No.223-224. •As? a! in afcL^ maynard's English- Classic Series fc*. ■ — ■ — « — ■ — ■ — ■ — I — I — !—■--?! — I — »-» V & d3 ESSAYS FHOM THE SKETCH BOOK ^ , — — kr WASHINGTON IRVING A I .^3 ■ — ■ — ■ — ■ — ■ — ' EEE r ^ NEW YORK Maynard, Merrill & Co. 29, 31 * 33 East 19™ St. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Wiap^PS Copyright UZQ(a£> Shelf_:/ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES -No. 223-224. s ■ — ___ ESSAYS FROM THE SKETCH-BOOK BY WASHINGTON IRVING. WITH INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY NOTES, AND With grammatical notes upon two selections specially prepared to meet the requirements of Regents of New York BY FLORENCE J. PARKER Teacher of English in the High School at Geneva, N. Y. NEW YORK MAY1NARD, MERRILL, & CO. 29, 31, & 33 East 19th Street. ! Library of Congress Two Copies Received JAN 141901 Copynght entry SECOND COPY CONTENTS. ' , \S PAGE Bibliography, iii Life of Irving, iv Critical Estimates, viii The Voyage, 11 Roscoe, 16 The Wife, 22 Rip Van Winkle, 29 The Art of Book-making, 45 The Mutability of Literature, 51 Stratford-on-Avon, 60 Christmas, 77 The Stage-coach 82 Christmas Eve, 87 Christmas Day, 97 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 110 Literary Notes, 139 Grammatical Notes — " The Mutability of Literature" and "The Stage-coach," ........ 149 Copyright, 1900, by MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. IRVING'S WORKS. PUBLISHED IN 1807 Salmagundi. 1809 Knickerbocker's History of New York. 1818 The Sketch-Book. 1822 Bracebridge Hall. 1824 Tales of a Traveler. 1828 Life and Voyages of Columbus. 1829 Conquest of Granada. 1831 Companions of Columbus. 1832 The Alhambra. 1835 Legends of the Conquest of Spain. " Jl jfaw of the Prairies. " Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. 1836 Astoria. 1837 Adventures of Captain Bonneville. 1849 Oliver Goldsmith. 1850 Mahomet and His Successors. 1855 TO/^'s ifowrt. 11 Z^y their game. By degrees Kip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the bev- erage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another, and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. On waking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. " Surely," thought Eip, " I have not slept here all night/' He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — ■ the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone party at nine-pins — the flagon. " Oh, 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 firelock lying beside him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints and wanting in his usual activity. " These moun- tain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, " and if this 38 THE SKETCH-BOOK. frolic should lay me up with a fit of rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some diffi- culty he got down into the glen. He found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path. At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Eip 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 over- hung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? The morning was passing away, and Eip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and with a heart full of trouble and anxiety turned his steps homeward. As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with everyone 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 eyes upon him invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture induced Eip involuntarily to do the same, when to his astonishment he found his beard had grown a foot long. He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he RIP VAN WINKLE. 39 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 village, which he had left but a 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. Kip was sorely perplexed. " That flagon last night/' thought he, " has addled my poor head sadly.! " It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay — the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half - starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Eip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut, indeed. " My very dog,' v sighed poor Rip, " has forgotten me! " He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, for- lorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears. He called loudly for his wife and children. The lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn; but it, too, was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall, naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes — all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter, 40 THE SKETCH-BOOK. the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted, in large characters, General Washington. There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Kip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Ved- der, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious- looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was har- anguing vehemently about rights of citizens — election — members of Congress — liberty — Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other words that were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Eip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and drawing him partly aside, inquired " on which side he voted ? " Eip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short, but busy, fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe inquired in his ear " whether he was Federal or Democrat." Eip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question, when a knowing, self-im- portant old gentleman in a sharp cocked hat made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van 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, demanded in an austere tone " what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village ? " "Alas! gentlemen," cried Eip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal sub- ject of the king — God bless him! " Here a general shout burst from the bystanders: " A Tory! a Tory! a spy! a refugee! Hustle him! away with him! " It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit KIP VAN WINKLE. 41 what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern. " 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 inquired in a thin, piping voice: " Nicholas Vedder? 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 Duteher? " " Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point, others say he was drowned in the squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know — he never came back again." " Whereas Van Bummel, the schoolmaster? " " He went off to the wars, too; was a great militia general, and is now in Congress." Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and rinding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand. War — Congress — Stony Point! He had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in de- spair: " Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle? " " Oh, Rip Van Winkle! " exclaimed two or three. " Oh, to be sure! That's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree." Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as he went up the mountain; apparently as lazy and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was and what was his name. "God knows!" exclaimed he, at his wit's end; "I'm not myself — I'm somebody else; that's me yonder — no, that's somebody else got into my shoes. I was myself last night, but I feil asleep on the mountain — and they've changed my gun — and everything's changed — and I'm changed — and I can't tell what's my name, or who I am! " 42 THE SKETCH-BOOK The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun and keep- ing the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very sugges- tion of which the self-important man with the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman passed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. " Hush, Rip/ 7 cried she; " hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name .of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. " What is your name, my good woman? " asked he. " Judith Gardenier." " And your father's name ? " "Ah, the poor man! his name was Rip Van Winkle; it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since; his dog came home with- out him: But whether he shot himself or was carried away by the Indians nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice: " Where's your mother? " " Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler." There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your father! " cried he. " Young Rip Van Winkle once — old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle? " All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed: " Sure enough! It is Rip Van Winkle — it is himself. Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long years? " Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had re- turned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth RIP VAN WINKLE. 43 and shook his head, upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighbor- hood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor, the his- torian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years with his crew of the Half -Moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder. To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Bip's daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house and a stout, cheery farmer for a husband, whom Eip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Kip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced a hereditary dis- position to work at anything else but his business. Eip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor. Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village and a chronicle of the old times "before the war." It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had 44 THE SKETCH-BOOK. taken place during his torpor — how that there had been a revolutionary war; that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England; and that, instead of being a subject of his majesty George III., he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was — petticoat government. Happily, that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matri- mony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate or joy at his deliverance. He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was doubtless owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, how- ever, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day, they never hear a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon. Note.— The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr. Knicker- bocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart and the Kypphauser mountain: the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with bis* usual fidelity. " The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I five it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have een very subject to marvelous events and appearances. Indeed, 1 have heard many stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson, all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other point that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and signed with a cross,in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt." THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING, 45 THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. If that severe doom of Synesius be true — " it is a greater offense to steal dead men's labors than their clothes " — what shall become of most writers? — Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." I have often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, yet teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a scene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of the book-making craft, and at once put an end to my astonishment. I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons of the British Museum, with that listlessness with which one is apt to saunter about a room in warm weather; sometimes lolling over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the alle- gorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. While I was gazing about in this idle way my attention was attracted to a dis- tant door at the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now and then it would open and some strange- favored being, generally clothed in black, would steal forth and glide through the rooms, without noticing any of the surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid curiosity, and I determined to at- tempt the passage of that strait, and to explore the unknown regions that lay beyond. The door yielded to my hand with all that facility with which the portals of enchanted castles yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded with great cases of venerable books. Above the cases and just under the cornice were arranged a great number of quaint, black-looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room were placed long tables, 46 THE SKETCH-BOOK. with stands for reading and writing, at which sat many pale, cadaverous personages, poring intently over dusty volumes, rummaging among moldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their contents. The most hushed stillness reigned through this mysterious apartment, excepting that you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, or, occasionally, the deep sigh of one of these sages as he shifted his position to turn over the page of an old folio; doubtless arising from that hollowness and flatulency incident to learned research. Now and then one of these personages would write some- thing on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and return shortly loaded with pon- derous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth and nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of occult sciences. The scene reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philosopher who was shut up in an en- chanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, that opened only once a year; where he made the spirits of the place obey his commands, and bring him books of all kinds of dark knowl- edge, so that at the end of the year, when the magic portal once more swung open on its hinges, he issued forth so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar above the heads of the multitude, and to control the powers of Xature. My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one of the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged an interpretation of the strange scene before me. A few words were sufficient for the purpose: — I found that these mysterious personages, whom I had mistaken for magi, were principally authors, and were in the very act of manufactur- ing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the great British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read. To these sequestered pools of obsolete literature, therefore, do many modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, cr " pure English, unde- filed," wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought. Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a cor- ner, and watched the process of this book manufactory. I noticed one lean, bilious-looking wight, who sought none but the most worm-eaten volumes, printed in black-letter. He was evidently constructing some work of profound erudition^ THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. ±1 that would be purchased by every man who wished to be thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, or laid open upon his table — but never read. I ob- served him, now and then, draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether it was his dinner, or whether he was endeavoring to keep off that exhaustion of the stomach, produced by much pondering over dry works, I leave to harder students than myself to determine. There was one dapper little gentleman in bright colored clothes, with a chirping gossiping expression of countenance, who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with his bookseller. After considering him attentively, I recog- nized in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneous works, which bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see how he manufactured his wares. He made more stir and show of business than any of the others; dipping into various books, fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out of another, " line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." The contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches' caldron in " Macbeth." It was here a finger and there a thumb, toe of frog and a blind worm's sting, with his own gossip poured in like " baboon's blood," to make the medley " slab and good." After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be implanted in authors for wise purposes? may it not be the way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically, provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate her bless- ings. In like manner, the beauties and fine thoughts of ancient and obsolete writers are caught up by these flights of predatory authors, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works, also, undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance — an old legend changes into a modern play — and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes 48 THE SKETCH-BOOK. the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands; where we burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree, moldering into soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi. Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient writers descend; they do but submit to the great law of Nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which de- crees, also, that their elements shall never perish. Genera- tion after generation, both in animal and vegetable life, passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep with their fathers; that is to say, with the authors who preceded them — and from whom they had stolen. Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the soporific emanations from these works; or to the profound quiet of the room; or to the lassitude aris- ing from much wandering; or to an unlucky habit of napping at improper times and places, with which I am grievously afflicted, so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my imagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene re- mained before my mind's eye, only a little changed in some of the details. I dreamt that the chamber was still deco- rated with the portraits of ancient authors, but the number was increased. The long tables had disappeared, and in place of the sage magi, I beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such as may be seen plying about the great repository of cast-off clothes, Monmouth Street. Whenever they seized upon a book, by one of those incongruities common to dreams, me- thought it turned into a garment of foreign or antique fashion, with which they proceeded to equip themselves. I noticed, however, that no one pretended to clothe himself from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a cape from another, a skirt from a third, thus decking himself out piecemeal, while some of his original rags would peep out from among his borrowed finery. There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed ogling several moldy polemical writers through an eyeglass. He soon contrived to slip on the voluminous mantle of one of THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. 49 the old fathers, and having purloined the gray beard of an- other, endeavored to look exceedingly wise; but the smirking commonplace of his countenance set at nought all the trap- pings of wisdom. One sickly looking gentleman was busied embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of several old court-dresses of the reign of Queen Eliza- beth. Another had trimmed himself magnificently from an illuminated manuscript, had stuck a nosegay in his bosom, culled from " The Paradise of Dainty Devices," and having put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on one side of his head, strutted off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who was but of puny dimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely with the spoils from several obscure tracts of phi- losophy, so that he had a very imposing front, but he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had patched his small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a Latin author. There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who only helped themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among their own ornaments, without eclipsing them. Some, too, seemed to contemplate the costumes of the old writers, merely to imbibe their principles of taste, and to catch their air and spirit; but I grieve to say, that too many were apt to array themselves, from top to toe, in the patchwork manner I have mentioned. I should not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breeches and gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity to the pastoral, but whose rural wander- ings had been confined to the classic haunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the Regent's Park. He had decked him- self in wreaths and ribands from all the old pastoral poets, and hanging his head on one side, went about with a fantas- tical, lackadaisical air, "babbling about green fields." But the personage that most struck my attention, was a prag- matical old gentleman, in clerical robes, with a remarkably large and square, but bald head. He entered the room wheez- ing and puffing, elbowed his way through the throng, with a look of sturdy self-confidence, and having laid hands upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept ma- jestically away in a formidable frizzled wig. In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly resounded from every side, of " Thieves! thieves! " I looked, and lo! the portraits about the walls became animated! The old authors thrust out first a head, then a shoulder, from the 50 THE SKETCH-BOOK. canvas, looked down curiously, for an instant, upon the mot- ley throng, and then descended, with fury in their eyes, to claim their rifled property. The scene of scampering and hubbub that ensued baffles all description. The unhappy culprits endeavored in vain to escape with their plunder. On one side might be seen half-a-dozen old monks, stripping a modern professor; on another, there was sad devastation carried into the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beau- mont and Fletcher, side by side, raged round the field like Castor and Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a volunteer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little compiler of farragos, mentioned some time since, he had arrived himself in as many patches and colors as Harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of claimants about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see many men, whom I had been accustomed to look upon with awe and reverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with half a score of authors in full cry after him. They were close upon his haunches; in a twinkling off went his wig; at every turn some strip of raiment was peeled away; until in a few moments, from his domineering pomp, he shrunk into a little pursy, " chopp'd bald shot," and made his exit with only a few tags and rags fluttering at his back. There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this learned Theban, that I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, which broke the whole illusion. The tumult and the scuffle were at an end. The chamber resumed its usual appearance. The old authors shrunk back into their picture- frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short, I found myself wide awake in my corner, with the whole assemblage of bookworms gazing at me with astonish- ment. Nothing of the dream had been real but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify the fraternity. The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had a card of admission. At first I did not com- prehend him, but I soon found that the library was a kind of literary " preserve," subject to game laws, and that no one must presume to hunt there without special license and per- THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 51 mission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole pack of authors let loose upon me. 