THE ALHAMBEA fHacmillan's! mirfert ^[mnicau anti Englisij Clas^in' A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. i6mo Cloth 25 cents each Addison's Sir Roger de v^overley. Andersen's Fairy Tales. Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Arnold's Sonrab and Rustum. Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Bacon's Essays. Bible (Memorable Passages f rorr . Blackmore's Lorna Doone. Browning's Shorter Poems. Browning, Mrs., Poems (Selected). Bryant's Thanatop?;s. etc. Bulwer's Last Days of Pompeii. Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Burns' Poems (Selections from). Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron's Shorter Poems. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero "Worship. Carroll's Alice's Adventures in "Wonder- land Ullustrated). Chaucer's Prologue and Knight's Tale. Church's The Story of the Iliad. Church's The Story of the Odyssey. Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Cooper's The Deerslayer. Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. Cooper'? The Spy- Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. De Quincey's Confe.snfons of an English Opium- Eater. De Quincey's Joan of Arc. and The Eng- lish Mail-Coach. Dickens* A Christmas Carol, and The Cricket on the Hearth. Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens' David Copperfield- Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. Early American Orations. 1760-1824. Edwards' (Jonathan) Sermons. Eliot's Silas Marner. Emerson's Essays. Emerson's Early Poems. Emerson's Representative Men. English Narrative Poems. Epoch-making Papers in U. S. Histcr-. Franklin's .AiUtobiography. Gaskell's Crantord. C-oldsmith's The Deserted Village, She Stoops to Conquer, and The Good- natured Man. Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. Gray's Elegy, etc., and Cowper's John Gilpin, etc. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Hale's The Man Without a Country. Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. Hawthorne's Mosses from an O'd Manse. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne's Twice-told Tales (.Selections from). Hawthorne's Wonder-Book. Holmes' Poems. Homer's Iliad (Translated). Homer's Odvssey (Translated). Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days. Huxley's Selected Essays and Address?" Irving's Life of Goldsmith. Irving's Knickerbocker. Irving's The Alhambra. Irving's Sketch Book v Irving's Tales of a Traveller. Keary's Heroes of Asgard. Kempis. a : The Imitation of Chn'-\ Kingsley's The Heroes Lamb's The Essays of Eiia. Lamb's Tales from Shakespear». Lincoln's Addresses, Inaugurals, an . Letters. Longfellow's Evangel'ne. Longfellow's Hiawatha. Longfellow's Miles Standish. Longfellow's Miles Standish and Minor Poems. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. Lowell's The Vision of Sir LaunfaL Macaulay's Essay on Addison. Macaulay's Essav on Hastings. Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive. Macaulay's Essay on Milton. iilacmtllan'5 IPorfect 2lmrrtcau anti lEntjlislj Claissics A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc i6mo Cloth 25 cents each Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. Vlacaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Milton's Comus and Other Poems. Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I. and IL Old English Ballads. Old Testament (Selections from). Out of the Northland. Palgrave's Golden Treasury. Parkman's Oregon Trail. Plutarch's Lives (.Caesar, Brutus, and Mark Antony). Poe's Poems. Poe's Prose Tales (Selections from). Poems, Narrative and Lyrical. Pope's Homer's Iliad. Pope's Homer's Odyssey. Pope's The Rape of the Lock. Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies- Ruskin'sThe Crown of Wild Olive and Queen of the Air. Scott's Ivanhoe. Scott's Kenilworth. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. Scott'? Marmion. Scott's Quentin Durward. Scott's The Talisman. S'-'ect Orations. Se'ect Poems, for required reading in Secondary Schools. S^nkespeare's As You Like It. Sh-ikespeare's As You Like It (Tudor). Shikespeare's Comedy of Errors (Tu- dor). Shakespeare's Coriolanus (Tudor) Shakespeare's Hamlet Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I (Tudor) Shakespeare's Henry V. Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part I (Tudor). Shakespeare's Henrv VIM (Tudor). Shakespeare's Julius Csesar. Shakespeare's King Lear. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Shakespeare's Macbeth (Tudor). Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Tudor). Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (Tu- dor). Shakespeare's Richard II. Shakespeare's Romeoand Juliet(Tudor). Shakespeare's The Tempest. Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (Tu- dor). Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Shelley and Keats: Poems. Sheridan's The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Southern Poets : Selections. Southern Orators: Selections. Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I. Stevenso I's Kidnapped. Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae. Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey, and An Inland Voyage. Stevenson's Treasure Island. Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Tennyson's In Memoriam. Tennyson's The Princess. Tennyson's Shorter Poems. Thackeray's English Humourists. Thackeray's Henry Esmond. Thoreau's 'Walden. Virgil's ^neid. Washington's Farewell Address, and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. Whittier's Snow-Bound and Other Early Poems. Woolman's Journal. Wordsworth's Shorter Poems. *J^j Copyright, 1S99, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped December, iSgg. Reprinted Augusi? October, igoo; April, July, 1901 j March, 1902 ; March. September, 1003: March, 1904 ". February, September, 1905; January, 1906; March, 1907 ; May, 1908; October, 1509 ; June, 1910 ; April, 1911 ; Februar}', August, 1912. EXCHANGE o JUi^ 12 1944 Serial Record Division Tl;c Library oft 01 gf ess Copy CONTENTS PAGK The Journey 1 Palace of the Alhambra ....... 31 Important Negotiations — The Author succeeds to the Throne op Boabdil ....... 44 Inhabitants or the Alhambra ...... 50 The Hall of Ambassadors ....... 55 The Jesuits' Library ........ 60 Alhamar, the Founder of the Alhambra ... 60 YusEF Abul Hagig, the Finisher of the Alhambra . 67 The Mysterious Chambers . . . . . . .71 Panorama from the To^vER or Comares .... 79 The Truant . SQ The Balcony 89 The Adventure of the Mason ...... 95 The Court of Lions 98 The Abencerrages . 105 Mementos of Boabdil . , .116 Public Fetes of Granada 121 Local Traditions 128 The House of the Weathercock 130 V VI CONTEXTS LectEnt) of the Arabiax Astrologer Visitors to the Alhambra .... Relics and Genealogies .... The Generalife , Legend of Prince Ahmed al Kamel ; or, The Pilgrim OF Love ....... A Kamble among the Hills Legend of the Moor's Legacy . The Tower of Las Infantas Legend of the Three Beautiful Princesses Legend of the Rose of the Alhambra . The Veteran The Governor and the Notary Governor Manco and the Soldier . A Ff;te in the Alhambra .... Legend of the T\vo Discreet Statues The Crusade of the Grand Master of AlcAn Spanish Romance ...... Legend of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa Poets and Poetry of Moslem Andalus . An Expedition in Quest of a Diploma The Legend of the Enchanted Soldier . The Author's Fareavell to Granada tar A PAGK 133 152 150 150 IGl 192 200 221 222 24(1 201 203 270 287 292 309 317 310 320 332 335 350 LIFE OF IRVING WashinOtTON Irving was born in New York, April 3, 1783, and died at Sunnysido, his country home near Tarrytovvn, N. Y,, Nov. 28, 1859. These (Uites are easily nnnenibered if we bear in nund that his lile lies, roughly speaking, between the close of the Revolution and the beginning of the Civil War. Altiiougii of no great sigiiilieanee, it is interesting to know that the Irvings traced their ancestry back to one who was Robert Bruee's armor-bearer. Irving's father was born in one of the Orkmy Islands. When a young man he went to sea and after a little became a minor officer on a British packet sailing between Falmoutli and New York. At Falmouth he met and married Sarah Sanders, and soon after, still a young man, he left the sea and became a merchant in New York. He was a good man, strictly lionest, a stern Presbyteiian. Mrs. Irving was a warm-hearted woman of tine nature and good intellect. One gains the impression that the children respected their father and loved their mother. Wasliington was the youngest of eleven children, seven of whom lived to be men and women. The story of his boyhood is not remarkable. He was lively, full of mischief At school he did reasonably well without showing unusual brilliancy. His scliool days were over at sixteen. He was a reading boy : PU(irinis Frof/reitit, Robinson Cruxoe, and 77ie Ai'aldan Nights were early fiivorites with him. Ecpially delightful was a set of twenty small volumes of voyages and travels entitled The World Displayed. Another work that kindled his imagi- Yiii LIFE OF IRVING nation and gave him a desire to travel was a History of the Civil Wars of Granada. He was fond, too, of the theatre, and saw many plays, we are told, when his strict father thought him in bed. More important still, he liked to scribble. Tradition tells of a poem, written when he was but ten, to ridicule a playmate ; and of a play composed at thirteen. About this time, too, he published a few " mojal essays " in The Weekly Museum. Fortunately these productions are lost. They are of value only because they show an early tendency toward authorship. From the close of his school days till he was twenty-one there is little to chronicle. He studied law in a half-hearted way, but law was as distasteful to him as Latin. The monotony was broken by two trips, forerunners of the many long journeys which made Irving conspicuous as a traveller. The