The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving (7 ebook reader txt) 📕

and indenting the pavement with a sword like a scythe⁠—in other words, he has become a whiskered hussar in the 18th Dragoons.” ↩

Address on the opening of the Liverpool Institution. ↩

From a poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Reverend Rann Kennedy, A.M. ↩

Buchanan. ↩

Ballenden’s translation of Hector Boyce. ↩

Roger L’Estrange. ↩

Person. ↩

Small boughs or twigs. ↩

The language of the quotations is generally modernized. ↩

Incline. ↩

What injury have I done, etc. ↩

Wrought gold. ↩

Largesse, bounty. ↩

Estate, dignity. ↩

Cunning, discretion. ↩

Part of a sketch omitted in the preceding editions. ↩

The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great conflagration.

Hereunder lyth a man of Fame,
William Walworth callyd by name;
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here,
And twise Lord Maior, as in books appere;
Who, with courage stout and manly myght,
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard’s sight.
For which act done, and trew entent,
The Kyng made him knyght incontinent;
And gave him armes, as here you see,
To declare his fact and chivaldrie.
He left this lyff the yere of our God
Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.

An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the venerable Stowe. “Whereas,” saith he, “it hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this rash-conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. The principal leaders, or captains, of the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first man; the second was John, or Jack, Straw,” etc., etc. —⁠Stowe’s London ↩

As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe it for the admonition of delinquent tapsters. It is no doubt, the production of some choice spirit who once frequented the Boar’s Head.

Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise,
Produced one sober son, and here he lies.
Though rear’d among full hogsheads, he defy’d
The charms of wine, and everyone beside.
O reader, if to justice thou’rt inclined,
Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind.
He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots,
Had sundry virtues that excused his faults.
You that on Bacchus have the like dependence,
Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance.

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“Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday, in Whitsunweek, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man at Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. Canst thou deny it?” —⁠Henry IV, Part 2 ↩

In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to endite, and have many noble thinges 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 hearying of Frenchmen’s Englishe. —⁠Thomas Usk’s Testament of Love ↩

Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, “Afterwards, also, by diligent vell of Geffry Chaucer and John Gowre, in the time of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the same to their great praise and mortal commendation.” ↩

Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his gentle witt, and the golden pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the honey bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, the pith of morale and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the tongue of Suada in the chamber, the spirits of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellence in print. —⁠Harvey Pierce’s Supererogation ↩

Thorow earth and waters deepe,
The pen by skill doth passe:
And featly nyps the worldes abuse,
And shoes us in a glasse,
The vertu and the vice
Of every wight alyve;
The honey comb that bee doth make
Is not so sweet in hyve,
As are the golden leves
That drops from poet’s head!
Which doth surmount our common talke
As farre as dross doth lead.

Churchyard

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The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, will perceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to the old Swiss by a little French anecdote, a circumstance said to have taken place in Paris. ↩

I.e., Cat’s Elbow⁠—the name of a family of those parts, and very powerful in former times. The appellation, we are told, was given in compliment to a peerless dame of the family, celebrated for a fine arm. ↩

Sir T. Browne. ↩

Poor Robin’s Almanak, 1684. ↩

Peacham’s Complete Gentleman, 1622. ↩

The mistletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens at Christmas, 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. ↩

The Yule clog is