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 wrought In time's great periods shall return to nought, I know that all the muses' heavenly layes, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought, That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. — Drummond of Hawthornden. There are certain half dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection; when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster School, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and moldering 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 vergers for admission to the library. He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy pas- sage leading to the Chapter-house and the chamber in which the Doomsday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key; it was double locked, and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a dark, narrow staircase, and passing through a second door, entered the library. I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dig- nitary of the church in his robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, ar- ranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time 52 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. than use. In the center of the library was a solitary table, with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers, that echoed soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. The bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a venerable elbow chair. Instead of reading, how- ever, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their moldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but consider the library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously en- tombed, and left to blacken and molder in dusty oblivion. How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some aching head — how many weary days! how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters; shut themselves up from the face of man, and the still more blessed face of nature; and devoted them- selves to painful research and intense reflection! And all for what ? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf — to have the titles of their works read now and then in a future age by some drowsy churchman, or casual straggler like myself; and in another age to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which has just tolled among these towers, filling the ear for a moment — lingering transiently in echo — and then passing away, like a thing that was not! While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating these un- profitable 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 aston- ishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 53 awaking from a deep sleep; then a husky hem, and at length began to talk. At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb which some studious spider had woven across it; and having probably contracted a cold from long exposure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceedingly fluent conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obso- lete, and its pronunciation what in the present day would be deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to render it in modern parlance. It began with railings about the neglect of the world — about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained bitterly that it had not been opened for more than two cen- turies; — that the Dean only looked now and^then into the library, sometimes took down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few moments, and then returned them to their shelves. "What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric, " what a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up here and watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the Dean? Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed; and I would have a rule passed that the Dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year; or if he is not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn loose the whole school of Westminster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing." " Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, " you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of your gen- eration. 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 re- mains of their cotemporary 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 circulate from hand to hand, like other great contemporary works; but here have I been clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the 54 THE SKETCH-BOOK. very vengeance with my intestines, if you had not by chance given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces." " My good friend," rejoined I, " had you been left to the circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well stricken in years; very few of your contemporaries can be at present in existence; and those few owe their longevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries; which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries attached to religious establishments for the bene- fit of the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often endure to an amazingly good-for- nothing old age. You talk of your contemporaries as if in circulation — where do we meet with their works? — what do we hear of Robert Groteste of Lincoln? No one could have toiled harder than he for immortality. He is said to have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely dis- turbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet? He declined two bishoprics, that he might shut himself up and write for posterity; but posterity never inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Hunting- don, 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 heroic poems, one is lost forever, excepting a mere fragment; the others are known only to a few of the curious in literature; and as to his love verses and epigrams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis, the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree of life? — of William of Malmsbury; of Simeon of Dur- ham; of Benedict of Peterborough; of John Hanvill of St. Albans; of " " Prithee, friend," cried the quarto in a testy tone, " how old do you think me? You are talking of authors that lived long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so that they in a manner expatriated themselves, and deserved THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 55 to be forgotten;* but I, sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkyn 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 diffi- culty in rendering them into modern phraseology.] " I cry you mercy," said I, " for mistaking your age; but it matters little; almost all the writers of your time have like- wise passed into forgetfulness; and De Worde's publications are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy Eobert of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon. f Even now, many talk of Spenser's ' well of pure English undefiled,' as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this which has made English litera- ture 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 popular writer. He finds the language in which he has embarked his fame gradually alter- ing, and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks back, and beholds the early authors of his country, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by * In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to endyte, and have many noble things fulfilde, but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in hearing of Frenchmen's Englishe. — Chaucer's " Testament of Love." f Holinshed, in his "Chronicle," observes: "Afterwards, also, by diligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and John Gowrie, in the time of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, not- withstanding 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 accom- plished the ornature of the same, to their great praise and immortal commendation." 56 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 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 Eunic 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 gilding and bind- ing, I feel disposed to sit down and weep; like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, pranked out in all the splendor of military array, and reflected that in one 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 superseded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's ' Arcadia/ Sackville's stately plays and ' Mirror for Magistrates/ or the fine-spun euphuisms of the ' unparalleled John Lyly.' " " There you are again mistaken," said I; " the writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when you were last in circulation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidney's ' Arcadia/ the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his admirers,* and which, in truth, was full of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Saekville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly, 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 literature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after * Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his gentle witt, and the golden pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the honey bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, the pith of morale and the intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the tongue of Suada in the chamber, the spirite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellency in print. — Harvey's "Pierce's Supererogation." THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 57 fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for the gratifica- tion of the curious. " For my part," I continued, " I consider this mutability of language a wise precaution of Providence for the benefit of the world at large, and of authors in particular. To reason from analogy: we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing: the earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its sur- face become a tangled wilderness. In like manner, the works of genius and learning decline and make way for subsequent productions. 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 be- wildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication: works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and labori- ous operation; they were written either on parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and ex- tremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofita- ble craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that the fountains of thoughts 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 everyone a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print and diffuse itself over the whole intel- lectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented into a river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library; but what would you say to libraries, such as actually exist, containing three or four hundred thousand volumes: legions of authors at the same time busy; and a press going on with fearfully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the number? Unless some unforeseen mortality should break out among the 58 THE SKETCH-BOOK. progeny of the Muse, now that she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of lan- guage will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much; it in- creases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of those salutary checks on population spoken of by economists. All possible encouragement, therefore, should be given to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain; let criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to learn their names. Many a man of passable in- formation at the present day reads scarcely anything but reviews, and before long a man of erudition will be little better 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 per- ceive 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, however, was considered quite tem- porary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he was a poor, half-educated varlet, that knew little of Latin and nothing of Greek, and had been obliged to run the country for deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakspere. I pre- sume 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 literature. There arise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the un- changing principles of human nature. They are like gigan- tic 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 overflowing current, and hold up many a neighbor- ing plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shakspere, whom we behold, defying the encroachments of time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author merely from having flourished in his vicin- ity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them." THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 59 Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and chuckle, until at length he broke out into a plethoric fit of laughter that had well-nigh choked him by reason of his excessive corpulency. " Mighty well! " cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, "mighty well! and so you would persuade me that the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a vaga- bond deer-stealer! by a man without learning! by a poet! for- sooth—a poet! " And here he wheezed forth another fit of laughter. I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his having flour- ished m a less polished age. I determined, nevertheless, not to give up my point. 1. \ YeS i! r ? umed J Positively, "a poet; for of all writers he has the best chance of 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 01 JNature, whose features are always the same, and always interesting. Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldy; their pages crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded into tediousness. But with the true poet every- thing is terse, touching, or brilliant. , He gives the choicest thoughts m the choicest language. He illustrates them by everything that he sees most striking in nature and art He enriches them by pictures of human life, such as it is, passing betore him. His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. 1 hey are caskets which inclose within a small compass the wealth of the language— its family jewels, which are thus transmitted m a portable form to posterity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of literary history. What vast val- leys of dullness, filled with monkish legends and academical controversies ! What bogs c f theological speculations ! What dreary wastes of metaphysics! Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illumined bards, elevated like beacons on their widely separated heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to age." * * Thorow earth, and waters deepe, The pen by skill doth passe: Ana featly nyps the worldes abuse, And shoes us in a glasse, 60 THE SKETCH-BOOK. I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to 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 ram- bling 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. STRATFORD-ON-AVON. Thou soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspere would dream ; The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallowed" the turf is which pillowed his head. — Garrick. 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, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm- chair is his throne, the poker his scepter, and the little parlor, of some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertain- ties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day; and he who has advanced some way on the pil- grimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment, " Shall I not take STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 61 mine ease in mine 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 Red Horse, at Stratford-on- Avon. The words of sweet Shakspere were just passing through my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the church in which he lies buried. 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 understood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream of absolute diminion 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 Shakspere, the Jubilee, 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 pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakspere was born, and 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, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight 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 condi- tions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a simple, but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal hom- age 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 ex- ceeding dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibit- ing the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very match- lock with which Shakspere shot the deer, on his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box; which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh; the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with 62 THE SKETCH-BOOK. which Friar Lawrence discovered Borneo and Juliet at the tomb! There was an ample supply also of Shakspere's mul- berry tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross; of winch there is enough extant to build a ship of the line. The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shaks- pere's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook 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, listening to the crones 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 everyone who 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 my hostess privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new-bottomed at least once in three years. It is worthy of notice also, in the history of this extraordinary 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 very will- ing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs noth- ing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblins and great men; and would advise all travelers 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 en- joy all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like reso- lute good-humored credulity 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, un- luckily for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own composition, which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance. From the birthplace of Shakspere a few paces brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish church, a large and venerable pile, moldering with age, but richly ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on 8 TEA TFOBD- ON A VON 6 3 an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired: 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 rev- erend old building. Small birds have built their nests among the cornices and fissures of the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirping; and rooks are sailing and cawing about its lofty gray spire. In the course of my rambles I met with the gray-headed sexton, and accompanied him home to get the key of the church. He had lived in Stratford, man and bov 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, looking out upon the Avon and its bordering meadows; and was a picture of that neatness, order, and comfort, which per- vade the humblest dwellings in this country. A low white- washed room, with a stone floor, carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, and hall. Eows of pewter and earthen dishes glittered 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 volumes. 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 granddaughter sewing, a pretty blue-eyed girl, — and in the opposite corner was a superannu- ated crony, whom he addressed 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 to- gether in manhood; they were now tottering about and gos- siping away the evening of life; and in a short time they will probably be buried together in the neighboring churchyard. It is not often that we see two streams of existence running 64 . THE SKETCH-BOOK. thus evenly and tranquilly 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, during which Shakspere's writings lay in comparative neglect, has spread its shadow over history; and it is his good or evil lot, that scarcely any- thing remains to his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures. The sexton and his companion had been employed as car- penters, on the preparations for the celebrated Stratford jubilee, and they remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who superintended the arrangements, and who, ac- cording to the sexton, was " a short punch man, very lively and bustling." John Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shakspere'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 Shakspere house. John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her valuable and inexhaustible collection of relics, particularly her remains of the mulberry tree; and the old sexton even ex- pressed a doubt as to Shakspere having been born in her house. I soon discovered that he looked upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival to the poet's tomb; the latter hav- ing comparatively but few visitors. Thus it is that historians 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 ornamented with carved doors of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the architecture and embellishments 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 tomb of Shakspere 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 STB A TFOBD- ON A VON 6 5 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, forbeare To dig the dust inclosed 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 Shakspere, put up shortly after his death, and considered as a resemblance. The aspect is pleasant 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 ex- pected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and nourishing 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 contemplated. 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 the 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 depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two days, until the vault was finished, and the aperture closed again. He told me he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakspere. Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite daugh- ter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb close by, also, is a full-length effigy of his old friend, John Coombe, of usurious memory; on whom he is said to have written a ludi- crous epitaph. There are other monuments around, but the mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not connected with 66 THE SKETCH-BOOK. Shakspere. 