Latest / Memoir of Jane Austen / Washington Irving's Visit to England-Washington Irving

Transcript

Washington Irving's Visit to England-Washington Irving · Memoir of Jane Austen

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Washington Irving's Visit to England. This is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Recording by Greg Girdano. Washington Irving's Visit to England by
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Washington Irving. Chapter one, The voyage Ships Ships, I will
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: decry you amidst the main I will come and try you.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: What you are protecting and projecting? What's your end and aim?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: One goes abroad for merchandise and trading and other stays
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: to keep his country from invading. The third is coming
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: home with rich and wealthy lading. Hello, my fancy, whither
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: wilt thou go? Old poem to an American visiting Europe,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: The long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: The vast space of waters separate the hemispheres is like
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: a blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: by which, as in Europe, the features and population of
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the moment you lose sight of the land you have left,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of another world. And traveling by land, there is a
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: continuity of scene and a connected succession of persons and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: incidents that carry on the story of life and lessen
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a lengthening chain at each remove of our pilgrimage. But
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the chain is unbroken. We can trace it back link
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: by link, and we feel that the last still grapples
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf not merely
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: imaginary but real, between us and our homes, a gulf
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: subject to tempest and fear and uncertainty, rendering distance palpable
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in return precarious. Such at least was the case with
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: myself as I saw the last blue lines of my
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: It seemed as if I had closed one volume of
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the world and its concerns, and had time for meditation
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: my view, which contained almost dear to me in life.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: What vicissitudes might occur in it? What changes might take
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: place in me before I should visit it again? Who
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: can tell? When he sets forth to wander, whether he
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: may be driven by the uncertain currents of existence, or
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: when he may return, or whether it may be ever
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood. I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: said that at sea, all his vacancy, I should correct
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the impression to one given to day dreaming and fond
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of losing himself in reveries. A sea voyage is full
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: of subjects for meditation. But then there are the wonders
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of the deep and of the air, and rather tend
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: loll over the quarter railing, or climb to the main
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: top of a calm day, and mused for hours together
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea, to gaze
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: creation of my own. To watch the gentle, undulating billows,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: rolling their silver volumes as if to die away on
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: those happy shores, there was a delicious sensation of mingle
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: security in awe with which I looked down from my
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: giddy height on the monsters of the deep, at their
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: uncouth gambols, shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the ship. The grampis slowly heaving his huge form above
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the surface, where the ravenous shark darting like a specter
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: through the blue wa My imagination would conjure up all
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that I had heard or read of the watery world
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: beneath me, of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of the shapeless monsters that lurked among the very foundations
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of the earth. Now those wild phanfasms that swell the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: tails of fishermen and sailors, sometimes a distant sail and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: world hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence. What
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: a glorious monument of human invention, which has, in a
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: manner triumphed over wind and wave, has brought the ends
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of the world into communion, has established an interchange of blessings,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: pouring into the sterile regions of the north all the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: luxuries of the South, has diffused the light of knowledge
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and the charities of cultivated life, and has thus bound
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: together those scattered portions of the human race between which
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier. We one
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: day decried some shapeless object drifting at a distance at sea.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Everything that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts attention.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: It proved to be the mast of a ship. Must
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: have been completely wrecked. But there rarely remains of handkerchiefs
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: this spar to prevent their being washed off by the waves.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: There was no trace by which the name of the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: for many months. Clusters of shell fish had fastened about it,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and long seaweeds flaunted at its sides. But where thought
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I is the crew? Their struggle has long been over.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: They have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep, silence, oblivion,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: like the waves have closed over them, and no one
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: can tell the story of their end. What sighs have
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: been wafted over that ship? What prayers offered up at
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the deserted fireside of home? How often has the mistress,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the wife, the mother poured over the daily news to
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: How has expectation darkened into anxiety, anxiety into dread, and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: dread into despair. Alas not one memento may ever return
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: for love to cherish, all that may ever be known
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: is that she sailed from her port and was never
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: heard of more. The sight of this wreck, as usual,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: gave rise to many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: case in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: been fair, began to look wild and threatening. He gave
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: indications of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: break in upon the rennedy of a summer voyage. As
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: we sat round the dull light of a lamp in
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly. Everyone had
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: his tail of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: with a short one related by the captain as I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: was once sailing, said he in a fine stout ship
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: across the banks of Newfoundland. One of those heavy fogs
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: that prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for us
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to see far ahead even in the daytime. But at
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: night the weather was so thick that we could not
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: distinguish any object at twice the length of the ship.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I kept lights at the mast head and a constant
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: watch forward, look out for fishing smacks, which are accustomed
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to anchor of the banks. The wind was blowing a
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: smacking breeze, and we were going at a great rate
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: through the water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a sail ahead uttered before we were upon her. She
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: was a small schooner an anchor, with her broadside toward us.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The crew were all asleep and had neglected to hoist
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a light. We struck her just amidships. The force the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: size and weight of our vessel bore her down below
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the waves. We passed over her and were hurrying on
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: our course. As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I had a glimpse of two or three half naked
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: wretches rushing from her cabin. They had just started from
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: heard their drowning cry, mingling with the wind. The blast
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: that bore it to our ears swept us out of
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: all further hearing. I shall never forget that cry. It
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: was some time before we could put the ship about.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: She was under such headway. We returned as nearly as
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: We fired signal guns and listened if we might hear
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the halloa of any survivors, but all was silent. We
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: never saw or heard anything of them more. I confess
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: these stories for a time put an end to all
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: my fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. The
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: sea was lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: sullen sound of rushing waves and broken surges deep called
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: unto deep. At times, the black volume of clouds overhead
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning which quivered along
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the foaming billows. We made the succeeding darkness doubly terrible.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters and
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: were echoed and prolonged by the mountain waves. As I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: saw the ships staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance or preserved
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water, her
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: surge appeared, ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: When I retired to my cabin, the awful scene still
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: followed me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts, the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: straining and groaning of bulkheads as the ship labored in
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the weltering sea were frightful. As I heard the waves
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: rushing along the side of the ship and roaring in
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: my very ear, it seemed as if Death were raging
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: around its floating prison, seeking for his prey. The mere
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam, might
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: give him entrance. A fine day, however, with a tranquil
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: sea and favoring breeze, soon put all the dismal reflections
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to flight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening influence