first of these was up the Hudson to Albany, thence overland to Johnstown where a married sister lived ; the other was to Montreal. We can hardly realize how much these expeditions meant to young Irving. The Hudson must be slowly sailed up in a sloop ; from Albany to Montreal much of the way lay through wild forests, over roads frequently almost impassable. There were discomforts to be endured, and real dangers. Adventures came unsought. During this time, moreover, Irving published in Tht Morniwj Chronicle, a journal edited by his brother Peter, a few letters signed Jonathan Oldstyle. They were modelleii after The Spectator Papers, typical eighteenth-century essays, humorously satirizing New York manners from the standpoint of an old man. They are of moderate merit, clever enough for a young man of nineteen, and furnish a valuable, though limited, picture of society as it was in 1800. Summarizing these twenty one years, we should remember that Irving was well born ; that his schooling amounted to little, much of his education being obtained through associating freely with intelligent people, through journeys long for those LIFE OF IRVING ix days, and through reading books — particularly such as quicken the imagination and give one a desire to travel. He had a good disposition that won friends ; he was unhampered by poverty. He had already learned the delights of composition. Irving was in poor health. Hoping that travel might do him good, his brothers sent him to Europe for two years, dur- ing which he visited France, Sicily, Italy, Holland, and Eng- land. It was purely a pleasure trip, not without adventures with pirates by sea and robbers by land. He met delightful people everywhere, and occasionally the "young American traveller " was lionized. His longest stay was at Paris, where he attended the theatre more regularly than he did the lecture- room. No doubt some of the time during these two years might have been spent more profitably ; for the most part, how- ever, the trip was successful, and Irving returned home in excellent health. This brings us to a period of nine years (1806-1815) following his return from Europe. He was soon admitted to the bar, and shared his brother John's office in Wall Street. Hardly can it be said that he practised law. A few years later he went into partnership with his brothers, Ebenezer and Peter, pro- prietors of a large importing house having a branch in Liver- pool. But it was plainly understood that the youngest brother should share the profits without doing any great amount of work. This arrangement, by means of which the Irvings had practically a common purse, continued through life. We may think of Irving, therefore, not as closely employed in business affairs, but as an agreeable man about town; one of the "sad dogs " whom he had satirized in the Oldstyle letters ; a young man of literary promise who had been abroad — a rarer thing then than now, when one may cross the Atlantic between two Saturdays. Occasionally he made a business trip to Washing- ton or Montreal, occasionally a pleasure trip to Baltimore or Philadelphia ; but for the most part he remained in New York. X LIFE OF IRVING Out of this manner of living grew his second literary ven- ture. In company with his brother William and his good friend Paulding, he published Salmagundi, " a small pamphlet in neat yellow covers," which appeared at irregular intervals for about a year — twenty numbers in all. "Our intention," proclaimed the editors under appropriate pen names, " is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." It caused a breeze in the little city, its pleasantly sharp satire meeting much the same reception as was accorded The Spectator of one hundred years before. Two years later (1809) Irving published A History of Neiv York by Diedrich Knickerbocker, which established his reputa- tion. It is a comic history of the city under early Dutch rule. The work was heralded by a number of sham advertisements, the purport of. which was that an eccentric old man, Diedrich Knickerbocker, had recently disappeared from his lodgings. He had left behind him nothing but a "curious manuscript" which his landlord proposed to publish to pay for the ola gentleman's board. It was a great success. Some were slow to appreciate its humor, and a few thought their sacred ances- tors had been handled too freely ; but at last the joke was appreciated by all. How very popular this history has been is attested by the liberal way in which the word Knickerbocker has been iisetl in the commercial world. It is like the word Pickwick in England and Waverley in Scotland. Except a few minor essays, written for the Analectic Maga- zine, of which Irving was for a' time editor, the two publications mentioned are all that belong to this period. Before passing on, however, mention should be made of an event of great significance — the death of Matilda Hoffman, a girl of beautiful character, to whom Irving was engaged. This extreme