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 perfect con- fidence: 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 thrill- ing in the idea, that, in very truth, the remains of Shakspere were moldering beneath my feet. It was a long time before I could prevail upon myself to leave the place; and as I passed through the cl archyard, 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 Shakspere, in company with some of the roysters of Stratford, com- mitted his youthful offense 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 in- censed him, that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakspere 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 a hanger-on to the theaters; then an actor; and, finally, wrote for the stage; and thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford * The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon : " 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 s'ate, We allow by his ears with but asses to mate. If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, Then sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it." STRA TFORD- ON A VON 6 1 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 Charlecot, and revenged himself in his writings; but in the sportive way of a good- natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the original of Jus- tice 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 biographers to soften and explain away this early transgression of the poet; but I look upon it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural to his situation and turn of mind. Shakspere, when young, had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, undisciplined, 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 every- thing 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 Shaks- pere's mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have as daringly transcended all civil, as he has all dramatic laws. I have little doubt, that, in early life, when running, like an unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of Stratford, he was to be found in the company of all kinds of odd and anomalous characters; that he associated with all the madcaps of the place, and was one of those unlucky urchins, at men- tion 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 Scot- tish Knight, and struck his eager, and as yet untamed, imagi- nation, as something delightfully adventurous. f *The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon, about Char- lecot. f A proof of Shakspere's random habits and associates in his youth- ful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked up at Strat- ford by the elder Ireland, and mentioned in his " Picturesque Views on the Avon." About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market town of Bedford, famous for its ale. Two 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 drink- ing. Among others, the people" of Stratford were called out to prove the strength of their heads ; and in the number of the champions was Shakspere, who, in spite of the proverb, that " they who drink beer will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The 68 THE SKETCH-BOOK. The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly interesting from being connected with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the scanty history of the bard. As the house stood at 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 Shakspere must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery. The country was yet naked and leafless; but English scenery is always verdant, and the sudden change in the tem- perature 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 bursting buds, giving the promise of returning foliage and flower. The cold snowdrop, that little borderer on the skirts of win- ter, was to be seen with its chaste white blossoms in the small gardens before the cottages. The bleating of the new-dropt lambs was faintly heard from the fields. The sparrow twit- tered 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 of 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 chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a re- treat while they had yet legs to carry them off the field. They Lad scarcely marched a mile, when, their legs failing 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 Shakspere's tree. In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and proposed re- turning to Bedford, but he declined, saying he had had enough, having drunk with "Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, Drudging 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 ; Hillborongh is now called Haunted Hill- borough ; and Grafton is famous for the poverty of its soil." STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 60 filled with his music, it called to mind Shakspere's exquisite little song in " Cymbeline": " Hark ! hark ! the lark at heav'n's gate sings And Phoebus 'gius arise, His steeds to water at those springs, On chalic'd 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 Shakspere. Every old cottage that I saw, I fancied into some resort of his boy- hood, 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 amuse- ment 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, gobli'ns, and friars." * My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made a variety of the most fanciful doublings and windings through a wide and fertile valley: sometimes glit- tering from among willows, which fringed its borders; some- times disappearing among groves, or beneath green banks; and sometimes rambling out into full view, and* mak- ing an azure sweep round a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom of country is called the Vale of the Eed Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be its boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner enchained in the silver links of the Avon. After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into a footpath, which led along the borders of fields and * Scot, in his " Discoverie of Witchcraft," enumerates a host of these fireside fancies. "And they have so fraid us with bull-beggars, spir- its, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes. giantes. imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changelings, incubus, Robin-good-fellow, the sporne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hellwaine, the fier drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe, hobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, that we were afraid of our own shadowes." 70 THE SKETCH-BOOK. under hedgerows to a private gate of the park; there was a stile, however, for the benefit of the pedestrian; there being a public right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospitable estates, in which everyone has a kind of property — at least as far as the footpath is concerned. It in some 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 privi- lege 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 growth of centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the view but a distant statue; and a vagrant deer stalking like a shadow across the opening. There is something about these stately old avenues that has the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pre- tended similarity of form, but from their 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 con- centrated 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 suddenly 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 Shakspere's commentators have supposed he derived his noble forest meditations of Jacques, and the enchanting woodland pictures in " As You Like It." It is in lonely wan- derings 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 and ideas keep breaking upon it; and we revel in a mute and almost incommunicable luxury of thought. It was in STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 71 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 little song which breathes the very soul of a rural voluptuary. " Under the green- wood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry throat Unto the sweet bird's note, 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 large build- ing 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 gate- way opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the house, ornamented with a grassplot, shrubs, and flower beds. The gateway is in imitation of the ancient barbican; being a kind of outpost, and flanked by towers; though evi- dently for mere ornament, instead of defense. The front of the house is completely in the old style; with stone shafted casements, a great bow window of heavy stonework, 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 weathercock. 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 feed- ing or reposing upon its borders; and swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venera- ble old mansion, I called to mind Falstaff's encomium on Jus- tice Shallow's abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of the latter: " Falstaff. You have here a goodly dwelling and a rich. " Shallow. Barren, barren barren ; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John ; marry, good air." Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion in the days of Shakspere, it had now an air of stillness and solitude. The great iron gateway that opened into the court- 72 THE SKETCH-BOOK. yard was locked; there was no show of servants bustling about the place; the deer 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 toward 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 abhorrence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise of territorial power which was so strenuously manifested 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 everyday entrance to the mansion. I wa9 courteously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of her order, snowed me 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 appearance it must have had in the days of Shakspere. 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, formerly the rallying place of winter festivity. On the 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 genera- tions, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe in the quarterings the three white luces by which the charac- ter 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 mto his lodge." The poet had no doubt the offenses of himself and his comrades in mind at the time, and we may suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the puis- sant Shallow to be a caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas. " Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not : I will make a Star-Chamber STB A TFORD- ON A VON. 1 3 matter of it ; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse 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, master par- son ; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, warraut, quittance, or obligation, Armigero. " Shallow. Ay, that I do ; and have done any time these three hun- dred years. 11 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 hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot ; take your vizameuts in that. " Shallow. Ha 1 o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it ! " Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait by Sir Peter Lely of one of the Lucy family, a, great beauty of the time of Charles II.: the old housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the picture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away a great portion of the family estate, among which was that part of the park where Shakspere and his comrades had killed the deer. The lands thus lost have not been entirely regained by the family, even at the present day. It is but justice to this recreant dame to confess that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm. The picture which most attracted my attention was a great painting over the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family, who inhabited the hall in the latter part of Shakspere'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 former being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the neighboring hamlet of Charlecot. The picture gives a lively idea of the costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet; white 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 chil- dren 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 chil- dren holds a bow; — all intimating the knight's skill in hunt- 14 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ing, hawking, and archery — so indispensable to an accom- plished gentleman in those days.* I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had disappeared; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow- chair of carved oak, in which the country squire of former days was wont to sway the scepter 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 Shakspere was brought before him. As I like to deck out pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself with the idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate, surrounded by his bodyguard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving- men with their badges; while the luckless culprit was brought in, forlorn and chapfallen, in the custody of gamekeepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the half-opened doors; while from the gallery the fair daughters of the knight leaned gracefully forward, eying the youthful prisoner with that pity " that dwells in womanhood." Who would have thought that this poor var- let, 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 pippen of his own grafhng, with a dish of carra- ways"; but I had already spent so much of the day in my * 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 bur- den of nobility, and is exceedingly 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 strewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels." STB A TFORD- ON A VON 75 rambling, that I was obliged to give up any further investiga- tions. When about to take my leave, I was gratified by the civil entreaties of the housekeeper and butler, that I would take some refreshment — an instance of good old hospitality, which I grieve to say we castle-hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I make no doubt it is a virtue which the present representative of the Lucys inherits from his ances- tors; for Shakspere, even in his caricature, makes Justice Shallow importunate in this respect, as witness his pressing instances to Falstaff. " By cock and pye, Sir, you shall not away to-night. . . I 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 I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought them as it were be- fore my eyes; 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: " Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all, And welcome merry Shrovetide! " 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 and character not their own, and to turn this " working-day world " into a perfect fairyland. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of Shakspere I had been walking all day in a complete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry, which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied beings; with mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power; yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jacques soliloquize beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Eosa- lind and her companion adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff, and his contemporaries, from the august Jus- 76 THE SKETCH-BOOK. tice Shallow, down to the gentle Master Slender, and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honors and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life with inno- cent illusions; who has spread exquisite and unbought pleas- ures in my checkered path; and beguiled my spirit in many a lonely hour, with all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of social life! As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused to contemplate the distant church in which the poet lies buried, and could not but exult in the malediction which has kept his ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What honor could his name have derived from being mingled in dusty companionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, compared with this reverend pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! The solicitude about the grave may be but the offspring of an overwrought sensibility; but human nature is made up of foibles and prejudices; and its best and tenderest affections are mingled with these factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about the world, and has reaped a full harvest of worldly favor, will find, after all, that there is no love, no admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that which springs up in his native place. It is there that he seeks to be gathered in peace and honor, among his kindred and his early friends. And when the weary heart and failing head begin to warn him that the evening of life is drawing on, he turns as fondly as does the infant to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep in the bosom of the scene of his childhood. How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard, when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he cast back a heavy look upon his paternal home, could he have foreseen that, before many years, he should return to it cov- ered with renown; that his name should become the boast and glory of his native place; that his ashes should be reli- giously guarded as its most precious treasure; and that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed in tearful con- templation, should one day become the beacon, towering amidst the gentle landscape, to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb! CHRISTMAS. ?7 CHEISTMAS. But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray old head and beard left ? Well, I will have that, seeing I cannot have more of him. — Hue and Cry After Christmas. A man might then behold At Christmas, in each hall, Good fires to curb the cold, And meat for great and small. The neighbours were friendly bidden, And all had welcome true, The poor from the gates were not chidden, "When this old cap was new. — Old Song. There is nothing in England that exercises a more delight- ful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holi- day customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavor of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more homebred, social, and joyous than at present. I regret to say that they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels of Gothic architecture, which we see crumbling in various parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days. Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural game and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its themes — as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the Gothic arch and moldering tower, gratefully repaying their support, by clasping together their tottering remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure. Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoy- ment. The services of the Church about this season are ex- tremely tender and inspiring: they dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement: they gradually increase in IS TEE SKETCH-BOOK. fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cath- edral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony. It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announce- ment of the religion of peace and love, and has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts, which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose, of calling back the children of a family, who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementos of child- hood. There is something in the very season of the year, that gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of Nature. Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we " live abroad and everywhere." The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft volup- tuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn; earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep deli- cious blue and its cloudy magnificence, — all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sen- sation. But in the depth of winter, when Nature lies de- spoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wan- derings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are brought more closely together by dependence on each other for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart, and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of loving-kindness which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms; CHRISTMAS. ?9 and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity. The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on enter- ing the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. The ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sun- shine through the room, and lights up each countenance into a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospi- tality expand into a broader and more cordial smile — where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent — than by the winter fireside ? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security, with which we look round upon the comfortable chamber, and the scene of domestic hilarity? The English, from the great prevalence of rural habits throughout every class of society, have always been fond of those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country life; and they were in former days par- ticularly observant of the religious and social rights of Christ- mas. It is inspiring to read even the dry details which some antiquaries have given of the quaint humors, the burlesque pageants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fel- lowship, with which this festival was celebrated. It seemed to throw open every door, and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm generous flow of joy and kindness. The old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly — the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes, and oft-told Christmas tales. One of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday customs. It has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited re- liefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down so- ciety into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic surface. Many of the games and ceremonials of Christmas have entirely disappeared, and, like the sherris 80 THE SKETCH-BOOK. sack of old Falstaff, are become matters of speculation and dispute among commentators. The} r nourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously: times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its richest materials, and the drama with its most attractive variety of characters and man- ners. The world has become more worldly. There is more of dissipation and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels, where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life. Society has ac- quired a more enlightened and elegant tone; but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, its honest fireside delights. The traditionary customs of golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. They comported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlor, but are unfitted for the light showy saloons and gay drawing rooms of the modern villa. Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honors, Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in Eng- land. It is gratifying to see that home feeling completely aroused which holds so powerful a place in every English bosom. The preparations making on every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and kindred — the presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens of re- gard and quickeners of kind feelings — the evergreens dis- tributed about the houses and churches, emblems of peace and gladness — all these have the most pleasing effect in pro- ducing fond associations, and kindling benevolent sympa- thies. Even the sound of the waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the midwatches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. As I have been awak- ened by them in that still and solemn hour " when deep sleep falleth upon man," I have listened with a hushed delight, and connecting them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fancied them into another celestial choir, announcing peace and good will to mankind. How delightfully the im- agination, when wrought upon by these moral influences, turns everything to melody and beauty! The very crowing of the cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of the country, " telling the night watches to hia feathery dames/' CHRISTMAS. . 81 was thought by the common people to announce the approach of the sacred festival: " Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth was celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long : And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; The nights are wholesome — then no planets strike, No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time." Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what bosom can remain insensible? It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling — the season for kindling not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart. The scene of early love again rises green to memory beyond the sterile waste of years, and the idea of home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates the drooping spirit — as the Arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert. Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land — though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold — yet I feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those around me. Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever shining benevolence. He who can turn churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow beings, and can sit down darkling and repining in his loneli- ness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a merry Christmas. 