for the gratification of the curious. " For my part," I continued, " I consider this mutability of language a wise precaution of Providence for the benefit of the world at large, and of authors in particular. To reason from analogy ; we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing ; the earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its surface be- come a tangled wilderness. In like manner, the works of genius and learning decline and make way for subsequent pro- ductions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time : otherwise the creative powers of genius would over- stock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication : works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious opera- tion ; they were written either on parchment, which was ex- pensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another ; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the inventions of paper 136 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. and the press have put an end to all these restraints : they have made every one a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse itself over the whole intel- lectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented into a river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library ; but what would you say to libraries, such as actually exist, containing three or four hundred thousand volumes ; legions of authors at the same tig^ie busy ; and a press going on with fearfully in- creasing activity, to double and quadruple the number } Un- less some unforeseen mortality should break out among the progeny of the Muse, now that she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much ; it increases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of those solitary checks on population spoken of by economists. All possible encouragement, therefore, should be given to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain ; let criticism do what it may, writers will write printers will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to learn their names. Many a man of passable information at the present day reads scarcely anything but reviews, and before long a man of erudition will be little better than a mere walk- ing catalogue." " My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most drearily in my face, " excuse my interrupting you, but I perceive you are rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of an author who was making some noise just as I left the worldo His reputation, however, was considered quite temporary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he was a poor, half-educated varlet, that knew little of Latin, and nothing of Greek, and had been obliged to run the country for deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakspeare. I pre- sume he soon sunk into oblivion." SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 137 " On the contrary," said I, " it is owing to that very man that the literature of his period has experienced a duration beyond the ordinary term of English literature. There arise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the un- changing principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream, which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating though the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the overflowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shakspeare, whom we behold, defying the encroach- ments of time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indiffer- ent author merely from having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of com- mentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them." Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and chuckle, until at length he*broke out into a plethoric fit of laughter that had well nigh choked him by reason of his ex- cessive corpulency. " Mighty well ! " cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, " mighty well ! and so you would per- suade me that the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond deer-stealer ! by a man without learning ! by a poet ! forsooth — a poet ! " And here he wheezed forth another fit of laughter. I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his having flour- ished in a less polished age. I determined, nevertheless, not •to give up my point. " Yes," resumed I positively, " a poet j for of all writers he has the best chance for immortality. Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart 138 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. will always understand him, He is the faithful portrayer of Nature, whose features are always the same, and always inter- esting. Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldy; their pages crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts ex- panded into tediousness. But with the true poet every thing is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest language. He illustrates them by everything that he sees most striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of human life, such as it is passing before him. His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They are caskets which inclose within a small compass the wealth of the language — its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of literary history. What vast valleys of dulness, filled with monkish legends and academical con- troversies ! What bogs of theological speculations ! What dreary wastes of metaphysics ! Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illumined bards, elevated like beacons on their widely-separated heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to age." * I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to Thorow earth, and waters deepe, The pen by skill doth passe : And featly nyps the worldes abuse, And shoes us in a glasse, The vertu and the vice Of every wight alyve ; The honey combe that bee doth make Is not so sweet in hyve, As are the golden leves That drops from poet's head , Which doth surmount our common talke, farre as dross doth lead. Churchyard. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 13^ inform me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent ; the clasps were closed ; and it looked per- fectly unconscious of all that had passed. I have been to the library two or three times since, and have endeavored to draw it into further conversation, but in vain : and whether all this rambling colloquy actually took place, or whether it was another of those odd day-dreams to which I am subject, I have never, to this moment, been able to discover. I40 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, RURAL FUNERALS. Here's a few flowers ! but about midnight more The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night Are strewings fitt'st for graves You were as flowers now withered: even so These herb'lets shall, which we upon you strow. Cymbeline. Among the beautiful and simple-hearted customs of rural life which still linger in some parts of England, are those of strewing flowers before the funerals and planting them at the graves of departed friends. There, it is said, are the remains of some of the rites of the primitive church ; but they are of still higher antiquity, having been observed among the Greeks and Romans, and frequently mentioned by their writers, and were, no doubt, the spontaneous tributes of un- lettered affection, originating long before art had tasked it- self to modulate sorrow into song, or story it on the monu- ment. They are now only to be met with in the most dis- tant and retired places of the kingdom, where fashion and innovation have not been able to throng in, and trample out all the curious and interesting traces of the olden time. In Glamorganshire, we are told, the bed whereon the corpse lies is covered with flowers, a custom alluded to in one of the wild and plaintive ditties of Ophelia : White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded all with sweet flowers ; Which be-wept to the grave did go, With true love showers. There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed in some of the remote villages of the south, at the funeral of SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 141 a female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl, nearest in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterwards hung up in the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased. These chaplets are sometimes made of white paper, in im- itation of flowers, and inside of them is generally a pair of white gloves. They are intended as emblems of the purity of the deceased, and the crown of glory which she has received in heaven. In some parts of the country, also, the dead are carried to the grave with the singing of psalms and hymns ; a kind of triumph, " to show," says Bourne, " that they have finished their course with joy, and are become conquerors." This, I am informed, is observed in some of the northern counties, particularly in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing, though melancholy effect, to hear, of a still evening, in some lonely country scene, the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swelling from a distance and to see the train slowly moving along the landscape. Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round Thy harmless and unhaunted ground, And as we sing thy dirge, we will The Daffodill And other flowers lay upon The altar of our love, thy stone. Herrick. There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to the passing funeral, in these sequestered places ; for such spec- tacles, occurring among the quiet abodes of Nature, sink deep into the soul. As the mourning train approaches, he pauses, uncovered, to let it go by ; he then follows silently in the rear ; sometimes quite to the grave, at other times for a few hundred yards, and having paid this tribute of respect to the deceased, turns and resumes his journey. The rich vien of melancholy which runs through the English character, and gives it some of its most touching 142 WORKS OF WASHINGTON- IRVING. and ennobling graces, is finely evidenced in these pathetic customs, and in the solicitude shown by the common people for an honored and a peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, whatever may be his lowly lot while living, is anxious that some little respect may be paid to his remains. Sir Thomas Overbury, describing the " faire and happy milkmaid," ob- serves, " thus lives she, and all her care is, that she may die in the spring time, to have store of flowers stucke upon her winding-sheet." The poets, too, who always breathe the feeling of a nation, continually advert to this fond solicitude about the grave. In " The Maid's Tragedy," by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind de- scribing the capricious melancholy of a broken-hearted girl. When she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell Her servants, what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in ; and made her maids Black 'em, and strew her over like a corse. The custom of decorating graves was once universally prevalent : osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the turf uninjured, and about them were planted evergreens and flowers. "We adorn their graves," says Evelyn, in his Sylva, "with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory." This usage has now become extremely rare in England ; but it may still be met with in the church- yards of retired villages, among the Welsh mountains ; and I recollect an instance of it at the small town of Ruthven, which lies at the head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd. I have been told also by a friend, who was present at the funeral of a young girl in Glamorganshire, that the female attendants had their aprons full of flowers, which, as soon as the body was interred, they stuck about the grave. He noticed several graves which had been decorated in the same manner. As the flowers had been merely stuck in SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 143 the ground, and not planted, they had soon withered, and might be seen in various states of decay ; some drooping, others quite perished. They were afterwards to be sup- planted by holly, rosemary, and others evergreens ; which on some graves had grown to great luxuriance, and overshadowed the tombstones. There was formerly a melancholy fancifulness in the ar- rangement of these rustic offerings, that had something in it truly poetical. The rose was sometimes blended with the lily, to form a general emblem of frail mortality. " This sweet flower," said Evelyn, "borne on a branch set with thorns, and accompanied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive, umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making so fair a show for a time, is not yet without its thorns and crosses." The nature and color of the flowers, and of the ribbons with which they were tied, had often a particular reference to the qualities or story of the deceased, or were expressive of the feelings of the mourner. In an old poem, entitled " Corydon's Doleful Knell," a lover specifies the decorations he intends to use : A garland shall be framed By Art and Nature's skill, Of sundry-colored flowers, In token of good will. And sundry-colored ribbons On it I will bestow ; But chiefly blacke and yellowe With her to grave shall go. I'll deck her tomb with flowers The rarest ever seen ; And with my tears as showers I'll keep them fresh and green. The white rose, we are told, was planted at the grave of a virgin ; her chaplet was tied with white ribbons, in token of her spotless innocence ; though sometimes black