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: of fine weather and fair wind. At sea, when the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: ship is decked out in all her canvas, every sail
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: swelled and careering gaily over the curling waves. How lofty,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: how gallant she appears, how she seems to lord it
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: over the deep. I might fill a volume with the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: reveries of a sea voyage, for with me it is
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: almost a continual reverie. But it is time to get
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: too shore. It was a fine sunny morning when the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: thrilling cry of Land was given from the mast head.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: None but those who have experienced it can form an
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: idea of the delicious throng of sensations which rush into
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: an American's bosom when he first comes in sight of Europe.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: There is a volume of associations with the very name.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It is the land of promise, teeming with everything of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: years have pondered. From that time until the moment of arrival,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it was all feverish excitement, the ships of war that
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: proud like guardian giants along the coast, the headlands of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Ireland stretching out into the channel, the Welsh mountains towering
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: into the clouds. All were objects of intense interest. As
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitered the shores of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: with their trim shrubberies and green grass plots. I saw
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the moldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the taper spire of a village church rising from the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: brow of a neighboring hill. All were characteristic of England.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: The tide and wind were so favorable that the ship
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: was enabled to come at once to her peer. It
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: was thronged with people, some idle lookers, on others eager
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: expectants of friends or relations. I could distinguish the merchant
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to whom the ship was consigned. I knew him by
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: his calculating brow and restless air. His hands were thrust
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: into his pockets, who was whistling thoughtfully and walking to
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and fro a small space, having been accorded him by
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the crowd in deference to his temporary importance. There were
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: repeated cheerings and salutations interchange between the shore and the ship.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: His friends happened to recognize each other. I particularly noticed
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: one young woman of humble dress but interesting demeanor. She
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: was leaning forward from among the crowd. Her eye hurried
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: over the ship as it neared the shore to catch
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: some wished for countenance. She seemed disappointed and sad when
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I heard a faint voice call her name is from
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: a poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: and had excited the sympathy of every one on board.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: mattress for him deck in the shade, But of late
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: his illness had so increased that he had taken to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: his hammock and only breathed the wish that he might
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: see his wife before he died. He had been helped
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: on deck as we came up the river, and was
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: so pale, so ghastly, that it was no wonder even
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the eye of affection did not recognize him. But the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: sound of his voice, her eye darted on his features.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: It read at once a whole volume of sorrow. She
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, and stood wringing
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: them in silent agony. All now was hurry and bustle,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the meeting of acquaintances, the greetings of friends, the consultations
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of men of business. I alone was solitary and idle.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I stepped upon the land of my forefathers, but felt
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that I was a stranger in the land and of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Chapter one recording by Greg Giardano, Newport, Ritchie, Florida. Chapter
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: two of Washington Irving's Visit to England by Washington Irving.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Greg Giardano Roscoe. In the service of mankind, to be
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a guardian god below still to employ the mind's brave
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: ardor in heroic aims such as may raise us o'er
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the groveling herd, and make us shine forever. That is
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: life Thompson. One of the first places to which a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: stranger is taken in Liverpool is the Athenaeum. It is
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: established on the liberal and judicious plan. It contains a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: good library and spacious reading room, and is the great
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: literary resort of the place. Go there at what hour
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: you may, you are sure to find it filled with
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: grave looking personages deeply absorbed in the study of newspapers.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: my attention was attracted to a person just entering the room.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: He was advanced in life, tall and of a form
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that might once have been commanding, but it was a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: little bode by time, perhaps by care. He had a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: noble Roman style of countenance, a head that would have
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: pleased a painter, and though some slight furrows on his
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: brow showed that wasting thought had been busy, there yet
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: is I with the fire of a poetic soul. There
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is something in his whole appearance that indicated a being
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: of a different order from the bustling race round him.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I inquired his name, and was informed that it was Roscoe.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I drew back with an involuntary feeling of veneration. This then,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: was an author of celebrity. This was one of those
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: men whose voices have gone forth to the ends of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the earth, with whose minds I have communed even in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the solitudes of America. Accustomed, as we are in our
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: country to know European writers only by their works, we
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: cannot conceive of them as of other men. Engrossed by
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: trivial or sordid pursuits, and jostling with the crowd of
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: common minds in the dusty paths of life. They passed
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: before our imaginations like superior beings, radiant with the emanations
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of their genius, and surrounded by a halo the literary
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: glory to find. Therefore, the elegant historian of the Medici,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: mingling among the busy suns of traffic, at first shocked
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: my poetical ideas. But it is from the very circumstances
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and situation in which he has been placed that mister
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Rosco derives his highest claims to admiration. It is interesting
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: in disappointing deciduities of art, with which it would rear
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: legitimate dulness to maturity and to glory in the vigor
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and luxuriance of her chance. Productions. She scatters the seeds
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of genius to the winds. And though some may perish
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: among the stony places of the world, and some be
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity, yet
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: others will now and then strike root, even in the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: clefts of the rock, struggled bravely up into sunshine, and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of vegetation.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Such has been the case with mister Roscoe. Born in
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the place apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: in the very market place of trade, without fortune, family connections,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: or patronage, self prompted, self sustained, and almost self taught,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: he has conquered every obstacle, achieved his way to eminence, and,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: having become one of the ornaments of the nation, has
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: turned the whole force of his talents and influence to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: advance and embellish his native town. Indeed, it is this
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: last trait in his character which has given him the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: greatest interest in my eyes, and induced me particularly to
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: point him out to my countrymen. Eminent as are his
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: literary merits, he is but one among the many distinguished
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: authors of this intellectual nation. They, however, in general, live
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: but for their own fame or their own pleasures. Their
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: private history presents no lesson to the world, or perhaps
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a humiliating one of human frailty or inconsistency. At best.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: They are prone to steal away from the bustle in
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: commonplace of busy existence, to indulge in the selfishness of
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: lettered ease, and to revel in scenes of mental but
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: exclusive enjoyment. Mister Roscoe, on the contrary, has claimed none
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: of the accorded privileges of talent. He has shut himself
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: up in no garden of thought nor elysium of fancy,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: but has gone forth into the highways and thoroughfares of life.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: He has planted bowers by the wayside for the refreshment
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of the pilgrim and the sojourner, and his open pure fountains,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: where the laboring man may turn aside from the dust
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and heat of the day, and drink of the living
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: streams of knowledge. There is a daily beauty in his life,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and which mankind may meditate and grow better. It exhibits
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: no lofty and almost useless because inimitable example of excellence,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: but presents a picture of active, yet simple, inimitable virtues,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: which are within every man's reach, but which unfortunately are
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: not exercised by many, or this world would be a paradise.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the citizens of our young and busy country, where literature
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and the yelegan arts must grow up side by side