sorrow colored the remainder of his life. He did not marrj^, and after his death evidence was found that he had cherished this sorrow through many years. It is well to remember Miss Hotfmau LIFE OF IRVING xi in connection with the ancestor who served Robert Bruce the one typifying the tender sentiment, the other the romantic element, in Irving's character. And now we come to a period of seventeen years (1815-1832) spent abroad in England, France, and Spain, with side trips to Scotland, Wales, and Germany. It is odd that he should have remained abroad so long, even though we remember that one of his sisters then lived in Birmingham, and his brother Peter lived in Liverpool ; remember, too, how fond he was of travel The long stay was unpremeditated ; one thing after another prevented his return. To begin with, his brother was in poor health, unable to attend to business ; affairs were in a bad way owing to a depression in trade. For three years, except for occasional vacation trips, one of which took him to Abbotsford and resulted in a lifelong friendship with Sir Walter, the young author kept closely to business, a novel and far from pleasant experience. Matters grew worse, and finally the firm became bankrupt. It was a hard blow to bear, yet it resulted eventu- ally in good ; for Irving, although not absolutely penniless, felt that he must write steadily to gain a living. He went to Lon- don, like so many other authors before his day, and trusted entirely to his pen. In 1819-1820 appeared The Sketch-Booh, first issued in Amer- ica in seven thin volumes published at irregular intervals, after- wards published in England in two volumes. We are all familiar with its contents — fanciful and sentimental essays, with here and there a humorous tale gracefully told. The sales were tremendous, for those days, in England as well as America Two years later Bracehridge Hall appeared, written principally in Pans, where Irving was then living with his invalid brother It is really a second sketch-book, telling of the holiday happen- ings at an English country seat. Two or three tales mingle with the narrative. Two years later still, after a year or so of travel in central Europe, a third sketch-book appeared, Tales oj Xil LIFE OF IRVING a Traveller, a collection of stories picked up here and there dur- ing his travels, or half remembered from early reading. The author imagines himself interrupted in a voyage down the Rhine by illness, which confines him to an inn. He writes to while away time. These three works, so like in character, do not differ greatly in merit. The Sketch-Boole, partly because first to appear, partly because it contains " Rip Van Winkle " and " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," remains the favorite. It is the most American of the three. In 1826, Irving, having now lived abroad about ten years, turned his attention to a new field. For years Spain had been to him an enchanted land. A desire to visit the country, kindled years before through reading Gines Perez de Hytas's History of the Civil Wars of Granada, had been increased by a study of Spanish literature. We next hear of him in Madrid, attached for convenience to the American legation, hard at work. In two years appeared The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, based principally upon a Spanish work just then being published. It was followed three years later by The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. But Spain abounds in legends, its history is most romantic ; and it was inevitable that as Irving pored over parchment tomes his interest should wander from that which pertained to Columbus alone. Particularly was he pleased with the part the Moors had played in Spanish history. A year after Voyages of Columbus appeared, he published The Conquest of Granada, and two years later still The Alhambra. The first of these tells, in graceful English, how the Moors, after seven hundred years' dominion, were driven out of Spain. The Alhambra, per- haps the best of all his sketch-books, grew out of a three months' residence in the almost deserted palace and fortification of Al- hambra in Granada. It consists of chapters of Moorish history, accounts of daily happenings, and a number of Moorish legends. It was while dreaming away his time most happily in this LIFE OF IRVING xiii ancient palace and resting after the severe labor connected with his Spanish works, that news reached Irving of his appointment as Secretary of the American Legation to London, a diplomatic position which he filled with credit for two years. At the end of this period he resigned his post to return to America. Much might be said of what Irving did during these seven- teen years abroad besides the writing of books. Although lie suffered frequently from ill health, the time passed pleasantly on tlie w^hole. He read many books, saw many plays, travelled where fancy led. He mingled much with society of the best kind, meeting most of the