82 THE SKETCH-BOOK. THE STAGE-COACH. Omne bend Sine poena Tempus est ludendi Venit hora Absque mort Libros deponendi. — Old Holiday School Song. In the preceding paper, I have made some general observa- tions on the Christmas festivities of England, and I am tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes of a Christmas passed in the country; in perusing which, I would most courteously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit, which is tolerant of folly and anxious only for amusement. In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for a long distance in one of the public coaches, on the day pre- ceding Christmas. The coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations or friends, to eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their long ears about the coachman's box, presents from dis- tant friends for the impending feast. I had three fine rosy- cheeked schoolboys for my fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit which I have observed in the children of this country. They were returning home for the holidays, in high glee, and promising themselves a world of enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to perform during their six weeks' emancipation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. They were full of the anticipations of the meeting of the family and household, down to the very cat and dog; and of the joys they were to give their little sisters, by the presents with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam, which I found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus. How he could trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take — there was not a hedge in the whole country that he could not clear, THE STAGE-COACH. 83 They were under the particular guardianship of the coach- man, to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they ad- dressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the buttonhole of his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business; but he is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untraveled readers, to have a sketch that may serve as a general representation of this numerous and im- portant class of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever an English stage- coachman may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery. He has commonly a broad full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed low-crowned hat, a huge roll of colored handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer time a large bou- quet of flowers in his buttonhole, the present, most probably, of some enamored country lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright color, striped, and his smallclothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach about halfway up his legs. All this costume is maintained with much precision; he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials, and, not- withstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person, which is almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys great consequence and consideration along the road; has fre- quent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass. The moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he throws down the reins with something of an air, 84 THE SKETCH-BOOK. and abandons the cattle to the care of the hostler, his duty being merely to drive them from one stage to another. When off the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his great- coat, and he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of hostlers, stable boys, shoeblacks, and those nameless hangers-on, that infest inns and taverns, and run errands, and do all kind of odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of the taproom. These all look up to him. as to an oracle; treas- ure up his cant phrases; echo his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore; and, above all, endeavor to imitate his air and carriage. Every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back, thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo Coachey. Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the journey. A stage-coach, however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world in motion as it whirls along. The horn, sounded at the entrance of a village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten forth to meet friends; some with bundles and bandboxes to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can hardly take leave of the group that accompanies them. In the mean- time, the coachman has a world of small commissions to exe- cute. Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half blushing, half laughing house- maid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach rattles through the village, everyone runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces, and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are assem- bled juntos of village idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the important purpose of seeing com- pany pass; but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much speculation. The smith, with the horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers, and surfer the iron to grow cool; and the sooty specter in brown paper cap, laboring at the bellows, leans on the handle for a moment, and permits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn sigh, while he THE STAGE-COACH. 85 glares through the murky smoke and sulphureous gleams of the smithy. Perhaps the impending holiday might have given 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; the grocers', butchers', and the fruiterers' shops were thronged with customers. The housewives were stirring 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 peo- ple will not be fed with 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 traveling companions. They had been look- ing out of the coach windows for the last few miles, recog- nizing every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy — " There's John! and there's old 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 accompanied by a super- annuated pointer, and by the redoubtable Bantam, a little old rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited him. I was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fel- lows 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 him at once, and it was with some difficulty that John arranged that they should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride first. 86 THE SKETCH-BOOK. Off they set at last; one on the pony, with the dog bound- ing and barking before him, and the others holding John's hands; both talking at once, and overpowering him with ques- tions about home, and with school anecdotes. I looked after them with a feeling in which I do not know whether pleasure or melancholy predominated; 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 minutes afterward, 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. I leaned out of the coach window, in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight. 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 smokejack made its ceaseless clanking beside the fireplace, 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. Travelers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast, whilst others sat smok- ing and gossiping over their ale on two high-backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were hurrying back- ward and forward, under the direction 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 Eobin's humble idea of the comforts of midwinter: " Now trees their leafy hats do bare To reverence Winter's silver hair ; A handsome hostess, merry host, A pot of ale and now a toast, CHRISTMAS EVE. 87 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 np to the door. A young gentleman stepped out, and by the light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew. I moved forward 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 traveled on the Continent. Our meet- ing was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old fel- low-traveler always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. To dis- cuss all these in a transient interview at an inn was impossi- ble; 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 eating a solitary Christ- mas dinner at an inn/' said he, " and I 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. CHRISTMAS EVE. Saint Francis and Saint Benedight Blesse this house from wicked wight ; From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight good fellow Robin ; Keep it from all evil spirits, Fairies, weazles, rats, and ferrets : From curfew time To the next prime. — Cartwright. It was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the postboy smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses * " Poor Robin's Almanack," 1694. 88 THE SKETCH-BOOK. were on a gallop. " He knows where he is going," said my companion, laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. My father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old English hospitality. He is a tolerable specimen of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in its purity — the old Eng- lish country gentlemen; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into the country, that the strong, rich peculiarities of ancient rural life are almost polished away. My father, however, from early years, took honest Peacham * for his text-book, instead of Chesterfield; he determined in his own mind that there was no condition more truly honorable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his paternal lands, and therefore passes the whole of his time on his estate. He is a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday observances, and is deeply read in the writers, ancient and modern, who have treated on the subject. Indeed, his favor- ite range of reading is among the authors who nourished at least two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and thought more like true Englishmen than any of their successors. He even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few cen- turies earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs. As he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather a lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman, an opportunity of indulging the bent of his own humor without molestation. Being repre- sentative of the oldest family in the neighborhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked up to, and in general is known simply by the appellation of 1 The Squire/ a title which has been accorded to the head of the family since time immemorial. I think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old father to prepare you for any little eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd." We had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length the chaise stopped at the gate. It was in a heavy, magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into nourishes and flowers. The huge square columns that supported the gate was surmounted by the family crest. Close *Peacham's " Complete Gentleman," 1622. CHRISTMAS EVE. 89 adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir trees, and almost buried in shrubbery. The postboy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded through the still frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed gar- risoned. An old woman immediately appeared at the gate. As the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had a full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very much in antique taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peep- ing from under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came cour- tesying forth with many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. Her husband, it seemed, was up at the house keeping Christmas eve in the servant's hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the household. My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow on. Our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a light covering of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a thin, transparent vapor stealing up from the low grounds, and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape. My companion looked round him with transport. " How often," said he, " have I scampered up this avenue on return- ing home on school vacations! How often have I played under these trees when a boy! I feel a degree of filial rever- ence for them, as we look up to those who have cherished us in childhood. My father was always scrupulous in exacting our holidays, and having us around him on family festivals. He used to direct and superintend our games with the strict- ness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form, and consulted, old books for precedent and authority for every i merrie disport '; yet, I assure you, there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world, and I value this delicious home feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent could bestow." We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs of 00 THE SKETCH-BOOK. all sorts and sizes, " mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and curs of low degree," that, disturbed by the ringing of the por- ter's bell and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding open- mouthed across the lawn. " ' The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me ! ' " cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his voice, the bark was changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he was surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the faithful animals. We had now come in full view of the old family mansion, partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold moonshine. It was an irregular building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of the architecture of different periods. One wing was evidently very ancient, with heavy, stone- shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the foliage of which the small, diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with the moonbeams. The rest of the house was in the French taste of Charles II.'s time, having been repaired and altered, as my friend told me, by one of his an- cestors who returned with that monarch at the Eestoration. The grounds about the house were laid out in the old formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water. The old gentleman, 1 was told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete finery in all its original state. He admired this fashion in gardening; it had an air of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting good old family style. The boasted imita- tion of nature in modern gardening had sprung up with modern republican notions, but did not suit a monarchical government — it smacked of the leveling system. I could not help smiling at this introduction of politics into gardening, though I expressed some apprehension that I should find the old gentleman rather intolerant in his creed. Frank assured me, however, that it was almost the only instance in which he had ever heard his father meddle with politics; and he be- lieved he had got this notion from a member of Parliament who once passed a few weeks with him. The squire was glad of any argument to defend his clipped yew trees and formal terraces, which had been occasionally attacked by modern landscape gardeners. CHRISTMAS EVE. 91 As we approached the house we heard the sound of music, and now and then a burst of laughter, from one end of the building. This, Bracebriclge said, must proceed from the ser- vants' hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, and even encouraged, by the squire, throughout the twelve days of Christmas, provided everything was done conformably to ancient usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob-apple, and snap-dragon; the Yule clog and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white berries, hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids.* So intent were the servants upon their sports that we had to ring repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. On our arrival being announced, the squire came out to receive us, accompanied by his two other sons — one a young officer in the army, home on leave of absence; the other an Oxonian, just from the university. The squire was a fine, healthy- looking old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an open, florid countenance, in which a physiognomist, with the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint or two, might discover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence. The family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the evening was far advanced, the squire would not permit us to change our traveling dresses, but ushered us at once to the company, which was assembled in a large, old-fashioned hall. It was composed of different branches of a numerous family connection, where there were the usual proportion of old uncles and aunts, comfortable married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed boarding school hoydens. They were vari- ously occupied — some at a round game of cards, others con- versing round the fireplace; at one end of the hall was a group of the young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls about the floor showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who, having frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful night. * The mistletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens, at Christ- mas ; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases. 92 THE SKETCH-BOOK. While the mutual greetings were going on between young Bracebridge and his relatives, I had time to scan the apart- ment. I have called it a hall, for it had certainly been in old times, and the squire had evidently endeavored to restore it to something of its primitive state. Over the heavy, pro- jecting fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in armor, standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung a helmet, buckler, and lance. At one end an enormous pair of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches serv- ing as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs; and in the corners of the apartment were fowling pieces, fishing rods, and other sporting implements. The furniture was of the cumbrous workmanship of former days, though some ar- ticles of modern convenience had been added, and the oaken floor had been carpeted; so that the whole presented an odd mixture of parlor and hall. The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log, glowing and blazing, and send- ing forth a vast volume of light and heat; this I understood was the yule clog, which the squire was particular in having brought in and illumined on a Christmas eve, according to ancient custom.* It was really delightful to see the old squire seated in his hereditary elbow-chair by the hospitable fireside of his ances- * The yule clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, brought into the house with great ceremony, on Christmas eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last year's clog. While it lasted, there was great drinking, singing, and telling of tales. Some- times it was accompanied by Christmas candles ; but in the cottages, the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire. The yule clog was to burn all night : if it went out, it was considered a sign of ill luck. Herrick mentions it in one of his songs : " Come bring with a noise, My merrie, merrie boys, The Christmas Log to the firing ; Whilst my good dame she Bids ye all be free, And drink to your hearts desiring." The yule clog is still burnt in many farmhouses and kitchens in Eng- land, particularly in the north ; and there are several superstitions con- nected with it among the peasantry. If a squinting person come to the house while it is burning, or a person barefooted, it is considered an ill omen. The brand remaining from the yule clog is carefully put away to light the next year's Christmas fire. CHRISTMAS EVE. 93 tors, and looking around him like the sun of a system, beam- ing warmth and gladness to every heart. Even the very dog that lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his position and yawned, would look fondly up in his master's face, wag his tail against the floor, and stretch himself again to sleep, confident of kindness and protection. There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be de- scribed, but is immediately felt, and puts the stranger at once at his ease. I had not been seated many minutes by the com- fortable hearth of the worthy old cavalier before I found my- self as much at home as if I had been one of the family. Supper was announced shortly after our arrival. It was served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which shone with wax, and around which were several family portraits decorated with holly and ivy. Besides the accus- tomed lights, two great wax tapers, called Christmas candles, wreathed with greens, were placed on a highly polished buffet among the family plate. The table was abundantly spread with substantial fare; but the squire made his sup- per of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for Christ- mas eve. I was happy to find my old friend, mince pie, in the retinue of the feast; and, finding him to be perfectly ortho- dox, and that I need not be ashamed of my predilection, I greeted him with all the warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and very genteel acquaintance. The mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the humors of an eccentric personage whom Mr. Bracebridge always addressed with the quaint appellation of Master Simon. He was a tight, brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old bachelor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot, his face slightly pitted with the smallpox, with a dry, perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly jokes and inuendoes with the ladies, and making infinite mer- riment by harping upon old themes, which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit me to enjoy. It seemed to be his great delight during supper to keep a young girl next him in a continual agony of stifled laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat opposite. Indeed, he was the idol of the 94 THE SKETCH-BOOK. younger part of the company, who laughed at everything he said or did and at every turn of his countenance. I could not wonder at it, for he must have been a miracle of accomplish- ments' in their eyes. He could imitate Punch and Judy; make an old woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt cork and pocket handkerchief; and cut an orange into such a ludicrous caricature, that the young folks were ready to die with laughing. I was let briefly into his history by Frank Bracebridge. He was an old bachelor of a small independent income, which, by careful management, was sufficient for all his wants. He revolved through the family system like a vagrant comet in its orbit, sometimes visiting one branch and sometimes another quite remote, as is often the case with gentlemen of extensive connections and small fortunes in England. He had a chirping, buoyant disposition, always enjoying the pres- ent moment, and his frequent change of scene and company prevented his acquiring those rusty, unaccommodating habits with which old bachelors are so uncharitably charged. He was a complete family chronicle, being versed in the gene- alogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole house of Bracebridge, which made him a great favorite with the old folks; he was a beau of all the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters, among whom he was habitually considered rather a young fellow, and he was master of the revels among the children; so that there was not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of late years he had resided almost entirely with the squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humor in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. We had presently a specimen of his last-mentioned talent; for no sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than Mas- ter Simon was called on for a good old Christmas song. He bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto, like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty: •' Now Christmas is come, Let us beat up the drum, And call all our neighbours together ; And when they appear, Let us make such a cheer, As will keep out the wind and the weather," etc. CHRISTMAS EVE. 95 The supper had disposed everyone to gayety, and an old harper was summoned from the servants' hall, where he had been strumming all the evening, and to all appearance com- forting himself with some of the squire's home-brewed. He was a kind of hanger-on, I was told, of the establishment, and though ostensibly a resident of the village, was oftener to be found in the squire's kitchen than his own home, the old gentleman being fond of the sound of " Harp in Hall." The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one; some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself figured down several couple with a partner with whom he affirmed he had danced at