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: with the coarser plants of daily necessity, and must depend
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: for their culture not on the exclusive devotion of time
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and wealth, or the quickening rays of titled patronage, but
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: on hours and seasons snatched from the purest of worldly
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: interests by intelligent and public spirited individuals. He has shown
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: how much may be done for a place in hours
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of leisure by one master spirit, and how completely it
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: can give its own impress to surrounding objects like his own.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Lorenzo d'mici, on whom he seems to have fixed his eye,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is on a pure model of antiquity. He is interwoven
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the history of his life with the history of his
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: native town, and has made the foundation of his fame
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the monuments of his virtues. Wherever you go in Liverpool,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you perceive traces of his footsteps in all that is
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: elegant and liberal. He found a tide of wealth flowing
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: merely in the channels of traffic. He has diverted from
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it invigorating rills to refresh the garden of literature. By
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: his own example and constant exertions, he has effected that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: union of commerce in the intellectual pursuits so eloquently recommended
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in one of his latest writings footnote address on the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: opening of the Liverpool Institution, and has practically proved how
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: beautifully they may be brought to harmonize and to benefit
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: each other. The noble institutions for literary and scientific purposes
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: which reflect such credit on Liverpool, and are giving such
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: an impulse to the public mind, have mostly been originated
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and have all been effectively promoted by mister Roscoe. And
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: when we consider the rapidly increasing opulence and magnitude of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that town, which promises to vie in commercial importance with
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the metropolis, it will be perceived that an awakening an
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: ambition of mental improvement among its inhabitants, he has effected
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a great benefit to the cause of British literature. In America.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: We know mister Roscoe only as the author in Liverpool.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: He is spoken of as the banker, and I as
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: told of his having been unfortunate in business, I could
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: not pity him, as I heard some rich men do.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I considered him far above the reach of pity. Those
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: who live only for the world and in the world
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: may be cast down by the frowns of adversity. But
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a man like Roscoe is not to be overcome by
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the reverses of fortune. They do but drive him, and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: upon the resources of his own mind, to the superior
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: society of his own thoughts, which the best of men
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: are apt sometimes to neglect, and to roam abroad in
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: search of less worthy associates. He is independent of the
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: world around him. He lives with antiquity and with posterity
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of antiquity, in the sweet communion of studious retirement, and
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: with posterity in the generous aspirings after future renown. The
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: solitude of such a mind is its state of highest enjoyment.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It is then visited by those elevated meditations, which are
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the proper ailment of noble souls, and are like manna
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: sent from heaven in the wilderness of this world. While
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: my feelings for yet alive on the subject is my
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: fortune to light on further traces of mister Roscoe. I
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: was riding out with a gentleman to view the environs
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of Liverpool when he turned off through a gate into
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: some ornamented grounds. After riding a short distance, he came
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: to a spacious mansion of free stone, built in the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Grecian style. It was not in the purest style. It
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: had an air of elegance, and the situation was delightful.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: A fine lawn sloped away from it, studded with clumps
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of trees so disposed as to break a soft, fertile
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: country into a variety of landscapes. The Mersey was seen
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: winding a broad, quiet sheet of water through an expanse
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: of green meadow land, while the Welsh mountains blended with
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: clouds melting into distance, bordered the horizon. This was Rosco's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: favorite residence during the days of his prosperity. It had
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: been the seat of elegant hospitality and literary retirement. The
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: house was now silent and deserted. I saw the windows
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of the study were looked out upon the soft scenery
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I have mentioned. The windows were closed, the library was gone.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Two or three ill favored beings were loitering about place
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: whom I fancy pictured into retainers of the law. It
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: was like visiting some classic fountain that had once welled
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: its pure waters in its sacred shade, but finding it
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: dry and dusty, with the lizard and the toad brooding
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: over the shattered marbles. I inquired after the fate of
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: mister Roscal's library, which had consisted of scarce and foreign books,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: from many of which he had drawn the materials for
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: his Italian histories. It had passed under the hammer of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the auctioneer, and was dispersed about the country. The good
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: people of the vicinity thronged like wreckers to get some
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: part of the noble vessel that had been driven on shore.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Did such a scene admit of ludicrous associations? We might
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: imagine something whimsical in this strange eruption. In the regions
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of learning, pigmy is rummaging the armory of a giant's
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: and contending for the possession of weapons which they could
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: not wield. We might picture to ourselves some knot of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: speculators debating the calculating brow over the quaint, binding and
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: illuminated margin of an obsolete author of the air of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: intense but baffled sagacity with which some successful purchaser attempted
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to dive into the black letter bargain he had secured.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: It is a beautiful incident in the story of mister
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Roscoe's misfortunes, and one which cannot fail to interest studious
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: mind that the parting with his books seemed to have
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: touched upon his tenderest feelings and to have been the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: only circumstance that could provoke the notice of his muse.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: The scholar only knows how dear these silent yet eloquent
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: companions of pure thoughts and incant hours become in the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: season of adversity, when all that does worldly turns to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: draws around us. These only retain their steady value when
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: friends grow cold, and the converse of in its languishes
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: into vapid civility and commonplace needs only continue the unaltered
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: countenance of happier days and cheer us with that true
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow. I do
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: not wish to censure, but surely if the people of
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Liverpool had been properly sensible of what was due to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: mister Rosco and themselves his library would never have been sold.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Good worldly reasons may doubtless be given for the circumstance
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: which it would be difficult to combat with others that
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: might seem merely fanciful. But it certainly appears to me
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: such an opportunity as seldom occurs, of cheering a noble
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: mind struggling under misfortunes by one of the most delicate
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: but most expressive tokens of public sympathy. It is difficult, however,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to estimate a man of genius properly, who is daily
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: before our eyes. He becomes mingled and confounded with other men.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: His great ques lose their novelty. We become too familiar
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: with the common materials which form the basis even of
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the loftiest character. Some of mister Roscoe's townsmen may regard
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: him merely as a man of business, others as a politician.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: All find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and surpassed,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: perhaps by themselves, in some points of worldly wisdom. Even
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of character which gives a
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: nameless grace to real elegance. They cause him to be
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: undervalued by some coarse minds who do not know that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: true worth is always void of glare and pretension. But
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the man of letters who speaks of Liverpool speaks of
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: it as the residence of Roscoe. The intelligent traveler who
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: visits it inquires where Roscoe is to be seen. He
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: is the literary landmark of the place, indicating its existence
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to the distant scholar. He is like Pompey's column at Alexandria,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: towering alone in classic dignity. The following sonnet addressed by
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: mister Roscoe to his books imparting with them, has already
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: been alluded to. If anything can add effect to the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: pure feeling, an elevated thought here displayed, it is the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: conviction that the whole is no effusion of fancy, but
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the faithful transcript from the writer's heart to my books.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: As one who destined from his friends to part, regrets
