\'\ \U{TSZ7[iii'Ami![iir.A.'A.:...l....L[A..ii'..'.A..: t * f PS 2066 fl3 D53 Copy 1 CrraAe S %\)e ]£ttf)er£(tDe Ittterature fsttitK RIP VAN WINKLE iND OTHER AMERICAN ESSAYS THE VOYAGE AND OTHER ENGLISH ESSAYS Iff WASHINGTON IRVING ^^^z" A, CET^c KitjersiDe ^Literature ^ttita ESSAYS FROM THE SKETCH BOOK BY WASHINGTON IRVING WITH INTRODUCTION, EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR STUDY BY A. B. De MILLE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO ^6) '&' CONTENTS ,h^ Chronological Table ^ - * iii Biographical Sketch of Irving vii Map of the Regions Mentioned xviii Rip Van Winkle 7 Legend of Sleepy Hollow 32 Philip of Pokanoket 76 Explanatory Notes, with Questions and Topics for Study i The selections from "The Sketch Book" included in this number of the Riverside Literature Series are used by permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. G. P. Put- nam's Sons, the authorized publishers of Irving's works. r: ' JUN i Serw' P^ ^ ^ COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1 891, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. :^ 1 ALL rights reserved ' •• • -^ CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. CHRONOLOGICAL ( TABLE. 111 1 =1 Ia5 ® • 1 «8 •2 S S -2 i n -< eorge III. kin England (s 17G0). 3.S II eeting of States Genera eginning of Frencli Revi tlon. 2 i republic. xecution of L XVI. eign of Terro France. overnment of Directory. apoleon Bonap ID Is , 1 O ^ H w 1^ Q < ^ o Q ^z; O 1— I o Cii p^ w a iu o cc ^ 3 o II' '53 -tJ f ^ a^.o-S^'*''^^ rt itf- P.PH o H ^ a » ee •* '^ e« "^ o " bo S I o <1 ^ O P5 l« a ^ 'o . W Wo rt F •« ^-^ •g-gs^l « i-H (N Tj* O l-H ^ ,-1 00 00 00 00 S«2 s'i i'l 3X5 a p4 . I— « OQ ^ > fe- ci - oca 03^ & :5 «« 5 bccs .2 OJ o '^ ' fc. *< l_) _, <3 w w -5 oJ' 2s 00 <=> o If CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. ^ M S»® ®^ S'5 S ' id « ^ a o ^ uJ 03 02 •2 » o d « dOn o fl o 2 O I— I • H i5 '=^H^ ^ S § bc^ t o Hi s e-3 a § I - ^ H •2 d? « S *3 1 1 1, 2 o -i o 1 Q 9 II o 3 u . .2 "a 2 ^ s H bo 'S.g o _ --3 o o -i^ K ,-5 en 0) ill o \a> 00 00 n r^2 (V 03 eg c3 S ■'^ c33 .2 02 O M O 50 QQ ^ 4J © .5 K t3 OJ "^ O oQ i^ o o a o p ^ .2 .2 'So£§§Q rt J- <=> S S^ i5 H tf o ^ !-< S O e8 i< > (X) . o »-i ,-1 T-i 00 »-( tH r-t CO oq — ^ ^ r-l CI (M CO 53 CO oo 00 00 oo 00 \Q CO CO CO 00 00 VI CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. < H yA < O o o o B w fe c/2 >H PQ Q W o Q O S W Pu, R » 9 o iS rt «! <« 2 © a S5 O § ^=3 n a w TO C a) • Q Pu( ^ CD t- eo CO 00 oo S ^ _ 3 2.2 GG o8 ^ "^H o ® 53 CQ ■-s^s-^ s So o O 07 en fl CJ o 5« > .3 s OQ I -^ •- iJ ^ t- a s ® :s;2s.2 a « o ^-^ •*^ J- * OB '*-> GM O t- u< t^ SOS 0-- o w bocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker ice ; and . . . New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding them selves upon being ' genuine Knickerbockers.' " RIP VAN WINKLE. A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRIGH KNICKERBOCKER. By Woden, God of Saxons, From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. Truth is a thing that ever I will keep Unto thylke day in which I creep into My sepulchre. Caetwbight.* The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His his- torical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped vol- ume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm. The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appear- ance, but has since been completely established ; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestion able authority. The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of hip work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm ^ William Cartwright, 1611-1643, was a friend and disciple oi Ben JoQson, 8 WASHINGTON IRVING. to his memory ^ to say that his time might have been much bet* ter employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby bis own way ; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affec- tion ; yet his errors and follies are remembered " more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never in- tended to injure or offend. But however his memorv may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk, whose good opinion is worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit- bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes ; ^ and have thus given him a chance for immor- tality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne's Farthing.^ 1 The History of New York had given offence to many old New Yorkers because of its saucy treatment of names which were held in veneration as those of founders of families, and its general burlesque of Dutch character. Among the critics was a warm friend of Irving, Gulian C. Verplanck, who in a discourse before the New York Historical Society plainly said : " It is painful to see a mind, as admirable for its exquisite perception of the beautiful as it is for its quick sense of the ridiculous, wast- ing the richness of its fancy on an ungrateful theme, and its exuberant humor in a coarse caricature." Irving took the cen- sure good-naturedly, and as he read Verplanck's words just as he was finishing the story of Rip Van Winkle, he gave them this playful notice in the introduction. ^ An oblong seed-cake, still made in New York at New Year's time, and of Dutch ongin. • There was a popular story that only three farthings were struck in Queen Anne's reign ; that two were in public keeping, and that the third was no one knew where, but that its lucky finder would be able to hold it at an enormous price. As a mat- ter of fact there were eight coinings of farthings in the reign of Queen Anne, and numismatists do not set a high value on thp piece* RIP VAN WINKLE. 8 Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dis- membered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surround- ing country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky ; but sometimes when the rest of the land- scape is cloudless they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. At the foot of these fairy ^ mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant,^ (y^^J he rest in peace !) and there were some of the houses of the original set- tlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow * A light touch to help the reader into a proper spirit for re- ceiving the tale. ^ Stuyvesant was governor of New Netherlands from 1647 tc 1664. He plays an important part in Knickerbocker's History of New York, as he did in actual life. Until quite recently a pear tree was shown on the Bowery, said to have been planted by ilim. 10 WASHINGTON IRVING, bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windowa and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina.^ He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man ; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen* pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and mal* leable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons iij the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be considered a tolerable blessing, and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters 1 The Van Winkles appear in the ilhistrious catalogue of heroes who accompanied Stuyvesant to Fort Christina, and were " Brimful of wrath and cabbage." See History of New York, book VI. chap. viii. RIP FAN W2NKLE 11 over in tlieii evening gossipings, to lay all fche blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and IndianSc Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark at Hm throughout the neighborhood. The great error in Rip's composition was an insu< perable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or persever* ance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be en- couraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowL ing-picce on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone- fences ; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, Eip was ready to attend to any* body's business but his own ; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it im- possible. In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground ^ the whole country; everything about it went wrong IJd WASHINGTON IRVING. and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces ; his cow would either go astray or get among the cabbages ; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else ; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do ; so that though his patri- monial estate had dwindled away under his manage ment, 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 belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin be- gotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes 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 galli- gaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. Kip 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 on 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 bis ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon^ and night her tongue was incessantly going, and every- thing he said or did was sure to produce a torrent 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 shoul- ders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said no thing. This, however, aJways provoked a fresh volley RIP VAN WINKLE. IS from his wife ; so that he was fain to draw oft 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 regarded them as companions in idleness, and 3ven 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 mo- ment 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 side- long 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 years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console 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 through a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been w^orth any statesman's money to have heard the profound dis- cussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing 14 WASHINGTON IRVING. traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the con- tents, 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 con- trolled 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 suf- ficiently 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 incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything tliat was read or related displeased him, he was ob- served 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, tak- ing the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation. From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would sud- denly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members all to naught ; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tong\:e of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband m habits of idleness. Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair} RIP VAN WINKLE. 16 and his only alternative, to escape from the labor oj the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himseK at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a f ellow-suiferer in persecution. " Poor Wolf," he would say, ''thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thon shalt never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's facCj and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he recipra cated 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 favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the re- ports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, cov- ered 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 ir the blue highlands. On the other side he looked down into a deep moun tain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene ; evening was gradually advancing ; the mountains began to throw te WASHIIsiOTON IRVING. 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 en- countering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. As he was about to descend, he heard a voice frouj a distance, hallooing, " Kip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the moun- taiuo 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 ! Eip 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 anxiously 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 singularity 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 shoulder 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 complied with his usual alao RIP VAN WINKLE. 17 rity ; and mutually relieving one another, they clam bered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a inountain torrent. As they ascended. Rip every no^ and then heard long rolling peals like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rathei cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for a moment, but sup posing it to be the muttering of one of those transient thunder>showers which often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, sur- rounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending 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 incomprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked familiarity. ^Dn entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. 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 enor mous breeches of similar style with that of the guide's* Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large beard, 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 all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be 18 WASHINGTON IRVING. the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, witn a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doub- let, 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 Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over frrm Holland at the time of the settlement. What seemed particularly odd to Eip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mys- terious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted t)je 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 suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, un- couth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His com- panion now emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the com* pany. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then re* turned 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 reiter- fited his visits to the flagon so often that at length his RIP VAN WINKLE. 19 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 whence he had first seen the old man of the glea He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright, sunny morning The birds were hopping and twittering among tht bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breast- ing 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 a keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone party at nine-pins — the flagon — " Oh ! that flagon ! that wicked flagon ! " thought Eip — " 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 fire- lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now fijuspected that the grave roisters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with li- quor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had dis- appeared, 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 even ing's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, tc demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. " These mountain 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 20 WASHINGTON IRVING. blessed time with Dame Van Winkle/' With somb 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 ? 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 grapevines that twisted their coils or 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 sur- rounding forest. Here, then, poor Kip 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 air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice ; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look doAvn and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done ? the morning was passing 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 ; but it w ould aot 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 home- jv^ard. As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat sur- RIP VAN WINKLE. 21 prised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country 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 their eyes apon him, invariably stroked their chins. The con- stant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, involun- tarily, 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 pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old ac- quaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered ; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors — strange faces at the windows, — everything was strange. His mind now misgave him ; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native vil- lage, which he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill Mountains — there ran the silver Hudson at a distance — there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been — Rip was sorely per- plexed — " That flagon last night," thought he, " has addled my poor head sadly ! " It w?.s with some difficulty that he found the way fco 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-starved dog that 22 WASHINGTON IRVING, 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 Eip, ''has forgotten me!" He entered the house, which, to tell the truth. Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was ampty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This deso- lateness overcame all his connubial fears — he called loudly for his wife and children — the lonely cham* bers rang for a moment with his voice, and then again all was silence. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old re- sort, 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 recognizea 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 metamor- phosed. 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, Gen- eral Washington. There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Kip recollected. The very character ot RIP VAN WINKLE. 28 the people seemed changed. There was a busy^ bus* tling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accus- tomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in 7ain 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 Bununel, the school-master, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of hand- bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citi- zens — elections — members of congress — liberty — Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Kip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern-politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, draw- ing him partly aside, inquired " on which side he voted ? " Eip started 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 plant- ing himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo,, 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 hia 24 WASHINGTON IRVING. heeK and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village ? " — "' Alas ! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, " I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject 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 neigh- bors, who used to keep about the tavern. " Well — who are they ? — name them." Rip bethought himself a moment, 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 Ved- der ! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but that 's rotten and gone too." " Where 's Brom Dutcher ? " " Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war ■; some say he was killed at the storming oi Stony Point ^ — others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's Nose.^ I don't know — he never came back again." ^ On the Hudson. The place is famous for the daring assault made by Mad Anthony Wayne, July 15, 1779. 2 A few miles above Stony Point is the promontory of An- fcony's NosBe If we ^je to believe Diedrich Kn^' white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The sequestered situation of this church seemi always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust* trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian ourity beaming through the shades of retirement. A THE XjEGEND of SLEEPY HOLLOW. 63 gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge ; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the day- time ; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hol- low, and was obliged to get up behind him ; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge ; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neigh- ooring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian , bolted, and vanished in a flash of firiB. 64 WASHINGTON IRVING. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvellous events that had taken place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow. The revel now gradually broke up. The old farm- ers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hol- low roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away, — and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lin- gered behind, according to the custom of country lov- ers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress ; fully con- vinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen. Oh, these women ! these women ! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encourage ment 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, Ichabod stole forth with the Vr of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 65 Aan 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 uncourteously 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 Icha. bod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travels 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 Tappan 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 mid- night, 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, acci- dentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse 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 uncomfor tably 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 ^ '* *T is now the very witching time of night When churchyards yawn." — Hamlet, 66 WASHINGTON IRVING. stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and drivii:/^ 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 neighbor- hood, 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 Andr^, 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 sympathy 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 whistle; 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 rubbing 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. About two hundred yards from the tree, a small THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 67 brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and fchickly-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 where 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 severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andr^ 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 the 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 perverse 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 bram- bles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now be- stowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness 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 Icha- bod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen^ 68 WASHINGTON IRVING. and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered 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 md fly was now too late ; and besides, what chance ;vas there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind ? Sum- moning 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 horse- man of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of moles- tation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gun- powder, who had now got over his fright and way- wardness. Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange mid- night companion, and bethought himself of the adven- ture 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 THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 69 resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something 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 sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless ! but his horror was still more in- creased 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 des- peration ; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden niovement 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 pos- sessed 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 whitewashed church. As yet the panic of the steed had given his un skilful 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 70 WASHINGTON IRVING. 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 sad- dle ; 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 ; some- times slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's back- bone, 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 \;he 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 he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him ; he even fan- cied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he ^ It was a superstitions belief that witches could not cross the middle of a stream. In Burns's tale of Tarn O^Shanter the here is represented as urging his horse to gain the keystone of the bridge so as to escape the hotly pursuing witches ; — " Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, And win the keystane of tlie brig : There at them thou thy tail may toss, — A running stream they dare not cross 1 " THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 71 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 endeav- ored 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 saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast ; dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper 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 school- master 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 X 72 WASHINGTON IRVING. small-clothes ; a rusty razor ; a book of psalm tunea full of dog's-ears ; and a broken pitch-pipe. As tc 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 in 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 forward, 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 possessed, 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 re- THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 78 ceived, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive ; that he had left the neighbor- hood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been sud- denly 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 ; turned politician ; election- eered ; 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 disappear- ance 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 pump- kin ; 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 neigh- borhood 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 altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still sum= mer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 1 A court of justice authorized to deal with cases in which the amount of money involved does not exceed ten pounds. POSTSCRIPT. gt)UND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKERc 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 illus* trious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face ; and one whom I strongly sus- pected of being poor, — he made such efforts to be entertaining. When his story was concluded there was much laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eye- brows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout ; now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turn- ing 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 sidcc When the mirth of the rest of the company had sub- sided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion ^ The city of New York, as it is named in Diedrich Knicker- bocker s (Irving's) History of New York, POSTSCRIPT. T5 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, 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 ad- vantages 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 ratiocination 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 sto?y a little on the extravagant ; there were one or two points on v/hich he had his doubts. " Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, " as to that matter, I don't believe one half of it myself," Dc K. INTRODUCTION TO PHILIP OF FOKANOKET, King Philip's War was due to the steady encroachment of the English upon the forests and hunting-grounds of the Indians. For fifty-five years peaceful relations had been maintained between the colonists and the powerful tribe of the Wampanoags (Wawm-pa-nd^-agz), on whose lands Plymouth and other settlements had been planted. Philip^ chief of the tribe, foreseeing the ultimate destruction of his people, resolved to depart from the policy of Massasoit, his father, and to turn upon the colonists. Rumors of war preceded its outbreak for many years. It is still a matter of doubt whether hostilities began in an accident or as the result of a deliberate plot. Once opened, they were carried on in a vindictive and desperate spirit. The war began in June, 1675, at Swansea, in Plymouth colony. It involved ^he Narragansetts and other New England tribes. Month after month saw scenes of ambush, assault, burning, pilla- ging, and butchery. The war was as savagely carried on by the English as by the Indians. It ended in the summer of 1676 through sheer exhaustion of the Indians. During this war thirteen towns were destroyed and many others suffered severely, six hundred buildings were burned, six hundred colonists were slain, many thousands suffered di- rectly from the losses that accompany war, and frightful expenses were rolled up, entailing burdens upon feeble and 3})arsely settled communities that it took years to lighten. The mental anguish everywhere caused by the secrecy and cruelty of methods natural to Indian warfare, even wheD the dreaded blow did not fall, cannot be told. PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 77 From two to three thousand Indians were killed or cap- tured, and the wretched remnants of the tribes whose power was broken either united with other tribes or, lingering about their old homes, ceased thereafter to be a serious menace to the colonies. The various remains of Indian tribes in Massachusetts to-day, some of them descendants of the Indians that sur- vived King Philip's War, number between one and two thousand souls. They are, to a certain extent, wards of the State of whose soil they were once the haughty owners. PHILIP OF POKANOKET. AN INDIAN MEMOIR. As monumental bronze unchanged his look ; A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook ; Train'd, from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier, The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. Campbell. It is to be regretted that those early writers who treated of the discovery and settlement of America have not given us more particular and candid accounts of the remarkable characters that flourished in savage life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us are full of peculiarity and interest ; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man is in a comparatively primitive state, and what he owes to civilization. There is something of the charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unex- plored tracts of human nature ; in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moral sentiment ; and per- ceiving those generous and romantic qualities which 78 WASHINGTON IRVING, have been artificially cultivated by society, vegetating in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence. In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away, or softened down by the levelling influence of what is termed good breeding ; and he practises so many petty deceptions, and affects so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of pop- ularity, that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character. The Indian, on the contrary, free from the restraints and refinements of polished life, and, in a great degree, a solitary and indepen- dent being, obeys the impulses of his inclination or the dictates of his judgment; and thus the attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great and striking. Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface ; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the for- est, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice. These reflections arose on casually looking through a volume of early colonial history wherein are re- corded, with great bitterness, the outrages of the Indians, and their wars with the settlers of New Eng land. It is painful to perceive, even from these par tial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization may be traced in the blood of the aborigines ; how easily the colonists were moved to hostility by the lust of conquest ; how merciless and exterminating was theii warfare. The imagination shrinks at the idea, hovi PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 79 many intellectual beings were hunted from the earth , how many brave and noble hearts, of nature's sterling coinage, were broken down and trampled in the dust ! Such was the fate of Philip of Pokanoket,^ an Indian warrior, whose name was once a terror through- out Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the most distinguished of a number of contemporary sa- chems who reigned over the Pequods, the Narragan- setts, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern tribes^ at the time of the first settlement of New England : a band of native untaught heroes ; who made the most generous struggle of which human nature is capable ; fighting to the last gasp in the cause of their coun- try, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry, and fit subjects for local story and romantic fiction, they have left scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk ^ Po-ko-no'ket, now Bristol, Rhode Island. The^orthography of Indian names in this memoir is unsettled. The early colo- nists heard these names from Indian lips, hut thej could not spell them in a uniform way. The same Indian sometimes had several names. The same name showed minor diversities in pronunciation. The colonists were not exact in interpreting In- dian sounds. Moreover, they did not spell common English words with consistency. It was natural, therefore, that a great deal of confusion should appear hoth in their spelling and in their pronunciation of Indian names. Thus Philip's name ap- pears in various deeds and records under the following forms: Pometacom, Pumatacom, Pometacome, Metacom, Metacome, Meta- cum, Metacomet, Meiamo'cet, and so on. For Pokonoket may be found PoconoJcet, PocanaJcett, Pakanawkett, and Pawkunnawkeet ; for Miantoni'mo, Miantonimoh, Miantonomio^ Miantonomo, Mian.'' conomah, and Miantunnomah ; for Canon'chet, Quananchit, Qua' nanchett, and Quanonchet ; for Wet'amoe, Weetimoo and Welti' nore. Study of these variations reveals the pronunciation of ihe forms adopted by Irving. 80 WASHINGTON IRVING. like gigantic shadows in the dim twilight of tradi- tion.^ When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by their descendants, first took refuge on the shores of the New World, from the religious persecu- tions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that number rapidly perishing away through sickness and hardships ; surrounded by a howling wilderness and savage tribes ; exposed to the rigors of an almost arc- tic winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting cli- mate ; their minds were filled with doleful forebodings, and nothing preserved them from sinking into despon- dency but the strong excitement of religious enthusi- asm. In this forlorn situation they were visited by Massasoit, chief sagamore of the Wampanoags, a powerful chief, who reigned over a great extent of country. Instead of taking advantage of the scanty number of the strangers, and expelling them from his territories into which they had intruded, he seemed at once to conceive for them a generous friendship, and extended towards them the rites of primitive hospital- ity. He came early in the spring to their settlement of New Plymouth,^ attended by a mere handful of fol- lowers ; entered into a solemn league of peace and amity ; sold them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure for them the good will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indian perfidy, it is certain ^ While correcting the proof-sheets of this article, the author is informed that a celebrated English poet has nearly finished an heroic poem on the story of Philip of Pokanoket. — W. I. 2 Simply Plymouth, Massachusetts, which for a time was spoken of as New Plymouth to distinguish it from the town of the same name in England. PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 81 that the integrity and good faith of Massasoit have never been impeached. He continued a firm and magnanimous friend of the white men ; suffering them to extend their possessions, and to strengthen them- selves in the land ; and betraying no jealousy of their increasing power and prosperity. Shortly before his death, he came once more to New Plymouth, with his son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing the cove nant of peace, and of securing it to his posterity. At this conference, he endeavored to protect the religion of his forefathers from the encroaching zeal of the missionaries ; and stipulated that no further attempt should be made to draw off his people from their ancient faith ; but, finding the English obsti- nately opposed to any such condition, he mildly relin- quished the demand. Almost the last act of his life was to bring his two sons,^ Alexander and Philip (as they had been named by the English), to the residence of a principal settler, recommending mutual kindness and confidence, and entreating that the same love and amity which had existed between the white men and himself might be continued afterwards with his children. The good old sachem died in peace, and was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon his tribe ; his children remained behind to experience the ingratitude of white men. ^ " In Anno 1662, Plymouth Colony was in some Danger of being involved in Trouble by the Wampanoag Indians. After Massasoit was dead, his two Sons called Wamsutta and Metacomet [Irving gives the name as MetamoceQ came to the Court at Plymouth pretending high respect for the English, and therefore desired English Names might be imposed on them, whereupon the Court there named Wamsutta (the elder Brother) Alexander^ and Metacomet (the younger Brother) Philip. ^^ — Increase Mather. The English doubtless had in mind the famous Macedonian Warriors. 82 WASHINGTON IRVING, His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was of a quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tena- cious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The intru- sive policy and dictatorial conduct of the strangers excited his indignation ; and he beheld with uneasi- ness their exterminating wars with the neighboring tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility, being accused of plotting with the Narragansetts to rise against the English and drive them from the land. It is impossible to say whether this accusation was warranted by facts, or was grounded on mere sus- picions. It is evident, however, by the violent and overbearing measures of the settlers, that they had by this time begun to feel conscious of the rapid increase of their power, and to grow harsh and inconsiderate in their treatment of the natives. They dispatched an armed force to seize upon Alexander and to bring him before their courts. He was traced to his woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting house, where he was reposing with a band of his followers, unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest, and the outrage offered to his sovereign dignity, so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this proud savage as to throw him into a raging fever ; he was permitted to return home on condition of sending his son as a pledge for his re-appearance ; but the blow he had received was fatal, and before he reached hi& home he fell a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit. The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or King Philip, as he was called by the settlers, on account of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. These, together with his well-known energy and enter- prise, had rendered him an object of great jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of having PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 83 always cherished a secret and implacable hostility to- wards the whites. Such may very probably, and very naturally, have been the case. He considered them as originally but mere intruders into the country, who had presumed upon indulgence, and were extending an influence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole race of his countrymen melting before them from the face of the earth ; their territories slipping from their hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, scattered, and dependent. It may be said that the soil was originally purchased by the settlers; but who does not know the nature of Indian purchases, in the early periods of colonization? The Europeans al- ways made thrifty bargains, through their superior adroitness in traffic ; and they gained vast accessions of territory, by easily-provoked hostilities. An uncul- tivated savage is never a nice inquirer into the refine- ments of law, by which an injury may be gradually and legally inflicted. Leading facts are all by which he judges; and it was enough for Philip to knov^ that before the intrusion of the Europeans his coun trymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were becoming vagabonds in the land of their fathers. But whatever may have been his feelings of general hostility, and his particular indignation at the treat- ment of his brother, he suppressed them for the pres- ent ; renewed the contract with the settlers ; and resided peaceably for many years at Pokanoket, or, as it was called by the English, Mount Hope, the ancient seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspicions, however, which were at first but vague and indefinite, began to acquire form and substance ; and he was at length charged with attempting to instigate the various east- ern tribes to rise at once, and, by a simultaneous 84 WASHINGTON IRVING. effort, to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is difficult at this distant period to assign the proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indi- ans. There was a proneness to suspicion, and an aptness to acts of violence on the part of the whites, that gave weight and importance to every idle tale. Informers abounded where tale-bearing met witl countenance and reward, and the sword was readily unsheathed when its success was certain and it carved out empire. The only positive evidence on record against Philip is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegade Indian, whose natural cunning had been quickened by a par- tial education which he had received among the set- tlers. He changed his faith and his allegiance two or three times with a facility that evinced the looseness of his principles. He had acted for some time as Philip's confidential secretary and counsellor, and had enjoyed his bounty and protection. Finding, however, that the clouds of adversity were gathering round his patron, he abandoned his service and went over to the whites ; and, in order to gain their favor, charged his former benefactor with plotting against their safety. A rigorous investigation took place. Philip and sev- eral of his subjects submitted to be exarnined, but nothing was proved against them. The settlers, how- ever, had now gone too far to retract ; they had pre- viously determined that Philip was a dangerous neigh- bor ; they had publicly evinced their distrust, and had done enough to insure his hostility ; according, there- fore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his destruction had become necessary to their security. Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly after found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 85 vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was a friend and counsellor of Philip, were appre^ hended and tried, and, on the testimony of one very questionable witness, were condemned and executed as murderers. This treatment of his subjects and ignominious punishment of his friend outraged the pride and exas- perated the passions of Philip. The bolt which had fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gath- ering storm, and he determined to trust himself no longer in the power of the white men. The fate of his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled in his mind ; and he had a further warning in the tragical story of Miantonimo, a great sachem of the Narragansetts, who, after manfully facing his accus- ers before a tribunal of the colonists, exculpating himself from a charge of conspiracy, and receiving assurances of amity, had been perfidiously dispatched at their instigation. Philip therefore gathered his fighting men about him, persuaded all strangers that he could to join his cause, sent the women and chil- dren to the Narragansetts for safety, and wherever he appeared was continually surrounded by armed warriors. When the two parties were thus in a state of dis- trust and irritation, the least spark was sufficient to set them in a flame. The Indians, having weapons in their hands, grew mischievous, and committed various petty depredations. In one of their maraudings, a warrior was fired upon and killed by a settler. This was the signal for open hostilities ; the Indians pressed to revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm of war resounded through the Plymouth colony. la the early chronicles of these dark and melan* 86 WASHINGTON IRVING. clioly times, we meet with many indications of the diseased state of the public mind. The gloom of relisfious abstraction, and the wildness of their situa- tion, among trackless forests and savage tribes, had disposed the colonists to superstitious fancies, and had filled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras of witchcraft and spectrology.^ They were much given also to a belief in omens. The troubles with Pliilip and his Indians were preceded, we are told, by a variety of those awful warnings which forerun great and public calamities. The perfect form of an Indian bow appeared in the air at New Plymouth, which was looked upon by the inhabitants as a '' prodigious apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other towns in their neighborhood, " was heard the report of a great piece of ordnance, with the shaking of the earth and a considerable echo." Others were alarmed on a still, sunshiny morning by the discharge of guns and muskets; bullets seemed to whistle past them, and the noise of drums resounded in the air, seeming to pass away to the westward ; others fancied that they heard the galloping of horses over their heads ; and certain monstrous births which took place about the time filled the superstitious in some towns with doleful forebodings. Many of these portentous sights and sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena; to the northern lights which occur vividly in those latitudes ; the meteors which explode in the air ; the casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of the forest ; the crash of falling trees or disrupted rocks ; and to those other uncouth sounds and echoes which will sometimes strike the ear so strangely ^ To Irvine's mind this word means the supposed science that treats of apparitions. PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 87 amidst the profound stillness of woodland solitudes. These may have startled some melancholy imagina- tions, may have been exaggerated by the love for the marvellous, and listened to with that avidity with W^hich we devour whatever is fearful and mysterious. The universal currency of these superstitious fancies^ and the grave record made of them by one of the learned men ^ of the day, are strongly characteristic of the times. The nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part of the whites it was conducted with superior skill and success, but with a wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the nat- ural rights of their antagonists ; on the part of the Indians it was waged with the desperation of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace, but humiliation, dependence, and decay. The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy clergyman of the time, who dwells with hor- ror and indignation on every hostile act of the Indi- ans, however justifiable, while he mentions with applause the most sanguinary atrocities of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor, without considering that he was a true born prince, gallantly fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the wrongs of his family, to retrieve the tottering power of his line, and to deliver his native land from the oppression of usurping strangers. 1 Rev. Increase Mather, pastor of the Old North Church in Boston for sixty-two years. He was born in 1639 and died in 1723. Among his ninety-two distinct publications are full accounts of King Philip's War, in which popular superstitions and well authenticated facts are woven together after the fash- ion of the times. 88 WASHINGTON IRVING. The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been formed, was worthy of a capa- cious mind, and, had it not been prematurely discov- ered, might have been overwhelming in its conse- quences. The war that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth the military genius and daring prowess of Philip ; and wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we can arrive at simple facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fer- tility in expedients, a contempt of suffering and hard- ship, and an unconquerable resolution, that command our sympathy and applause. Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himself into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted the settlements, and were almost impervious to anything but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like the storm accumulating its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havoc and dismay into the villages. There were now and then indications of these impending ravages that filled the minds of the colonists with awe and appre- hension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was known to be no white man ; the cattle which had beei> wandering in the woods would sometimes return home wounded ; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the skirts of the forests, and suddenly disap- pearing, as the lightning will sometimes be seen play- ing silently about the edge of the cloud that i3 brew- ing up the tempest. PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 89 Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost mi- raculously from their toils, and, plunging into the wil- derness, would be lost to all search or inquiry until he again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the country desolate. Among his strongholds were the great swamps or morasses which extend in some part.^ of New England, composed of loose bogs of deep black mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The un- certain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds rendered them almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thread their labyrinths with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven with a band of his followers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore invested the entrance to the neck, and began to build a fort, with the thought of starving out the foe ; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of night, leaving the women and children behind ; and escaped away to the westward, kindling the flames of war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck country,^ and threatening the colony of Connecticutr ^ Written also Nipmug, Nipmuk, and Neepmuck. This coun- try was northwest of the lands of the Wampanoags, among whom the Pilgrims settled. It lay chiefly in the southern part of the Worcester County of to-day, but partly in northern Con- necticut. At the time of King Philip's War, it was within the jurisdiction of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. An old writer tells how John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, visited **the seven new praying towns in the Nipmug country " in 1663. 90 WASHINGTON IRVING. In this way Philip became a theme of universal apprehension. The mystery in which he was envel- oped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil that walked in darkness, whose coming none could foresee, and against which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubi- quity ; for, in whatever part of the widely extended frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also were circulated concerning him. He was said to deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an old In- dian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and who assisted him by her charms and incantations. This indeed was frequently the case with Indian chiefs ; either through their own credulity, or to act upon that of their followers ; and the influence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstitions has been fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare. At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time of adversitv he found a faithful friend in Canon- chet, chief sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great sachem, who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquit- tal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious instigations of the set- tlers. " He was the heir," says the old chronicler, " of all his father's pride and insolence, as well as of his malice towards the English ; " he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 91 take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he re- ceived Philip and his broken forces with open arms, 5^nd gave them the most generous countenance and support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English, and it was determined to strike a signal blow, that should involve both the sachems in one common ruin. A great force was therefore gathered tegether from Massachusetts, Plymouth,^ and Con- necticut, and was sent into the Narragansett country in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facil- ity, and would no longer afford dark and impenetra- ble fastnesses to the Indians. Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, in the midst of a swamp ; it was constructed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indi- cative of the martial genius of these two chieftains. Guided by a renegado Indian, the English pene- trated, through December snows, to this stronghold, and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were re- pulsed m their first attack, and several of their brav- est officers were shot down in the act of storming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed ^ It should be remembered that Massachusetts and Plymouth were at this time separate colonies, each with its own governor and legislative body. They were not united until 1692- 92 WASHINGTON IRVING. with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from one post to another. They disputed their ground mch by inch, fighting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces ; and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, re- treated from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest. The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort ; ihe whole was soon in a blaze ; many of the old men, the women, and the children perished in the flames. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the lavage. The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair uttered by the fugitive war- nors as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings, and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and off- spring. " The burning of the wigwams," says a con- temporary writer,^ " the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously adds, '' They were in much doubt then, and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burn- ing their enemies alive could be consistent with hu- manity and the benevolent principles of the gospel." The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is worthy of particular mention : the last scene of his life is one of the noblest instances on record of Indiai? magnanimity. Broken down in his power and resources by this signal defeat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hap- less cause which he had espoused, he rejected all over- ^ Rev. W. Riiggles, from whose maDusciipts the (^lu^tat^onc are made. PHILIP OF POKANOKET, 93 tures of peace, offered on condition of betraying Philip and his followers, and declared that '' he would fight it out to the last man, rather than become a ser- vant to the English." His home being destroyed, his country harassed and laid waste by the incursions of the conquerors, he was obliged to wander away to the banks of the Connecticut, where he formed a rallying point to the whole body of western Indians, and laid waste several of the English settlements. Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous expedition, with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate to Seaconck, in the vicinity of Mount Hope, and to procure seed-corn to plant for the sustenance of his troops. This little band of adventurers had passed safely through the Pequod country,^ and were in the centre of the Narragansett, resting at some wigwams near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an approaching enemy. Having but seven men by him at the time, Canonchet dispatched two of them to the top of a neighboring hill, to bring intelligence of the foe. Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of Eng- lish and Indians rapidly advancing, they fled in breathless terror past their chieftain, without stopping to inform him of the danger. Canonchet sent another scout, who did the same. He then sent two more, one of whom, hurrying back in confusion and affright, told him that the whole British army was at hand. Canonchet saw there was no choice but immediate flight. He attempted to escape round the hill, but was perceived and hotly pursued by the hostile Indi- ans and a few of the fleetest of the English. Finding the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off ^ Southern Connecticut. 94 WASHINGTON IRVING. first his blanket, then his silver-laced coat and belt of peag,^ by which his enemies knew him to be Canon- chet, ami redoubled the eagerness of pursuit. At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This accident so struck him with despair that, as he afterwards confessed, " his heart and his bowels turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, void of strength." To such a degree was he unnerved that, being seized by a Pequod Indian within a short distance of the river, he made no resistance, though a man of great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on being made prisoner, the whole pride of his spirit rose within him ; and from that moment we find, in the anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned by one of the English who first came up with him, and who had not attained his twenty-second year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking with lofty contempt upon his youthful countenance, ii"plied, " You are a child — you cannot understand matters of war — let your brother or your chief come • — him will I answer." Though repeated offers were made to him of his life, on condition of submitting with his nation to the English, yet he rejected them with disdain, and re- fused to send any proposals of the kind to the great body of his subjects, saying that he knew none of them would comply. Being reproached with his breach of faith towards the whites, his boast that he ^ Pronounced /)ee^ : bits of shells, rounded and polished, and strung on a thread. These beads were used as money, the black and purple varieties being valued at twice as much as the white. PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 95 would not deliver up a Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoag's nail, and his threat that he would burn the English alive in their houses, he disdained to justify himself, haughtily answering that others were as forward for the war as himself, and "he desired to hear no more thereof." So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a fidelity to his cause and his friend, might have touched the feel- ings of the generous and the brave ; but Canonchet was an Indian; a being towards whom war had no courtesy, humanity no law, religion no compassion, — he was condemned to die. The last words of his that are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. When sentence of death was passed upon him, he observed ''that he liked it well, for he should die before his heart w^as soft, or he had spoken anything unworthy of himself." His enemies gave him the death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoningham, by three young sachems of his own rank. The defeat of the Narragansett fortress and the death of Canonchet were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip. He made an ineffectual attempt to raise a head of war, by stirring up the Mohawks ^ to take arms ; but though possessed of the native talents of a statesman, his arts were counteracted by the supe- rior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of the neighboring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself daily stripped of power, and his ranks rapidly thinning around him. Some were suborned by the whites ; others fell victims to hunger and ^ One of the five (subsequently six) tribes that made up the great New York confederacy known as the Five Nations. The Mohawks dwelt in the valley of the river that bears their name. 96 WASHINGTON IRVING. fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which thej were harassed. His stores were all captured ; his chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes ; his uncle was shot down by his side ; his sister was carried into captivity ; and in one of his narrow escapes he was compelled to leave his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy. '' His ruin," says the historian, " being thus gradually carried on, his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; being himself made acquainted with the sense and experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement of all family relations, and being stripped of all out- ward comforts, before his own life should be taken away." To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers began to plot against his life, that by sacri- ficing him they might purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery, a number of his faithful adher- ents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of Pocasset, a near kinswoman and confederate of Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Wetamoe was among them at the time, and attempted to make her escape by crossing a neighboring river ; either exhausted by swimming, or starved with cold and hunger, she was found dead and naked near the water side. But persecution ceased not at the grave; even death, the refuge of the wretched, where the wicked commonly cease from troubling, was no pro- tection to this outcast female, whose great crime was a,ffectionate fidelity to her kinsman and her friend. Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly v^engeance ; the head was severed from the body and jet upon a pole, and was thus exposed, at Taunton, to PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 97 the view of her captive subjects. They immediately recognized the features of their unfortunate queen, and were so affected at this barbarous spectacle that, we are told, they broke forth into the " most horrid and diabolical lamentations." However Philip had borne up against the compli- cated miseries and misfortunes that surrounded him, the treachery of his followers seemed to wring his heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that " he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any of his designs." The spring of hope was broken — the ardor of enterprise was extinguished; he looked around, and all was danger and darkness ; there was no eye to pity, nor any arm that could bring deliver- ance. With a scanty band of followers, who still remained true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy Philip wandered back to the vicinity of Mount Hope, the ancient dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked about, '' like a spectre, among the scenes of former power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of family and friend." There needs no better picture of his des- titute and piteous situation, than that furnished by the homely pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless warrior whom he reviles. '' Philip," he says^ " like a savage wild beast, having been hunted by the English forces through the woods above a hundred miles backward and forward, at last was driven to his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired with a few of his best friends into a swamp, which proved but a prison to keep him fast till the messen- gers of death came by divine permission to execute vengeance upon him." Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, 98 WASHINGTON IRVING. a sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We pic* ture him to ourselves seated among his careworn fol- lowers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes^ and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking-place. Defeated but not dismayed, crushed to the earth but not humili- ated, he seemed to grow more haughty beneath dis- aster and to experience a fierce satisfaction in drain- ing: the last dres's of bitterness. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune ; but great minds rise above it. The very idea of submission awakened fche fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of his followers who proposed an expedient of peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, and in revenge betrayed the retreat of his chieftain. A body of white men and Indians were immediately dispatched to the swamp where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware of their approach, they had begun to surround him. In a little while he saw five of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet ; all resistance was vain ; he rushed forth from his cov- ert, and made a headlong attempt to escape, but w^as shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his own nation. Such is the scanty story of the brave but unfortu- nate King Philip ; persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored when dead. If, however, we consider even the prejudiced anecdotes furnished us by his ene- mies, we may perceive in them traces of amiable and lofty character, sufficient to awaken sympathy for his fate and respect for his memory. We find that amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of constant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings of connubial love and paternal tenderness, and to the PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 99 generous sentiment of friendship. The captivity of his " beloved wife and only son " is mentioned with exultation, as causing him poignant misery ; the death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new blow on his sensibilities ; but the treachery and deser- tion of many of his followers, in whose affections he liad confided, is said to have desolated his heart, and to have bereaved him of all further comfort. He was a patriot, attached to his native soil ; a prince, true to his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs ; a sol- dier, daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffer- ing, and ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart, and with an untamable love of nat- ural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts Df the forests, or in the dismal and famished recesses of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty spirit to submission, and live dependent and despised in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With heroic qualities and bold achievements that would have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest, — without a pitying eye to weep his fall or a friendly hand to record his struggle. EXPLANATORY NOTES. RIP VAN WINKLE. Rip Van Winkle and Tke Legend of Sleepy Hollow are the two pieces of writing by which Irving is best known to-day. They are in themselves excellent stories, and they have the added in- terest, from a literary point of view, of first exemplif3dng the form in which the short story was to become established during the nineteenth century. This form afterwards was brought to higher artistic perfection and wider general application by such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bret Harte in America, and Robert Louis Stevenson, Rud3^ard Kip- hng, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in England. A very striking view of the development of the short story may be obtained by reading the following examples in the order given: The Black Cat and The Fall of the House of Usher ^ by Poe; Howe^s Mas- querade, by Hawthorne; Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte; The Sieur de Maletroifs Door, by Stevenson; The Man Who Would be King and The Drums of the Fore and Aft, by Kipling; Silver Blaze, by Conan Doyle. The story of Rip Van Winkle has been dramatized by Dion Boucicault, and the part of Rip himself was for many years finely interpreted by Joseph Jefferson. PAGE 10 Fort Christina : a fort on the Delaware established by the Swedes and captured by Stuyvesant in 1655. termagant: scolding, bad-tempered. The word comes from the devil-character Termagant in the old Miracle plays. 12 galligaskins: loose breeches. 13 a gallows air : a guilty or downcast look. a rubicund portrait: a sign-board with a highly-colored picture of King George III. 14 the most gigantic word: We are reminded of the school- master in Goldsmith's Deserted Village: While words of learndd length and thundering sound Amazed the gaping rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. junto: a political club, a faction. From the Spsmish junta, council. virago: a violent, turbulent woman. ii WASHINGTON IRVING. PAGE 15 shagged: covered with bushes. See Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel: Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood. 16 jerkin: short coat, jacket. 17 outlandish: foreign. doublets: close-fitting body-garments, with or without sleeves. sugar-loaf hat: hat with a high, rounded crown. In those days sugar was manufactured and sold in the form of " loaves "; these were cone-shaped, and about a foot high. 18 hanger: short curved sword, roses : rosettes of ribbon. Dominie : minister — the term was usually apphed to a schoolmaster. Hollands: gin made in Holland. 19 firelock: or "flintlock," a gun in which the charge was ignited by the hammer striking a spark from a piece of flint. The percussion cap was invented later. roisters: revellers, roysterers. 22 a red night cap: a "liberty cap," placed on top of a lib- erty pole. 23 phlegm: apathy, dullness. Babylonish jargon : a mere confusion of words. The refer- ence is to the Bible story of the Tower of Babel — see Genesis xi. Federal or Democrat: After the Revolution the country was divided into two political parties. The Federalists, with Hamilton at their head, believed in a strong central government; while the Democrats, led by Jefferson, wished to reserve many local powers to the individual states. a tory: the "tories" were those who remained faithful to the British Government. 28 Hendrick Hudson : Henry Hudson was a famous English sailor who discovered the Hudson River in 1609, while in the service of the Dutch East India Company. He sailed up as far as the site of Albany, hunting for a short route to India. He was afterwards employed by the British Gov- ernment in a similar search and was eventually cast adrift in an open boat in Hudson's Bay by his mutinous crew (1611). the Half -Moon: the ship in which the voyage up the Hudson was made. the great city called by his name: an odd slip on Irving's part — New York was never named after Hudson. Note. This passage, as well as the Prefatory Note to the story, gives an excellent idea of Irving's quiet humor. He revives the famihar figure of Diedrich Knickerbocker in 30 EXPLANATORY NOTES. iii order to bestow upon the tale a pleasant air of historical accuracy. Questions and Topics for Study. Which parts of the story seem to you to be best — the charsc- :er drawing, the incidents in the hollow, or the descriptions of ^scenery? Discuss fully. Write an imaginary conversation between Mr. DooHttle and the "self-important man" on the subject of Rip's return. Do you know of any story, other than Rip Van Winkle, where the plot turns upon prolonged absence? THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. The charm of this story hes in its leisurely movement, its pleasing and varied descriptive passages, and the touches throughout of shghtly malicious humor. It is as if Irving him- self stood by, watching with a smile the pecuharities of the schoolmaster. PAGE 33 Tarry Town: The purchase of "Sunnyside" by Irving is mentioned in a letter to his brother Peter in 1835: "You have been told, no doubt, of a purchase I have made of ten acres, lying at the foot of Oscar's farm on the river bank. It is a beautiful spot, capable of being made a little para- dise. There is a small stone cottage on it, built about a cen- tury since, and inhabited by one of the Van Tassels. My idea is to make a little nookery somewhat in the Dutch style, quaint but unpretending." original Dutch settlers : The region about New York and the Lower Hudson was settled by emigrants sent out by the Dutch West India Company in 1623-29. 34 Hessian trooper : The Hessians were soldiers from Hesse, Germany, hired by the British Government during the Revolution to fight in AmeTica. The custom of using mer- cenary soldiers was common at the time. After the war the Hessians were offered the choice of being sent home or of taking up farm lands in the British Colony of Nova Scotia. Many of them accepted the latter offer, and their descend- ants may be found in the original district to-day. 35 back to the churchyard: It was an ancient belief that ghosts must return to their place before "cock-crow." 39 whilom: formerly, once upon a time. An old-fashioned word, introduced purposely, to give a flavor to the story. carried away the palm: won a victory over. A palm branch was the ancient sign of victory; there is a well- known Latin proverb, ^'Palmam qui meruit ferat" — "let him who deserves it bear the palm." 41 harbinger: here, one who gives warning. The word iv WASHINGTON IRVING. PAGE originally meant an officer who was sent before a royal party to arrange for lodging and entertainment. varlet: wretch — used contemptuously. The word has deteriorated in meaning; originally it signified a boy of noble birth who was in training for knighthood. 42 fearful pleasure: pleasure that is full of fears. Compare the hues from Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College J where, speaking of truant schoolboys, he says: They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy. 43 perambulations: wanderings about. 46 chanticleer: the cock. craving that quarter: asking for mercy. "Quarter" originally meant "peace," "friendship." 47 linsey-woolsey: coarse cloth made of a mixture of linen and wool. Indian corn: what we call to-day, simply, "corn." Itwa& termed Indian corn by the early English settlers, to dis- * tinguish it from wheat, which was (and still is) known as "corn" in England. gaud: bright ornament. knight-errant: The best example of the true knight- errant to be found in fiction is the Black Knight in Ivanhoe, 48 Herculean: gigantic. Hercules was the hero of Greek myth, famous for his strength. Tartar: the Tartars were a race of wild nomadic horse- men, who inhabited the southern steppes of Russia. 49 rantipole: wild, rough. An unusual word. 50 supple-jack: a climbing plant with a strong, supple stem. 53 ferule : cane. The word is no longer used in this sense. a negro : slaves were not uncommon in the North at the period of the story. There were a good many of them in New York at the time of Irving's youth. cap of Mercury: Mercury, the messenger of the gods, was represented as wearing a close-fitting winged cap. petty embassies: trivial errands. 57 The sun gradually wheeled: This passage contains a con- trolled and effective description of a noble scene. It should be compared with the passage in Rip Van Winkle beginning "In a long ramble of the kind," on page 15. It was towards evening: Here we have an almost first- hand account of a picturesque gathering. Note the fine choice of descriptive epithets, in this and the preceding paragraph. 58 queued: gathered into a pig-tail. Long hair for men was the fashion of the time. The use of an "eelskin" would seem to us a somewhat unpleasant manner of arranging the queue. EXPLANATORY NOTES. V PAGE 59 Heaven bless the mark! An exclamatory expression, here used humorously. The origin of the phrase is un- certain; the following explanation is taken from Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: "In archery, when an archer shot well it was customary to cry out * God save the mark ! ' — that is, prevent anyone coming after to hit the same mark and displace my arrow. Ironically it was said to a novice whose arrow was nowhere." want: lack. 60 St. Vitus : There was an old superstition in some parts of Europe that good health could be ensured for a year by dancing before an image of this saint on the occasion of his festival. The name **St. Vitus's dance" is given to a nerv- ous disorder which affects the limbs. 61 There was the story: note the typical irony of this para- graph. White Plains : a village about twenty miles north of New York, where a victory was gained by the British under Howe over the Americans under Washington, on October 28, 1776. 62 Major Andre: an officer in the British army during the Revolutionary War. He was chosen to arrange with Arnold for the transfer of West Point to British possession. He secured from Arnold maps and plans, but was captured at Tarry town, and executed as a spy. 63 arrant jockey: unmitigated cheat. should have won it: would certainly have won it. "Should," in the sense of "would" or "ought to," is now obsolete, but was good usage at least as late as 1859, for we find it in Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, Book I, chapter v: " He should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat." o4 pillions: pads or cushions placed behind the saddle and adjusted for a second rider. chapfallen: gloomy, "down in the mouth." 69 stave : a few bars from a piece of music. 71 stocks: A "stock" was a stiff band of horse-hair or leather, covered with some lighter material and fastened behind with a buckle. 72 small-clothes: knee-breeches. pitch-pipe: a small instrument used to give the note in starting a tune. 74 The Postscript is introduced, like the Note at the end of Rip Van Winkle, to give a touch of pretended reality. sadly: solemnly. one of your wary men: one who was always on his guard. The word "your" is used in a colloquial sense. 75 Ergo: therefore. A word employed by old-time logicians in stating the conclusion of an argument. vi WASHINGTON IRVING, puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism : puzzled by the line of reasoning in the argument. A ** syllogism'* is argument reduced to its lowest terms, in which two "prem- ises" lead to a "conclusion." For example: All men are mortal; I am a man; Therefore, I am mortal. The syllogism of the story-teller is, of course, pure nonsense^ Questions and Topics for Study. Write a short theme on one of the following topics: a. The Village Junto. b. School-teaching in Sleepy Hollow. c. A Riverside Farm-house. Describe a person with whom you are familiar, using methods oimilar to those employed in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In writing a theme about the Dutch settlements along the Hudson River, what help would you secure (a) from your school history, and (b) from Irving's stories ? PHILIP OF POKANOKET. It has been said that Irving was a story-teller rather than a historian. This sketch offers a fair test of the truth of the state- ment: he is more interested throughout, one can see, in the nar- rative qualities of the facts than in the facts themselves. Hence wx find here some material which does not bear directly on the subject. He was handicapped, perhaps, because he was writing at second hand — others had told the same story before him. With the present essay should be compared another of similar nature — Traits of Indian Character. Both arouse our interest and sympathy rather than our intellectual approval. PAGE 79 sachems: chiefs, rulers. 80 sagamore : Indian of high rank — the word has about the same significance as "sachem." 83 a nice enquirer: close, or exact. 85 mauraudings : forays, expeditions for plunder. 86 chimeras : horrible stories. The Chimera was a fabulous beast, part lion, part goat, and part dragon. 89 toils: snares, ambushes. perplexed with thickets: an unusual but effective phrase descriptive of tangled w^oodland. lugubrious hemlocks: melancholy, gloomy, wafted themselves: sailed. 90 ubiquity: the quahty of being everywhere at once, necromancy: magic. 95 suborned: won over by bribery. EXPLANATORY NOTES. vii PAGE 96 starved: killed. Originally, *' starve" meant "die"; it is now used only of death from hunger. 98 shot through the heart: King Philip was slain on August 12, 1676. Questions and Topics for Study. Discuss the questions at issue between King Philip and the Colonists. Which side do you think was in the right? Compare Irving's methods (a) as a story-teller and (b) as an historian. Which do j^ou consider the more effective? Find some instances of the treatment of the Indians (a) b^ the Colonists, (b) by the United States Government, %f^t Kttersioe ILtterature ^ttite THE VOYAGE AND OTHER ENGLISH ESSAYS CONTENTS The Author*s Account of Himself 1 The Voyage 5 Rural Life in England 13 The Country Church 22 The Angler 29 The Stage-coach 41 Christmas Day 50 The Spectre Bridegroom 68 Westminster Abbey 88 The Mutability of Literature 105 Stratford-on-Avon 120 L'Envoy 145 Explanatory Notes, with Questions and Topics for Study viii The Selections from "The Sketch Book" included in this'number of The Riverside Literature Series are used by permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. G. P. Put- nam's Sons, the authorized publishers of Irving's Works. COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Copyright, 1 891, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. WASHINGTON IRVING. THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. " I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snaile that crept out of her shel wa turned eftsoones into a toad, and thereby was forced to make a stoole to sit on ; so the traveller that stragleth from his owne country is in a short time transf orme(*N into so monstrous a shape, that he is faine to alter his mansion with hismannerb; and to live where he can, not where he would." — Lyly^s Euphues.^ I WAS always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and un- known regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town crier. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with all its places famous ir history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, and conversing with their savages and great men. I even journeyed one long summer's day to the ^ Joliii Lyly, an English dramatic poet, was born in 1553 and died about 1600. He published in 1579 Euphues: the Anatomy of Wity a book famous for its affected and dainty style, and fol its influence on public taste in the times of Elizabeth, 2 WASHINGTON IRVING. summit of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra incognita,^ and was astonished to find how vast a globe I inhabited. This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring their contents, I neglected the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes — with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth ! Further reading and thinking, though they brought this vague inclination into more reasonable boimds, only served to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own country ; and had I been merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere its gratification : for on no country had the charms of nature beei? more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with their bright aerial tints ; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility ; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic oi isummer clouds and glorious sunshine, — no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. But Europe held forth the charms of storied and poetical association. There were to be seen the mas- terpieces of art, the refinements of highlj^ cultivated ^ Ter'ra iiicog'iiita, land unknown^ THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF, '6 society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local custom. My native country was full of youtliful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated trea- sures of age. Her very ruins told the history of times gone by, and every mouldering stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander over the scenes of renowneJ achievement — to tread, as it were, in the footsteps of antiquity — to loiter about the ruined castle — to meditate on the falling tower — to escape, in short, from the common-place realities of the present, and lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past. I had, besides all this, an earnest desire to see the great men of the earth. We have, it is true, our great men in America : not a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled among them in my time, and been almost withered by the shade into which they cast me ; for there is nothing so baleful to a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the great man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of Europe ; for I had read in the works of various philosophers, that all animals degenerated in America, and man among the number. A great man of Europe, thought I, must therefore be as supe- rior to a great man of America, as a peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson ; and in this idea I was confirmed, by observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude of many English travellers among us, who, I was assured, were very little people in their own country. I will visit this land of wonders, thought I, and see the gigantic race from which I am degenerated. It has been either my good or evil lot to have my roving passion gratified. I have wandered through different countries and witnessed many of the shifting 4 WASHINGTON IRVING. scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied thens with the eye of a philosopher, but rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the pic- turesque stroll from the window of one print-shop to another; caught sometimes by the delineations of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the enter- tainment of my friends. When, however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose my heart almost fails me, at finding how my idle humor has led me aside from the great object studied by every regular traveller who would make a book. I fear I shall give equal disappointment with an unlucky landscape-painter, who had travelled on the continent, but, following the bent of his vagrant inclination, had sketched in nooks, and corners, and by-places. His sketch book was accordingly crowded with cottages, and landscapes, and obscure ruins ; but he had neglected to paint St. Peter's, or the Coli- semn; the cascade of Terni,^ or the bay of Naples; and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole collection. ^ Terni is a town in Italy about fifty miles from Rome. The cascade is on a branch of the river Nera. The water falls by three leaps about 750 feet, making one of the most beautiful and romantic cataracts in the world. THE VOYAGE. THE VOYAGE.^ Ships, ships, I will descrie you Amidst the main, I will come and try you, What you are protecting, And projecting, What 's your end and aim. One goes abroad for merchandise and trading, Another stays to keep his country from invading, A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading. Halloo ! my f ancie, whither wilt thou go ? Old Poem. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employ- ments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy, until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world. In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connected succession of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a ^ Irving's first voyage to Europe was made in 1804 in a sail- ing vessel. He was at that time twenty-one years of age. He visited Europe a second time in 1815, going, as before, in a sail- ing vessel, for, although Fulton was successful with his steam- boat on the Hudson as early as 1807, the Atlantic was not crossed by steamer until 1838. The Sketch Book appeared in 1819 and 1820 in seven successive numbers, the first of which contained The Voyage, 6 WASHINGTON IRVING, lengthening chain " at each remove of our pilgrimage- but the chain is unbroken ; we can trace it back link by link ; and we feel that the last still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubt- ful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes — a gulf subjeci to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, rendering dis tance palpable and return precarious. Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and had time for meditation, before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from my view, which contained all most dear to me in life ; what vicissitudes might occur in it, what changes might take place in me, before I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain currents of existence; or when he may return ; or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood? i said that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the won- ders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to the main- top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the hori- zon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people thenj THE VOYAGE, 7 i?nth a creation of my owii ; to watcli the gentle undu- lating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols : shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the surface ; or the ravenous shark, dart- ing, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My im- agination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me: of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys ; of the shape- less monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth, and of those wild phantasms that swell xhe tales of fishermen and sailors. Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glori- ous monument of human invention; which has in a manner triumphed over wind and wave ; has brought the ends of the world into communion ; has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south ; has diffused the light of knowledge and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between which nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable bar- rier. We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts atten- tion. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must 8 WASHINGTON IRVING. have been completely wrecked; for there were tlie remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about many months '5 clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, is the crew ? Their struggle has long been over — they have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest — their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. W^hat sighs have been wafted after that ship ! what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intel- ligence of this rover of the deep ! How has expecta- tion darkened into anxiety — anxiety into dread-- and dread into despair ! Alas ! not one memento may ever return for love to cherish. All that shall ever be known is that she sailed from her port, "and was never heard of more ! '* The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden storms which will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. 1 was particularly struck with a short one related by the captain. THE VOYAGE. 9 **As I was once sailing,'* said he, "in a fine stout ship across the banks of Newfoundland, one of those heavy fogs which prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for us to see far ahead, even in the day- time ; but at night the weather was so thick that we could not distinguish anj?- object at twice the length of the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a con- stant watch forward to look out for fishing smacks, which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the water. Sud- denly the watch gave the alarm of ' a sail ahead ! ' — it was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was a small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside toward us. The crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light. \Ye struck her just amid- ships. The force, the si'^e, the weight of our vessel, bore her down below the vaves ; we passed over her and were hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half -naked wretches rushing from her cabin ; they just started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears swept us out of all farther hearing. I r hall never forget that cry ! It was some time before we could put the ship about, she was under such headway. We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored. We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We fired signal- guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of anj survivors ; but all was silent — we never saw or heard anything of them more." I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all 10 WASHINGTON IRVING, my fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. The sea was lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves and broken surges. Deej) called unto deep. At times the black volume of clouds overhead seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning which quivered along the foaming billows, and made the succeeding darkness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by the mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water ; her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Some- times an impending surge appeared ready to over- whelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock. When I retired to my cabin, the awful scene still followed me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts, the straining and groaning of bulk -heads, as the ship labored in the weltering sea, were frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the sides of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed as if Death were raging round this floating prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam, might give him entrance. A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favor= ing breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening in- fluence of fine weather and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her canvas, every sail swelled, and careering gayly over the curling waves, how lofty, how gallant she appears — how she seems THE VOYAGE. 11 to lord it over the deep ! I might fill a volume with the reveries of a sea voyage, for with me it is almost d continual reverie — but it is time to get to shore. It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of "land! "was given from the mast-head. None but those who have experienced it can form an idea of the delicious throng of sensations which rush into ai American's bosom when he first comes in sisht ol Europe. There is a volume of associations with the very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with everything of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years have pondered. From that time until the moment of arrival, it was all feverish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian giants along the coast; the headlands of Ireland, stretching out into the channel ; the Welsh mountains, towering into the clouds; all were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grassplots. I saw the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighboring hill — all were characteristic of Eng- land. The tide and wind were so favorable that the ship was enabled to come at once to the pier. It wa? thronged with people : some, idle lookers-on ; others, eager expectants of friends or relatives. I could dis- tinguish the merchant to whom the ship was consigned. I knew him by his calculating brow and restless air. 3is hands were thrust into his pockets ; he was whis- tling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a smaU space having been accorded him by the crowd, in i2 WASHINGTON IRVING. ieference to his temporary importance. There were repeated cheerings and sahitations interchanged be- tween the shore and the ship, as friends happened to t'ecognize each other. I particularly noticed one young woman of hmnble dress, but interesting demeanor. She was leaning forward from among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it neared the shore, to catch some wished-for countenance. She seemed disappointed and agitated; when I heard a faint voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sym- pathy of every one on board. When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on deck in the shade, but of late his illness had so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, so pale, so ghastly, that it was no wonder even the eye of affection did not recog- nize him. But at the sound of his voice, her eye darted on his features ; it read at once a whole volume of sor- row; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, and stood wringing them in silent agony. All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of acquaintances — the greetings of friends — the con- sultations of men of business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of my forefathers — but felt that I was a stranger in the land. RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 13 RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.^ Oh ! friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural pleasure past I COWPEB. The stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character must not confine his observa* tions to the metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and harjJets; he must visit castles, villas, farmhouses, villages; 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 fes- tivals; and cope with the people in all their condi- tions, 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 pea- santry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, oi the polite classes, where they devote a small portion ot the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, 1 Irving' s brief residence in England after his first voyage and his longer stay there after his second (see note en page 5) ad- mirably fitted him to sympathize with English country life. He visited Thomas Campbell, Thomas Moore, Sir Walter Scott, and other English celebrities, and was everywhere most hospitably received. Says Mr. Godwin, an English author, of Rural Life, " It is, I believe, all true ; and one wonders, while reading, that nobody ever said this before." Richard H. Dana in a critical notice says, " We come from reading Rural Life in England as much restored and cheerful as if we had been passing an hour or two in the very fields and woods themselves/' 14 WASHINGTON IRVING. having indulged this kind of carnival, return again to flie 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 specimens of the different ranks. The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and 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 bustling 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 cultiva* tion 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 quar- ters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles frequently a bank of flowers; every spot capable of vegetation has its grassplot 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, there- fore, too commonly, a look of Imrry and abstraction. RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 15 WTierever he happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else ; at the moment he is talking on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and ^A^hile paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted in the morning. An immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meet- ings, they can but deal briefly in commoni^laces. They present but the cold superficies of character — its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow. It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joy- ous and free-hearted. He manages to collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paint- ings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint, either upon his guests or himself, but, in the true spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclina- tion. The taste of the English in the cultivation of land., and in what is called landscape gardening, is unri- valled. They have studied Nature intently, and dis- covered 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 16 WASHINGTON IRVING. 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 magnifi- cence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that ex- tend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there slumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of to- liage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodlaad 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, re- flecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleep- ing on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters ; while some rustic temple, or sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion, These are but a few of the features of park scenery 5 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 portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the fu- ture landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand; 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 pervading RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 17 yet quiet assiduity, like the magic toucliings 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 ele- gance in rural economy, that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellish ment. The trim hedge, the grassplot 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 pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage 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 national 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 a union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attri- bute to their living so much in the open air, and pur suing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of tht country. These hardy exercises produce also a health* ful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dis- sipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the diffe^^ 18 WASHINGTON IRVING. ent orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distinctions 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 regu- lar gradation from the noblemen, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, 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 inde«= pendence. This, it must be confessed, is not so uni- versally the case at present as it was formerly; the larger estates having, in late years of distress, ab- sorbed the smaller, and in some parts of the country almost 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 debas- ing. It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing 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 com- mon life. Indeed the very amusements of the country bring men more and more together ; and the sound of boimd and horn blend all feelings into harmony. 1 believe this is one great reason why the nobility and RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND, 19 gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other country ; and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities, 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 illustra- tions from rural life ; those incomparable descriptions of Nature that aboimd 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 hum- ble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impas- sioned and delicate observers, and wrought up intc some beautiful morality. The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rura' occupations has been wonderful on the face of tha a more than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of the table were in brisk circulation in the villages; fche grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged with customers. The housewives were stir* ring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order; and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright red berries, began to appear at the windows. The scene brought to mind an old writer's account of Christmas preparations: "Now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton ^ - must all die — for in twelve days ^ a multitude of people will not be fed with a little. Now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. Now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. The country maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards on Christmas eve. Great is the con- tention of holly and ivy, whether master or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers." I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling companions. They had been looking out of the coach windows for the last few miles, recognizing every tree and cot tage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy. "There 's John! and there 's 1 Christmas festivities in the past were usually celebrated with great spirit for twelve days, or until Twelfth Night (Jai> aary 6), and sometimes lasted until Candlemas (February 2) THE STAGE-COACH. 47 vM Carlo! and there's Bantam!" cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands. At the end of a lane there was an old, sober-looking servant in livery, waiting for them ; he was accompa- nied by a superannuated pointer, and by the redoubt- able Bantam, a little old rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by the road-side, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited him. I was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fellows leaped about the steady old footman, and hugged the pointer, who wriggled his whole body for joy. But Bantam was the great object of interest; all wanted to mount at once, and it was with some diffi- culty that John arranged that they should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride first. Off they set at last ; one on the pony, with the dog bounding and barking before him, and the others hold- ing John's hands; both talking at once, and overpow- ering him with questions about home and with school anecdotes. I looked after them with a feeling in which I do not know whether pleasure or melancholy pre- dominated; for I was reminded of those days when, like them, I had neither known care nor sorrow, and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. We stopped a few moments afterwards, to water the horses ; and on resuming our route, a turn of the road brought us in sight of a neat country seat. I could just distinguish the forms of a lady and two young girls in the portico, and I saw my little comrades, with Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along the carriage road. T leaned out of the coach window, in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight. 48 WASHINGTON IRVING, In the evening we reached a village where I had determined to pass the night. As we drove into the great gateway of the inn, I saw on one side the light of a rousing kitchen fire beaming through a window. I entered, and admired, for the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an English inn. It was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there with a Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling ; a smoke- jack ^ made its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in one corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the kitchen, with a cold round of beef, and other hearty viands, upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard. Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast, whilst others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high- backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim house- maids were hurrying backwards and forwards, under the directions of a fresh, bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group round the fire. The scene completely realized Poor Robin's ' humble idea of the comforts of mid- winter : Now trees their leafy hats do bare To reverence Winter's silver hair ; 1 A kind of circular wheel or fan, horizontally placed, that was made to revolve by the upward current in the chimney. It turned a spit. * Poor Robin was a pseudonym of the poet, Robert Herrick< under which he issued a series of almanacs that was begun ip 16G1. The passage quoted is from the number for 1694. THE STAGE-COACH. 49 A handsome hostess, merry host, A pot of ale now and a toast, Tobacco and a good coal fire, Are things this season doth require. I had not been long at the inn when a post-chaise drove up to the door. A young gentleman stepped cut, and by the light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew. I moved for- ward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humored young fellow, with whom I had once travelled on the continent. Our meeting was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old fellow-traveller always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excel- lent jokes. To discuss all these in a transient inter- view at an inn was impossible ; and finding that I was not pressed for time, and was merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that I should give him a day or two at his father's country seat, to which he was going to pass the holidays, and which lay at a few miles' distance. "It is better than eatino: a soli- tary Christmas dinner at an inn," said he, ''and 1 can assure you of a hearty welcome, in something of the old-fashioned style." His reasoning was cogent, and I must confess the preparation I had seen for universal festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a little impatient of my loneliness. I closed, therefore, at once, with his invitation ; the chaise drove up to the door, and in a few moments I was on my way to the family mansion of the Bracebridges. 56 WASHINGTON IRVING. CHRISTMAS DAY. Dark and dull night, flie hence away, And give the honor to this day That sees December turn'd to May. Why does the chilling winter's morne Smile like a field beset with come ? Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, Thus on the sudden ? Come and see The cause why things thus fragrant be. Herkick. When I woke the next morning,^ it seemed as if al the events of the preceding evening had been a dream^ and nothing but the identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of their reality. While I lay musing on my pillow, I heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering consultation. Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old Christmas carol, the burden of which was — Rejoice, our Saviour he was born On Christmas day in the morning. I rose softly, slipt on my clothes, opened the dooi suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagine. It con- sisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber door, but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment play- ing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as 1 Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman, spent his Christmas Eve at Bracebridge Hall. The account which he gives of the festivities QU that occasion is omitted from this book. CHRISTMAS DAY. 51 they turned an angle of the gallery, I heard them laughing in triumph at their escape. Everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings, in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospital- ity. The window of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful land- ^)Cape. There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream wind- ing at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees, and herds of deer. At a dis- tance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cot rage chimneys hanging over it ; and a church, with its dark spire in strong relief against the clear cold sky. The house was surrounded with evergreens, according to the English custom, which would have given almost an appearance of summer; but the morning was extremely frosty ; the light vapor of the preced- ing evening had been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its fine crystallizations. The rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect among the glittering foliage. A robin, perched upon the top of a mountain ash that hung its clusters of red berries just before my window, was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few querulous notes ; and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train, and strutting with the j)ride and gravity of a Spanish grandee, on the terrace walk below. I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant appeared to invite me to family prayers. He showed me the way to a small chapel in the old wing of the house, where I found the principal part of the family already assembled in a kind of gallery, furnished with cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the ser- vants were seated on benches below. The old gentle- 52 WASHINGTON IRVING. man read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, and Master Simon acted as clerk and made the responses; and I must do him the justice to say, that he acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum. The service was followed by a Christmas caroL which Mr. Bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his favorite author, Herrick ; and it had been adapted to an old church melody by Master Simon. As there were several good voices among the household, the effect w^as extremely pleasing; but I was particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, and sudden sally of grateful feeling, with which the worthy squire delivered one stanza ; his eye glistening^ and his voice rambling out of all the bounds of time and tune : "'Tis thou that crown' st my glittering hearth With guiltlesse mirth, And giv'st me wassaile ^ bowles to drink, Spiced to the brink. Lord, 't is thy plenty -dropping hand That soiles my land. And giv'st me, for my bushell sowne, Twice ten for one." I afterwards understood that early morning service was read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either by Mr. Bracebridge or by some mem- ber of the family. It was once almost universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of Eng«. land, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is falling into neglect ; for the dullest observer must be ^ From the Anglo-Saxon, meaning Be in health. Hence it means the liquor with which one's health is drunk, — a kind of ale or wine flavored with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, roasted pples, etc., and much used at Christmas and other festivities. CHRISTMAS DAY. 63 /Sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony. Our breakfast consisted of what the squire denomi- nated true old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea and toast, which he censured as among the causes of mod- ern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of 3ld English heartiness ; and though he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale, on the sideboard. After breakfast, I walked about the grounds with Frank Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, as he was called by everybody but the squire. We were escorted by a number of gentlemanlike dogs, that seemed loungers about the establishment; from the frisking spaniel to the steady old stag-hound — - the last of which was of a race that had been in the family time out of mind — they were all obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to Master Simon's button- hole, and in the midst of their gambols would glance an eye occasionally upon a small switch he carried in his hand. The old mansion had a still more venerable look in the yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight; and I could not but feel the force of the squire's idea, that the formal terraces, heavily moulded balustrades, and clipped yew-trees, carried with them an air of proud aristocracy. There appeared to be an unusual number of pea- cocks about the place, and I was making some remarks 54 WASHINGTON IRVING. upon what I termed a flock of them, that were bask- ing under a sunny wall, when I was gently corrected in my phraseology by Master Simon, who told me chat, according to the most ancient and approved trea^ tise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. "Ib the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, ^we say a flight of doves or swallows, a be\y of quails^ a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes^ or a building of rooks." He went on to inform me that, according to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird ''both understanding and glory; for, being praised, he will presently set up his tail, chiefly against the sun, to the intent you may the better behold the beauty thereof. But at the fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide himseK in corners, till his tail come again as it was." I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so whimsical a subject; but I found that the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the hall; for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they were great favorites with his father, who was extremely careful to keep up the breed, partly because they belonged to chivalry, and w^ere in great request at the stately banquets of the olden time ; and partly because they had a pomp and magnificence about them, highly becoming an old family mansion. Nothing, he was accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and dig' nity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone balustrade. Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment at the parish church with the village choristers, who were to perform some music of his selection. There was something extremely agreeable in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little CHRISTMAS DAT, 55 man ; and I confess I had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were not in the range of every-day reading. I mentioned this last circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told ine with a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half a dozen old au' fchors, which the squire had put into his hands, and which he read over and over, whenever he had a stu- dious fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry; Markham's Country Content- ments ; the Tretyse of Hunting, by Sir Thomas Cock- ayne. Knight; Izaak Walton's Angler, and two or three more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his standard authorities; and, like all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. As to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old books in the squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were popu- lar among the choice spirits of the last century. His practical application of scraps of literature, however, had caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighborhood. While we were talking, we heard the distant toll of the village bell, and I was told that the squire was a little particular in having his household at church on a Christmas morning ; considering it a day of pouring out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old Tusser ob- served, — " At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, And feasu thy poor neighbors, the great with the small." "If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Bracebridge, "I can promise you a specimen of my 56 WASHINGTON IRVING. cousin Simon's musical achievements. As the church is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from the village amateurs, and established a musical club for their improvement ; he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to the directions of Jervaise Markham, in his Country Contentments 5 for the bass he has sought out all the ''deep, solemn mouths,' and for the tenor the 'loud- ringing mouths, ' among the country bumpkins ; and for 'sweet mouths' he has culled with curious taste among the prettiest lassies in the neighborhood; though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult to keep in tune ; your pretty female singer being ex- ceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to accident." As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and clear, the most of the family walked to the church, which was a very old building of gray stone, and stood near a village, about half a mile from the park gate. Adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, which seemed coeval with the church. The front of it was perfectly matted with a yew-tree, that had been trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of which, apertures had been formed to admit light into the small antique lattices. As we passed this shel- tered nest, the parson issued forth and preceded us. I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, 6uch as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich patron's table, but I was disappointed. The parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood off from each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. He wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that CHRISTMAS DAY. 6T jirould have held, the church Bible and prayer-book: and his small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted in large shoes, decorated with enormous buckles. I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the par- son had been a chum of his father's at Oxford, and had received this living shortly after the latter had come to his estate. He was a complete black-letter hunter,^ and would scarcely read a work printed in the Eoman character. The editions of Caxton and Wynkin de Worde were his delight ; and he was inde- fatigable in his researches after such old English writ- ers as have fallen into oblivion from their worthless- ness. In deference, perhaps, to the notions of Mr. Bracebridge, he had made diligent investigations into the festive rites and holiday customs of former times ; and had been as zealous in the inquiry, as if he had been a boon companion ; but it was merely with that plodding spirit with which men of adust ^ temperament follow up any track of study, merely because it is de- nominated learning ; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, whether it be the illustration of the wisdom, or of the ribaldry and obscenity of antiquity. He had pored over these old volumes so intensely, that they seemed to have been reflected into his countenance ; which, if the face be indeed an index of the mind, might be compared to a title-page of black-letter. On reaching the church porch, we found the parson rebuking the gray -headed sexton for having used mis- 1 That is, a person fond of collecting those earliest of English tNTorks that were printed in black-letter (Blarft^ILetter). Such works belong to the fourteenth century. 2 From the Latin adustus, inflamed or scorched. It is used here in the decaying sense of gloomy or melancholic. 58 WASHINGTON IRVING. tletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy plant, profane by having been used by the Druids in their mystic ceremonies ; and though it might be innocently employed in the festive ornamentino^ of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of the Church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred purposes. So tenacious was he on this point, that the poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part of the humble trophies of his taste, before the parson would consent to enter upon the service of the day. The interior of the church was venerable, but sim ^ pie ; on the walls were several mural monuments ot the Bracebridges, and just beside the altar was a tomb of ancient workmanship, on which lay the effigy of a warrior in armor, with his legs crossed, a sign of his having been a crusader. I was told it was one of the familj" who had signalized himself in the Holy Land, and the same whose picture hung over the fire-place in hhe hall. During service, Master Simon stood up in the pew, dnd repeated the responses very audibly; evincing that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of old family connections. I observed, too, that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a flourish, possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring which enriched one of his fingers, and which had the look of a family relic. But he was evidently most solicitous about the musical part of the service, keeping his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beat- ing time with much gesticulation and emphasis. The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads, piled one abovs the squire observed, an emblem of Christmas hos- pitality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow. He pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the chimneys of the comfortable farm- houses and low thatched cottages. "I love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rich and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and I am almost disposed to join with Poor Robin, in his malediction on every churlish enemy to this honest festival : — " * Those who at Christinas do repine, And would fain hence despatch him, May they with old Duke Humphry ^ dinOp Or else may Squire Ketch ^ catch 'em.' " ^ " It is cruel and shameful that the name of the worthy Duke Humphrey of Gloucester should be associated with the want of a dinner, for he was celebrated for his hospitality." Notes and Queries. Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, was the youngest ^on of Henry LY., who reigned from 1399 to 1413. To dine with Duke Humphrey m^aiit originally to have a good dinner, then to eat by the bounty of another, and finally, after the duke's death, it came to signify among his former almsmen, by a kind of irony, to go without a dinner. Another account plausibly attributes the proverb to a wit who came down from London with a party of friends to dine at the White Hart Inn at Bt. Albans, but who was accidentally shut up in the Abbey of St. Albans, where Humphrey lay buried, and so lost his dinner. 2 Also known as Jack Ketch, a name given in England to the public hangman or executioner. (34 WASHINGTON IRVING. The squire went on to lament the dei^lorable decay of the games and amusements which were once preva- lent at this season among the lower orders, and coun- tenanced by the higher ; when the old halls of castles and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight ; when the tables were covered with brawn, and beef, and liumming ale ; when the harp and the carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were alike wel- come to enter and make merry. ^ '^'Our old games and local customs," said he, "had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home, and the promo- tion of them by the gentry made him fond of his lord. They made the times merrier, and kinder, and better, and I can truly say, with one of our old poets, — " * I like them well — the curious preciseness And all-pretended gravity of those That seek to banish hence these harmless sports, Have thrust away much ancient honesty.' "The nation," continued he, "is altered; we have almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They have broken asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their interests are separate. They have become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform. I think one mode to keep them in good humor in these hard times would be for the nobility and gentry to » " An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, ^. e on Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neigh- bors enter his hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar and nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sau^ sage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (i. e, the cook) by the arms and run her round the market-place till she is shamed of her laziness." (Quoted by Irving from Round about our Sea-Coal Fire.) CHRISTMAS DAY, 65 pass more time on their estates, mingle more among the country people, and set tlie merry old English games going again." Such was the good squire's project for mitigating public discontent : and, indeed, he had once attempted to put his doctrine in practice, and a few years before had kept open house during the holidays in the old style. The country people, however, did not under- stand how to play their parts in the scene of hospital- ity ; many uncouth circumstances occurred ; the manor was overrun by all the vagrants of the country, and more beggars drawn into the neighborhood in one week than the parish officers could get rid of in a year. Since then, he had contented himself with inviting the decent part of the neighboring peasantry to call at the hall on Christmas day, and with distrib- uting beef, and bread, and ale, among the poor, that they might make merry in their own dwellings. We had not been long home when the sound of music was heard from a distance. A band of coun- try lads, without coats, their shirt sleeves fancifullj' tied with ribbons, their hats decorated with greens, and clubs in their hands, were seen advancing up the avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and peasantry. They stopped before the hall door, where the music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads per- formed a curious and intricate dance, advancing, retreating, and striking their clubs together, keeping exact time to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with many antic gesticulations. The squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great tT6 WASHINGTON IRVING. interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced to the times when the Romans held possession of the island ; plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant of the sword-dance of the ancients. "It was now," he said, "nearly extinct, but he had accidentally met with traces of it in the neighborhood, and had encouraged its revival; though, to tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by the rough cudgel-play, and broken heads in the even- ing." After the dance was concluded, the whole party was entertained with brawn and beef, and stout home- brewed. The squire himself mingled among the rus- tics, and was received with awkward demonstrations of deference and regard. It is true, I perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as they were raising their tankards to their mouths, when the squire's back was turned, making something of a grimace, and giv- ing each other the wink ; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly demure. With Master Simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. His varied occupations and amusements had made him well known through- out the neighborhood. He was a visitor at every farmhouse and cottage; gossiped with the farmers and their wives ; romped with their daughters ; and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the humble-bee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the country round. The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good cheer and affability. There is something genu- ine and affectionate in the gayety of the lower orders, when it is excited by the bounty and familiarity of those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enters CHRISTMAS DAY. 61 mto their mirth, and a kind word or a small plea- santry frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependent more than oil and wine. When the squire had retired, the merriment increased, and there was much joking and laughter, particularly between Master Simon and a hale, ruddy -faced, white-headed farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the village ; for I observed all his companions to wait with open mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous laugh before they could well understand them. The whole house indeed seemed abandoned to merri- ment ; as I passed to my room to dress for dinner, I heard the sound of music in a small court, and look- ing through a window that commanded it, I perceived a band of wandering musicians, with pandean pipes and tambourine; a pretty, coquettish housemaid was dancing a jig with a smart country lad, while several of the other servants were looking on. In the midst of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the window, and, coloring up, ran off with an air of roguish affected confusion. 88 WASHINGTON IRVING. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. A TRAVELLER'S TALE.^ He that supper for is dight, He lyes fuii cold, I trow, this aightl Yestreen to chamber I him led, This night Gray-steel has made his bed ! Sm Egeb, Sib Geahame, and Sib Gbay-stkCl On the summit of one of the heights of the Oden* ^ald, 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 Landshort. 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 Katzenellenbogen,^ and inherited the relics of the prop- erty, and aU the pride, of his ancestors. Though the warlike disposition of his predecessors had much impaired the family possessions, yet the baron stiB endeavored to keep up some show of former state, The times were peaceable, and the German nobles, in general^ had abandoned their inconvenient old castles, perched like eagles' nests among the mountains, and 1 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, a circumstance said to have taken place in Paris. — W. I. ^ Cat's Elbow — the name of a family of those parts, very powerful in former times. The appellation, we are told, was given in compliment to a peerless dame of the family, celebrated for her fine arm. — Wr I. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 69 had built more convenient residences in the valleys; still the baron remained proudly drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing with hereditary inveteracy all the old family feuds; so that he was on ill terms with some of his nearest neighbors, on account of disputes that had happened between their great-great-grand- fathers. The baron had but one child, a daughter ; but Na- ture, when she grants but one child, always compen- sates by making it a prodigy ; and so it was with the daughter of the baron. All the nurses, gossips, and country cousins, assured her father that she had not her equal for beauty in all Germany ; and who should know better than they? She had, moreover, been brought up with great care under the superintendence of two maiden aunts, who had spent some years of their early life at one of the little German courts, and were skilled in all the branches of knowledge necessary to the education of a fine lady. Under their instruc- tions she became a miracle of accomplishments. By the time she was eighteen she could embroider to admiration, and had worked whole histories of the saints in tapestry, with such strength of expression in their countenances, that they looked like so many souls in purgatory. She could read without great difficulty, and had spelled her way through several church legends, and almost all the chivalric wonders of thf Heldenbuch.^ She had even made considerable pro- ficiency in writing; could sign her own name without missing a letter, and so legibly that her aunts could read it without spectacles. She excelled in making little elegant good-for-nothing lady -like knick-knacks 1 A collection of German epic poems. The word means hook qf heroes. 70 WASHINGTON IRVING, of all kinds ; was versed in the most abstruse dancing ^f the day ; played a number of airs on the harp and guitar ; and knew all the tender ballads of the Minnie- lieders ^ by heart. Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and coquettes in their younger days, were admirably cal- culated to be vigilans guardians and strict censors of the conduct of their niece ; for there is no duenna so rigidly prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a super- annuated coquette. She was rarely suffered out of their sight; never went beyond the domains of the castle, unless well attended, or rather well watched; had continual lectures read to her about strict deco- rum and implicit obedience ; and as to the men — pah ! she was taught to hold them at such a distance and in such absolute distrust, that, unless properly authorized, she would not have cast a glance upon the handsomest cavalier in the world — no, not if he were even dying at her feet. The good effects of this system were wonderfully apparent. The young lady was a pattern of docility and correctness. While others were wasting their sweetness in the glare of the world, and liable to be plucked and thrown aside by every hand, she was coyly blooming into fresh and lovely womanhood under the protection of those immaculate spinsters, like a rose-bud blushing forth among guardian thorns. Her aunts looked upon her with pride and exultation, and vaunted that though all the other young ladies in the world might go astray, yet, thank Heaven, ^ That is, minnesingers, or love-singers, a class of German poets and musicians who flourished from the twelfth to the four* teenth century. They were chiefly of noble birth, and wrote and sang of love and beauty. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 71 aothing of the kind could happen to the heiress of Katzenellenbogen. But however scantily the Baron Von Landshort might be provided with children, his household was by no means a small one, for Providence had enriched him with abundance of poor relations. They, one and all, possessed the affectionate disposition common to humble relatives; were wonderfully attached to the baron, and took every possible occasion to come in swarms and enliven the castle. All family festivals were commemorated by these good people at the bar- on's expense; and when they were filled with good cheer, they would declare that there was nothing on earth so delightful as these family meetings, these jubilees of the heart. The baron, though a small man, had a large soul, and it swelled with satisfaction at the consciousness of being the greatest man in the little world about him. He loved to tell long stories about the stark old war- riors whose portraits looked grimly down from the walls around, and he found no listeners equal to those who fed at his expense. He was much given to the marvellous, and a firm believer in all those supernat- ural tales with which every mountain and valley in Germany abounds. The faith of his guests exceeded even his own : they listened to every tale of wonder with open eyes and mouth, and never failed to be astonished, even though repeated for the hundredth time. Thus lived the Baron Von Landshort, the oracle of his table, the absolute monarch of his little territory, and happy, above all things, in the per- suasion that he was the wisest man of the age. At the time of which my story treats, there was a great family gathering at the castle, on an affair oJ T2 WASHINGTON IRVING. the utmost importance : it was to receive the destined bridegroom of the baron's daughter. A negotiation had been carried on between the father and an old nobleman of Bavaria, to unite the dignity of their houses by the marriage of their children. The pre- liminaries had been conducted with proper punctilio. The young people were betrothed without seeing each other, and the time was appointed for the marriage ceremony. The young Count Von Altenburg had been recalled from the army for the purpose, and was actually on his way to the baron's to receive his bride. Missives had even been received from him, from Wurtzburg, where he was accidentally detained, men- tioning the day and hour when he might be expected to arrive. The castle was in a tumult of preparation to give him a suitable welcome. The fair bride had been decked out with uncommon care. The two aunts had superintended her toilet, and quarrelled the whole morning about every article of her dress. The young lady had taken advantage of their contest to follow the bent of her own taste ; and fortunately it was a good one. She looked as lovely as youthful bridegroom could desire ; and the flutter of expectation heightened the lustre of her charms. The suffusions that mantled her face and neck, the gentle heaving of the bosom, the eye now and then lost in reverie, all betrayed the soft tumult that was going on in her little heart. The aunts were continu- ally hovering around her ; for maiden aunts are apt to take great interest in affairs of this nature. They were giving her a world of staid counsel how to deport herself, what to say, and in what manner to receive the expected lover. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 73 The baron was no less busied in preparations. He iiad, in truth, nothing exactly to do; but he was nat- urally a fuming, bustling little man, and could not remain passive when all the world was in a hurry. He worried from top to bottom of the castle, with an air of infinite anxiety ; he continually called the servants from their work to exhort them to be diligent, and buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly restless and importunate as a blue-bottle fly of a warm siun- mer's day. In the meantime the fatted caK had been killed ; the forests had rung with the clamor of the huntsmen ; the kitchen was crowded with good cheer ; the cellars had yielded up whole oceans of Rliein-wein and Feme- wein^ and even the great Heidelburg tun ^ had been laid under contribution. Everything was ready to receiv^e the distinguished guest with Saus und Braus ^ in the true spirit of German hospitality — but the guest delayed to make his appearance. Hour rolled after hour. The sun, that had poured his downward rays upon the rich forest of the Odenwald, now just gleamed along the summits of the mountains. The baron mounted the highest tower, and strained his eyes in hopes of catching a distant sight of the count and his attendants. Once he thought he beheld them ; the sound of horns came floating from the valley, pro- longed by the mountain echoes. A number of horse- men were seen far below, slowly advancing along the ^ A huge cask capable of containing eight hundred hogsheads. It is in the cellar of the ruined castle of Heidelberg, an ancient and picturesque city of Germany. 2 Literally, riot and noise. The expression is intended to cover the hearty good cheer, gayety, and hilarity of a warm reception. Something of the German flavor is lost in any translation. Fro nunciation, souce {pu as in house) oont hrouce. 74 WASHINGTON IRVING, road; but when they had nearly reached the foot oi the mountain, they suddenly struck off in a different direction. The last ray of sunshine departed — the bats began to flit by in the twilight — the road grew dimmer and dimmer to the view ; and nothing appeared stirring in it, but now and then a peasant lagging homeward from his labor. While the old castle of Landshort was in this state of perplexity, a very interesting scene was transacting in a different part of the Odenwald. The young Count Von Altenburg was tranquilly pursuing his route in that sober jog-trot way, in which a man travels toward matrimony when his friends have taken all the trouble and uncertainty of court- ship off his hands, and a bride is waiting for him, as certainly as a dinner, at the end of his journey. He had encountered at Wurtzburg a youthful companion in arms, with whom he had seen some service on the frontiers ; Herman Von Starkenf aust, one of the stout- est hands and worthiest hearts of German chivalry, who was now returning from the army. His father's castle was not far distant from the old fortress of Land- short, although an hereditary feud rendered the fami- lies hostile, and strangers to each other. In the warm-hearted moment of recognition, the young friends related all their past adventures and fortunes, and the count gave the whole history of his intended nuptials with a young lady whom he had never seen, but of whose charms he had received the most enrapturing descriptions. iis the route of the friends lay in the same direc- tion, they agreed to perform the rest of their journey together; and, that they might do it the more lei- surely, set off from Wurtzburg at an early hour, the THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM, 75 count having given directions for his retinue to follow and overtake him. They beguiled their wayfaring with recollections of their military scenes and adventures; but the count was apt to be a little tedious, now and then, about the reputed charms of his bride, and the felicity that awaited him. In this way they had entered among the mountains of the Odenwald, and were traversing one of its most lonely and thickly wooded passes. It is well known that the forests of Germany have always been as much infested by robbers as its castles by spectres; and at this time the former were particularly numerous, from the hordes of disbanded soldiers wandering about the country. It will not appear extraordinary, therefore, that the cavaliers were attacked by a gang of these stragglers, in the midst of the forest. They defended themselves with bravery, but were nearly overpow- ered, when the count's retinue arrived to their assis- tance. At sight of them the robbers fled, but not until the count had received a mortal wound. He was slowly and carefully conveyed back to the city of Wurtzburg, and a friar summoned from a neighbor- ing convent, who was famous for his skill in adminis- tering to both soul and body. But half of his skiD was superfluous; the moments of the unfortunate count were numbered. With his dying breath he entreated his friend to re* pair instantly to the castle of Landshort, and explain the fatal cause of his not keeping his appointment with his bride. Though not the most ardent of lovers, he was one of the most punctilious of men, and ap- peared earnestly solicitous that his mission should be speedily and courteously executed. '' Unless this is ff^ WASHINGTON IRVING. done," said he, "I shall not sleep quietly in m^ grave! " He repeated these last words with peculiar solemnity. A request, at a moment so impressive, admitted no hesitation. Starkenfaust endeavored to soothe him to calmness; promised faithfully to exe- cute his wish, and gave him his hand in solemr pledge. The dying man pressed it in acknowledg- ment, but soon lapsed into delirium — raved about his bride — his engagements — his plighted word ; ordered his horse, that he might ride to the castle of Landshort, and expired in the fancied act of vaulting into the saddle. Starkenfaust bestowed a sigh and a soldier's tear on the untimely fate of his comrade, and then pon- dered on the awkward mission he had undertaken. His heart was heavy, and his head perplexed ; for he was to present himself an unbidden guest among hos- tile people, and to damp their festivity with tidings fatal to their hopes. Still there were certain whisper- ings of curiosity in his bosom to see this far-famed beauty of Katzenellenbogen, so cautiously shut up from the world ; for he was a passionate admirer of the sex, and there was a dash of eccentricity and en- terprise in his character, that made him fond of all singular adventure. Previous to his departure he made all due arrange- ments with the holy fraternity of the convent for the funeral solemnities of his friend, who was to be buried in the cathedral of Wurtzburg, near some of his illus- trious relatives; and the mourning retinue of the count took charge of his remains. It is now high time that we should return to the an* cient family of Katzenellenbogen, who were impatient for their guest, and still more for their dinner ; and to THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 77 ^-he worthy little baron, whom we left airing himself >n the watch-tower. Night closed in, but still no guest arrived. The baron descended from the tower in despair. The banquet, which had been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postponed. The meats were already overdone ; the cook in an agony ; and the whole house- hold had the look of a garrison that had been reduced by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly to give orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. All were seated at table, and just on the point of com- mencing, when the sound of a horn from without the gate gave notice of the approach of a stranger. An- other long blast filled the old courts of the castle with its echoes, and was answered by the warder from the walls. The baron hastened to receive his future son- in-law. The drawbridge had been let down, and the stran- ger was before the gate. He was a tall, gallant cav- alier, mounted on a black steed. His countenance was pale, but he had a beaming, romantic eye, and an air of stately melancholy. The baron was a little morti- fied that he should have come in this simple, solitary style. His dignity for a moment was ruffled, and he felt disposed to consider it a want of proper respect for the important occasion, and the important family with which he was to be connected. He pacified him- self, however, with the conclusion that it must have been youthful impatience which had induced him thus to spur on sooner than his attendants. ''I am sorry," said the stranger, "to break in upon you thus unseasonably " — Here the baron interrupted him with a world of Qompliments and greeting; for, to tell the truth, he 78 WASHINGTON IRVING, prided himself upon his courtesy and eloquence. The stranger attempted, once or twice, to stem the torrent of words, but in vain, so he bowed his head and suf- fered it to flow on. By the time the baron had come fco a pause, they had reached the inner court of the castle; and the stranger was again about to speak, )when he was once more interrupted by the appearance of the female part of the family, leading forth the shrinking and blushing bride. He gazed on her for a moment as one entranced ; it seemed as if his whole soul beamed forth in the gaze, and rested upon that lovely form. One of the maiden aunts whispered something in her ear; she made an effort to speak; her moist blue eye was timidly raised, gave a shy glance of inquiry on the stranger, and was cast again to the ground. The words died away; but there was a sweet smile playing about her lips, and a soft dim- pling of the cheek that showed her glance had not been unsatisfactory. It was impossible for a girl of the fond age of eighteen, highly predisposed for love and matrimony, not to be pleased with so gallant a cav- alier. The late hour at which the guest had arrived left no time for parley. The baron was peremptory, and de- ferred all particular conversation until the mornings and led the way to the untasted banquet. It was served up in the great hall of the castle. Around the walls hung the hard-favored portraits ol the heroes of the house of Katzenellenbogen, and the trophies which they had gained in the field and in the chase. Hacked croslets, splintered jousting spears, and tattered banners were mingled with the spoils of gylvan warfare; the jaws of the wolf and the tusks of the boar grinned horribly among cross-bows and bat- THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. T9 tie-axes, and a huge pair of antlers branched immedi ately over the head of the youthful bridegroom. The cavalier took but little notice of the company or the entertainment. He scarcely tasted the banquet but seemed absorbed in admiration of his bride. He conversed in a low tone, that could not be overheard — for the language of love is never loud; but where is the female ear so dull that it cannot catch the soft- est whisper of the lover? There was a mingled ten- derness and gravity in his manner that appeared to have a powerful effect upon the young lady. Her color came and went, as she listened with deep atten- tion. Now and then she mnde some blushing reply, and when his eye was turne^i away, she would steal a sidelong glance at his romantic countenance, and heave a gentle sigh of tender happiness. It was evident that the young couple were completely enamoured. The aunts, who were deeply versed in the mysteries of the heart, declared that they had fallen in love with each other at first sight. The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for the guests were all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon light purses and mountain air. The baron told his best and longest stories, and never had he told them so well, or with such great effect. If there was anything marvellous, his auditors were lost in astonishment; and if anything facetious, they were sure to laugh exactly In the right place. The baron, it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, however, by a bumper of excellent Hochheimer ; and even a dull joke, at one's own table, served up with jolly old wine. Is Irresistible. Many good things were said by poorer and keener wits, that would not bear repeating, except on similar occasions; many sly 80 WASHINGTON IRVING, speeches whispered in ladies' ears, that almost con viilsed them with suppressed laughter ; and a song oi two roared out by a poor but merry and broad-faced cousin of the baron, that absolutely made the maiden aunts hold up their fans. Amidst all this revelry, the stranger guest main- tained a most singular and unseasonable gravity. His countenance assumed a deeper cast of dejection as the evening advanced, and, strange as it may appear, even the baron's jokes seemed only to render him the more melancholy. At times he was lost in thought, and at times there was a perturbed and restless wandering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. His con- versation with the bride became more and more ear- nest and mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal over the fair serenity of her brow, and tremors to run through her tender frame. All this could not escape the notice of the company. Their gayety was chilled by the unaccountable gloom of the bridegroom ; their spirits were infected; whis^ pers and glances were interchanged, accompanied by shrugs and dubious shakes of the head. The song and the laugh grew less and less frequent; there were dreary pauses in the conversation, which were at length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural le- gends. One dismal story produced another still more dismal, and the baron nearly frightened some of the ladies into hysterics with the history of the goblin horseman that carried away the fair Leonora; ^ a 1 The heroine of a popular ballad by Burger (1748-1794), a German lyric poet. Her lover dies, reappears to Leonora aftei his death, and carries her off on horseback behind him : Tramp, tramp, across the land they speede ; Splash, splash, across the see : *' Hurrah I the dead can ride apace ; Dost feare to ride with mee ? ** From Taylor's Translation THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM, 31 dreadful story, which has since been put into excellent verse, and is read and believed by all the world. The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound attention. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the baron, and, as the story drew to a close, began grad- ually to rise from his seat, growing taller and taller, until, in the baron's entranced eye, he seemed almost to tower into a giant. The moment the tale was fin- ished, he heaved a deep sigh, and took a solemn fare- well of the company. They were all amazement. The baron was perfectly thunderstruck. "What ! going to leave the castle at midnight? why, everything was prepared for his reception; a chamber was ready for him if he wished to retire." The stranger shook his head mournfully and myste- riously: "I must lay my head in a different chamber to-night!" There was something in this reply, and the tone in which it was uttered, that made the baron's heart mis- give him ; but he rallied his forces, and repeated his hospitable entreaties. The stranger shook his heacj silently^ but positively, at every offer; and, waving his farewell to the company, stalked slowly out of the hall. The maiden aunts were absolutely petrified; the bride hung her head, and a tear stole to her eye. The baron followed the stranger to the great court of the castle, where the black charger stood pawing the earth, and snorting with impatience. When they had reached the portal, whose deep archway was dimly lighted by a cresset,^ the stranger paused, and ad- dressed the baron in a hollow tone of voice, which the vaulted roof rendered still more sepulchral. "No\v - starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With napbtba and asphaltus. MUton. 82 WASHINGTON IRVING. that we are alone," said he, "I will impart to you the reason of my going. I have a solemn, an indispensa- ble engagement " — •'Why," said the baron, "cannot you send some one in your place ? " "It admits of no substitute — I must attend it ir person — I must away to Wurtzburg cathedral" — "Ay," said the baron, plucking up sjDirit, "but not until to-morrow — to-morrow you shall take your bride there." "No! no ["replied the stranger, with tenfold so lemnity, "my engagement is with no bride — the worms ! the worms expect me ! I am a dead man — I have been slain by robbers — my body lies at Wurtz- burg — at midnight I am to be buried — the grave is waiting for me — I must keep my appointment! " He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the drawbridge, and the clattering of his horse's hoofs was lost in the whistling of the night blast. The baron returned to the hall in the utmost con- sternation, and related what had passed. Two ladief fainted outright ; others sickened at the idea of having banqueted with a spectre. It was the opinion of some, that this might be the wild huntsman,^ famous in German legend. Some talked of mountain sprites, of wood-demons, and of other supernatural beings, with which the good people of Germany have been so grievously harassed since time immemorial. One of the poor relations ventured to suggest that it might ^ He is the subject of a popular German tradition that repre- sents him as a spectre, appearing at night with his dogs and sometimes with a train of attendants, and urging on the chase. There are similar traditions in France, England, and Scotland Biirger has made the wild huntsman the subject of a ballad Der Wilde Jdger. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 88 De some sportive evasion of the young cavalier, anant shore of time, telling 92 WASHINGTON IRVING. no tale but that such beings had been and had per^ ished; teaching no moral but the futility of that pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes^ and to live in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated, and the monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down upon these gravestones, I was roused by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating irom buttress to buttress, and echoing among the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here, the magni- tude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, con- trasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to such an amazing height; and man' wandering about their bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fear- ful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the walls, an^ chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensi- ble of the quiet we have interrupted. It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds and the earth with their renown. And yet it almost pra WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 93 vokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition, to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy and how many shapes, and forms, and artifices, are devised to catch the casual notice of the passengerc and save from forgetfulness, for a few short years, a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and admiration. I passed some time in Poets' Corner, which occu- pies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple ; for the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories ; but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, 1 have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remain longest about them. A kinder and fonder feel- ing takes place of that cold curiosity or vague admira. tion with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions; for indeed there is something of companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the more mtimately commune with distant minds and distant 94 WASHINGTON IRVING. ages. Well may the world cherish his renown ; foi it has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory; for he has left it an inheritance, not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures of wis- dom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language. From Poets' Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the abbey which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn, I met with some illustrious name, or the cognizance of some pow- erful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint effigies: some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together ; warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres ; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city ^ where every being had been suddenly transmuted into stone. I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large buck-= ler was on one arm ; the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast ; the face was almost covered by the morion ; the legs were crossed in token of the warrior's having been engaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader ; of one of those mill- ^ See Arabia7i Nights' Entertainments ^ Sixty-fifth Night. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. ^6 tary enthusiasts who so strangely mingled religion and romance, and whose exploits form the connecting link between fact and fiction, between the history and the fairy tale. There is something extremely picturesque in the tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. They comport with the antiquated chapels in whicl they are generally found; and in considering them, the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary associations, the romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry, which poetry has spread over the wars for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times utterly gone by ; of beings passed from recollec- tion ; of customs and manners with which ours have no affinity. They are like objects from some strange and distant land, of which we have no certain know- ledge, and about which all our conceptions are vague and visionary. There is something extremely solemn and awful in those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended as if in the sleep of death, or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the over-wrought conceits, and allegorical groups, which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck, also, with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way, in former times, of saying things simply, and yet saying them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and honorable lineage, than one which affirms, of a noble house, that " all the brothers were brave, and all the sisters virtuous." in the opposite transept to Poets' Corner stands a monument which is among the most renowned achieve- 96 WASHINGTON IRVING. ments of modern art ; but which to me appears hor- rible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale,^ by Roubillae. The bottom of the mon- ument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and venera- tion for the dead; or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence from without occasionally reaches the ear : the rumbling of the passing equipage ; the murmur of the multitude; or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is striking with the deathlike repose around; and it has a strange effect upon the feelings, thus to hear the surges of active life hurrying along and beating against the very walls ol the sepulchre. I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually 1 Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, who died in 1731. The monu* ment, which was erected in 1758, is by Louis Francois Roubillae (or Roubiliac), a French sculptor (1695-1762). WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 97 rearing away ; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers ; and I saw at a distance the choristers, in their white surplices, crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps lead up to it, through a deep and gloomy, but magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and debcately wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mor^als into this most gorgeous of sepul- chres. On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp oi architecture ^nd the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament, encrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of saints and mar- tyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel^ to have been robbed of its weight and density, sus- pended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy se- curity of a cobweb. Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the Bath,^ richly carved of oak, though 1 The second order of knighthood in England, that of the Garter ranking first. It was the practice of the early sovereigns before their coronation to create a number of knights. The cere- mony of bathing used to be practiced at the inauguration of the knight as an emblem or token of the purity required of him under the laws of chivalry. The name of this order appears as early as the time of Henry IV. Only persons of high rank or distinguished service are admitted. There are three grades or classes within the order, known as knights grand cross (K. G. C), knights commanders (K. C. B.), and companions (C, B.), the first two only being entitled to the appellation of Sir, 98 WASHINGTON IRVING. with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture* On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords ; and above them are suspended their banners, embla- zoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder, — his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing. There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence ; this strange mixture of tombs and trophies; these em- blems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing im- presses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness, than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous banners that were once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the scene when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land; glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array ; alive with the tread of many feet, and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had passed away ; the silence of death had settled again upon the place ; interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds, which had found their way into the chapel, and built their nests among its friezes and pendants, — sure signs of solitariness and deser* tion. When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men scattered far and wide abou* WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 99 the world; some tossing upon distant seas; some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets ; all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shad- owy honors, — the melancholy reward of a monu- ment. Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance of the equality of the grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level with the op pressed, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day, but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulchre con- tinually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival. A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through v/indows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national em- blem, the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the checkered and disastrous story of poor Mary. The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the evening service, and jhe faint responses of the choir; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion 100 WASHINGTON IRVING. and obscurity that were gradually prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place For iu the silent grave no conversation, No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, No careful father's counsel — nothing 's heard, For nothing is, but all oblivion, Dust, and an endless darkness. Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring orgaij burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redou° bled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building ! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal ! — And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. — And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences ! What solemn sweeping concords ! It grows more and more dense and powerful — it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls — the ear is stunned — th€ senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee — it is rising from the earth to heaven — the very soul seems rapt away, and floated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony ! I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire; the shadows of evening were gradually thicker inp' WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 101 around me ; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper gloom ; and the distant clock again gave tokec of the slowly waning day. I rose, and prepared to leave the abbey. As I de- scended the flight of steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Ed- ward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general sur- vey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is ele- vated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs; where warriors, prelates, cour- tiers, and statesmen, lie mouldering in their "beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of coronation, 1 rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to pro- duce an effect upon the beholder. Here was a tyfie of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power ; here it was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these in- congruous mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness? — to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive ; how soon that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of 1 A chair of oak made by Edward I., in which all the English sovereigns since his time have sat to be crowned. It is said to have been carried from the abbey but once, — when Cromwell was made Lord Protector in a formal way in Westminster Halt 102 WASHINGTON IRVING. the multitudec For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in some natures, which leads them to sport with awful and hallowed things ; and there are base minds which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and grovelling servility which they pay ^o the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor 5ias been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal ornaments ; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugi- tive is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated; some covered with ribaldry and insult, — all more or less outraged and dishonored ! The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaidts above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows ; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light ; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave ; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poets' Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jar- ring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already falling into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 103 become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation ; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the cer- tainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of Death; his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and f orgetf ulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immor- tality of a name ! Time is ever silently turning over his pages ; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past ; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. ''Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne,^ "find their graves in our short mem- ories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the mscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust ? What is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment ? The remains of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses ^ or time hath spared, avarice now 1 A merchant's son, born in London in 1605, and knighted by Charles II. in 1671. His Religio Medici (The Religion of a Phy. sician) is his ablest and best known work. * This Persian king conquered Egypt 525 B. a 104 WASHINGTON IRVING. eonsumeth; Mizraim^ cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."^ What, then, is to insure this pile, which now towers above me, from sharing the fate of mightier mauso- leums ? The time must come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish be*- aeath the feet ; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round tiie fallen column, and the fox-glove hang its blos- soms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin. " An ancient name of Egypt, but used here for the earliest rulers taken as a bodv. In like manner Pharaoh, which is used as the title of a sovereign very much like the name of Czar or Sultan, is put collectively for such rulers as are not included binder Mizraim. ^ Quoted from Sir Thomas Browne. THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. lOS 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 period shall return to nought. I know that all the muse's heavenly lays, 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. Dbummond op Hawthornden.J 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 that luxury of wander- ing thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection ; when suddenly an interruption of mad- cap 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 merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the ver- gers 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 ^ William Drummond, a Scottish poet of some celebrity, was born at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, in 1585, and died in 1649. 2 Doomsday (or Domesday) Book, so called because its au- thority was final, contains a summary of the results of a sta* 106 WASHINGTON IRVING. 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. I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof i^pported 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 ap- parently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the church in his robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical 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 ink- stand 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 school-boys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayerSc echoing soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter anJ fainter, and at length died away ; the bell ceased t( 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 tistical survey of England, made under Williair. the Conqueror in 1085-86. It records the ownership, extent, anc' value of land, the number of tenants, the amount of live stock, ate THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 101 myself at the table in a venerable elbow-ehair. In stead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the sol emn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place int( a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their re- pose, 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 sleep- less nights ! How have their authors buried them- selves in the solitude of cells and cloisters ; shut themselves up from the face of man, and the stil! 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 title 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 unprofitable speculations, with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I accidentally loosened the clasps ; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep ; 108 WASHINGTON IRVING. then a husky hem ; and at length began to talk. At tirst 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 exposure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more dis- tinct, and I soon found it an exceedingly fluent conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation w^hat, 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 wdth railings about the neglect of the world — about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such commonplace topics of lit- ^ary repining, and complained bitterly that it had not been opened for more than two centuries ; that the dean only looked now and then into the library, sometimes took dow^i 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, which I began to perceive was some- what choleric, ^' what a plague do they mean by keep- ing 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 w^ritten to give pleasure and to be enjoyed ; and I would have a rule passed that the dean sliould pay each of us a visit at least once a jrear ; 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 a.n airing." "Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, •' you are not THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 109 aware how much better you are off than most books of your generation. 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 your contem porary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature, 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 circu- late from hand to hand, like other great contemporary works ; but here have I been clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have silently 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 physi- ognomy, you are now well stricken in years : very fe^ of your contemporaries can be at present in existence ; and those few owe their longevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries ; which, suffer me to add. instead of likening to harems, you might more pro- perly and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries attached to religious establishments, for the benefit of the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often endure to an amaz* ingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your con- temporaries as if in circulation — where do we meet with their works ? what do we hear of Robert Gros- teste,^ of Lincoln ? No one could have toiled harder ^ Robert Grosseteste (as the name is generally spelled) wa« elected Bishop of Lincoln in 1235, and died in 1253. 110 WASHINGTON IRVING. 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 disturbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis,^ the histo- rian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet ? He declined two bishoprics, that he might shut him- self up and write for posterity ; but posterity never inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Hunt- ingdon, 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 ? Of his three great he- roic poems one is lost forever, excepting a mere frag- ment ; the others are known only to a few of the curi- ous in literature ; and as to his love verses and epi- grams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis, the Franciscan, who ac- quired the name of the tree of life? Of William of Malmesbury ; — 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 au- thors that lived long before my time, and wrote either in Latm or French, so that they in a manner expatri- ated themselves, and deserved to be forgotten ; ^ but ^ Gerald de Barry, born in Wales about 1146, died about 1220. All the other writers mentioned in the same paragraph belong to the twelfth century. *-* " In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes liad THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 111 I, sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkin de Worde.^ I was written 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 your mercy," said I, " for mistaking your age ; but it matters little : almost all the writers of your time have likewise passed into forgetf ulness ; and De Worde's publications are mere literary rari- ties among book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of au- thors 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 great delyte to endite, and have many noble thinges fnlfilde, 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 hearying of Frenchmen's Englishe." — (Quoted by Irving from Chaucer's Testament of Love.) ^ An English printer who was an assistant, and afterward the successor, of William Caxton. He died about 1535. 2 Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, " Afterwards, also, by deligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and of John Gowre, 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." — ^ W. L 112 WASHINGTON IRVING. * well of pure English undefiled,' ^ as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, per- petually 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 exultation of the most populate writer. He finds the language in which he has em- barked 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 coun- try, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by modern writers. 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 held up as a model of purity, will in the course of years grow antiquated and obsolete ; until it shall become almost as unintelligible in its native land as an Egyptian obelisk, or one of those Runic inscriptions 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 gild- ing and binding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep ; like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army. ' The phrase here quoted, inexactly, comes from Spenser'^ Faerie Queene, Book IV, canto ii, stanza 32 : — ** Dan Chancer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled." THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 118 pranked out in all the splendor of military array, and reflected that in one hundred 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 super- seded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's ' Arcadia,' Saekville's stately plays and 'Mirror for Magis^ trates,' or the finespun euphuisms of the ' unparal- leled John Lyly.' " i " 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, Lave 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, is full of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sack- ville has strutted into obscurity ; and even Lyly, ^ Sir Philip Sidney, an English author and general, was born in 1554, and mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586. His Arcadia, a pastoral romance, was long very popular. Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, was born in 1536, and died at London in 1608. For Lyly, see page 1. 2 " 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 intellectual virtues, thf arme of Bellona in the field, the tonge of Suada in the chamber the sprite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellency ifl print." — (Quoted by Irving from Harvey's Piercers Superero- gation,) Piercers Supererogation was written in 1593 by Gabriel Ha^ ?ey, as part of a long and bitter controversy with Thomas Nash the dramatist 114 WASHINGTON IRVING. though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated 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 controversies. Wave after wave of succeeding litera- ture has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industri- ous diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for the gratification of the curious. " For my part," I continued, '' I consider this mu- tability 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 be- hold 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 ex- cessive vegetation, and its surface become 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 overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of litera- ture. Formerly there were some restraints on this ex- cessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation ; they were written either on parchment, which was ex« pensive, so that one work was often erased to make «ray for another i or on papyrus, which was fragile THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 115 and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accu- mulation 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 an- tiquity ; that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the inventions of paper 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 intellectual 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 hun- dred thousand volumes ; legions of authors at the same time busy ; and the press going on with fear- fully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the number? Unless 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 sufiB* cient. Criticism may do much. It increases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of those salu- tary 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, writ- ers will write, printers will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will 116 WASHING'iON IRVING. 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 bet- ter than a mere walking 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 world. His reputation, how- ever, was considered quite temporary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he was a poor half-edu- cated 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 presume he soon sunk into oblivion." " 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 litera- ture. There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging 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 through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shak- speare, whom we behold defying the encroachments of ' The reference is to Ben Jonson's line, in his poem, To the Memory of my beloved Master William Shakspeare • — ^' And though thou hadst small Latin and lesu Greek.'' THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 117 time, retaining in modern use the language and litera- ture of his day, and giving duration to many an indif- ferent 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 over- run by a profusion of commentators, who, like clam bering 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 in a plethoric fit of laughter that had well-nigh choked him, by reason of his excessive corpulency. '* Mighty well ! " cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, " mighty well ^ and so you would persuade me that the literature oi an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond deer-stealer 1 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 rude- ness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his having fl^ourished in a less polished age. I deter- mined, nevertheless, not to give up my point. "Yes," resumed I, positively, "a poet; 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 will always understand him. He is the faithful portrayer of nature, whose features are always the same, and always interesting. Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldy ; their pages are crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts ex- panded into tediousness. But with the true poet everything is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest language. He illustrates them by everything that he sees most 118 WASHINGTON IRVING. striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pic tures 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 com- pass the wealth of the language — its family jewels^ which are thus transmitted in a portable form to pos° terity. 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 dullness, filled with monkish legends and academical controversies ! what bogs of theologi- cal speculations ! what dreary wastes of metaphysics I Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illumiv nated bards, elevated like beacons on their widely separate 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 1 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 aud the vice Of every wight alyve ; The honey comb that bee doth make Is not so sweet in hyve, As are the golden leves That drop from poet's head ! Which doth surmount our common talke As farre as dross doth lead. (Quoted by Irving from Churchyard.) [Thomas Churchyard, an English poet and soldier, was born about 1520, and died in 1004.] THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 119 door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to 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 perfectly uncon- scious 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. 120 WASHINGTON IRVING STRATFORD -ON- AVON. •*Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspeare would dream, The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head." Gabbics. To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial consequence when, after a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, foi' the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The armchair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire.^ It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncer-^ tainties of life ; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day: and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment. " Shall I not take mine ease in mine * Visitors are still shown the chair in which Irving sat, at the Red Horse Hotel, and the poker with which he poked the fire ! Irving writes to his sister on the occasion of his second visit, in 1832 : " We were quartered at the little inn of the Red Horse, where I found the same obliging little landlady that kept it at the time of the visit [1815] recorded in the Sketch-Book. You cannot imagine what a fuss the little woman made when she found out who I was. She showed me the room I had occupiedr i« which she had hung up my engraved likeness, and she produced a poker which was locked up in the archives of her house, on which sh6 (&ad caused to be engraved * Geoffrey Crayon's sceptre/ " STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, 121 inn ? " thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlor of the Ked Horse, at Stratford-on- Avon. The words of sweet Shakspeare were just passing through my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the church in which he lies buriedc There was a gentle tap at the door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in her smiling face, inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I under- stood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream of absolute dominion was at an end; so abdicating my throne, like a prudent potentate, to avoid being deposed, and putting the Stratford Guide- Book under my arm, as a pillow companion, I went to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakspeare, the pbilee,^ and David Garrick. The next morning was one of those quickening mornings which we sometimes have in early spring, for it was about the middle of March. The chills of a long winter had suddenly given way ; the north wind had spent its last gasp ; and a mild air came stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life into nature, and wooing every bud and flower to burst forth into fragrance and beauty. I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimagOc My first visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born,2 ^j^^ where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, 1 Garrick originated the jubilee which was held in 1769, and ;^hich lasted three days. 2 This house became the property of the British nation ia 18^7. 122 WASHINCTON IRVING, a true nestling-place of genius, which seemi* tc de light in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant, and present a simple but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature.^ The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very match-lock with which Shakspeare shot the deer, on his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box, which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir AValter Raleigh ^ the sword, also, with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb ! There was an ample supply, also, of Shakspeare'a mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross, of which there is enough extant to build a ship of the line. The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakspeare's chair. It stands in the chimney nook ^ Irving added his name to the motley collection, writing these four lines, and signing them, " Washington Irving. Seiy ond visit, October, 1821." " Of mighty Shakspeare's birth the room we see. That where he died in vain to find we try ; Uaelesa the search — for all immortal he. And those who are immortal never die." STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 123 of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching the slowly revolving spit with all the longing of an urchin ; or of an evening listen- ing to the cronies and gossips of Stratford dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the custom of every one that visits the house to sit : whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to say ; I merely mention the fact ; and mine hostess privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, the chair had to be new bottomed at least once in three years. It is worthy of notice also, in the history of this ex- traordinary chair, that it partakes something of the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto,^ or the flying chair of the Arabian enchanter ; for though sold some few years since to a northern princess, yet, strange to tell, it has found its way back again to the old chimney corner. I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of gob= lins and great men ; and would advise all travellers who travel for their gratification to be the same. What is it to us, whether these stories be true or false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and enjoy all the charm of the reality ? There is nothing like resolute good-himiored credulity 1 The legend runs that the house in which the Virgin was born was carried by angels from Nazareth, in 1295, tc Lorettc^ m Italy. 124 WASHINGTON IRVING. in these matters ; and on this occasion I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine hostess to a lineal descent from the poet, when, luckily, for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own com- position, which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance. From the birthplace of Shakspeare a few paces brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chan» eel of the parish church, a large and venerable pile^ mouldering with age, but richly ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and re- tired: the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the church porch. The graves are overgrown with grass ; the gray tombstones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are half covered with moss, which has likewise tinted the reverend old building. Small birds have built their nests among the cornices and fissures of the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirp- ing ; and rooks are sailing and cawing about its lofty gray spire. In the course of my rambles I met with the gray- headed sexton, Edmonds, and accompanied him home to get the key of the church. He had lived in Strat- ford, man and boy, for eighty years, and seemed still to consider himself a vigorous man, with the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use of his legs for a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage, S TRA TFGRD-ON-A VON. 125 looking out upon the Avon and its bordering mead- ows ; and was a picture of that neatness, order, and comfort, which pervade the humblest dwellings in this country. A low whitewashed room, with a stone floor carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, and hall. Rows of pewter and earthen dishes glit- tered along the dresser. On an old oaken table, well rubbed and polished, lay the family Bible and prayer* book, and the drawer contained the family library, composed of about half a score of well-thumbed vol- umes. An ancient clock, that important article of cottage furniture, ticked on the opposite side of the room ; with a bright warming-pan hanging on one side of it, and the old man's horn-handled Sunday cane on the other. The fireplace, as usual, was wide and deep enough to admit a gossip knot within its jambs. In one corner sat the old man's granddaugh- ter sewing, a pretty blue-eyed girl, — and in the oppo- site corner was a superannuated crony, whom he ad- dressed by the name of John Ange, and who, I found, had been his companion from childhood. They had played together in infancy ; they had worked together in manhood ; they were now tottering about and gos- sipir y away the evening of life ; and in a short time they will probably be buried together in the neigh-' boring churchyard. It is not often that we see two streams of existence running thus evenly and tran-^ quilly side by side ; it is only in such quiet ''bosom scenes " of life that they are to be met with. I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes of the bard from these ancient chroniclers ; but they had nothing new to impart. The long interval dur- ing which Shakspeare's v/ritings lay in comparative aeglect has spread its &had9w over his history ; and 126 WASHINGTON IRVING. it is his good or evil lot that scarcely anything remains to his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures. The sexton and his companion had been employed as carpenters on the preparations for the celebrated Stratford jubilee, and they remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who superintended the ar* rangements, and who, according to the sexton, was " a short punch man, very lively and bustling." John Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, of which he had a morsel in his pocket for sale ; no doubt a sovereign quickener of literary conception. I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the Shakspeare house. John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her valuable collection of relics, particularly her remains of the mulberry-tree ; and the old sexton even expressed a doubt as to Shak- speare having been born in her house. I soon dis- covered that he looked upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival to the poet's tomb ; the latter having comparatively but few visitors. Thus it is that histo- rians differ at the very outset, and mere pebbles make the stream of truth diverge into different channels even at the fountain head. We approached the church through the avenue of limes, and entered by a Gothic porch, highly orna- mented, with carved doors of massive oak. The in- terior is spacious, and the architecture and embellish ments superior to those of most country churches. There are several ancient monuments of nobility and gentry, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The STRA TFORD-ON-A VOjV. 127 tomb of Shakspeare is in the chancel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A flat stone marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to have been written by himself, and which have in them something extremely awful. If they are indeed his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of the grave, which seems natural to fine sensibilities and thoughtful minds. "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbcare To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be he that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones." Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of Shakspeare, put up shortly after his death, and considered as a resemblance. The aspect is plea- sant and serene, with a finely arched forehead ; and I thought I could read in it clear indications of that cheerful, social disposition, by which he was as much characterized among his contemporaries as by the vastness of his genius. The inscription mentions his age at the time of his decease — fifty-three years ; an untimely death for the world : for what fruit might not have been expected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was from the stormy vi- cissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sunshine of popular and royal favor. The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its effect. It has prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contem- 128 WASHINGTON IRVING. plated.i A few years since, also, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle with his remains so awfully guarded by a malediction ; and lest any of the idle or the curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit depreda* tions, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two days, until the vault was finished and the aper- ture closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, J thought, to have seen the dust of Shakspeare. Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite daughter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb close by, also, is a full-length effigy of his old friend John Combe of usurious memory ; on whom he is said to have written a ludicrous epitaph. There are other monuments around, but the mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not connected with Shak- speare. His idea pervades the place ; the whole pile seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in per- feet confidence : other traces of him may be false or dubious, but here is palpable evidence and absolute certainty. As I trod the sounding pavement, there was something intense and thrilling in the idea, that, in very truth, the remains of Shakspeare were moul- dering beneath my feet. It was a long time before 1 1 The reader will find an interesting sketch by Hawthorne in Our Old Home, entitled "Recollections of a Gifted Woman,* which narrates one futile attempt to examine Shakspeare's grave. STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, 129 could prevail upon myself to leave the place ; and as I passed through the churchyard, I plucked a branch from one of the yew-trees, the only relic that I have brought from Stratford. I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys, at Charlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakspeare, in company with some of the roysters of Stratford, committed his youthful offence of deer-stealing. In this hare-brained exploit we are told that he was taken prisoner, and carried to the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in doleful captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy, his treatment must have been galling and humiliating ; for it so wrought upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade, which was affixed to the park gate at Charlecot.^ This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the knight so incensed him, that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakspeare did not wait to brave the united puissance of a knight of the shire and a country attorney. He forthwith abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon and his paternal trade ; wandered away to London ; became ^ The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon r-^ ** A parliament member, a justice of peace, At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse. If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it. He thinks himself great ; Yet an asse in his state. We allow by his ears but with asses to mate, If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, Then sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it." W. L *80 WASHINGTON IRVING. a hanger-on to the theatres ; then an actor ; and^ finally, wrote for the stage ; and thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford lost an indifferent wool-comber, and the world gained an im- mortal poet. He retained, however, for a long time,^ a sense of the harsh treatment of the Lord of Charle- cot, and revenged himself in his v/ritings ; but in the sportive way of a good-natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the original Justice Shallow, and the satire is slyly fixed upon him by the justice's armorial bearings, which, like those of the knight, had white luces ^ in the quarterings. Various attempts have been made by his biogra- phers to soften and explain away this early transgres- sion of the poet ; but I look upon it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural to his situation and turn of mind. Shakspeare, when young, had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, undisci- plined, and undirected genius. The poetic tempera- ment has naturally something in it of the vagabond. When left to itself it runs loosely and wildly, and delights in everything eccentric and licentious. It is often a turn-up of a die, in the gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius shall turn out a great rogue or a great poet ; and had not Shakspeare's mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have as daringly transcended all civil, as he has all dra- matic laws. I have little doubt that, in early life, when run- ning, like an unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of Stratford, he was to be found in the company of all kinds of odd anomalous characters ; that he asso *' The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon al>ouf' Charlecot. W. I. STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, KSl ciated with all the madcaps of the place, and was one of those unlucky urchins, at mention of whom old men shake their heads, and predict that they will one day come to the gallows. To him the poaching in Sir Thomas Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish knight, and struck his eager, and, as yet untamed, imagination, as something delightfully adventurous.^ ^ A proof of Shakspeare's random habits and associates in his youthful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, and mentioned in his Pitduresque Views on the Avon, About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market town of Bedford, famous for its ale. Tvvo societies of the village yeomanry used to meet, under the appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the neighboring villages to a contest of drinking. Among others, the people of Stratford were called out to prove the strength of their heads ; and in the number of the champions was Shak- speare, who, in spite of the proverb that " they who drink beer will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to bis sack. The chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a retreat while they had yet legs to carry them off the field. They had scarcely marched a mile when, their legs fail- ing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab-tree, where they passed the night. It is still standing, and goes by the name of Shakspeare's tree. In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and pro- posed returning to Bedford, but he declined, saying he had had enough, having drank with Piping Peb worth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford. "The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, "still bear the epithets thus given them : the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor ; Hilborough is nov/ called Haunted Hilborough ; and Grafton is famous for the Doverty of its soil," W. J. 132 WASHINGTON IRVING. The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly interestiijg, from being connected with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the scanty history of the bard. As the house stood but little more than three miles' distance from Stratford. I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from which Shakspeare must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery. The country was yet naked and leafless ; but Eng. Ush scenery is always verdant, and the sudden change in the temperature of the weather was surprising in its quickening effects upon the landscape. It was inspiring and animating to witness this first awakening of spring ; to feel its warm breath stealing over the senses; to see the moist mellow earth beginning to put forth the green sprout and the tender blade : and the trees and shrubs, in their reviving tints and burst- ing buds, giving the promise of returning foliage and flower. The cold snow-drop, that little borderer on the skirts of winter, was to be seen with its chaste white blossoms in the small gardens before the cot- tages. The bleating of the new-dropt lambs was faintly heard from the fields. The sparrow twittered about the thatched eaves and budding hedges; the robin threw a livelier note into his late querulous wintry strain ; and the lark, springing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents ^f melody. As I watched the little songster, mounting up higher and higher, until his body was a mere speck on the white bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still filled with his music, it called to mind Shakspeare's exaui ♦ite little song in " Cymbeline ' ""^ STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. Vd'sS * Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sin^^ And Phcebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs, On chaliced flowers that lies. ** And winking mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes ; With every thing that pretty bin, My lady sweet arise ! " indeed the whole country about here is poetic ground: everything is associated with the idea of Shakspeare. Every old cottage that I saw, I fan- cied into some resort of his boyhood, where he had acquired his intimate knowledge of rustic life and manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft into his dramas. For in his time, we are told, it was a popular amusement in winter evenings " to sit round the fire, and tell merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars." ^ My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made a variety of the most fancy dou blings and windings through a wide and fertile val ley ; sometimes glittering from among willows, which fringed its borders ; sometimes disappearing among groves, or beneath green banks ; and sometimes ram- ' Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, enumerates a host oj these fireside fancies. " And they have so fraid us with bull* beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunas, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changelinga» incubus, Robin-good-fellow, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oka, the hell-waine, the fier-drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe. bobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, thai 3sre were afraid of our own shadows- '^ W, L 134 WASHINGTON IRVING. bling ovit into full view, and making an azure sweep round a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom of country is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be iti> boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner enchained in the silver links of the 4von. After pursuing the road for about three miles. I turned off into a footpath, which led along the bor ders of fields, and under hedgerows to a private gat( of the park ; there was a stile, however, for the ben- efit of the pedestrian ; there being a public right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospita ble estates, in which every one has a kind of property — at least as far as the footpath is concerned. It in Bome measure reconciles a poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to the better lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds thrown open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air as freely, and lolls as luxuriously under the shade, as the lord of the soil ; and if he has not the privilege of calling all that he sees his own, he has not, at the same time, the trouble of paying for it, and keeping it in order. I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, whose vast size bespoke the gTowth of centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary oests in the treetops. The eye ranged through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the view but a distant statue ; and a vagrant deer stalking Uke a shadow across the opening. There is something about these stately old avenues that has the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely Iroin the pretended similarity of form, but from theb STEA TFORD-ON-A VON. 135 bearing the evidence of long duration, and of having had their origin in a period of time with which we associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken also the long-settled dignity, and proudly concentrated independence of an ancient family ; and I have heard a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when speaking of the sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, that " money could do much with stone and mortar but, thank Heaven, there was no such thing as sud- denly building up an avenue of oaks/' It was from wandering in early life among this rich scenery, and about the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then formed a part of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakspeare'g commentators have supposed he derived his noble forest meditations of Jaques, and the enchanting wood land pictures in " As You Like It." It is in lonely wanderings through such scenes, that the mind drinks deep but quiet draughts of inspiration, and becomes intensely sensible of the beauty and majesty of nature. The imagination kindles into reverie and rapture ; vague but exquisite images J^nd ideas keep breaking upon it ; and we revel in a mute and almost incom- municable luxury of thought. It was in some such mood, and perhaps under one of those very trees before me, which threw their broad shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters of the Avon, that the poet's fancy may have sallied forth into that littlf song which breathes the very soul of a rui-al volup tuary — •* Under the green wood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry throat Unto the sweet hird's note 136 WASHINGTON IRVING. Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see No enemy. But winter and rough weather." I had now come in sight of the house. It is a iarge building of brick, with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, having been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior remains very nearly in its original state, and may be considered a fair specimen of the residence of a wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great gateway opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the house, ornamented with a grass-plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway is in imitation of the ancient barbacan ; being a kind of outpost, and flanked by towers ; though evidently for mere orna- ment, instead of defence. The front of the house is completely in the old style ; with stone-shafted case- ments, a great bow-window of heavy stone-work, and a portal with armorial bearings over it, carved in stone. At each corner of the building is an octagon tower, surmounted by a gilt ball and weather-cock. The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just at the foot of a gently sloping bank, which sweeps down from the rear of the house. Large herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders ; and swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venerable old mansion, I called to mind Falstaff 's encomium on Justice Shal- low's abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of the latter : — •* Falstaff, You have a goodly dwelling and a rich. Shallow. Barren, barren, barren ; beggars all, beggars all Sir John : — marry, good air." STRA TFORD-ON-'A VON. 137 What may have been the joviality of the old man- sion in the days of Shakspeare, it had now an air of stillness and solitude. The great iron gateway that opened into the courtyard was locked ; there was no show of servants bustling about the place ; the deei gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat, stealing with wary look and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on some nefarious expedition. I must not omit to mention the carcass of a scoundrel crow which I saw suspended against the barn wall, as it shows that the Lucys still inherit that lordly abhor- rence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise of territorial power, which was so strenuously mani- fested in the case of the bard. After prowling about for some time, I at length found my way to a lateral portal, which was the e/ery-day entrance to the mansion. I was courteously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of her order, showed ni3 the interior of the house. The greater part has undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern tastes and modes of living : there is a fine old oaken staircase ; and the great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-house, still retains much of the appear ance it must have had in the days of Shakspeare The ceiling is arched and lofty; and at one end is a gallery in which stands an organ. The weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for family portraits. There is a wide hospitable fireplace, calculated for an ample old-fashioned wood fire, for- merly the rallying-place of winter festivity. On the 138 WASHINGTON IRVING. opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic bow- window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the courtyard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial bearings of the Lucy family for many gener- ations, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe in the quartering^ the three white liices^ by which the character of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in the first scene of the "Merry Wives of Windsor,' where the Justice is in a rage with Falstaff for having " beaten his men, killed his deer, and broken into his lodge." The poet had no doubt the offences of himself and his comrades in mind at the time, and we may suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the puissant Shallow to be a caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas. " Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not : I will make a Star- Chamber matter of it ; if he were twenty John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow, Esq. Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram. Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum. Slender, Ay, and ratalorum too, and a gentleman born, ma?*^ ter parson ; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant- quittance, or obligation, Armigero. Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three liundred years. Slender. All his successors gone before him have done 't, and all his ancestors that come after him may; they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. . . . Shallow. The council shall hear it ; it is a riot. Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot ; there is no fear of Got in a riot ; the council, hear you, shall desire to heai the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot ; take your vizaments in that. Shallow. Ha I o' my life, if I were young again, the sworo should end it I " STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 139 Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait 6y Sir Peter Lely, of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the time of Charles the Second : the old housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the pic- ture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away a great por- tion of the family estate, among which was that part of the park where Shakspeare and his comrades had killed the deer. The lands thus lost had not been entirely regained by the family even at the present day. It is but justice to this recreant dame to con- fess that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm. The picture which most attracted my attention was a great painting over the fireplace, containing like- nesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family, who in- habited the hall in the latter part of Shakspeare's lifetime. I at first thought that it was the vindictive knight himself, but the housekeeper assured me that it was his son ; the only likeness extant of the foi mer being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the neighboring hamlet of Charlecot.^ The picture gives ^ This effigy is in white marble, and represents the Knight in complete armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on her tomb is the following inscription ; which, if really composed by her husband, places him quite above the intellectual level of Master Shallow : — Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly king- dom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our Lord God 1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a true and faythful servant of her good God, never detected of any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her husband most faythful and true. In friendship most constant ; to what in trust was committed unto her most secret. In wisdom ox 140 WASHINGTON IRVING. 5L Ii\ely idea of the costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet; whit^ shoes with roses in them ; and has a peaked yellow- or, as Master Slender would say, " a cane-colored beard.'* His lady is seated on the opposite side of the picture, in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the family group ; a hawk is seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow ; — * all intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking, and archery — so indispensable to an accomplishec gentleman in those days.^ I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had disappeared ; for I had hoped to meet with celling". In governing of her house, bringing up of youth in ye fear of God that did converse with her moste rare and singu- lar. A great maintayner of hospitality. Greatly esteemed of hex betters ; misliked of none unless of the envyous. When all is spoken that can be saide a woman so garnished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuously so shee died most Godly. Set downe by him yt best did knowe what hath byn written to be true. « Thomas Lucye." W. I. ^ Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his time, observes, ** his housekeeping is seen much in the different families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels \ and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse, A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceed- ingly ambitious to seem delighted with the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses." And Gilpin, in his description of a Mr. Hastings, remarks, ** he kept all sorts of hounds that run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; and had hawks of all kinds both long and short winged. His great hall was commonly Btrewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds^ spaniels, and terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, la] spme of the choicest terriers, hounds, a^d spaniels.** W I STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 141 fche stately elbow^hair of carved oak, in which the country squire of former days was wont to sway the sceptre of empire over his rural domains ; and in which it might be presumed the redoubted Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state when the recreant Shak- $peare was brought before him. As I like to dech (Mat pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased my^ self with the idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the morn- ing after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to my- self the rural potentate, surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving-men, with their badges ; while the luckless culprit was brought in, forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody of game- keepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the halt opened doors ; while from the gallery the fair daugh- ters of the knight leaned gracefully forward, eyeing the youthful prisoner with that pity " that dwells io womanhood." — ^Who would have thought that this poor varlet, thus trembling before the brief authority of a country squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of princes, the theme of all tongues and ages, the dictator to the human mind, and was to confer immortality on his oppressor by a caricature and a lampoon ! I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, and I felt inclined to visit the orchard and arbor where the Justice treated Sir John Falstaff and Cousin Silence -'to a last year's pippin of his own grafting, with a dish of caraways ; " but I had already spent so much of the day in my ramblings that I was obliged to give up any further investigations. When 142 WASHINGTON IRVING. about to take my leave I was gratified by the clvii entreaties of the housekeeper and butler, that I worjld take some refreshment : an instance of good old hos- pitality which, I grieve to say, we castle-hunters sel- dom meet v/ith in modern days. I make no doubt it is a virtue which the present representative of the jLucys inherits from his ancestors ; for Shakspeare, STen in his caricature, makes Justice Shallow impor- tunate in this respect, as witness his pressing instances to Falstaff. " By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night. ... 1 will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; excuses shall not be admitted ; there is no excuse shall serve ; you shall not be excused. . . . Some pigeons, Davy ; a couple of short-legged hens ; a joint of mutton ; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook." I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind had become so completely possessed by the imaginary scenes and characters connected with it, that 1 seemed to be actually living among them, Everything brought them, as it were, before my eyes r and as the door of the dining-room opened, I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty : — " 'T is merry in hall, when beards wag all, And welcome merry shrove-tide ! '' On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the singular gift of the poet ; to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face of nature; to give to things and places a charm an