ribbons were intermingled, to bespeak the grief of the survivors. The 144 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. red rose was occasionally used, in remembrance of such as had been remarkable for benevolence ; but roses in general were appropriated to the graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us that the custom was not altogether extinct in his time, near his dwelling in the county of Surrey, " where the maidens yearly planted and decked the graves of their defunct sweet- hearts with rose-bushes." And Camden likewise remarks, in his Brittania : " Here is also a certain custom, observed time out of mind, of planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maids who have lost their loves ; so that this churchyard is now full of them." When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, emblems of a more gloomy character were used, such as the yew and cypress ; and if flowers were strewn, they were of the most melancholy colors. Thus, in poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq. (published in 1651), is the following stanza : Yet strew Upon my dismall grave Such offerings as you have, Forsaken cypresse and yewe ; For kinder flowers can take no birth Or growth from such unhappy earth. In "The Maid's Tragedy," a pathetic little air is intro- duced, illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females who have been disappointed in love. Lay a garland on my hearse Of the dismal yew, Maidens willow branches wear, Say I died true. My love was false, but I was firm, From my hour of birth, Upon my buried body lie Lightly, gentle earth. The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind ; and we have a proof of it in the purity of sen- timent, and the unaffected elegance of thought, which pervaded SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 145 the whole of these funeral observances. Thus, it was an especial precaution that none but sweet-scented evergreens and flowers should be employed. The intention seems to have been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind from brooding over the disgraces of perishing mortality,- and to associate the memory of the deceased with the most deli- cate and beautiful objects in nature. There is a dismal pro- cess going on in the grave, ere dust can return to its kindred dust, which the imagination shrinks from contemplating • and we seek still to think of the form we have loved, with those refined associations which it awakened when blooming before us in youth and beauty. " Lay her i' the earth," says Laertes of his virgin sister, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring. Herrick, also, in his " Dirge of Jephtha," pours forth a fra- grant flow of poetical thought and image, which in a manner embalms the dead in the recollections of the living. Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice, And make this place all Paradise : May sweets grow here ! and smoke from hence Fat frankincense. Let balme and cassia send their scent From out thy maiden monument. ^ ^ $|t 5(& ^ May all shie maids at wonted hours Come forth to strew thy tombe with flowers ! May virgins, when they come to mourn Male incense burn Upon thine altar ! then return And leave thee sleeping in thy ui I might crowd my pages with extracts from the older British poets, who wrote when these rites were more prevalent, and delighted frequently to allude to them ; but I have already quoted more than is necessary. I cannot, however, refrain from giving a passage from Shakspeare, even though it should 146 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. appear trite, which illustrates the emblematical meaning often conveyed in these floral tributes, and at the same time pos- sesses that magic of language and appositeness of imagery for which he stands pre-eminent. With fairest flowers, "Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor The azured harebell like thy veins ; no, nor The leaf of eglantine ; whom not to slander, Outsweetened not thy breath. There is certainly something more affecting in these prompt and spontaneous offerings of nature, than in the most costly monuments of art ; the hand strews the flower while the heart is warm, and the tear falls on the grave as affection is binding the osier round the sod ; but pathos expires under the slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold conceits of sculptured marble. It is greatly to be regretted, that a custom so truly elegant and touching has disappeared from general use, and exists only in the most remote and insignificant villages. But it seems as if poetical custom always shuns the walks of culti- vated society. In proportion as people grow polite, they cease to be poetical. They talk of poetry, but they have learnt to check its free impulses, to distrust its sallying emotions, and to supply its most affecting and picturesque usages, by studied form and pompous ceremonial. Few pageants can be more stately and frigid than an English funeral in town. It is made up of show and gloomy parade : mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning plumes, and hireling mourners, who make a mockery of grief. '' There is a grave digged, " says Jeremy Taylor, "and a solemn mourning, and a great talk in the neighborhood, and when the daies are finished, they shall be, and they shall be remembered no more." The associate in the gay and crowded city is soon forgotten : the hurrying succes- sion of new intimates and new pleasures effaces him from our SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON^ GENT. 147 minds, and the very scenes and circles in which he moved are incessantly fluctuating. But funerals in the country are sol- emnly impressive. The stroke of death makes a wider space in the village circle, and is an awful event in the tranquil uni- formity of rural life. The passing bell tolls its knell in every ear ; it steals with its pervading melancholy over hill and vale, and saddens all the landscape. The fixed and unchanging features of the country, also, perpetuate the memory of the friend with whom we once en- joyed them ; who was the companion of our most retired walks, and gave animation to every lonely scene. His idea is asso- ciated with every charm of Nature : we hear his voice in the echo which he once delighted to awaken ; his spirit haunts the grove which he once frequented ; we think of him in the wild upland solitude, or amidst the pensive beauty of the valley. In the freshness of joyous morning we remember his beaming smiles and bounding gayety ; and when sober evening returns, with its gathering shadows and subduing quiet, we call to mind many a twilight hour of gentle talk and sweet- souled melancholy. Each lonely place shall him restore, For him the tear be duly shed, Beloved, till life can charm no more, And mourn'd till pity's self be dead. Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the deceased in the country, is, that the grave is more immediately in sight of the survivors. They pass it on their way to prayer ; it meets their eyes when their hearts are softened by the exercise of devotion j they linger about it on the Sabbath, when the mind is disengaged from worldly cares, and most disposed to turn aside from present pleasures and loves, and to sit down among the solemn mementos of the past. In North Wales, the peasantry kneel and pray over the graves of their deceased friends for several Sundays after the interment ; and where the tender rite of strewing and planting flowers is still prac- tised, it is always renewed on Easter, Whitsuntide, and other festivals, when the season brings the companion of former 148 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. festivity more vividly to mind. It is also invariably performed by the nearest relatives and friends ; no menials nor hirelings are employed, and if a neighbor yields assistance, it would be deemed an insult to offer compensation. I have dwelt upon this beautiful rural custom, because, as it is one of the last, so is it one of the holiest offices of love. The grave is the ordeal of true affection. It is there that the divine passion of the soul manifests its superiority to the instinctive impulse of mere animal attachment. The latter must be continually refreshed and kept alive by the presence of its object ; but the love that is seated in the soul can live on long remembrance. The mere inclinations of sense lan- guish and decline with the charms which excited them, and turn with shuddering and disgust from the dismal precincts of the tomb j but it is thence that truly spiritual affection rises puri- fied from every sensual desire, and returns, like a holy flame, to illumine and sanctify the heart of the survivor. The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be' divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget ; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms though every recollection is a pang ? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to re- member be but to lament ? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns ? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved j when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal ; would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness ? — No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights ; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection — ■ when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveli- SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 149 ness — who would root out such a sorrow from the heart ? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom j yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry ? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave ! — the grave !-^It buries every error — covers every defect — extinguishes every resentment ! From its peace- ful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollec- tions. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering be- fore him ? But the grave of those we loved — what a place for medita- tion ! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endear- ments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily inter- course of intimacy ; — there it is that we dwell upon the tender- ness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs — its noiseless attend- ance — its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling, oh! how thrilling ! — pressure of the hand. The last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of exist- ence. The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection ! Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate ! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that de- parted being, who can never — never — never return to be soothed by thy contrition ! If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent — if thou art a husband, and has-t ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of. thy kindness or thy truth — if thou art a friend, and I^o WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. hast ever wronged, in thought, word or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee — if thou art a lover and hast eveu given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet ; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul — then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear — more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave j console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret ; — but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affec- tionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living. In writing the preceding article, it was not intended to give a full detail of the funeral customs of the English peas antry, but merely to furnish a few hints and quotations illus trative of particular rites, to be appended, by way of note, to another paper, which has been withheld. The article swelled insensibly into its present form, and this is mentioned as an apology for so brief and casual a notice of these usages, after they have been amply and learnedly investigated in other works. I must observe, also, that I am well aware that this cus- tom of adorning graves with flowers, prevails in other countries besides England. Indeed, in some it is much more general, and is observed even by the rich and fashionable ; but it is then apt to lose its simplicity, and to degenerate into affecta- tion. Bright, in his travels in Lower Hungary, tells of mon- uments of marble, and recesses formed for retirement, with seats placed among bowers of green-house plants ; and that the graves generally are covered with the gayest flowers of the season. He gives a casual picture of final piety, which I cannot but describe, for I trust it is as useful as it is delight- SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. i^i ful to illustrate the amiable virtues of the sex. " When I was at Berlin," says he, " I followed the celebrated Iffland to the grave. Mingled with some pomp, you might trace much real feeling. In the midst of the ceremony, my attention was at- tracted by a young woman who stood on a mound of earth, newly covered with turf, which she anxiously protected from the feet of the passing crowd. It was the tomb of her parent ; and the figure of this affectionate daughter presented a mon- ument more striking than the most costly work of art." I will barely add an instance of sepulchral decoration that I once met with among the mountains of Switzerland. It was at the village of Gersau, which stands on the borders of the lake of Luzerne, at the foot of Mount Rigi. It was once the cap- ital of a miniature republic, shut up between tlie Alps and the lake, and accessible on the land