noted men and women of the day. He made warm friendships everywhere. His reputation as a writer and his gentlemanly bearing were a passport wherever he went. The Royal Academy of History in Madrid awarded him a medal; Oxford conferred the degree of LL.D. amid cries of "Knickerbocker" and "Rip Van Winkle." Nor were honors lacking in his own country. On his arrival in New York he was greeted with a public dinner ; later he was asked to run as candidate for mayor of the city. He declined to accept a cabinet position in Washington. With fame had come moderate wealth, for his books had all brought large sums; and although he had lost much through bad invest- ments and had given liberal sums to his brother Peter, he was in comfortable circumstances. Irving remained in America ten years. Out of a trip taken with a government commission to the Indian tribes vi tlie Great Plains, came A Tour of the Prairie. This led to Astoria, an account of Mr. Aster's attempt to found a settle- ment at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Adventure& of Captain Bonneville makes a tliird book dealing with the West. These little -read books are inferior to his other works. Their subject-matter excludes the possibility of great originality; yet they form a trio of interest to all who are fond of adventure as it appeared in the old trapping daya> xiv LIFE GF IRVING Ahbofsford and Kewstead Abbey, containing accounts of the homes of Scott and Byron, and Legends of the Conquest of S2Mm, are two more vohimes belonging to this period. For many years Irving had been a rover ; now, somewhat advanced in years, he longed for a home. All the world knows of Sunnyside. It was a simple farmstead at first, but under Irving's care it grew into a beautiful home to which nephews, nieces, and other available relatives were welcomed. Here his invalid brother Peter, now a broken old man, came to end his days. It was an expensive establishment to maintain, yet Irving labored willingly to keep it up at a time of life when most men would have rested. It was, indirectly, to maintain this snug little home in which so many of his relatives were comfortably housed that he accepted, when fifty-nine years old, an appointment as Minister to Spain. It was a high honor, but it took him to a country threatened repeatedly with civil war, making his position a difficult one to fill. Ill health, moreover, added discomfort, and he was further disappointed in finding no time for literary work. At the end of four years we find him back at Sunnyside, -udiere he remained till his death. These last years form a happy ending to a long and useful life. He was in his own home, surrounded by those who loved him. Sunnyside was a literary shrine to which the great writers of the day came gladly, and were always warmly welcomed. And yet, there is an element of sadness about his declining years. Though strength was failing him, he felt that he must labor on, partly to support his home, partly to leave behind him a monumental work — something better than his pen had yet achieved, a gift to his country. This magnum ojnis was The Life of George Washington. In addition he carefully revised all his works, and added to them two volumes, Mahomet and his Successoi's ami A Life of Oliver Goldsmith. This was a heavy task for an old man. It was his constant fear that he should not live AN ESTIMATE OF IRVING XV to complete all that he had planned to do. Scarcely ha(t the last page of tlie magnum opus been written when he passed away. His death was a matter for a nation's mourning. Flags in New York were at half-mast. Throughout tlie length and breadth of the land, even beyond the Atlantic, thousands mourned who felt the loss a personal one. His body lies in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery near Sunnyside. Several lives of Irving have been written. By far the best is The Life and Letiers of Washington Irving, by his nephew, Pierre M. Irving, a work in four volumes. Mr. Charles Dudley Warner's Washington Irving in the American Men of Letters Series is the best one-volume biography. Of the many briefer sketches it is impossible to select the best. Periodical indexes, such as are to be found in all libraries, reveal a great many critical and biographical essays. A sane estimate of Irving's place in literature is to be found in Professor C. F. Richardson's American Literature. The brief sketch above owes something to each of these sources. AN ESTIMATE OF IRVING It is pretty well agreed that 'the essential qualities of Irving's works are sentiment and humor. To these might be added an indefinable moral quality akin to that which is sometimes felt m the tone of certain voices. Finally, the charm of his writ- ings consists not so much in subject-matter as in graceful, me- lodious expression. He lacks the fire, the virility, of a great essayist ; the free imagination of a great romancer ; the broach knowledge and fine discrimination of a great historian. He is always