every Christmas for nearly half a century. Master Simon, who seemed to be a kind of connect- ing link between the old times and the new, and to be withal a little antiquated in the taste of his accomplishments, evidently piqued himself on his dancing, and was endeavor- ing to gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and other graces of the ancient school; but he had unluckily assorted himself with a little romping girl from boarding school, who, by her wild vivacity, kept him continually on the stretch, and defeated all his sober attempts at elegance. Such are the ill- sorted matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately prone! The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with impunity; he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins; yet, like all madcap youngsters, he was a universal favorite among the women. The most interesting couple in the dance was the young officer and a ward of the squire's, a beautiful, blushing girl of seventeen. From several shy glances which I had noticed in the course of the evening, I suspected there was a little kindness growing up between them; and, indeed, the young soldier was just the hero to captivate a romantic girl. He was tall, slender, and handsome; and, like most young British officers of late years, had picked up various small ac- complishments on the Continent — he could talk French and Italian, draw landscapes, sing very tolerably, dance divinely; but, above all, he had been wounded at Waterloo. What girl of seventeen, well read in poetry and romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfection? The moment the dance was over he caught up a guitar, and, lolling against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude 96 THE SKETCH-BOOK. which I am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the little French air of the Troubadour. The squire, however, exclaimed against having anything on Christmas eve but good old English; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, and with a charming air of gallantry gave Herrick's " Night-Piece to Julia": " Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee, And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. "No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mislight thee; Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee ; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there is uone to affright thee : 11 Then let not the dark thee cumber ; What though the moon does slumber, The stars of the night Will lend thee their light, Like tapers clear without number. " Then, Julia, let me woo thee, Thus, thus to come unto me : And when I shall meet Thy silvery feet, My soul I'll pour into thee." The song might or might not have been intended in com- pliment to the fair Julia, for so I found his partner was called; she, however, was certainly unconscious of any such applica- tion, for she never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the floor; her face was suffused, it is true, with a beau- tiful blush, and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was amusing herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house flowers, and by the time the song was concluded the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor. The party now broke up for the night, with the kind- hearted old custom of shaking hands. As I passed through the hall on my way to my chamber, the dying embers of th,e yule clog still sent forth a dusky glow; and had it not been the season when " no spirit dares stir abroad," I should have been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight and CHRISTMAS DAT. 97 peep whether the fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth. My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the pon- derous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the giants. The room was paneled, with cornices of heavy carved work, in which flowers and grotesque faces were strangely intermingled, and a row of black-looking por- traits stared mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was of rich, though faded, damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche opposite a bow window. I had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. I listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some neighboring village. They went round the house, playing under the windows. I drew aside the curtains to hear them more distinctly. The moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially lighting up the antiquated apart- ment. The sounds, as they receded, became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with quiet and moonlight. I listened and listened — they became more and more tender and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sunk upon the pillow, and I fell asleep. CHRISTMAS DAY. Dark and dull night flie hence away, And give the honour to this day That sees December turn'd to May. Why does the chilling winter's morne Smile like a field beset with corn ? Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, Thus on a sudden ?— come and see The cause, why things thus fragrant be. — Herrick. When I woke the next morning it seemed as if all the events of the preceding evening had been a dream, and noth- ing 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 whis- pering 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." 9 8 THE SKETCH-BOOK. I rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door sud- denly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagine. It consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of the house, 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 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 hospitality. The window of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful landscape. There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees and herds of deer. At a distance •was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage 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 pre- ceding evening had been precipitated by the cold, and cov- ered all the trees and every blade of grass with its fine crystal- lizations. 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 dis- pla3dng all the glories of his train, and strutting with the pride 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 servants were seated on benches below. The old gentleman 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. CHRISTMAS DAY. 99 The service was followed by a Christmas carol, which Mr. Bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his fav- orite author, Herrick; and it had been adapted to a church melody by Master Simon. As there were several good voices among the household, the effect was 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 ram- bling out of all the bounds of time and tune: 4 * Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth With guiltless mirth, And giv'st me Wassaile bowles to drink Spic'd to the brink : "Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand That soiles my land : And giv'st me for my bush ell sowne, Twice ten for one." I afterward understood that early morning service was read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either by Mr. Bracebridge or some member of the family. It was once almost universally the case at the seats of the no- bility and gentry of England, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is falling into neglect; for the dullest observer must be 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 denominated true old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamenta- tions over modern breakfasts of tea and toast, which he cen- sured as among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of old 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 num- ber of gentlemen-like dogs, that seemed loungers about the establishment; from the frisky spaniel to the steady old stag- hound — the last of which was of a race that had been in the 100 THE SKETCH-BOOK. family time out of mind — they were all obedient to a dog. whistle which hung to Master Simon's buttonhole, 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 molded balustrades, and clipped yew trees carried with them an air of proud aristocracy. There appeared to be an unusual number of peacocks about the place, and I was making some remarks upon what I termed a flock of them that were basking under a sunny wall, when I was gently corrected in my phraseology by Master Simon, who told me that, according to the most ancient and approved treatise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. " In the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, " we say a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy 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 himself 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 be- cause they belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at the stately banquets of the olden time, and partly because they had a pomp and magnificence about them highly be- coming an old family mansion. Nothing, he was accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone balustrade. Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appoint- ment 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 man; and I confess I had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were nb't in the range m every-day reading* I mentioned this CHRISTMAS DAY. 101 last circumstance to Frank Braeebridge, who told me with a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was con- fined to some half a dozen old authors which the squire had put into his hands, and which he read over and over when- ever he had a studious fit, as he sometimes had on a rainy day or a long winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's " Book of Husbandry," Markham's " Country Contentments," " The Tretyse of Hunting" (by Sir Thomas Cockayne, Knight), Isaac 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 popular among the choice spirits of the last century. His practical ap- plication 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 par- ticular 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 observed: " At Christmas be merry, and thanJcful witlial, And feast thy poor neighbours, the great with the small." " If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Brace- bridge, " I can promise you a specimen of my cousin Simon's musical achievements. As the church is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from the village amateurs, and estab- lished a musical club for their improvement; he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds accord- ing to the directions of Jarvaise Markham, in his ' Country Contentments '; 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 lasses 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 102 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 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 sheltered nest, the parson issued forth and preceded us. I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, such 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, meager, 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 pock- ets that would 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 parson 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 Roman character. The editions of Caxton and Wynkin de Worde were his delight; and he was indefatigable in his researches after such old English writers as have fallen into oblivion from their worthlessness. 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 in- quiry, as if he had been a boon companion; but it was merely with that plodding spirit with which men of adust tempera- ment 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 rebuk- ing the gray-headed sexton for having used the mistletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy plant, profaned by having been CHRISTMAS DAY. 103 used by the Druids in their mystic ceremonies; and though it might be innocently employed in the festive ornamenting of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of the Church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred pur- poses. So tenacious was he on this point, that the poor sex- ton 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 simple; on the walls were several mural monuments of the Braeebridges, and just beside the altar, was a tomb of ancient workman- ship, 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 family who had signalized himself in the Holy Land, and the same whose picture hung over the fire- place in the hall. During service, Master Simon stood up in the pew, and 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 ob- served, 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 beating time with much gesticulation and emphasis. The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the other, among which I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the clarionet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and labor- ing at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two or three pretty faces among the female singers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint: but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as several had to sing from the same book, there were cluster- ings of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones. The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably 104 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the in- strumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by traveling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox hunter, to be in at the death. But the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on which he had founded great expectation. Unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset — the musicians became flur- ried; Master Simon was in a fever; everything went on lamely and irregularly, until they came to a chorus beginning, " Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or, rather, as soon as he could; excepting one old chorister, in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration. The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of observing it, not merely as a day of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing; support- ing the correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the Church, and enforcing them by the authorities of Theophilus of Cesarea, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and a cloud more of Saints and Fathers, from whom he made copious quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive the necessity of such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point which no one present seemed inclined to dispute; but I soon found that the good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to contend with; having, in the course of his researches on the subject of Christmas, got completely embroiled in the sec- tarian controversies of the Revolution, when the Puritans made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the Church and poor old Christmas was driven out of the land by procla- mation of Parliament.* The worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but little of the present. *From the Flying Eagle, a small Gazette, published December 24, 1352 : " The House spent much time this day about the business of the Navy, for settling the affairs at sea, and before they rose, were pre- sented with a terrible remonstrance against Christmas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v 16. 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17 ; and in honour of the Lord's Day, grounded upon these Scriptures, John xx. 1. Rev. i. CHRISTMAS DAY. 105 Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his antiquated little study, the pages of old times were to him as the gazettes of the day; while the era of the Revolution was mere modern history.. He forgot that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery persecution of poor mince pie throughout the land; when plum porridge was denounced as "mere popery/' and roast beef as anti-christian; and that Christmas had been brought in again triumphantly with the merry court of King Charles at the Restoration. He kindled into warmth with the ardor of his contest, and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to combat; he had a stub- born conflict with old Prynne and two or three other forgotten champions of the Round Heads, on the subject of Christmas festivity; and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and affecting manner, to stand to the traditional cus- toms of their fathers, and feast and make merry on this joy- ful anniversary of the Church. I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with more immediate effects; for on leaving the church, the con- gregation seemed one and all possessed with the gayety of spirit so earnestly enjoined by their pastor. The elder folks gathered in knots in the churchyard, greeting and shaking hands; and the children ran about crying, "Ule! ule! " and repeating some uncouth rhymes,* which the parson, who had joined us, informed me had been handed down from days of yore. The villagers doffed their hats to the squire as he passed, giving him the good wishes of the season with every appearance of heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to the hall, to take something to keep out the cold of the weather; and I heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, which convinced me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier had not forgotten the true Christmas virtue of charity. On our way homeward, his heart seemed overflowing with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising 10. Psalms, cxviii. 24 Lev. xxiii. 7, 11. Mark xv. 8. Psalms, Ixxxiv. 10 ; in which Christmas is called Antichrist's masse, and those Masse- mongers and Papists who observe it, etc. In consequence of which Par- liament spent some time in consultation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day which was commonly called Christmas day." *"Ule! Ule! Three puddings in a pule ; Crack nuts and cry ule ! " 106 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin cover- ing of snow from every southern declivity, and bring out the living green which adorns an English landscape even in mid- winter. Large tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. Every sheltered bank, on which the broad rays rested, yielded its silver rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute to the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the earth. There was something truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, as the squire observed, an emblem of Christmas hospi- tality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and selfish- ness, and thawing every heart into a flow. He pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the chimneys of the comfortable farmhouses 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 Eobin, in his malediction on every churlish enemy to this honest festival: " ' Those who at Christmas do repine, And would fain hence despatch him, May they with old Duke Humphry dine, Or else may Squire Ketch catch him.' " The squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the games and amusements which were once prevalent at this season among the lower orders, and countenanced 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 humming ale; when the harp and the carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were alike welcome to enter and make merry.* " Our old games *" An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. e., on CHRISTMAS DAT. 107 and local customs/' said he, " had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home, and the promotion 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 pass more time on their estates, mingle more among the country people, and set the 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 he had kept open house during the holidays in the old style. The country people, however, did not understand how to play their parts in the scene of hospitality; many uncouth circumstances oc- curred; 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 distributing 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 country lads, without coats, their shirt sleeves fancifully tied with ribands, their Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by daybreak. 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 sausage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (*. e. t the cook) by the arms and run her round the market place till she is shamed of her laziness." — Bound about our Sea- Coal Five, 108 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 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 performed a curious and intricate dance, advancing, retreat- ing, 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 interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced to the times when the Eomans 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 rough cudgel play, and broken heads, in the evening." After the dance was concluded, the whole party was enter- tained with brawn and beef, and stout home-brewed. The squire himself mingled among the rustics, 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 giving each other the wink; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly de- mure. With Master Simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. His varied occupations and amusements had made him well known throughout 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 genuine and affec- tionate 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 into their mirth, and a kind word or a small pleasantry frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependant more than oil and wine. When the squire had retired, the merriment increased, and there CHRISTMAS DAY. 109 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 under- stand them. The whole house indeed seemed abandoned to merriment: as I passed to my room to dress for dinner, I heard the sound of music in a small court, and looking through a window that commanded it, I perceived a band of wandering musi- cians, with pandean pipes and tamborine; 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 win- dow, and coloring up, ran off with an air of roguish affected confusion. 110 THE SKETCH-BOOK, THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. (found among the papers op the late diedkich knickerbocker.) A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky. — Castle of Indolence. In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappaan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly knowm by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given it, we are told, in former days, by the good house- wives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it ma}', I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authen- tic. Not far from this village, perhaps about three miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squir- rel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the rem- nant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley. From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char- acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the origi- nal Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. HI by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring coun- try. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hud- son. Certain it is, that the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon ball, in some nameless battle during the Eevolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church that is at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most au- thentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in col- lecting and collating the floating facts concerning this specter, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing ! o his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the specter is known at all the coun- try firesides, by the name of The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 112 THE SKETCH-BOOK. It is remarkable, that the visionary propensity I have men- tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but it is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there for a time. However wideawake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative — to dream dreams, and see apparitions. I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom. In this byplace of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country school- masters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine de- scending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 113 rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of copybooks. It was most in- geniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shut- ters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out: — an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive; inter- rupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, that ever bore in mind the golden maxim, " spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity; taking the burthen off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little, tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called " doing his duty by their parents"; and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that " he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live." When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behoved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely suffi- cient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge 114 THE SKETCH-BOOK. feeder, and though lank, had the dilating powers of an ana- conda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively, a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burthen, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms; helped to make hay; mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from pasture; and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway, with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilome so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together. In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing- master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of head work, to have a wonderful easy life of it. The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and ; THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 115 indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appear- ance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea- table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amuse- ment all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheep- ishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's " His- tory of New England Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, border- ing the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination; the moan of the whip-poor- will * from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl; or the sudden rustling in the thicket, of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of un- * The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. It re- ceives its name from its notes which are thought to resemble those words. 116 THE SKETCH-BOOK. common brightness would stream across his path; and if, by- chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blun- dering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; — and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing his nasal melody, " in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road. Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and sputtering along the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts, and goblins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of the Headless Horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they some- times called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and porten- tous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them woe- fully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with -the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy! But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cud- dling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no specter dared to show its face, it was -dearly pur- chased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homeward. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a sheeted specter beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close be- hind him! — and how often was he thrown into complete dis- may by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings! All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phan- THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. H? toms of the mind, that walk in darkness: and though he had seen many specters in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together; and that was — a woman. Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a sub- stantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy- cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grand- mother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the coun- try round. Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within these, everything was snug, happy, and well conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of 'it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than th^ style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it; at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the 118 THE SKETCH-BOOK. treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others, swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of suck- ing pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it like ill- tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman; clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart — sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and chil- dren to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devour- ing mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig run- ning about, with a pudding in its belly, and an apple in its mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey, but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagina- tion expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. H9 of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee — or the Lord knows where! When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged, but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers. The low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighbor- ing river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey, just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar, gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs, and dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock oranges and conch shells decorated the mantel- piece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the center of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china. From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to con- tend with; and had to make his way merely through gates of 120 THE SKETCH-BOOK. iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle-keep where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the center of a Christ- mas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments, and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic ad- mirers, who beset every portal to her heart; keeping a watch- ful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor. Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade of the name of Abraham, or according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rung with his feats of strength and har- dihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant coun- tenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had re- ceived the nickname of Brom Boxes, by which he was univer- sally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock-fights, and with the ascendancy which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decision with an air and tone that ad- mitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic; had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness there was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions of his own stamp, who re- garded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merri- ment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well- known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cos- sacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 121 and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang! " The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good will; and when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whis- pered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Cer- tain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to re- tire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, " sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other quarters. Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack — yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet the moment it was away — jerk! — he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. To have taken the field openly against his rival, would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuat- ing manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man, and an excellent father, let her have her way in every- thing. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to at- tend to her housekeeping and manage the poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would 122 THE SKETCH-BOOK. sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence. I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man* must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He that wins a thousand common hearts, is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined: his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. Brom, who had a degree of rough* chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and settled their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore — by single combat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him; he had overheard the boast of Bones, that he would " double the schoolmaster up, and put him on a shelf "; and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whim- sical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by stopping up the chimney; broke into the schoolhouse at night, in spite of his formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy; so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 123 in the country held their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody. In this way, matters went on for some time, without pro- ducing any material effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that scepter of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins; such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Appar- ently there had been some appalling act of justice recently in- flicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout- the schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appear- ance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trousers, a round- crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merrymaking, or " quilting frolic," to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and having delivered his message with that air of importance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scamper- ing away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission. All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school- room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons, with- out stopping at trifles; those who were nimble, skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy, had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside, with- out being put away on the shelves; inkstands were over- turned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was 124 THE SKETCH-BOOK. turned loose an hour before the usual time; bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation. The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and in- deed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking glass, that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the far- mer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutch- man, of the name of Hans Van Eipper, and thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adven- tures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken- down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from his name, which was Gun- powder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his mas- ter's, the choleric Yan Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country. Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grass- hoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a scepter, and as the horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appear- ance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Eipper, and it was altogether such an appa- rition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 125 forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble field. The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock-robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note, and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail, and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chat- tering, nodding, and bobbing, and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove. As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap- jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and "sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappaan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here 126 THE SKETCH-BOOK. and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The hori- zon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid- heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air. It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin-cushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, except- ing where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovations. The sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country, as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair. Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Xot those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 127 doughty doughnut, the tender oly-koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies, be- sides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy- piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst — Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old schoolhouse; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Eipper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade! Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to " fall to, and help themselves." And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instru- ment was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped away on two or three strings, accom- panying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, ancl 128 THE SKETCH-BOOK. clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window; gazing with delight at the scene; rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and jovous? the lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner. When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smok- ing at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawling out long stories about the war. This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees, cowboys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recol- lection, to make himself the hero of every exploit. There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue- bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a myn- heer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White- plains, being an excellent master of defense, parried a musket ball with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy termination. But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and appa- ritions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legend- ary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 129 best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot, by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no en- couragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have traveled away from the neighborhood: so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities. The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of super- natural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van TassePs, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some men- tion was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Eaven 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 specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the coun- try; and, it is said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The sequestered situation of this church seems 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 purity, beaming through the shades of retirement. A 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 this 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 130 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 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 daytime; but occasioned a fearful dark- ness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most fre- quently 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 Hollow, 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 marvelous adventures of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed, that on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he 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 fire. 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, sunk deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvelous 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 farmers gath- ered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions be- hind 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 lingered behind, accord- ing to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress; fully convinced 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, how- THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 131 ever, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapf alien — oh, these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not I! — let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the com- fortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover. It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy- hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travel homeward, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hom* was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappaan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watchdog 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, accidentally 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 gutteral twang of a bullfrog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed. All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the center of the road stood an enormous tulip tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, 132 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 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 unfortu- nate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill- starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told concerning it. As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whis- tle; he thought his whistle was answered: it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he ap- proached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree; he paused, and ceased whis- tling; 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 brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road 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 Andre was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of a schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark. As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the per- verse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 133 it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The school- master now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a sud- denness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler. The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escap- ing ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents — " Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgeled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of power- ful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness. Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight com- panion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind — the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. 134 THE SKETCH-BOOK. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler 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 increased, on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle! His terror rose to desperation; he reigned a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip — but the specter started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the white- washed church. As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terrors of Hans Van Eipper's wrath passed across his mind — for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears: the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskillful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on an- other, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflec- tion 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 THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 135 glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bone's 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 fancied 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 gained the opposite side, and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash — he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, 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 Eipper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church, was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Eipper, 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 smallclothes; a rusty razor; a book of psalm tunes full of dog's ears; and a broken pitch pipe. As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they be- longed to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's " His- tory of Witchcraft," a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune telling; in which last was a sheet of fools- 136 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. cap much scribbled and blotted, by several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith con- signed to the flames by Hans Van Kipper; 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 school- master 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. Tlje 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 pres- ent case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school was removed to a different quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. It is true, an old farmer who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the in- telligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Eipper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same time; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered; written for the newspapers; and finally, had been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 137 story often told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the road has been 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 plow- boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. POSTSCRIPT, FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER. The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient city of the Manhattoes,* at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and- salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face; and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor — he made such efforts to be entertaining. When his story was concluded there was much laughter and approbation, particularly from two ©r three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows, 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 turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but on good grounds — when they have reason and law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, and what it went to prove. The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, 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: * New York. 138 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. " That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures — provided we will but take a joke as we find it: " That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troop- ers, 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 ratio- cination of the syllogism; while, methought, the one in pep- per-and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed, that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant — there were one or two points on which he had his doubts: " Faith, sir," said the story-teller, " as to that matter, I don't believe one-half of it myself." D. K. NOTES. The numbers before the notes refer to the page on which the words occur. THE VOYAGE. 