UCSB LIBRARY XT 2 cJb STRATFORD-UPON-AVON FROM "THE SKETCH BOOK." WASHINGTON IRVING. ITRATFORD - UPON -AVON FROM "THE SKETCH BOOK" OF WASHINGTON IRVING. WITH NOTES AND ORIGINAL ILLUSTRA- TIONS. EDITED BY RICHARD SAVAGE AND WILT JAM SALT BRASSINGTON, F.S.A. PRINTED BY EDWARD FOX, AT THE SHAKESPEARE QUINEY PRESS, AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. MDCCCC. The Illustrations and Notes used in this volume are copyright. TO THE MEMBERS OK THE STRATFORD- u TON- AVON SHAKESPEARE CLUB THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THREE OF THEIR COLLEAGUES, RICHARD SAVAGE, W. SALT BRASSINGTON, EDWARD Fox. * The Notes made by Captain James Saunders on the Stratford portion of Irving' 's Sketch Book are pre- served in a manuscript volume at Shakespeare's Birthplace ; they are beautifully written and illustrated -with sketches, many of which are reproduced in the following pages. By kind permission of the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace the whole of these Notes and some by Robert Bell Wilder are here reproduced, with Saunders' illustrations copied in pen and ink by Mr. W. W. Quatremaine. The present issue is the only edition ever published in Stratford-upon-Avon ; it is printed in the house in which Shakespeare's daughter, Judith, and her hus- band, Thomas Quiney, lived for 36 years, and within a few paces of the room in which the admirable " Sketch" first presented itself to Irving' s mind. jforeworfcs. A short account of the life of Washington Irving, and especially of his visits to Stratford- upon-Avon and neighbourhood, may add interest to this reissue of a portion of the "Sketch Book," and also take the place of a preface. In " The Author's Account of Himself," he abstained from allusions to his parentage and family rela- tions, consequently it cannot be out of place to supply some details which in his modesty he omitted. His father, William Irving, of Shapinsha, in the Orkney Islands, served during the French War (i8th century), as a petty officer on board an English armed packet, plying between Falmouth and New York. His mother was Sarah, the only child of John and Anne Sanders, of Falmouth. 4 FOREWORDS. William Irving and Anne Sanders were married at Falmouth on the nth of May, 1761, and two years later emigrated to America, arriving at New York on the i8th July, 1763. After various wanderings they at last settled in a house No. 121, William Street, New York where Washington Irving was born on 3rd April, 1783. He was the eighth son, and the youngest of eleven children. His baptism took place at the Chapel of St. George, Beekman Street, New York, and he received his baptismal name owing to a remark made by his mother that " Washington's work is ended, and the child shall be called after him." At the age of sixteen Irving left school and entered the office of a solicitor, continuing the study of the law until he attained his majority, when, owing to the delicate state of his health, his two brothers decided to send him to Europe : he started on his travels on the igth of May, 1804. FOREWORDS. 5 After a pleasant ramble through Italy, Swit- zerland, and France, we find him in New York on the 1 7th January, 1806. On the 25th May, 1815, he once more left his native shore for Liverpool, arriving just as tidings of the battle of Waterloo had reached this country. He spent a week there with his brother Peter, and then left for Springfield, Birmingham, "the redoubtable castle of Van Tromp," as he playfully styles the residence of his brother-in- law Henry Van Wart, a house "most delightfully situated in the vicinity of the town."* From Birmingham he went, for a few days, to London, returning to his " English home " the domestic circle, at Birmingham and from thence made * " Springfield," Icknield Street West (formerly Lady- wood Lane), was demolished many years ago. It was sold in 1818 by Van Wart to Mr. G. Barker, the family then removing to " Camden Hill," a house still standing, and now enclosed within the works at the corner of Frederick Street and Legge Lane, Newhall Hill, surrounded by streets and houses, but it then overlooked almost rural scenes. 6 FOREWORDS. his first visit to Kenihvorth, Warwick, and Stratford-upon-Avon, with his friend James Renwick. At the latter place they entered their names in the Church Album,! under date 25th July, 1815. To this visit, undoubtedly, we owe the production of the Stratford-upon-Avon Sketch, which has been so aptly described as " perhaps the best bit of Shakespeareana ever penned." In January, 1817, we again find Irving at Birmingham, where he remained nearly two months, and, "in spite of hard times," enjoying himself in the companionship of " The famous troop of Van Tromps." He had previously joined his brother Peter in what proved to be an unsuccessful business undertaking at Liverpool. Soon after his return to that town from his Birmingham visit he t The Church Albums from June, 1804, to September, 1 86 1, are preserved in the Library at Shakespeare's Birthplace. FOREWORDS. 