entertaining, always worth reading. Irving's place in American literature is clearly defined. He is our first successful man of letters. He is the earliest of a xvi IRVING' S WORKS long line of short-story writers. If we except Franklin, he is our first prominent essayist. As an historian, he leads a re- markable group containing such names as Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Parkman, and Palfrey ; behind him we find but the old annalists of Puritan days, and the later group of minor local historians of whom Belknap is a type. We may almost say that American prose, in the legitimate fields of literature, begins with Washington Irving. Perhaps it is profitless to conjecture what Irving would have produced had he been born in Boston instead of New York ; what effect poverty, or some grief less attractive than the loss of a first love, might have produced in his nature. Living in an era when sentiment often flattened into senti- mentality, and in a country where provincial smartness was sometimes a trifle noisy and boastful, he escaped glaring faults almost entirely. What would Irving produce if he were writing to-day? What would he have produced had he lived in the days of Addison and Steele ? IRVING'S WORKS 1802. Jonathan Oldstyle Papers. Nine letters on drama and fashion in New York, exceedingly interesting in their glimpses of society in 1800. Published in the Morning Chronicle^ edited by his brother Peter. 1807» Salmagundi. "A small pamphlet in neat yellow covers, " published at irreg- ular intervals for a year — twenty numbers in all. Written by Irving, his brother William, and James Kirk Paulding. Satir- ized New York in a manner similar to that of The Spectator^ after which it was patterned. 1809. A History of New York^ by " Diedrich Knickerbocker.'- A comic history of the city under Dutch rule. This work established Irving's reputation as a humorist. IRVING' S WORKS xvii 1819-1820. The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon^ Gent. Essays narrative and descriptive, touched with sentiment and Immor, with here and there a graceful tale. 1822. Bracehridge Hall, by " Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." Similar to The Sketch-Book. The sketches are given unity by being grouped about a visit to an English country seat during the holidays. 1824. Tales of a Traveller, by "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." Stories picked up here and there during his travels, or half remembered from early reading. 1828; The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Based upon Navarre'te's Voyages of Columbus. 1829. Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada. An account of a ten years' war between the Spaniards and the Moors, resulting in the final capture of Granada, and the termination of Moorish dominion in Spain, which had pre- vailed over seven hundred years. 1831. Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. Supplementary to the second work above. 1832. The Alhambra. A Spanish sketch-book, giving an account of a three months' residence in the old Moorish palace. Legends and brief chap- ters of history mingle with the narrative and descriptive sketches. 1835. A Tour of the Prairies. Published as Vol. I. of Crayon Miscellany. An account of a trip to the middle W;est, in company with a government com- mission. 1835. Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. Volume 11. of Crayon Miscellany. Account of visits to homes of Scott and Byron. 1835. Legends of the Conquest of Spain. Volume III. of Crayon 3Iiscellany. Miscellaneous papers, supplementary to The Conquest of Granada. Tells of the downfall of the Goths in Spain, and the coming of the Moors. xviii SUGGESTIOXS FOR STUDY 1836. Astoria. An account of John Jacob Astor's attempt to found a settlement at the mouth of the Cohimbia River. Compiled from documents furnished by Mr. Astor. 1837. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. Irving purchased from Captain Bonneville a manuscript account of his trapping expeditions bej'ond the Rockies, which he elaborated into an interesting volume of adventure. Like Astoria, it has no claim on originality, Irving's part being that of editor, and little more. 1849. Life of Oliver Goldsmith. An excellent biography based upon a brief sketch written years before. Irving and Goldsmith had much in common. 1849. Mahomet and His Successors. Tells of the rise and spread of Mohammedanism up to the invasion of Spain. Charles Kendall Adams says of this work, *' Like all of Irving's histories, it does much to compensate for any lack of profound research by the charm of an unusually attractive style." 1855. Wolfert's Boost. Miscellaneous articles of little value, most of which had been published in the Knickerbocker Magazine. 