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: his loss, but hopes again or while to share their
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: converse and enjoy their smile and tempers as he may
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: afflictions dart Thus loved associates, chiefs of elder art, teachers
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of wisdom, who could once beguile my tedious hours, enlighten
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: every toil, and now resign you nor with fainting heart,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: for past a few short years or days or hours,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and happier seasons, may their dawn unfold in all your
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: sacred fellowship restore when freed from earth unlimited its powers,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: mine shall with mind direct communion hold and kindred spirits
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: meet to part no more. End of chapter two recording
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: by Greg Giardano, Newport, Richie, Florida. Chapter three of Washington
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Irving's Visit to England by Washington Irving. This LibriVox recording
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Greg Giardano. The
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: country Church, a gentleman, what o the woolpack or the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: sugar chest? Or lists of velvet? Which is it pound
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: or yard? You vend your gentry by beggar's bush? There
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: are few places more favorable to the study of character
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: than an English country church. I was once passing a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: few weeks at the seat of a friend who resided
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: in the vicinity of one, the appearance of which particularly
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: of quaint antiquity which gives such a peculiar charm to
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: English landscape. It stood in the midst of a country
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: filled with ancient families, and contained within its cold and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: silent aisles the congregated dust of many noble generations. The
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: interior walls were encrusted with monuments of every age and style.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: The light streamed through windows dimmed with armorial bearings, richly
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: emblazoned and stained glass. As parts of the church were
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: tombs of knights and high born dames of gorgeous workmanship,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: with their effigies in colored marble. On every side. The
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: eye was struck with some instance of aspiring mortality, some
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: haughty memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: In his temple of the most humble of all religions.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: The congregation was composed of the neighboring people of rank,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: who sat in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, furnished with
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: richly gilded prayer books, and decorated with their arms upon
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the pew doors, of the villagers and peasantry who filled
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the back seats and a small gallery beside the organ,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and of the poor of the parish, who were arranged
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: on benches in the aisles. The service was performed by
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a snuffling, well fed vicar who had a snug dwelling
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: near the church. He was a privileged guest at all
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the tables of the neighborhood, and had been the the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: keenest fox hunter in the country until age and good
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: living had disabled him from doing anything more than ride
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to see the hounds throw off and make one at
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the hunting dinner. Under the ministry of such a pastor,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I found it impossible to get into the train of
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: thought suitable to the time and place. So, having like
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: many other feeble Christians, compromised with my conscience by laying
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the sin of my own delinquency at another person's threshold,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I occupied myself by making observations on my neighbors. I was,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the manners of its fashionable classes. I found, as usual
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: that there was the least pretension where there was the
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: most acknowledged title to respect. I was particularly struck, for instance,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: with the family of a nobleman of high rank, consisting
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: of several sons and daughters. Nothing can be more simple
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: in an assuming in their appearance. They generally came to
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: church in the plainest equipage, and often on foot. The
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: young ladies would stop and converse in the kindest manner
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: with the peasantry, caress the children, and listen to the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: stories of the humble cottagers. Their countenances were open and
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: beautifully fair, with an expression of high refinement, but at
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the same time a frank, cheerfulness and engaging affability. Their
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: brothers were tall and elegantly formed. They were dressed fashionably
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: but simply, with strict neatness and propriety, but without any
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor was easy and natural,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: with that lofty grace and noble frankness which bespeak free
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: born souls. They have never been checked in their growth
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: by feelings of inferiority. There is a healthful heartiness about
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: however humble. It is only spurrous pride that is morbid
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and sensitive and shrinks from every touch. I was pleased
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to see in the manner in which they would converse
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: with the peasantry about those rural concerns and field sports
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: in which the gentlemen of the country so much delight.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: In these conversations, there was neither haughtiness on the one part,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: nor servility on the other, and you were only reminded
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: of the difference of rank by the habitual respect of
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: the peasant. In contrast to these was the family of
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a wealthy citizen, who had amassed the vast fortune, and
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: having purchased the estate and mansion of a ruined nobleman
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, was endeavoring to assume all the style
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and dignity of an hereditary lord of the soil. The
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: family always came to church and Prince. They were rolled
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: majestically along in a carriage emblazoned with arms. The crest
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: glittered in silver radiance. Part of the harness where a
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: crest could possibly be placed. A fat coachman in a
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: three cornered hat, richly laced, and a flaxen wig curling
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: close round his rosy face, was seated on the box,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: with a sleek Danish dog beside him. Two footmen in
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: gorgeous liveries with huge bouquets and gold headed canes lolled behind.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: The carriage rose and sunk on its long springs with
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a peculiar stateliness of motion. The very horses champed their bits,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: arched their necks, and glanced their eyes more proudly than
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: common horses, either because they had caught a little of
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the family feeling, or were reined up more tightly than ordinary.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I could not but admire the style with which the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: splendid pageant was brought up to the gate of the churchyard.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: There was a vast effect produced at the turning of
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: an angle of the wall, a great smacking of the whip,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: straining and scrambling of the horses, glistening of harness, and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: flashing of wheels through gravel. This was the moment of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: triumph and vain glory to the coachman. The horses were
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: urged and checked until they were fretted into a foam.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: They threw out their feet in the prancing trot, dashing
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: about pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: quietly to church opened precipitately to the right and left
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: gaping in vacant admiration. On reaching the gate, the horses
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: were pulled up with a suddenness that produced an immediate
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: stop and almost threw them on their haunches. There was
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary hurry of the footmen to a light, pulled
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: down the steps and prepare everything for the descent on
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: earth of this august family. The old citizen first emerged,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: his round red face from out the door, looking about
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: him with the pompous air of a man accustomed to
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: rule on change and shake the stock market. With a nod.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: His consort, a fine, fleshly comfortable dame, followed him. There
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: seemed I must confess but little pride in her composition.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: She was the picture of broad, honest, vulgar enjoyment. The
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: world went well with her, and she liked the world.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: She had fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: fine children. Everything was fine about her. It was nothing
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: but driving about and visiting and feasting. Life was to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: her a perpetual revel It was one long Lord Mayor's day.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Two daughters acceeded to this goodly couple. They certainly were handsome,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: but had a supercilious air that chilled admiration and disposed
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the spectator to be critical. They were ultra fashionable in dress,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and though no one could deny the richness of their decorations,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: yet their appropriateness might be questioned amongst the simplicity of
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: a country church. They descended loftily from the carriage and
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: moved up the line of peasantry with the step that
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: seemed dainty of the soil. At Trodnaon they cast an
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: excursive glance around that passed coldly over the burly faces
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: of the peasantry, until they met the eyes of the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: nobleman's family, when their countenances immediately brightened into smiles, and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: they made the most profound and elegant courtesies, which were
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: returned in a manner that showed they were but slight acquaintances.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I must not forget the two sons of this inspiring