7 received the melancholy tidings of his mother's death, which took place on the gth of April. No wonder then at his writing on the 28th January, 1818, that "for upwards of two years I have been bowed down in spirit, and harassed by the most sordid cares." The following June, however, found the brothers free from their business difficulties, the Lord Chancellor having allowed their certificates ; and, on the zist of that month, Irving once more left Liverpool for the Midlands, where he always found a sympathetic friend and adviser in his brother-in-law, to whose friendly counsel the world is no doubt indebted for the " Sketch Book," particularly the Stratford-upon-Avon and Charlecote portion of the work. It was Henry Van Wart who urged Irving to follow his natural inclination for authorship, knowing that the peculiar pastoral beauty of the Midland scenery, and the simple manners of the people in the rural districts, had a strong 8 FOREWORDS. attraction for the young American, to whom everything picturesque or romantic was fascinat- ing. Irving possessed the faculty of presenting common-place details in an interesting manner, and with such dry humour, that his sketches are ever fresh and delightful expressions of a pure and cultivated nature. They have more- over the additional merit of being truthful pictures of the times of which he wrote. On the 28th June, 1820, Irving transmitted to his brother, Ebenezer, the sheets for the seventh number of the "Sketch Book," including Westminster Abbey, Stratford-upon-Avon, Little Britain, and the Angler. This was published i3th September, 1820, and terminated the American series. Writing to his brother from London on the I5th August, 1820, he says: "The 'Sketch Book' has been very successful in England. The first volume is out of print. . . . The second volume, of which thousands were printed, FOREWORDS. g is going off briskly, and Murray proposes putting to press immediately a uniform edition of the two volumes at his own expense. I have offered, however, to dispose of the work to him entirely, and am to know his answer to-morrow." Murray bought the copyright for 200. Charles R. Leslie, a Philadelphian artist, has given an interesting account of Irving's second visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, on which occasion he accompanied his friend. They strolled about Charlecote Park, and other places in the neigh- bourhood, and while Leslie was sketching, Irving mounted on a stile, or seated on a stone, was busily engaged in writing "The Stout Gentleman." He wrote with the greatest rapidity, often laughing to himself, and from time to time reading the manuscript to his companion. From the Church Album it appears they visited Shakespeare's grave on the loth Sep- tember, 1821, deferring their visit to the 10 FOREWORDS. Birthplace until October, when Irving wrote the following lines in the Birthroom ; the original MS. was presented to the Museum by Sam: Timmins, Esq., F.S.A., in 1869. . " Great Shakespeare's b J The house of Shakespeare's birth we here may see l^ That of his death we find without a trace Vain the inquiry, for Immortal he ^~ t-o Of mighty Shakspeare s birth the room we see, .* That where he died in vain to find we try ; .5 Useless the search : for all Immortal He And those who are Immortal never die. W. I. second visit, ~^ October, Irving's third and last visit to the town was in December, 1831, in company with the American Minister, Martin Van Buren, and his son, J. Van Buren. It is recorded in the Church Album, under date, 2oth December, 1831, and their conductor was the grandson of the "old sexton" of the "Sketch Book," Mr. Thomas Kite, who had then succeeded his grandfather in the FOREWORDS. II office of Parish Clerk.* Irving describes the visit in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Paris, dated from Newstead Abbey, January zoth, 1832, thus : "Upwards of a month since I left London with Mr. Van Buren and his son on a tour to show them some interesting places in the interior, and to give them an idea of English country life, and the festivities of an old-fashioned English Christmas. We posted in an open carriage as the weather was uncommonly mild and beautiful for the season. Our first stopping place was Oxford. . . . thence we went to Blenheim. We next passed a night and part of the next day at Stratford- on -A von, visiting the house where Shakespeare was born, and the Church where he lies buried. We were quartered at * Mr. Kite passed away on the 27th of December last (1899), in the gist year of his age. Interesting reminis- cences of Washington Irving's visit were often related by him with pride and delight to his friends ; he always referred to Irving as "a perfect gentleman." 12 FOREWORDS. the little inn of the Red Horse, where I found the same obliging little landlady that kept it at the time of the visit recorded in the 'Sketch Book.' You cannot imagine what a fuss the little woman made when she found out who I was. She showed me the room I had occupied, in which she had hung up my engraved likeness, and she produced a poker, which was locked up in the archives of her house, on which she had caused to be engraved ' Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre.' From Stratford we went to Warwick Castle, Kenilworth, and then to Birmingham, where we passed a part of three days, dining at Van Wart's." At Newstead Abbey Irving remained a fort- night, and soon afterwards paid a flying visit to Birmingham. On May 2ist, 1832, he arrived in New York, after a passage of forty days. This return was made the occasion for great excitement, insomuch that he subsequently wrote to his brother Peter, " I have been topsy- FOREWORDS. 