1855-1859. Life of George Washington. A popular, almost standard account, showing painstaking effort. It has the charm of all his writings, but is the labor of an essayist, not of a statesman or a close student of history. ' SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY Read The Alhambra aloud. Use a dictionary, and a good map of Spain. Study Irving's art and character. Where is he at his best 1 What is the secret of his art? How does he differ from Haw- thorne and Stevenson 1 How does his character differ from ji^our own ? Edward Everett has said, " If any one wishes to study a style which possesses the characteristic beauties of Addi- PREFACE XIX sou, its ease, simplicity, and elegance, with greater accuracy, point, and spirit, let him give his days and nights to the vol- umes of Irving." Is this advice extravagant? Let The Alhanihra be a gateway through which you pass to other literary jourueyings. There are many pleasant paths leading through others of Irving's works; if you like this sketch book, try tlie others. Don Quixote, the masterpiece of Span- ish prose fiction, a humorous extravaganza at which all the world has laughed, is quite a different sort of journey. The Arabian Xiijhfs, a collection of stories related closely to the Moorish tales of the Alhambra, suggests another pleasant route. How does the Arabian tale difier from the Greek myth as retold by Hawtliorne, or from the German folk stories collected by the Grinun brothers? If the historical chapters in The Alhambra have interested you, read the entire account of the Moorish migration as given by Irving in Mahomet and His Successors, Legends of the Con- quest of Spain, and The Conquest of Granada. The Story of the Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane- Poole, and The Christian Recovery of Spain by Henry E. Watts are brief, popular works on this subject. Other chapters of Spanish history are equally interesting. Prescott's 7'he Conquest of Mexico and 7Vie Con- quest of Peru tell in an interesting manner of Spain's conquest in the New World. The best set of illustrations of the Alhambra is an^ expensive folio by Owen Jones. Nearly all recent editions of Irving's works contain a few good illustrations. Baedeker's Sjmin gives valuable information about the Granada of to-day. A. M. H. XX PREFACE PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION Rough (iraughts of some of the following tales ami essays were actually writteu during a residence in the Alhanibra ; others were subsequently added, founded on notes anil observa- tions made there. Care was taken to maintain local coloring and verisimilitude ; so that the whole might present a faithful and living picture of that microcosm, that singular little world into which I had been fortuitously thrown ; and about which the external world had a very imperfect idea. It was my en- deavor scrupulously to depict its half Spanish, half Oriental character; its mixture of tiie heroic, the poetic, and the gro- tesque ; to revive the traces of grace and beauty fast failing from its walls ; to record the regal and chivalrous traditions concerning those who once trod its courts, and the whimsical and superstitious legends of the motley race now burrowing among its ruins. The papers thus roughly sketched out lay for three or four years in my portfolio, until I found myself in London, in 1832, on the eve of returning to the United States. I then endeav- ored to arrange them for the press, but the preparations for departure did not allow sutticient leisure. Several were thrown aside as incomplete ; the rest were put together somewhat hastily and in rather a crude and chaotic manner. In the present edition I have revised and rearranged the whole work, enlarged some parts, and added others, including the papers originally omitted ; and have thus endeavored to render it more complete and more worthy of the indulgent reception with which it has been favored. *vV [. SUNNYSIDE. 185L THE ALHAMBRA THE JOURTTEY In the spring of 1829, the author of this work, whom curi- osity IkkI brought into Spain, made a rambHug cxj)0(lition from Seville to Cranada in company witli a friend, a iiKMubor of the Kussiun Embassy iit Madrid. Accident had thrown us together from distant regions of the globe and a similarity of taste led us to wander together among the romantic mountains of Andalusia. Siiould these pag(\^ meet his eye, wherever thrown by the duties of his station, whether mingling in the pageantry of courts, or meditating on the truer glories of nature, may they recall the scenes of our adventurous com- panionship, and with them the recollection of one, in whom neither time nor distance will obliterate the renuMnbrance of his gentleness and worth.* And here, before setting forth, let me indnlge in a few pre- vious remarks on Spanisli scenery and Spanish travelling. Many are apt to pi(^turc Spain to their imaginations as a soft southern region, decked out with the luxuriant charms of volup- tuons Italy. On the contrary, though there are exceptions in some of the maritime provinces, yet, for the greater part, it is a stern, melancholy country, with rugged mountains, and long fi'weeplng ))lains,