side only by foot-paths. The whole force of the republic did not exceed six hundred fight- ing men ; and a few miles of circumference, scooped out, as it were, from the bosom of the mountains, comprised its terri- tory. The village of Gersau seemed separated from the rest of the world, and retained the golden simplicity of a purer age. It had a small church, with a burying ground adjoining. At the heads of the graves were placed crosses of wood or iron. On some were affixed miniatures, rudely executed, but evidently attempts at likenesses of the deceased. On the crosses were hung chaplets of flowers, some withering, others fresh, as if occasionally renewed. I paused with interest at the scene ; I felt that I was at the source of poetical descrip- tion, for these were the beautiful, but unaffected offerings of the heart, which poets are fain to record. In a gayer and more populous place, I should have suspected them to have been suggested by factitious sentiment, derived from books ; but the good people of Gersau knew little of books ; there was not a novel nor a love poem in the village ; and I question whether any peasant of the place dreamt, while he was twining a fresh chaplet for the grave of his mistress, that he was ful- filling one of the most fanciful rites of poetical devotion, and that he was practically a poet. "52 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. THE INN KITCHEN. Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ? Falstaff. During a journey that I once made through the Nether- lands. I had arrived one evening at the Fomme a^ Or ^ the principal inn of a small Flemish village. It was after the hour of the table d'hote^ so that I was obliged to make a solitary supper from the relics of its ampler board. The weather was chilly ; I was seated alone in one end of a great gloomy dining-room, and my repast being over, I had the prospect before me of a long dull evening, without any visible means of enlivening it. I summoned mine host, and requested something to read ; he brought me the whole literary stock of his household, a Dutch family bible, an almanac in the same language, and a number of old Paris newspapers. As I sat dozing over one of the latter, reading old news and stale criti- cisms, my ear was now and then struck with bursts of laughter which seemed to proceed from the kitchen. Every one that has travelled on the Continent must know how favorite a resort the kitchen of a country inn is to the middle and infe- rjor order of travellers; particularly in that equivocal kind of weather when a fire becomes agreeable toward evening. I threw aside the newspaper, and explored my way to the kitchen, to take a peep at the group that appeared to be so merry. It was composed partly of travellers who had arrived some hours before in a diligence, and partly of the usual atten- dants and hangers-on of inns. They were seated around a great burnished stove, that might have been mistaken for an altar, at which they were worshipping. It was covered with various SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 153 kitchen vessels of resplendent brightness ; among which steamed and hissed a huge copper tea-kettle. A large lamp threw a strong mass of light upon the group, bringing out many odd features in strong relief. Its yellow rays partially illu- mined the spacious kitchen, dying duskily away into remote . corners ; except where they settled in mellow radiance on the broad side of a flitch of bacon, or were reflected back from well-scoured utensils that gleamed from the midst of obscurity. A strapping Flemish lass, with long golden pendants in her ears, and a necklace with a golden heart suspended to it, was presiding priestess of the temple. Many of the company were furnished with pipes, and most of them with some kind of evening potation. I found their mirth was occasioned by anecdotes which a little swarthy Frenchman, with a dry weazen face and large whiskers, was giving of his love adventures \ at the end of each of which there was one of those bursts of honest unceremonious laughter, in which a man indulges in that temple of true lib- erty, an inn. As I had no better mode of getting through a tedious blustering evening, I took my seat near the stove, and listened to a variety of travellers' tales, some very extravagant, and most very dull. All of them, however, have faded from my treacherous memory, except one, which I will endeavor to relate. I fear, however, it derived its chief zest from the manner in which it was told, and the peculiar air and appear- ance of the narrator. He was a corpulent old Swiss, who had the look of a veteran traveller. He was dressed in a tarnished green travelling-jacket, with a broad belt round his waist, and a pair of overalls with buttons from the hips to the ankles. He was of a full, rubicund countenance, with a double chin, aquiline nose, and a pleasant twinkling eye. His hair was light, and curled from under an old green velvet travelling- cap, stuck on one side of his head. He was interrupted more than once by the arrival of guests, or the remarks of his au- ditors ; and paused, now and then, to replenish his pipe ; at 154 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. which times he had generally a roguish leer, and a sly joke, for the buxom kitchen maid. I wish my reader could imagine the old fellow lolling in a huge arm-chair, one arm a-kimbo, the other holding a curi- ously twisted tobacco-pipe, formed of genuine ecume de mer, decorated with silver chain and silken tassel — his head cocked on one side, and a whimsical cut of the eye occasionally, as he related the following story : SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 155 THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. A traveller's tale.* He that supper for is dight, He lyes full cold, I trow, this night ! Yestreen to chamber I him led, This night Gray-steel has made his bed ! Sir Eger, Sir Grahame, and Sir Gray-steel. On the summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany, that lies not far from the confluence of the Maine and the Rhine, there stood, many, many years since, the Castle of the Baron Von Land- short. It is now quite fallen to decay, and almost buried among beech trees and dark firs ; above which, however, its old watch-tower may still be seen struggling, like the former possessor I have mentioned, to carry a high head, and look down upon a neighboring country. The Baron was a dry branch of the great family of Kat- zenellenbogen,t and inherited the relics of the property, and all the pride, of his ancestors. Though the warlike disposi- tion of his predecessors had much impaired the family pos- sessions, yet the Baron still endeavored to keep up some show * The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, will perceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to the old Swiss by a little French anecdote, of a circumstance said to have taken place in Paris. t i. these women ! these women ! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks ? — Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival ? — Heaven only knows, not I ! — Let it suffice to say, Icha- bod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen- roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourte- ously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover. It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy- hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappaan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, ac- cidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm* SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFI'REY CRAYON, GENT. ^.^Z house away among the hills — but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed. All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. — The night grew darker and darker ; the stars seemed to sink deep- er in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by ; and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sym- pathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told con- cerning it. As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whis- tle ; he thought his whistle was answered : it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree : he paused, and ceased whistling ; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle : it was but the rub- bing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him. 364 WORKS OF WASHINGTOt^ IRVING. About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road v/here the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge, was the se- verest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of a school-boy who has to pass it alone after dark. As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump ; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge ; but instead of starting forward, the per- verse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot : it was all in vain ; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The school- master now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forwards, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a sudden- ness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, mis- shapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gath- ered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller. The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done ? To turn and fly was now too latej and besides, what chance was there of escaping SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 365 ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind ? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents — " Who are you ? " He re- ceived no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimen- sions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and wayward- ness. Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight com- panion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind — the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him ; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was some- thing in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sl^yj gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was headless ! but his horror w^as still more increased, on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle ! His terror rose to desper- ation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, 366 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip — but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin ; stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow ; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon? instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story ; and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the white- washed church. As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent advantage in the chase ; but just as he had got half-way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind — for it was his Sunday saddle ; but this was no time for petty fears \ the goblin was hard on his haunches ; and (unskilful rider that he was !) he had much ado to maintain his seat ; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high^ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. " If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, " I am safe." Just then SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 367 he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him ; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprung upon the bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he gained the opposite side, and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash — he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gun- powder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind. The next morning the old horse was found without his sad- dle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appear- ance at breakfast — dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the school-house, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Rip- per now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church, was found the saddle trampled in the dirt ; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and, evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half ; two stocks for the neck ; a pair or two of worsted stockings ; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes ; a rusty razor ; a book of psalm tunes full of dog's ears ; and a broken pitch-pipe. 368 WORKS OF V/ASHINGTON IRVING. As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they be- longed to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling ; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted, by several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper ; who, from that time for- ward, determined to send his children no more to school ; observing that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster pos- sessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance. The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called to mind ; and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him ; the school was removed to a different quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intel- ligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive ; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress ; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country ; had kept school and studied law at the same time ; had been admitted to the bar j turned SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRA YON, GENT. 369 politician ; electioneered ; written for the newspapers ; and finally, had been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin ; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means ; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe ; and that may be the reason why the road has been al- tered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The school-house being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue ; and the plough-boy, loitering home- ward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tran- quil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 24 370- WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. POSTSCRIPT, FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER. The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient city of the Manhattoes,"* at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face j and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor — he made such efforts to be entertain- ing. When his story was concluded there was much laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy alder- men, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beet- ling eye-brows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout 3 now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds — when they have reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other a-kimbo, de- manded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, and what it went to prove. The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, * New York. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 371 looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most logically to prove : — " That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures — provided we will but take a joke" as we find it : " That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers, is likely to have rough riding of it : " Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the state." The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocina- tion of the syllogism ; while, methought, the one in pepper- and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed, that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant — there were one or two points on which he had his doubts : " Faith, sir," replied the story-teller. " as to that matter, I don't believe one-half of it myself." D.K. 372 WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, L'ENVOY. Go, little booke, God send thee good passage, And specially let this be thy prayere, Unto them all that thee will read or hear, "Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, Thee to correct, in any part or all. Chaucer's Bell Dame sans Mercie. In concluding a second volume of the Sketch-Book, the Au- thor cannot but express his deep sense of the indulgence with which his first has been received, and of the liberal disposition that has been evinced to treat him with kindness as a stran- ger. Even the critics, whatever may be said of them by oth- ers, he has found to be a singularly gentle and good-natured race ; it is true that each has in turn objected to some one or two articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in the aggregate, would amount almost to a total condemnation of his work ; but then he has been consoled by observing, that what one has particularly censured, another has as partic- ularly praised : and thus, the encomiums being set off against the objections, he finds his work, upon the whole, commendei^ far be3'ond its deserts. He is aware that he ryns a risk of forfeiting much of this kind favor by not following the counsel that has been liberally bestowed upon him ; for where abundance of valuable advice, is given gratis, it may seem a man's own fault if he should go astray. He only can say, in his vindication, that he faithfully determined, for a time, to govern himself in his second volume by the opinions passed upon his first ; but he was soon brought to a stand by the contrariety of excellent counsel. SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 373 One kindly advised him to avoid the ludicrous ; another, to shun the pathetic ; a third assured him that he was tolerable at description, but cautioned him to leave narrative alone ; while a fourth declared that he had a very pretty, knack at turning a story, and was really entertaining when in a pensive mood, but was grievously mistaken if he imagined himself to possess a spark of humor. Thus perplexed by the advice of his friends, who each in turn closed some particular path, but left him all the world beside to range in, he found that to follow all their counsels would, in fact, be to stand still. He remained for a time sadly embarrassed ; when, all at once, the thought struck him to ramble on as he had begun ; that his work being mis- cellaneous, and written for different humors, it could not be expected that anyone would b^ pleased with the whole ; but that if it should contain something to suit each reader, his end would be completely answered. Few guests sit down to a varied table with an equal appetite for every dish. One has an elegant horror of a roasted pig ; another holds a curry or a devil in utter abomination ; a third cannot tolerate the ancient flavor of venison and wild fowl ; and a fourth, of truly masculine stomach, looks with sovereign contempt on those knicknacks, here and there dished up for the ladies. Thus each article is condemned in its turn ; and yet, amidst this variety of appetites, seldom does a dish go away from the table without being tasted and relished by some one or other of the guests. With these considerations he ventures to serve up this second volume in the same heterogeneous way with his first ; simply requesting the reader, if he should find here and there something to please him, to rest assured that it was written expressly for intelligent readers like himself ; but entreating him, should he find anything to dislike, to tolerate it, as one of those articles which the Author has been obliged to write for readers a of a less refined tste. To be serious. — The Author is conscious of the numer- 374 WORKS OF WA SHING TON IR VING. ous faults and imperfections of his work ; and well aware- how little he is disciplined and accomplished in the arts of authorship. His deficiencies are also increased by a diffi- dence arising from his peculiar situation. He finds himself writing in a strange land, and appearing before a public which he has been accustomed, from childhood, to regard with the highest feelings of awe and reverence. He is full of solicitude to deserve their approbation, yet finds that very solicitude continually embarrassing his powers, and depriving him of that ease and confidence which are necessary to success- ful exertion. Still the kindness with which he is treated en- courages him to go on, hoping that in time he may acquire a steadier footing ; and thus he proceeds, half-venturing, half- shrinking, surprised at his own good fortune, and wondering at his own temerity. JUL -3 ,j in iiS