13 turvey ever since." In 1835 ne realised a long cherished wish by the purchase of " Sunnyside," a country house pleasantly situated near the Hudson River, and the scenes of his early rambles and later stories. Irving's appointment in 1841 to be Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid, though a deeply appreciated honour, proved a severe trial, since it obliged him to leave "dear little Sunnyside, and all the broad acres there." On his way to Spain he visited England, and, during the month of May, spent some time with his sister, Mrs. Van Wart, at "The Shrubbery," Birmingham. He reached Madrid towards the end of July, and it was not until three years later (August, 1844), that he again visited the Van Warts. In the autumn of 1845 he paid a visit to Paris, and while there resolved to resign his office, but, writing on the zgth December from that city, he appears to have made up his mind to see his friends in 14 FOREWORDS. Birmingham once more before returning to Madrid to await the arrival of his successor. Early in September, 1846, he bade adieu for ever to Europe and his English friends, and, after an absence of four and a half years, returned to "Sunnyside," where he happily spent the remainder of his days. He passed away on the 28th November, 1859, in the yyth year of his pure and blameless life. Of him and his work, the poet Campbell truthfully remarked : "Washington Irving has added clarity to the English tongue." PRIESTS' DOOR, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH. Sfcetcb Booh. THE AUTHORS ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. " I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snaile that crept out of her shel was turned eftsoons into a toad, and thereby was forced to make a stoole to sit on ; so the traveller that stragleth from his owne country is in a short time transformed into so monstrous a shape, that he is faine to alter his mansion with his manners, and to live where he can, not where he would." LYI.Y'S EUPHUES. WAS always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of dis- covery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier. 16 THE SKETCH BOOK. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I visited the neighbouring villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, and conversing with their sages and great men. I even journeyed one long summer's day to the summit of the most distant hill, from whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra incognita, and was astonished to find how vast a globe I inhabited. This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring their contents, I neglected the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully would I wander about the pier- heads in fine weather, and watch the parting THE SKETCH BOOK. 17 ships bound to distant climes ; with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth ! Farther reading and thinking, though they brought this vague inclination into more reason- able bounds, only served to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own country : and had I been merely influenced by a love of fine scenery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere its gratification; for on no country have the charms of Nature been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver ; her mountains, with their bright aerial tints ; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility ; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean ; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence ; her skies, kindling with the i8 THE SKETCH BOOK. magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine: no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. But Europe held forth all the charms of stoned and poetical association. There were to be seen the masterpieces of art, the refinements of highly cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local custom. My native country was full of youthful promise : Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age. Her very ruins told the history of times gone by, and every mouldering stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander over the scenes of renowned achievement to tread, as it were, in the foot- steps of antiquity to loiter about the ruined castle to meditate on the falling tower to escape, in short, from the common-place realities of the present, and lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past. I had, besides all this, an earnest desire to see THE SKETCH BOOK. 19 the great men of the earth. We have, it is true, our great men in America : not a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled among them in my time, and been almost withered by the shade into which they cast me ; for there is nothing so baleful to a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the great man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of Europe ; for I had read in the works of various philosophers, that all animals degenerated in America, and man among the number. A great man of Europe, thought I, must, therefore, be as superior to a great man of America as a peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson ; and in this idea I was confirmed, by observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude of many English travellers among us, who, I was assured, were very little people in their own country. I will visit this land of wonders, thought I, and see the gigantic race from which I am degenerated. 