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: citizen who came to church in a dashing curricle without riders.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: They were arrayed in the extremity of the mode, with
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: all that pedantry of dress which marks the man of
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: questionable pretensions to style. They kept entirely by themselves, eyeing
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: every one askance. They came near them, as if measuring
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: his claims to respectability. Yet they were without conversation except
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the exchange of an occasional cant phrase. They even moved artificially,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: for their bodies, in compliance with the caprice of the day,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: have been disciplined into the absence of all ease and freedom.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Art had done everything to accomplish them as men of fashion,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: but nature had denied them the nameless grace. They were
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: vulglarly shaped, like men formed for the common purposes of life,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and had that air of supercilious assumption which is never
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: seen in the true gentlemen. I have been rather minute
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: in drawing the pictures of these two families, because I
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: considered them specimens of what is often to be met
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: with in this country, the unpretending greats in the arrogant little.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I have no respect for titled rank unless it be
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: accompanied with true nobility of soul. But I have remarked
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: in all countries where artificial distinctions exist, that the very
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: highest classes are always the most courteous and unassuming. Those
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: who are well assured of their own standing are least
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: apt to trespass on that of others. Whereas a thing
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity, which thinks
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: to elevate itself by humiliating its neighbor. As I have
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: brought these families into contrast, I must notice their behavior
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: in church. That of the nobleman's family was quiet, serious
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: and attentive, not that they appeared to have any fervor
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: of devotion, but rather I respect for sacred things and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: sacred places, inseparable from good breeding. The others, on the contrary,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: were in aer perpetual flutter and whisper. They betrayed a
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: continual consciousness of finery. In this sorry ambition of being
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: the wonders of a rural congregation. The old gentleman was
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the only one really attentive to the service. He took
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the whole burden of family devotion upon himself, standing built upright,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and uttering the responses with a loud voice that might
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: be heard all over the church. It was evident that
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: he was one of those thorough church and kingmen who
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: connect the idea of devotion and loyalty, who consider the
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: deity somehow or other of the government party and religion
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: a very excellent sort of thing that ought to be
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: countenanced and kept up. When he joined so loudly in
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the service, it seemed more by way of example to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the lower orders, to show them that though so great
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: and wealthy, he was not above being religious. As I
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: have seen a turtle fed alderman swallow publicly a basin
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: of charity soup, smacking his lips every mouthful, and pronouncing
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it excellent food for the poor. When the service was
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: at an end, I was curious to witness the several
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: exits of my groups, the young noblemen and their sisters.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: As the day was fine, preferred strolling home across the fields,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: chatting with the country people as they went. The others
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: departed as they came in grand parade. Again were the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was again the
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: smacking of the whips, the cla uttering of hoofs, and
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the glittering of harness. The horses started off almost at
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: a bound. The villagers again hurried to right and left
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: the wheels. The rip a cloud of dust, and the
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Aspirin family was wrapped out of sight in a whirlwind.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: And of Chapter three recording by Greg Giardano, Newport, Ritchie, Florida.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Chapter four of Washington Irving's Visit to England by Washington Irving.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Greg Giardano. The Mutability of Literature, a colloquy in Westminster Abbey.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I know that all beneath the moon decay, and what
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: by mortals in this world is brought in times great
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: periods shall return to naught. I know that all the
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: muses heavenly rays with toil of sprite, which are so
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: dearly bought as idle sounds of few or none are sought.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: That there is nothing lighter than mere praise Drummond of Hawthornden.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: There are certain half dreaming moods of mind, in which
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries and
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood, I
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to dignify with the name of reflection, when suddenly an
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: eruption of Madame Cap boys from Westminster School playing at
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: football broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: making the vaulted passages and moldering tombs echo with their merriment.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: to one of the vergers for admission to the library.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: sculpture of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: leading to the chapter house. In the chamber in which
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the Doomsday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a small door on the left. To this the verger
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: applied a key. It was double locked, and opened with
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a dark,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: narrow staircase, and passing through a second floor, entered the library.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I found my in a lofty antique hall, the roof
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: reverend dignitary of the church in his robes hung over
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the fireplace. Around the hall, and in a small gallery
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: were the books, arranged in carved oak and cases. They
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: worn by time than use. In the center of the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: library was a solitary table with two or three books
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: on it, an ink stand without ink, and a few
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: pens parched by long disuse, the place seemed fitted for
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried deep among
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: the tumult of the world. I could only hear now
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: and then the shouts of the schoolboys, faintly swelling from
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: echoing soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: length died away. The bell ceased to toll, and a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. I had taken
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: down the little thick quarto, curiously bound in parchment with
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: venerable elbow chair. Instead of reading. However, I was beguiled
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: by the solemn, monastic air and lifeless quiet of the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: place into a train of musing. As I looked around
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: upon the old volumes in their moldering covers, thus ranged
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their repose,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I could not but consider the library a kind of
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously entombed and
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: left to blacken and molder in dusty oblivion. How much
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: thought I has each of these volumes now thrust aside
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: with such indifference cost some aching head, How many weary days,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: how many sleepless nights. How have their authors buried themselves
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: in the solitude of cells and cloisters, shut themselves up
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: from the face of man and the still more blessed
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: face of nature, and devoted themselves to painful research and
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: intense reflection. And all for what to occupy an inch
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: of dusty shelf, To have the titles of their works
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: read now and then in a future age by some
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: drowsy churchmen or casual straggler like myself, and in another
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: age to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumor a
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: local sound, like the tone of that bell which is
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: told among these towers, filling the ear for a moment,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: lingering transiently in echo, and then passing away like a
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: thing that was not. While I sat half murmuring, half
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: meditating these unprofitable speculations, with my head resting on my hand.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I was thrumbing with the other hand upon the quarto,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: until I accidentally loosened the clasps, when, to my utter astonishment,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: the little book gave two or three yawns, like one
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: awaking from a deep sleep, then a husky hem, and
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: at length began to talk. At first, its voice was
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: which some studious spider had woven across it, and having
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: probably contracted a cold from long exposure to the chills
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: it became more distinct, and I soon found it an
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: exceedingly fluent, conversible little tone. Its language, to be sure,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation what in
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the present day would be dean barbarous, But I shall
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: endeavor as far as I am able to render it
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: in modern parlance. It began with railings about the neglect
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: of the world, about merit being suffered to languish an obscurity,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: and other such commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: bitterly that it had not been opened for more than
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: two centuries, that the Dean only looked now and then
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: into the library, sometimes took down a volume or two,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: trifled with them for a few moments, and then returned
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: them to their shelves. What a plague do they mean?