12. Quarter railing. The " quarter" is the after part of a vessel's side. 14. The Banks of Newfoundland. These are high submarine plateaus off the coast of Newfoundland, and on them is the richest fishing ground in the world. Dense fogs prevail in this region because of condensation of moisture in the air due to the contact of the warm Gulf Stream with the cold currents from the north. Smacks. Small sailing vessels used chiefly for fishing. 15. Mersey. This is the river on which is situated the great port of Liverpool. ROSCOE. 16. Roscoe. William Roscoe (1753-1831), an historian and general writer. His chief works were his "Life of Lorenzo de Medici " (1796) and "Life of Leo X." (1805). 17. Medici. A great Florentine family, who for the greater part of two centuries and a half ruled their city. The Medici furnished two Popes and two queens of France, and to them Florence owes many of her glorious monuments of art. The family became extinct in 1743. 18. " Daily beauty in his life." Othello, V. 1. 21. Black letter. Ancient books printed in black-letter type are so called. Black letter is a pointed and heavy-faced form of Roman type, perhaps first copied by type-founders from the style of penmanship adopted by some manuscript writers not particularly skillful in the formation of curves. 22. Pompey's pillar. A pillar erected in the third century by the prefect of Egypt in honor of the Emperor Diocletian. Pompey had nothing to do with it. RIP VAN WINKLE. 29. Diedrich Knickerbocker. A quaint old Dutch litterateur, a fictitious character, originated by Irving and assumed by him to be the author of Knickerbocker's " History of New York." Besides the MS. of the History, Diedrich left other papers and documents at his death ready for publication. He is represented as a small, brisk-looking old gentleman dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. For full details see the "Account of the Author" in the introductory pages of the "History of New York." 30. Waterloo Medal. A medal given to British soldiers for the battle of Waterloo, 1815. 140 NOTES. 30. Queen Anne's farthing. There is a common belief in England that only three specimens of the farthing of Queen Anne are in existence, and that of these three two are in the possession of the Government. The third would consequently be of very great value. As a matter of fact, the coin is not particularly rare. Kaatskill. Catskill, a range of mountains in Eastern New York. Appalachian family. Referring to the Appalachian range of mountains, which extends 1500 miles along the eastern portion of the United States,— from Alabama to the Gulf of St. Lawrence,— and includes the White, Green, Adirondack, Catskill, and Alleghany Mountains. Peter Stuyvesant. The last of the Dutch governors of the colony of New Netherlands, now New York. As governor he tried in every way to preserve peace with the Indians, to encourage trade and agriculture, and to induce settling. 31. Province of Great Britain. The English under the Duke of York took control of New Netherlands, and changed its name to New York. Fort Christina. A fort belonging to the Swedish settlers in Delaware. Curtain lecture. A private reproof given by a wife to her husband. 32. Galligaskins, A kind of leggings, supposed to take their name from the Latin words caligce, Fasconum, meaning hose worn by the people of Gascony, France. 33. Terrors of a woman's tongue. See " Taming of the Shrew," Act I. Sc. 2. " Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang? And do you tell me of a woman's tongue, That gives not half so great a blow to th' ear As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire ? " Gallows air. With the appearance of one on the gallows and about to be hanged ; meek ; a "hang-dog" look. George the Third. King of England, began to reign 1760, died 1820. Junta. A select deliberative assembly. 37. Hollands. Gin imported from Holland. 39. Red Night-Cap. During the French Revolution the red cap was regarded as the symbol of liberty. Irving represents the villagers as having erected a liberty-pole with a red cap on its top, and flung the American flag to the breezes, thereby celebrating the recently- acquired independence of the country. 40. Phlegm. From a Greek word meaning inflammation ; one of the humors with which the ancients supposed the blood to be suffused. Here the word simply means dullness, sluggishness, stupidity. Babylonish Jargon. Babylon is supposed to have stood on the spot where the Tower of Babel was built ; confused, unintelligible. Jargon (Fr. jargon), confused talk or language, gabble. Federal or Democrat. At the time of the formation and adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the members of one political party favored it and were called Federalists ; the members of the other opposed it and were called Democrats. These two parties also had opposite views concern- ing the foreign and domestic policy of the new nation. NOTES. 141 40. Akimbo. Der. is obscure, probably relating to the Keltic tot or cam, crooked. Dryden has : "The kimbo handles seem with bear's foot carved." Halliwell has : "Arms on keanboll," i. e., akimbo. To rest the hand on the hip with the elbow thrown forward and out. Tory. During the Revolution, one who opposed the war, and favored the claims of Great Britain, was called a tory. 41. Stony Point. A rocky promontory on the Hudson River. A fort on its top was captured from the British by General Anthony Wayne in 1779, by a brilliant assault. Anthony's Nose. Fanciful name of another rocky promontory on the Hudson. Why it came to have this name, see Irving's "History of New York," Book VI. ch. iv. 44. Frederick der Rothbart. Generally called in English Frederick Bar- barossa. Frederick I. (1152-90), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was one of the most striking characters of the Middle Ages. He went on several crusades, and fought a number of wars all over Europe. He was succeeded in 1190 by Henry VI. THE AKT OP BOOK MAKING. 45. Great Metropolis. London. British Museum. A vast museum in London filled with artistic, literary, and antiquarian treasures. 46. "Pure English undefiled." Spenser's "Faerie Queene " has "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled." 47. " Line upon line," etc. Isaiah xxviii. 10. Witches' Caldron. See "Macbeth," IV. 1. Metempsychosis. The passing of the soul from one body to another. 49. The Paradise of Dainty Devices. A miscellany, composed of the best work of some of the early Elizabethan poets, published in 1576. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86). An accomplished gentleman, writer, and statesman, living in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was the author of the pastoral romance, " Arcadia " ; the sonnet-sequence, " Astrophel and Stella," and other works in prose and verse. Small clothes. Breeches. Primrose Hill. An elevation near Regent's Park, now a public garden. Regent's Park. A park in London. " Babbling about green fields." See the description of Falstaff's death in "King Henry V.," II. 3. 50. Beaumont and Fletcher. Two famous dramatists who wrote plays together. They flourished a little later than Shakspere. Castor and Pollux. Two devoted brothers in Greek and Roman myth- ology. They were heroic sons of Zeus, or Jupiter. Ben Jonson. A dramatist some time later than Shakspere ; one of our most learned playwrights. Among his finest works are his Masques, upon which he lavished his stores of learning. Patroclus. The friend of Achilles, for whose body a mighty battle raged between the Trojans and the Greeks. See Iliad, XVII. In full cry. Close in pursuit, a phrase taken from the hunting field 142 NOTES. where the hounds are said to be "in full cry " when fairly upon the track of their prey. 50. Learned Theban. Cf. " King Lear," III. 4. THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. For grammatical notes see p. 150. 51. Domesday Book. The ancient record of the survey of most of the lands of England made by order of William the Conqueror about 1086. 54. Robert Grosseteste (cir. 1175-1253) was Bishop of Lincoln. He was an ardent reformer and the author of many learned treatises. Giraldus Cambrensis (cir. 1147-1223). A Welsh historian and ecclesiastic. Henry of Huntington (cir. 1084-1155). Wrote " Historia Anglorum." Joseph of Exeter (fl. 1190). One of the best mediaeval Latin poets. John Wallis. A learned man of his time. William of Malmesbury (cir. 1095-1143). He wrote histories of the English kings and bishops. Simeon of Durham (fl. 1130). A monk of Durham who wrote histories. Benedict of Peterborough id. 1193). Abbot of Peterborough, wrote a his- tory of the miracles of St. Thomas a Becket, etc. John Hanvill of St. Albans (fl. 1230). A Dominican monk of great learn- ing. 55. Wynkyn de Worde. An early sixteenth-centui-y English printer, pupil of, and successor to, Caxton. Robert of Gloucester (fl. 1260-1300). Wrote an English Chronicle. 56. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. See note, above. Sackville, Thomas, Earl of Dorset (1536-1608). Wrote plays to which Irving's epithet is justly applied. " The Mirror for Magistrates," is a uoble poem. John Lyly (1553-1606). Author of "Euphues," from which we get our word euphuism. STRATFORD- ON-AYON. 61. Jubilee. The Shakspere Jubilee was held at Stratford September 6, 1769. David Garrick (1717-79). The famous actor and friend of Johnson, Gold- smith, etc. 62. Santa Casa of Loretto (Santa Casa = Holy House). The house reputed to have been occupied by the Virgin Mary at Nazareth and miraculously transported to Italy, where it stood on ground belonging to the Lady Laureta. 67. Justice Shallow, Fa I staff, Slender, and Anne Page, are characters in " King Henry IV." and "The Merry Wives of Windsor." 70. Pretended similarity. A theory has been published which claims that the Gothic architects got their idea of the pointed arch from the interlacing of branches above alleys of trees. 71. " Under the greenwood tree," etc. From " As You Like It," II. 5. 72. Moss-troopers. Bandits. NOTES. 143 72. Star-Chamber. A high court of England, abolished in the reign of Charles I. So called because of the stars on the ceiling in the room in which it sat. 73. Coram - quorum. Custalorum = Custos rotulorum. Keeper of the rolls. Ratalorum= another error for Gustos rotulorum. Armigero = armiger, esquire. CHRISTMAS. 77. Announcements. Cf. St. Luke ii. 80. Waits [Ger. wacht or wache; Eng. watch]. Musicians who perform at night or in the early morning. In this connection waits are musicians who play during the night or early morning for two or three weeks before Christmas. " When deep sleep falleth upon man." Cf. Job iv. 13 ; xxxiii. 15. 81. " Some say that ever," etc " Hamlet," Act. I. So. 1. THE STAGE COACH. For grammatical notes see p. 156. 82. Yorkshire. A county in the north of England. Bucephalus. The famous horse of Alexander the Great. 86. Poor Robin. The name under which Robert Herrick, the poet, issued a series of almanacs. 87. Frank Bracebridge. Bracebridge Hall, the scene of these Christmas sketches in the Sketch Book, is treated of by Irving in a separate work bear- ing that name. CHRISTMAS EVE. 88. Chesterfield. Lord Chesterfield, author of the famous letters. 90. G< Mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound," etc., from Goldsmith's "Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog." " The little dogs and all," etc. " King Lear," III. 6. 91. Twelve days of Christmas. From December 25th to tTanuary 6th. The old games. Many of the old Christmas games resembled those now played by young people. Hoodman Blind is the same as Blindman's buff. In Hot Cockles one of the players is blindfolded and seeks to guess who strikes at him. In Snap-Dragon the sport is to see the player snatch dainties from a bowl of blazing brandy. 93. Buffet. A sideboard, from the French. 97. Tester [old Fr. teste, the head]. Top cover or canopy of a bed sup- ported by the bedstead. CHRISTMAS DAT. 100. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470-1538). A very learned judge who wrote books on husbandry, surveying, etc., for farmers. 144 NOTES. 101. Old Tusser (1527-80). Wrote a work entitled "A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie." 103. Druids. The priests of the ancient Britons and other Celtic races. Cremona fiddles. Cremona in Italy was the home of such famous violin- makers as the Guarneri and Stradivari families. 104. Theophilus of Cesarea. A Father of the Church. St. Cyprian (cir. 200-58). A famous Father of the Church. St. Chrysostom {cir. 347-407). Another famous Father of the Church. His name means "golden-mouthed." St. Augustine {d. 604). The first Archbishop of Canterbury, who converted great numbers of the English to Christianity. 105. Prynne (1600-69). A leader of the Puritan movement in England. 106. " With old Duke Humphrey dine," etc. Go without dinner. Squire Ketch. The hangman. 109. Pandean. An epithet formed from the name Pan of the Greek god of flocks and shepherds. He is said to have invented the syrinx or shepherd's flute. A LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 110. Tappaan Zee. The " Mediterranean " of the river, as Irving called it, is the first and largest expansion of the Hudson. This "sea" is rich in historic story, and far more so in romantic association. St. Nicholas. A highly popular saint. He is regarded as the especial patron of the young, and particularly of scholars. The feast of this saint used to be celebrated, in olden times, in England, with solemnity in the great public schools. Tarry Town. A Dutch village of considerable antiquity, cozily nestled among the hills on the Hudson, some twenty-five miles from New York. Sleepy Hollow is situated within its limits. Should wish for a retreat. Many years after this sketch was written the wish was literally gratified. Bead the " Prefatory Note." 111. Powwows. Before going on the war-path, at councils, and on various other occasions, Indians were wont to hold a meeting called a "powwow," at which there was great noise, dancing, etc. Master Hendrick Hudson. During his second voyage in search of a north- west passage to India, this celebrated navigator discovered the Hudson River, in 1609. Nightmare [A. S. niht, night ; mara, a nightmare, incubus ; literally, "a crusher," from the root mar, to crush]. A dream at night accompanied with a feeling of pressure on the chest, generally the result of eating indiges- tible food. Once called the night-hag or the riding of the witch. u The witch we call Mara." — Scott. " He met the nightmare and her nine fold."— King Lear. Hessian trooper. During the War of the Revolution, the British gov- ernment hired some 16,000 troops of the German princes to fight in America. Most of these soldiers came from the province of Hesse-Cassel, and hence were called Hessians. NOTES. 145 111. Church. This old Dutch church, finished in 1699, is still in existence. Within a stone's throw was the old mill, built in 1686, near the bridge along- side of which Ichabod Crane disappeared. 112. Remote period. An example of Irving's quiet humor and genial satire. Cognomen [L. con, with ; nomen, name]. Surname. Roman families of position had three names. The cognomen was the last of the three. 113. Eel-pot. A basket made in a peculiar shape, and used to catch eels. " Spare the rod and spoil the child." Cf. Butler's "Hudibvas," Part ii. C. i. 1. 843. " Love is a boy by poets styl'd ; Then spare the rod and spoil the child." " He that spareth his rod hateth his son."— Prov. xiii. 24. 114. Going the rounds. This custom of boarding the schoolmaster around the neighborhood is still kept up in certain sections of the country. ' ' Board- ing round " was the universal custom in olden times in New England. Useful and agreeable. Contrast this description of a country schoolmaster with the sketch of Goldsmith's village master in the " Deserted Village," 1. 193 ; and the college pedagogue described by Whittier in his "Snow-Bound." The lion bold, etc. Allusion is made to the rude couplet in the "New England Primer," which was placed beside the picture of a lion resting his paw on a lamb. This served to explain the letter L. " The Lion bold The Lamb doth hold." Whilome [A. S. whilon, sometime]. Formerly, once, of old. By hook and by crook. Somehow ; in one way or another. Many sug- gestions have been ventured in explanation of this phrase, but none are satisfactory. See Brewer's " Dictionary of Phrase and Fable " and Edwards's "Words, Facts, and Phrases." 115. Cotton Mather's "His. of N. E. Witchcraft." Cotton Mather (1663- 1728), a profound and industrious scholar and celebrated theologian of New England, was the author of 382 works, mostly theological. His best known work was "Magnalia Christi Americana," "a bulky thing," as the author called it, of 1300 pages. The work is a mighty chaos of fables and blunders, discussing almost every question, particularly theology and witchcraft. "It is never possible to tell," says Professor Moses Coit Tyler, "just where the fiction ends and the history begins." Irving probably had the " Magnalia " in mind. 116. Linked sweetness. See Milton's "L'Allegro," 1. 140. " Of linked sweetness long drawn out." 117. Saardam. A little town in Holland. Stomacher. Part of the waist of a woman's dress, used as an ornament or support. "Instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth. "—Isaiah Hi. 24. Stronghold. Van Tassel's stronghold is supposed to be the same cottage which Irving bought for a residence, and became known as "Sunny- side." Irving describes it as "a little old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat," 146 NOTES. 118. Mind's eye. Cf. "In my mind's eye, Horatio."— Hamlet I. Sc. 2. Pudding in his belly. "That roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly."— Shale. 1 Hen. IV., II. 4. Gizzard [Fr. G-esier]. The strong, muscular stomach of a fowl. 119. Setting out for Kentucky. At this time these States were in the remote West. Dresser. An old-time article of kitchen furniture, somewhat resembling the modern sideboard, on which the table dishes were arranged. Linsey-woolsey. Cloth made of linen and wool from which homespun garments were made. Gaud [Lat. gaudium, gladness, joy]. Show, ornament. Also spelled gawd in Shakspere. Asparagus tops. Commonly used to ornament the old-fashioned fireplace in summer. Mock oranges. A species of gourds, of various colors, shaped like oranges, commonly used as household ornaments. Old silver, etc. For additional details of the furniture of a well-to-do Dutch farmhouse, see Irving's "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Knight-errant [A. S. cnight, boy, servant; Eng. knight, a soldier who fought on horseback : errant, Lat. errare, to wander]. A soldier who traveled to exhibit his prowess or military skill. 120. Castle-keep. The castle dungeon, used as a prison for captives, or as a place of last defense. Herculean. Hercules, one of the most celebrated heroes of Greek legends, was famous for his great strength and incredible feats. Tartar. The Tartars, inhabitants of Tartary, once a large province in Central Asia, were noted for their horsemanship. Don Cossacks. The Don Cossacks belonged to one of the great branches of the Cossack people, inhabiting a vast fertile plain on the Eiver Don. They are noted for their skillful and daring horsemanship. The Cossacks furnish a large and valuable contingent of light cavalry to the Russian army. 121. Rantipole. A wild, harum-scarum fellow, a madcap. One of the nicknames given to Napoleon III. " Dick be a little rantipolish. "—CoZman's " Heir-at-Law." Supple-jack. The popular name of a tough and flexible Southern vine, often used for walking-sticks. Achilles. The hero of Homer's Hiad ; one of the bravest of the Greek warriors who took part in the siege of Troy. 122. Harried [Fr. harrier, to vex]. Harassed, vexed. 123. Mercury. The common name of Hermes, the messenger of the gods. Quilting frolic. An old-time merrymaking. The women were invited in the afternoon to "quilt"; toward night the men came to tea, after which followed games, dancing, gossip, etc. The "apple bee " and " husking bee" were similar merrymakings. Says Irving: "Now were instituted 'quilting bees,' and 'husking bees,' and other rural assemblages, where, under the inspiring influence of the fiddle, toil was enlivened by gayety and followed up by the dance."— history of New York, Bk. VII. ch. 2. NOTES. 1^7 124. Filly. A young mare. 125. Gorget [Fr. gorge, the throat ; garget, the throat, in Chaucer]. The gorget was that part of ancient armor which defended the neck. Also a cres- cent-shaped ornament formerly worn by military officers on the breast. Monteiro. Fancy-colored, jaunty. Derivation of the word is in some doubt. Treacle. The syrup drained from sugar in making it. Molasses. Literally, means an antidote against the bite of wild beasts. Triacle, a sovereign remedy, commonly used in Middle English. 126. With scissors and pincushions. For more details of the quaint style of dress among the Dutch people, see Irving's "Hist, of N. Y.," Bk. III. ch. 4. 127. Oly Koek [Dutch olie koek, oil cake]. Cakes, like doughnuts and crullers, fried in lard. Higgledy-piggledy. Take notice of the numerous colloquial and familiar phrases used by Irving in his easy style of writing, as "higgledy-piggledy" "topsy-turvy," "all hollow," "by hook and by crook," etc. 128. St. Vitus. Sometimes held to be the patron saint of the dance. He was supposed to have control over nervous and hysterical affections. Hence his power was invoked against the nervous disease, marked by irregular and involuntary movements of the muscles, called chorea, or more commonly, St. Vitus's Dance. Cow-boys. A gang of plunderers infesting the neutral ground lying between the British and American lines during the war of the Kevolution. In the second volume of his "Life of Washington," Irving gives a detailed and graphic account of the troubles and trials of this portion of the river during the Revolution. Mynheer [Ger. mein, my ; herr, a lord, sir]. A Dutch word meaning Mr. or Sir. White-Plains. A battle of little advantage to the Americans was fought here in 1776. 129. Major Andre. This brave, but unfortunate, British officer was cap- tured by three patriots in this neighborhood while carrying dispatches from the traitor, Benedict Arnold, to the British general, Sir Henry Clinton. Andre was hanged as a spy, and his body buried beneath the gallows. Read details of this interesting topic in some history of the United States. 130. Pillions. A cushion for a woman to ride on behind a person on horse- back. Rarely used to-day. Tete-a-Tete. Literally, head to head. A familiar conversation, a cozy talk, a confidential interview. 131. Timothy. A name commonly given to a species of grass. One Timothy Hanson is said to have carried the grass to England, and hence gave rise to the name. Witching time of night. Cf. " Hamlet," III. 2, 1. 406 : " 'Tis now the very witching time of night When grave-yards yawn," etc. Goblin [Fr. gobelin, a hobgoblin]. An evil spirit, a frightful phantom; a fairy, an elf. 148 NOTES. 133. Stave. A staff or metrical portion of a tune. A verse in psalm- singing. 135. Reach that bridge. It was a superstitious notion that witches could not cross the middle of a stream. Cf. Burns's " Tarn o'Shanter : " " A running stream they darena cross." Corduroy [Fr. corde-du-roi, cord of the kiug"|. A thick cotton cloth, corded or ribbed, from which wearing apparel for common use was often made. Dogs' ears. The corner of a leaf in a book turned down like the ear of a dog. 136. Ten Pound Court. A court having jurisdiction over cases involving sums not over ten pounds, or about fifty dollars. 