20 THE SKETCH BOOK. It has been either my good or evil lot to have my roving passion gratified. I have wandered through different countries, and witnessed many of the shifting scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied them with the eye of the phil- osopher, but rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the picturesque stroll from the window of one print shop to another ; caught sometimes by the delineations of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the entertainment of my friends. When, however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me at finding how my idle humour has led me aside from the great objects studied by every regular traveller who would make a book. I fear I THE SKETCH BOOK. 21 shall give equal disappointment with an unlucky landscape painter, who had travelled on the Continent, but, following the bent of his vagrant inclination, had sketched in nooks, and corners, and by-places. His sketch book was accordingly crowded with cottages, and land- scapes, and obscure ruins; but he had neglected to paint St. Peter's, or the Coliseum ; the cascade of Terni, or the Bay of Naples ; and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole collection. PORCH, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH. THE RED HORSE INN, l82O. STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream ; The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. GARRICK. O a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of some- 24 STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. thing like independence and territorial conse- quence, 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 (11 the poker his sceptre, and the little GEOFFREY CRAYON'S SCEPTRE. parlour, of some twelve feet square, his undis- puted empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life ; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day ; and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of husband- ing even morsels and moments of enjoyment. "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" STA'A TFORD- UPON- A VON. 25 thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour of the Red Horse, at Stratford-upon-Avon. (2) THE WASHINGTON IRVING PARLOUR. The words of sweet Shakespeare were just passing through my mind as the clock struck 26 STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. midnight from the tower of the church in which he lies buried. (3) 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. (4) I understood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream of absolute dominion was at an end ; so abdicating my throne, like a prudent potentate, to avoid being deposed, and putting the Stratford Guide Book under my arm, as a pillow com- panion, I went to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakespeare, 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. STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. 29 I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrim- age. My first visit was to the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. (5) 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 inscrip- tions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant ; and present a simple, but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature. (6) The house is shown by a garrulous old lady (7) in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all 30 STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. MARY HORNBY, FROM A SILHOUETTE IN THE WHELER COLLECTION. other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer, on his poaching THE MATCHLOCK. STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. 3 1 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 SHAKESPEARE'S SWORD. played Hamlet ; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and THE LANTERN. 32 STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. Juliet at the tomb ! There was an ample supply also of Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self- multiplication as the wood of the true Cross; of which there is enough extant to build a ship of the line. The most favourite object of curiosity, however, is Shakespeare's chair. It stands in the SHAKESPEARE S CHAIR. STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. 35 chimney nook of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. (8) Here he THE BIRTHPLACE: BEST KITCHEN (1820). 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 cronies and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the custom of every one that visits the house to sit : whether this be done with the 36 STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to say, I merely mention the fact ; and mine hostess privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, 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 ever willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblins and great men ; and would advise all travellers who travel for their gratification to be the same. What is it to us, STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. 39 whether these stories be true or false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and enjoy all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like resolute good-humoured 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, unluckily for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own composition (9) which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance. From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces' 10 ' brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish church, a large and venerable pile, mouldering with age, but richly ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired : the river runs murmuring at the foot of the church- yard, and the elms which grow upon its banks 40 STRA TFORD- UPON- A VON. droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer v J /"^>^-A%- ^afflH^ ^ ^^Slss ' r ^^(^^,- ^- <^^^^* AVKXUE, IDLY Ti i- l '"iJ tin (>