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Said the little quarto, which I began to perceive was
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: somewhat choleric. What a plague do they mean by keeping
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: several thousand volumes of us shut up here and watched
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: by a set of old verdures, like so many beauties
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: in a harem, merely to be looked at now and
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: then by the Dean. Books were written to give pleasure
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: and to be enjoyed. And I would have a rule
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: passed that the Dean should pay each of us a
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: visit at least once a year, or if he is
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: not equal to the task, let them once in a while,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: turn loose the whole school of Westminster among us, that
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: at any rate we may now and then have an airing. Softly,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: my worthy friend replied I, you are not aware how
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: much better you are off than most books of your generation.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: By being stored away in this ancient library. You are
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: like the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: lie enshrined in the adjoining chapels. While the remains of
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: their contemporary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: have long since returned to dust. A sir, said the
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking big. I was
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: written for all the world, not for the book worms
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: to hand, like other great contemporary works. But here have
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: I been clasped up for more than two centuries, And
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you might have silently fallen a prey to these worms
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: that are playing the very vengeance with my intestines, if
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: you had not by chance given me an opportunity of
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: uttering a few last words before I go to pieces,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: my good friend rejoined I. Had you been left to
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the circulation of which you speak, you would long ere
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: this have been no more. To judge from your physionomy,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: you are now well stricken in years. Very few of
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: your contemporaries can be at present in existence, and those
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: few owe their longevity to being immured like yourself in
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: old libraries, which suffer me to add, instead of likening
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have compared
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: to those infirmaries attached to religious establishments for the benefit
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: of the old and decrepit, and where by quiet, fostering
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: and no employment they often endured and amazingly good for nothing.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Old age, you talk of your contemporaries as if in circulation.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Where do we meet with their works? What do we
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: hear of Robert Grotesque of Lincoln? No one could have
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: told harder than he for immortality he said to have
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name. But alas
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: disturbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Geraldus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian and poet. He
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: declined two bishoprics that he might shut himself up and
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: write for posterity. But py stity never inquires after his labors.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: What of Henry of Huntington, who, besides a learned history
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: of England, wrote a treatise on the contempt of the world,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: which the world has revenged by forgetting him. What is
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled the Miracle of his
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: age and classical composition. Of his three great heroic poems,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: one is lost forever, accepting a mere fragment. The others
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: are known only to a few of the curious literature,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and as to his love verses and epigrams, they have
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallace,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the Franciscan who acquired the name of the tree of life,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: of William of Malmesbury, of Simeon of Durham, of Benedict
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: of Peterborough, of John Hanvill of Saint Albans, of Prithee, friend,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: cried the quarto in a testy tone, How old do
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you think me? You are talking of authors that lived
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: so that they, in a manner expatriated themselves and deserved
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: to be forgotten. Footnote in Latin and French, hath many
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: serene wits had great delight to end it, and have
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: many noble things fulfilled. But certiz there been some that
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: speaketh their poeys in French, of which speech the Frenchmen
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: have as good a fantasy as we have in hearing
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: of Frenchman's English troucers Testament of Love and a footnote.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: But I, Sir, was ushered into the world from the
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: press of the renowned Wincoln de word. I was written
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: in my own native tongue at a time when the
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: language had become fixed, and indeed I was considered a
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: model of pure and elegant English. I should observe that
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: these remarks were couched in such intolerably antiquated terms that
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I have had infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern phraseology.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I cry you, mercy, said I, for mistaking your age.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: But it matters little. Almost all the writers of your
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: time have likewise passed into forgetfulness, and the Ward's publications
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: are mere literary rarities among book collectors. The purity and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: stability of language, too, of which you found your claims
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: to perpetuity, had been the fallacious dependence of authors of
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: every age, even back to the times of the worthy
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his History and Rhymes of
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Mongrel saxon footnote. Holland Shed in his Chronicle observes afterwards,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: also by diligent Vell, with Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in the time of Richard the Second, and after them
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: of John Skoggin and John Ludgate, Monk of barry Our,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: said tongue was brought to an excellent pass, notwithstanding that
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: it never came unto the type of perfection until the
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: John Fox and Sundry, learned and excellent writers have fully
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: accomplished the ornamenture of the same, to the great praise
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: in mortal commendation and a footnote. Even now many talk
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: of Spencer's well of pure English undefiled, as if the
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: language ever sprang from a well or fountain head, and
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, perpetually
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this which has
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: made English literature so extremely mutable, and the reputation built
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: upon it so fleeting. And thus thought can be committed
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: to something more permanent and unchangeable than such a medium.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Even thought must share the fate of everything else and
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: fall into decay. They should serve as a check upon
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the vanity and exultation of the most popular writer. He
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: finds the language in which he has embarked his fame
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: gradually altering in subject to the dilapidations of time and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: the caprice of fashion. He looks back and beholds the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: early authors of his country, once the favorites of their day,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: supplanted by modern writers. A few short ages have covered
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: them with obscurity, and their marriage can only be relished
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: by the quaint taste of the bookworm. And such he anticipates,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: will be the fate of his own work, which, however
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: it may be admired in its day and held up
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: as a model of purity, will in the course of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: years grow antiquated and obsolete, until it shall become almost
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: as unintelligible in a state of land as an Egyptian obelisk,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: or one of those runic inscriptions said to exists in
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: the deserts of Tartary. I declare, added I with some emotion,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: when I contemplate a modern library filled with new works
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: and all the bravery of rich guess, building and binding,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: if you'll disposed to sit down and weep like the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: good Xercees when you surveyed his army pranked out in
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: all the splendor of military array, and reflected that in
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: one hundred years not one of them would be in existence.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Ah said the little quarto with a heavy sigh. I
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: see how it is these in modern scribblers have superseded
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: nowadays but sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Sackville's stately Plays and
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Mirror for Magistrates, or the fine spun eupheoisms of the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: unparalleled John Lyle. Well, there you are again mistaken, said I.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: The writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they happened
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: to be so when you were last in circulation, have
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his admiring
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: errors footnote, live every sweet book, the simple image of
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: his gentle wit, and the golden pillar of his noble courage,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: And ever notify unto the world that thy writer was
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: a secretary of eloquence, The breath of the muses, the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: honey bee of the daintiest flowers of wit and art,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: the pith of morale in intellectual virtues, the arm of