137. Unfortunate pedagogue. Mention the various epithets given by Irving to Ichabod Crane; as, "worthy pedagogue," "a huge feeder," "the enraptured Ichabod," etc. Manhattoes. See Irving's "History of New York," Bk. II. ch. 6. GRAMMATICAL NOTES ON THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE AND THE STAGE COACH. INTRODUCTION. Terminology. The Attribute complement completes the meaning of a verb and relates to its subject. It may be a noun, a pronoun, an adjective, a participle ; a phrase, participial, prepositional, or infinitive; a dependent clause. The Objective complement completes the meaning of a verb and relates to its object. It may be a noun, a pronoun, an adjective ; a phrase, participial, prepositional, or infinitive ; a dependent clause. The indirect object names the person to whom or for whom something is done. The preposition is not expressed before the indirect object. The appositive explains directly the meaning of a preceding noun or pro- noun. It may be a noun, pronoun, or a substantive clause or phrase ; the latter usually infinitive in form. Phrases are prepositional, participial, or infinitive in form. A preposition with its object and the modifiers of that object constitutes a prepositional phrase. A phrase may, therefore, include another phrase or even a subordinate clause. An infinitive with its com- plement and modifiers constitutes an infinitive phrase. A participle with its complement and modifiers constitutes a participial phrase. It may, therefore, include a modifying phrase or a dependent clause. Phrases, according to their use or syntax, are independent, adjective, adverb, or noun. An adjective phrase belongs to a noun or pronoun and in meaning either describes or points out. An adverbial phrase belongs to a verb (participle, infinitive), adjective, or adverb, and expresses all adverbial ideas of time, place, degree, manner, cause, purpose, result, agent, instru- ment, etc. The noun phrase, which is participial or infinitive in form, has the use of a noun ; i. e., the use of subject, object, attribute, objective com- plement; appositive, or object of preposition. An adjective clause belongs to a noun or pronoun. The adverb clause has the same use as an adverbial phrase, and expresses one of the above-named adverbial ideas. The noun clause has one of the uses named for the noun phrase. SUGGESTIONS. Every word must be accounted for within its own clause. For example, a conjunctive adverb as an adverb modifies the verb in the subordinate clause of which this connective forms apart ; as a connective it joins the subordinate clause to some ^ ord in the principal clause. Again, a relative pronoun has 149 150 GRAMMATICAL NOTES. its case use within its own clause, and in addition connects the subordinate clause with some word in the principal clause. The gerund or verbal in ing is here treated as a noun use of the present participle. All the participial constructions are disposed of under one or the other of two uses, noun or adjective. The objective complement of the active verb is treated as the attribute of the verb when changed to active voice. THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. Page 51. 1. There. Introductory adverb, serving only to throw the subject moods after the verb. 2. Where . . . undisturbed. Adjective clause, modifying haunt. Where modifies indulge and build, and connects the dependent clause with haunt. Where is equivalent to in which. 3. When . . . merriment. Adverb clause, modifying was loitering. 4. Playing at football. Adjective phrase, modifying boys. 5. Making . . . merriment. Adjective phrase, modifying boys. 6. Echo . . . merriment. Infinitive phrase, objective complement of making; i. e., completes meaning of making and modifies the objects passages and tombs. This is treated by some grammarians as a noun infini- tive clause, used as object of making, in which clause the infinitive echo has for its subject the nouns passages and tombs. According to the latter explanation, these nouns have objective case because subject of an infinitive vei-b. 7. By . . . pile. Adverb phrase, modifying take. 8. Rich. Adjective belonging to portal. An adjective, when modified by a phrase, usually has the position of an appositive ; i. e., after its noun. 9. Just. Adverb belonging to the preposition toithin. Prepositions that retain the idea of an adverb may be so modified. 10. As if seldom used. Supply it were. Adverb clause of manner modify- ing opened. As if is a compound conjunction. 11. The roof . . . oak. Absolute participial phrase. 12. At . . . floor. Adjective phrase, modifying xoindows. 13. And which. A careless construction. And is a co-ordinate conjunction and should therefore join elements of like construction. Correct by omitting and. Page 52. 14. Than use. A much contracted clause, as is frequently the case in com- parative expressions introduced by than and as. Supply they were worn by. It then becomes an adverb clause of degree, modifying more. Than modifies were worn in the dependent clause and as connective joins the dependent clause with more. See introductory notes. 15. Deep. Adjective, attribitte complement of was buried. 16. Faintly . . . cloisters. Objective complement of hear. See intro- ductory notes. 17. Tolling for prayers. Adjective phrase, modifying bell. GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 151 18. That echoed . . . abbey. See 16. 19. Fainter. Adjective, attribute complement of grew. 20. To toll. Noun infinitive, object of ceased. 21. Instead of reading. Adverb phrase, modifying was beguiled. 22. However. Parenthetical adverb. 23. Into . . . musing. Adverb phrase, modifying teas beguiled. 24. Like mummies. This may be accounted for in three ways : (a) Like, a preposition, mummies its object ; (b) Like, an adverb modifying are entombed; mummies object of preposition to supplied ; (c) Like, an adverb, mummies equivalent to an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying like. The third explanation is to be preferred. Some grammarians term this an adverbial noun ; others, an adverbial objective. 25. Head. Indirect object. Days, object. 26. And all (was) for what ? 27. To occupy . . . shelf; to have myself: to be lost even to remembrance. Supply it was. These are then noun phrases in apposition with it. 28. Read . . . myself. Objective complement of have. 29. Like. An adjective, modifying straggler. For myself, see mummies, note 24. 30. Even. Adverb, modifying phrase, to remembrance. 31. Filling . . . moment ; lingering . . . echo ; passing . . . not. Adjective phrases modifying which. 32. Half murmuring ; half meditating. Attribute complements of sat. Page 53. 33. Having contracted is joined by and with being troubled and hence in the same construction ; but the former in thought refers to look ; the latter to voice. 34. Tome. Objective complement of found; or, it may be called a second- ary object. 35. To be sure. Independent. 36. What . . . barbarous. Noun clause, attribute complement of was, (supplied after pronimciation). What. Relative pronoun, subject of would be deemed; introduces noun clause. Barbarous. Attribute complement of would be deemed. 37. As far as I am able. Far, adverb, modifying shall endeavor . As, adverb degree modifying far. Dependent clause as I am able is an adverb clause of degree modifying as far in the independent clause ; or, it may be said to modify the first as. The second as is a conjunctive adverb, modifying am in its own clause, and connecting the dependent clause with as far. See intro- ductory notes. 38. About . . . obscurity. Adverbial phrase, modifying railings. Being suffered . . . obscurity. Adjective phrase, modifying merit. To languish in obscurity. Attribute complement of being suffered. 39. That . . . centuries. Adverb clause, modifying complained. 40. More than. Compound adverb, modifying two. 41. A plague. A is an absolute preposition. 42. I began to perceive. Parenthetical. The relative clause, by a not 152 GRAMMATICAL NOTES. infrequent idiom, is at once the object of perceive and an adjective modifier of quarto. 43. Shut up here ; watched . . . dean. Objective complements ; i. e., they complete keeping and modify its object volumes. 4A. Merely . . . dean. Adverb phrase, modifying shut up. 45. To give pleasure. Adverbial phrase, modifying were written. 46. That the dean . . . year. Noun clause in apposition with rule. Each. Indirect object of pay. Tear. Equivalent to an adverbial phrase modifying once. 47. If not . . . task. Adverb clause of condition, modifying let. 48. Let. Predicate verb of independent clause, in imperative mode. Let is followed by the indirect object them, and the noun infinitive phrase used as object, turn loose . . . among us. Or, them may be treated as subject of the infinitive turn and the phrase be treated as object of let. This is an ordinary construction with let. 49. Loose. Objective complement, completing turn and modifying its object school. 50. That . . . airing. Adverb clause of purpose, modifying turn. 51. Aware. Adjective. Attribute complement of are. How much . . . generation. Are aware seems to have a transitive force equivalent to know, and hence is followed by an object clause. Or, the clause may be called adverbial, modifying aware. Or, it may be an appositive of fact supplied. 52. Than . . . your generation. Supply are: An adverb clause of degree, modifying better. Off. Adverb modifying better. 53. While . . . dust. Adverb clause of time, modifying lie. En- shrined . . . chapels. Attribute. Long, adverb, modifying since. 54. To circulate . . . works. Attribute complement of icas intended. Page 54. 55. Before I go to pieces. Adverb clause of time, modifying uttering. 56. Friend. Independent, used in direct address. 57. Long. Adverb, modifying phrase ere this. 58. Ere. Preposition, governing this. 59. To judge physiognomy. Supply If I were. 60. Stricken. An attribute complement, not a part of the verb. 61. To being . . . libraries. Adverb phrase, modifying owe. 62. Which. Here equals these used as object of likening, and the clause becomes independent. The sentence then reads, suffer me to add that instead of likening these to harems you might more properly have compared (them), etc. 63. Me to add. For me and add, see Note 52. 64. Instead of. Compound preposition. The phrase is adverbial, modifying might have compared. 65. And where. Cf. Note 13. A careless construction. Correct by omitting and. Adjective clause, modifying establishments. 66. As if in circulation. Supply they were. Adverb clause of manner, modifying talk. 67. To have . . . volumes. Attribute complement of is said. GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 153 68. Only. Only is adjective or adverb, according to the part of speech of the word which it emphasizes. Here an adverb, modifying few. 69. Where . . . antiquarian. Adjective clause, modifying libraries. Where equals in which. 70. Historian, philosopher, etc. Appositives of Giraldus Cambrensis. 71. That he . . . posterity. Adverb clause of purpose, modifying declined. 72. Miracle. Attribute complement styled. 73. OfJohnWallis . . . life. Adjective phrase, modifying what. Page 55. 74. So that . . . forgotten. Adverb clause of result, modifying lived and wrote. 75. To be forgotten. Noun infinitive, object of deserve. 76. Where . . . fixed. Adjective clause, modifying time. 77. Model. Attribute complement of was considered. 78. That these . . . phraseology. Object of observe. 79. That I have . . . phraseology. Adverb clause of result, modifying such, or such antiquated ; or, it may be classified as a clause of degree. 80. Mercy. Object of cry. You. Indirect object. 81. Back to. A compound preposition, governing times. Even modifies the phrase back to the times. 82. Mutable. Adjective used as objective complement, completing has made, and modifying literature. Fleeting, same construction. 83. Than such a medium (is). Adverb clause of degree, modifying more ; or, more permanent. 84. Altering. Participle, used as objective complement. Subject. An adjective in the same construction. Page 56. 85. Supplanted . . . writers. Participial phrasj, objective complement of beholds. 86. Such. Attribute complement of will be of which verb fate is the subject. 87. Such will be the fate . . . Tartary. Noun clause object of anticipates, which is the predicate of the independent clause. 88. However . . . purity. Adverb clause of concession, modifying will grow. 89. Until . . . Tartary. Adverb clause of time, modifying will grow. 90. Almost. Adverb modifying as. 91. Unintelligible. Adjective, attribute complement of shall become. 92. As . . . Tartary. Adverb clause of degree, modifying as preceding unintelligible. 93. Said . . . Tartary. Adjective phrase, modifying inscriptions. 94. To exist . . . Tartary. Infinitive adjective phrase, attribute comple- ment of said. 95. Disposed . . . existence. Participial adjective phrase, attribute com- plement of feel. 96. To sit down . . . existence. Adverb phrase, modifying disposed. Or, some might consider it adjective used as attribute complement. 154 GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 97. Like. Adjective modifying I Xerxes. Noun equivalent to an adverb phrase modifying like. 98. When . . . existence. Adverb clause of time, modifying did supplied. 99. In existence. Adjective phrase, attribute complement of icould be. 100. That . . . existence. Noun clause, object of reflected. 101. But. Preposition, because equivalent to except. The phrase is objec- tive and modifies nothing. 102. In vogue. Adjective phrase, objective complement of suppose, modify- ing the object whom. 103. So. Here an adjective equivalent to the phrase in vogue, and attribute complement of to be. 104. Though . . . proverb. Adverb clause of concession, modifying is known. 105. Succeeding. Not a participle, but an adjective. Distinguish sharply between an adjective which is spelled like a participle, and a participle which relates to a noun and hence is used adjectively. Page 57. 106. That it is . . . curious. Adverb clause of degree, modifying so. Or, it may be considered a clause of restdt. 107. That some . . . curious. Noun clause, [in apposition with it. Curious. An adjective used as a noun. 108. Precaution. Objective complement. 109. To reason from analogy. Independent. 110. Springing, flourishing, adorning, fading. Objective complements. 111. 'Were not this the case. Adverbial clause of consideration, modifying would be. Note the inverted order, when the conjunction if is omitted. 112. Time. Adverbial use of a noun ; i. e., equivalent to a prepositional adverbial phrase. Do not supply a preposition. 113. To be transcribed by hand. Adverb phrase modifying hand. 114. So that . . . another. Result clause, modifying icas expensive. It is often difficult to limit to one word the modifying force of an adverb clause. It seems to belong to the combined meaning of predicate and attribute adjective, as in the present instance. So that. A compound conjunction. 115. That we . . . antiquity; that . . . deluge. Noun clauses in apposition with it. 116. Writer. Objective complement. 117. Mine ... to pour and diffuse. See 52. 118. Since. Adjective, belonging to centuries. 119. Such. Adjective, modifying libraries. 120. As. Relative pronoun. It is subject of exist, and connects the adjective clause as actually exist with the antecedent libraries. 121. Containing . .. . volumes. Adjective phrase, modifying libraries. 122. Legions. Supply to. Same construction as libraries. 123. To double . . . number. Infinitive adverb phrase, modifying going on. Page 58. 124. Now that. A compound conjunctive adverb introducing a clause which expresses both time and cause, and modifies tremble. GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 155 125. The mere . . . sufficient. Noun clause, object of fear. 126. Of. Adverb; or, it maybe treated as a preposition inseparably con- nected witb the verb. 127. Let criticism do. See note 52. 128. What it may (do). Noun clause object of do. What. Object of may do in the dependent clause. 129. Merely . . . names. Noun phrase, appositive of it. 130. But. Preposition. 131. Before long. A compound adverb equivalent to soon. 132. Just. Adverb of degree, modifying as. 133. Just .... world. Adverb clause of time, modifying making. 134. For he was. . . deer-stealing. Adverb clause of reason, modifying shook. 135. To run the country for deer-stealing. Attribute complement of was obliged. See introductory notes. 136. There. See note 1. 137. Proof. Adjective, attribute complement of seem. 138. Defying . . . vicinity. Three participial adjective phrases, objective complements of behold. 139. Even he. Even is an adjective relating to he. 140. I grieve to say. Independent clause. 141. To say. Adverb phrase. 142. Clambering. A mere adjective. See 108. Page 59. 143. That the literature . . . poet. Noun clause, object of persuade. Me. Indirect object. 144. Nettled . . . age. Adjective phrase, used as attribute of felt. 145. With the true poet. Adjective phrase, modifying everything. 146. Such. Adjective, limiting life. 147. As it is passing before him. Eelative adjective clause, modifying such pictures. As. Belative pronoun, attribute complement of is passing. 148. To be renewed. Noun infinitive, object of may require. 149. As (it happened) in the case of Chaucer. Adverb clause of manner, modifying to be renewed. 150. Unaltered. Adjective, attribute of continue. 151. Back. Adverb, modifying cast. 152. What vast . . . metaphysics. Three contracted exclamatory sen- tences. Supply in each we see. Volleys, boys, wastes, then become the objects in their respective sentences. 153. To transmit . . . age. Adverb phrase of purpose, modifying elevated. 154. From age to age. May be taken as an idiomatic adverbial expression not to be separated into parts. Or, the two simple phrases from age and to age modify transmit. Page 60. 155. About to launch . . . day. Prepositional phrase used as attribute complement of was. About is a preposition having for its object the infinitive phrase to launch . . . day. 156 GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 156. When . . . head. Adverb clause of time, modifying was. 157. Me. Object of caused. To turn my head, objective complement of caused. See 52. 158. That it was . . . library. Noun clause, appositive of fact supplied. 159. To close the library. Adjective phrase, modifying time. 160. Unconscious. Adjective, attribute complement of looked. 161. But in vain. Supply I endeavor. THE STAGE COACH. Page 82. 1. To illustrate . . . country. Attribute complement of am tempted. 2. In perusing . . . amusement. An independent clause, which being equivalent to and these. 3. In perusing which. Adverb phrase, modifying to lay aside. 4. To lay aside . . . wisdom ; to put on . . . amusement. Objective com- plement of invite. 5. In the course . . . Yorkshire ; for a long distance ; in one of the public coaches ; on the day preceding Christmas. Four adverb phrases, modifying rode. 6. Bound . . . dinner. Participial adjective phrase, attribute complement of seemed. 7. To eat . . . dinner. Adverb phrase, modifying bound. 8. Dangling . . . box. Participial adjective phrase, attribute complement of hung. 9. Presents. Explanatoi*y modifier of hares. 10. For the impending feast. Adjective phrase, modifying presents. 11. For my fellow passengers. Adverb phrase, modifying had. 12. Inside. Adverb, modifying had. 13. Themselves. Indirect object of were promising. World. Object of were promising. 14. To hear . . . pedagogue. Noun phrase, explanatory modifier of it. 15. Which they were . . . pedagogue. Relative adjective clause, modifying feats. 16. Down to. Compound preposition. Down to the very cat and dog. Ad- jective phrase, modifying family and household. 17. Which I found to be a pony. Which. Object of found. To be a pony. Objective complement of found. See Mutability of Literature. Note 52. 18. According to. Compound preposition. 19. Than any steed (has possessed) since, etc. Adverb clause of degree, modifying more. Page 83. 20. Under . . . questions. Adjective phrase, attiibute complement of were. 21. Pronounced. Joined by and with were. 22. One. Objective complement of pronounced. 23. But. Adverb, being equivalent to only. Modifies could notice. A curious use of the double negative in English. Not is superfluous. 24. More than. Has the force of the prefix extra, phrase adverb, modifying ordinary. GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 157 25. Little. Equivalent to the Latin construction for measure of difference. A substantive, equivalent to an adverbial preposition phrase, modifying the phrase on one side. 26. Stuck . . . coat. Adjective phrase, modifying bunch. 27. He is particularly so. So is an adjective equivalent to full of care and business, and is attribute complement of is. 28. To execute. Adjective infinitive, modifying commissions. 29. In consequence . . . presents. Adverb phrase, modifying having. 30. To have . . . mystery. Noun phrase, explanatory modifier of it. 31. So that. Compound conjunction. 32. So that . . . mystery. Adverb clause of result, modifying have. 33. As if. Compound conjunction. 34. As if . . . skin. Adverb clause of manner, modifying mottled. 35. The upper . . . heels. Independent, absolute phrase. One is the nominative case used absolutely with the participle reaching. 36. Far below. Below, a preposition. Far, an adverb, modifying below. 37. To meet . . . legs. Adverb phrase, modifying extend. 38. Notwithstanding . . . appearance. Adverb phrase, modifying is. 39. Discernible. Attribute complement of is. 40. Neatness and propriety. Subjects of is. The predicate is singular be- cause the subjects together convey a unified idea. 41. Along the road. Adverb phrase, modifying enjoys. 42. Man. Objective complement of look upon. Look upon may be regarded as a transitive verb, equivalent to regard, the preposition upon being so closely related to the verb as to form with it but one idea. Or, the sentence may be treated as elliptical. Supply after as, they icould look upon. 43. To have . . . lass. Attribute complement of seems. 44. Moment. Equivalent to an adverb phrase modifying throws. 45. (in which) he arrives . . . changed. Adjective clause, modifying moments. Page 84. 46. His duty . . . another. Absolute participial phrase, independent gram- matically, but having the force of an adverb modifying abandons. See Reed & Kellogg's " High School Grammar," page 70. 47. Merely . . . another. Noun phrase, attribute complement of being. 48. When (he is) off the box. 49. As (they would look) up to an oracle. Adverb clause of manner, modi- fying look. 50. To imitate . . . carriage. Noun phrase, object of endeavor. 51. That I fancied . . . journey. Noun clause, explanatory modifier of it. 52. As the coach . . . village. Adverb clause of time, modifying runs. 53. Company pass. Company is the object, and (to) pass the objective com- plement of seeing. 54. Blacksmith's. Modifies some noun supplied. 55. With . . . cap. Adverb phrase, modifying pauses. 56. Iron to grow cool. See 53. 57. Laboring at the bellows. Adjective phrase, modifying specter. 158 GRAMMATICAL NOTES. Page 85. 58. More than. Has the force of the prefix un. See 24. 59. As if everybody . . . spirits. Noun clause, explanatory modifier of it. 60. In brisk circulation in the villages. Adjective phrase, attribute com- plement of were. 61. Putting . . . order. Attribute of were stirring. 62. To appear at the windows. Noun phrase, object of began. 63. Square it. It is a kind of impersonal objective. We have a similar idiom in the expression foot it. 64. in time. Attribute complement of must be. 65. For the youth . . . fire. Adverb clause of reason, modifying must be. 66. To get them a heat. Adverb phrase, modifying must dance and (must) sing. Them. Indirect object of get. 67. Whether . . . breeches. Noun clause, explanatory modifier of co?i- tention. 68. Recognizing . . . home. Attribute complement of had been looking. 69. Dozing . . . roadside. Attribute complement of stood. 70. To see . . . joy. Adverb phrase, modifying was pleased. 71. With some difficulty. Attribute complement of was. 72. That John . . . first. Noun clause, explanatory modifier of it. Page 86. 73. In which. Adverb phrase, modifying predominated. 74. In which . . . predominated. Adjective clause, modifying feeling. 75. Whether . . . predominated. Noun clause, object of do know. 76. Like them. Like, adjective modifying I. Them. Equivalent to an adverb phrase, modifying like. See "Mutability of Literature," note 24. 77. Minutes. Equivalent to an adverb phrase, modifying slopped. 78. On resuming our route. Adverbial phrase, modifying brought. 79. In the portico. Adverb phrase, modifying could distinguish. 80. Trooping along . . . carriage-road. Objective complement of saw. 81. Where night. Adjective clause modifying village. 82. Of spacious dimensions. Adjective phrase, attribute complement of was. 83. To attack this stout repast. Adverb phrase, modifying were preparing. Some grammarians would call this a noun phrase, object of were preparing. 84. Smoking . . . fire. Attribute complement of sat. 85. On two . . . fire. Adverb phrase, modifying sat. 86. Beside the fire. Adjective phrase, modifying settles. 87. To exchange . . . fire. Adverb phrase, modifying were seizing. Page 87. 88. To discuss . . inn. Noun phrase, subject of was. 89. Finding . . . observation. Adjective phrase, modifying he. 90. That I . . . observation. Noun clause, object of finding. 91. That I . . . distance. Noun clause, object of insisted. Or, a noun clause in an adverbial use. GRAMMATICAL NOTES. 159 92. Him. Direct object of give. 93. Than eating a solitary Christmas dinner at an inn (is good). Adverb clause of degree, modifying better. 94. Eating . . . inn. Noun phrase, subject of is (supplied). 95. Said he. Independent clause. The quoted speech is the object of said. 96. (That) the preparation . . . loneliness. Noun clause, object of must confess. 97. (Which) I had seen. Adjective clause, modifying preparation. 98. For universal festivity and enjoyment. Adjective phrase, modifying preparation. 99. We feel. See " Mutability of Literature," note 52. 100. Impatient. Attribute complement of feel. &g JAN 14 1901 016JV^^^^