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Bologna in the field, the tongue of Sueda in the chamber,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: the spirits of practice in esse, and the paragon of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: excellence in print Harvey pierces super irrigation end of footnote,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: and which in truth was full of noble thoughts, delicate images,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Sackville has strutted into obscurity, and even Lyell those writings
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: were once the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by name.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: A whole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled at
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: the time have likewise gone down, with all their writings
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: and their controversies. Wave after a wave of succeeding literature
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: has ruled over them, until they are buried so deep
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: that it is only now and then that some industrious
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: diver after fragments of antiquity, brings up a specimen for
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: the gratification of the curious. For my part, I continued,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I consider this mutability of language a wise precaution of providence,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: for the benefit of the world at large, and of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: authors in particular. To reason from analogy, we jailly behold
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up, flourishing,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: adorning the fields for a short time, then fading into dust.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: To make way for their successors. Were not this the case,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: the falcundity of nature would be a grievance instead of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: a blessing. The earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: and its surface become a tangled wilderness. In like manner,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the works of genius in learning decline and make way
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: for subsequent productions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time. Otherwise,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: of literature. Formerly, there were some restraints on the successive multiplication.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: slow and laborious operation. They were written either on parchment,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: which was expensive so that one work was often erased
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: to make way for another, or in papyrus, which was
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances. It
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: may in some measure be owing that we have not
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: been inundated by the intellect of antiquity, that the fountains
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: drowned in the deluge. But the inventions of paper and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the press have put an end to all these restraints.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: They have made everyone a writer, and enabled every mind
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: to pour itself into print and diffuse itself over the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: whole intellectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: literature has swollen into a turrent, augmented into a river,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: expanded into a sea. A few centuries since five or
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library. But what would
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: you say to libraries such as actually exist, containing three
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: or four hundred thousand volumes, legions of authors at the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: same time, busy in the press, going on with fearfully
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: increasing activity to double and quadruple the number, unless some
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: unforeseen mortality should break out among the progeny of the use.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: Now that she is become so prolific, I tremble for posterity.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: I fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be sufficient.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Criticism may do much, It increases with the increase of literature,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: and resembles one of those solitary checks on population spoken
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: of by economists. All possible encouragement, therefore, should be given
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: fear all will be in vain that criticism do what
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: it may. Writers will write, printers will print, and the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to learn
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: their names. Many a man have passed information at the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: present day, read scarcely anything but reviews, and before long
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: a man of your audition would be little better than
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: a mere walking catalog. My very good, sir, said the
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: little quarto, yawning most drearily in my face. Excuse my
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: interrupting you, but I perceive you are rather given to prose.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I would ask the fate of an author who was
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: making some noise just as I left the world. His reputation, however,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: was considered quite temporary. The learned shook their heads at him,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: for he was a poor, half educated varlet that knew
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: little of Latin and nothing of Greek, and had been
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: obliged to run the country for deer stealing. I think
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: his name was Shakespeare. I presume he soon sunk into oblivion. Oh,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: on the contrary, said I, It is owing to that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: very man that the literature of his period has experienced
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: a duration beyond the ordinary term of English literature. Their
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: immutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: unchanging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream, which,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: surface and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: preserve the soil around them from being swept away by
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: the ever flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: plant and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: case with Shakespeare, whom we behold defining the encroachments of time,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: retaining in modern use to language and literature of his day,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: and giving duration to many an indifferent author merely from
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to say, is gradually assuming the tintive age, and his
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: by clambering vines and creepers, almost buried the noble plant
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: that upholds them. Here the little quarte began to heave
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: his sides and chuckle, until at length he broke out
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: into a plethoric fit of laughter that had well nigh
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: choked him by the reason of his excessive corpulency. Mighty well,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, mighty well.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: And so ye would persuade me that the literature of
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond, deer stealer,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: by a man without learning, by a poet, forsooth a poet.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: And here he weezed forth another fit of laughter. I
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, which,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: however I pardoned, on account of his having flourished in
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: a less polished age. I determined nevertheless not to give
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: up my point. Yes, resumed I positively a poet, for
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: of all writers, he has the best chance for immortality.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Others may write from the head, but he writes from
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: the heart, and the heart will always understand him. He
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: is the faithful portrayer of nature. His features are always
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: the same and always interesting. Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldy.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Their page is crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: into tediousness. But with the true poet everything is terse, touching,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: or brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest language.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: He illustrates them by everything that he sees most striking
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: human life, such as it is passing before him. His
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: writings therefore contain the spirit the aroma, if I may
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: use the phrase of the age in which he lives.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: They are caskets which enclose within a small compass the
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: wealth of the language, its family jewels, which are thus
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The setting may
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: occasionally be antiquated and require now and then to be renewed,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: as in the case of Chaucer, but the brilliancy and
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: back over the long reach of literary history, What vast
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: valleys of dulness filled with monkish legends and academical controversies,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: What bogs the theological speculations what dreary wastes of metaphysics.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Here and there only do we behold the heaven illumined bards,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: elevated like beacons on their widely separated heights, to transmit
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to age.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Footnote through earth and waters deep. The pen by skill
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: doth pass and featly naps the world's abuse, and shows
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: us in the glass the virtue and the vice of
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: every wit alive. The honeycomb that be doth make is
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: not so sweet and hive as are o the golden
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: leaves that drops from poet's head, which doth surmount our
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: common talk, as far as droth doth lead churchyard. End
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: of footnote. I was just about to launch forth into
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: eulogiliums upon the poets of the day, when the sudden
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: opening of the door caused me to turn my head.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: It was the verger who came to inform me that
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: was time to close the library. I sought to have
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: a parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: tone was silent. The clasps were closed, and it looked
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: perfectly unconscious of all that had passed. I have been
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: to the library two or three times since, and have
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: endeavored to draw it into further conversation, but in vain
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: and whether all this rambling colloquit actually took place, where,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: whether there was another of those old day dreams to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: which I am subject, I have never to this moment
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: been able to discover. End of chapter four recording by
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Greg Giardano, Newport, Ritchy, Florida. Chapter five of Washington Irvings
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: Visit to England by Washington Irving. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by Greg Girdano. Rural funerals.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Here's a few flowers, but about midnight more the herbs
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: that have oil them cold duo the night are strewings
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: fittest for graves. You were as flowers now withered. Even
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: so these erblits shall which we upon you strow cymbeline.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: Among the beautiful and simple hearted customs of rural life
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: which still linger in some parts of England are those
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: of strewing flowers before the funerals and planting them at
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: the graves of departed friends. These, it is said, are
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: the remains of some of the rites of the primitive church.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: But they are of still higher antiquity, having been observed
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: among the Greeks and Romans, and frequently mentioned by their writers,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: and were no doubt the spontaneous tributes of unlettered affection,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: originating long before art had tasked itself to modulate sorrow
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: into song or story it on the monument. They are
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: now only to be met within the most distant and
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: retired places of the Kingdom, where fashion and innovation have
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: not been able to throng in and trample out all
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: the curious and interesting traces of the olden time. In Glamorgshire,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: we are told the bed whereon the corpse lies is
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: covered with flowers, a custom alluded to in one of
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: the wild and plaintive ditties of Ophelia. White his shroud
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: as the mountain snow larded all with sweet flowers, which
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: be wept to the grave, did go with true love showers.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: in some of the remote villages of the South. At
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the funeral of a female who has died young and unmarried,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: a chaplet of white flowers is borne before the corpse
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: by a young girl nearest in age, size and resemblance,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: and is afterwards hung up in the church over the
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: accustomed seat of the deceased. These chaplets are sometimes made
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: of white paper in imitation of flowers, and inside of
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: them is generally a pair of white gloves. They are
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: intended as emblems of the purity of the deceased and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: the crown of glory which she has received in heaven.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: In some parts of the country also the deador carried
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: to the grave with the singing of psalms and hymns,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: a kind of triumph to show says borne that they
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: have finished their course with joy and are become conquerors. This,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: I am informed, is observed in some of the northern counties,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: particularly in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing though melancholy
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: effect to hear of a still evening in some lonely
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: country scene the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swelling
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: from a distance, and to see the train slowly moving
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: along the landscape. Thus, thus and thus we compass round
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: thy harmless and unhaunted ground, And as we sing thy dirge,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: we will the daffodil and other flowers lay upon the
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: altar of our love, thy stone Herrick. There is also
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: a solemn respect paid by the traveler to the passing
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: funeral in thee sequestered places, for such spectacles occurring among
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: the quiet abodes of nature, sink deep into the soul.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: As the morning train approaches, he pauses, uncovered to let
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: it go by. He then follows silently in the rear,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: sometimes quite to the grave, at other times for a
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: few hundred yards, and having paid this tribute of respect
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: to the deceased, turns and resumes his journey. The rich
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: vein of melancholy, which runs through the English character and
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: gives it some of its touching and ennobling graces, is
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: finely evidenced in these pathetic customs, and in the solicitude
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: shown by the common people for an honored and a
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, whatever may be his lowly lot,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: while living, is anxious that some little respect may be
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: paid to his remains. Sir Thomas Overbury, describing the fair
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: and happy milkmaid, observes thus lives she and all her
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: care is that she may die in the springtime to
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: have store of flower stuck upon her winding sheet. The poets, too,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: who always breathe the feeling of a nation, continually advert
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: to this fond solicitude about the grave. In the Made
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: Tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: of the kind, describing the capricious melancholy of a broken
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: hearted girl. When she sees a bank stuck full of flowers, she,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: with a sigh, will tell her servants what a pretty
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: place it were to bury lovers in, and made her
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: maids pluck em and strew her over like a course.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: The custom of decorating graves was once universally prevalent. Osiers
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: were carefully bent over them to keep the turf uninjured,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: and about them were planted evergreens and flowers. We adorned
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: their graves, says Evelyn, and his silver, with flowers and
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: has been compared in holy scriptures to those fading beauties,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: whose roots being buried in dishonor rise again in glory.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: This usage has now become extremely rare in England, but
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: it may still be met within the churchyards of retired
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: villages among the Welsh Mountain, and I recollect an instance
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: of it at the small town of Rupfen, which lies
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: at the head of the beautiful vale of clude I
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: have been told also by a friend who was present
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: at the funeral of a young girl in Glamorganshire, that
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: the female attendants had their aprons full of flowers, which,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: as soon as the body was interred, they stuck about
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: the grave. He noticed several graves which had been decorated
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: in the same manner. As the flowers had been merely
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: stuck in the ground and not planted. They had soon
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: withered and might be seen in various states of decay,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: some drooping, others quite perished. They were afterwards to be
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: supplanted by holly, rosemary and other evergreens, which on some
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: graves had grown to great luxuriance and overshadowed the tombstones.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: There was formerly a melancholy fancifulness in the arrangement of
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: these rustic offerings that had something in it truly poetical.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: The rose was sometimes blended with the lily to form
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: a general emblem of frail mortality. This sweet flower, said Evelyn,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: born on a branch set with thorns, and accompanied with
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive umbertelle, anxious
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: and transitory life, which making so fair a show for
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: a time is not yet without its thorns and crosses.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: The nature and color of the flowers and of the
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: ribbons with which they were tied had often a particular
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: reference to the qualities or story of the deceased, or
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: were expressive of the feelings of the mourner. In an
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: old poem entitled Corydon's doleful Knell, a lover specifies the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: decorations he intends to use. A garland shall be framed
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: by art and nature's skins of sundry colored flowers in
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: token of good will, and sundry colored ribbons on it
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: I will bestow, but chiefly black and yellow. With her
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: to grave shall go. I'll deck her tomb with flowers
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: the rarest ever seen, and with my tears as showers,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: I'll keep them fresh and green. The white rose, we
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: are told, was planted at the grave of a virgin.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Her chaplet was tied with white ribbons in token of
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: her spotless innocence, though sometimes black ribbons were intermingled to
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: bespeak the grief of the survivors. The red rose was
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: occasionally used in remembrance of such as had been remarkable
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: for benevolence, but roses in general were appropriated to the
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us that the custom was
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: not altogether extinct in his time near his in the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: County of Surrey, where the maidens yearly planted and decked
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose bushes and camden. Likewise,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: remarks in his Britannia, here is also a certain custom
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: observed time out of mind, of planting rose trees upon
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: the graves, especially by the young men and maids who
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: have lost their loves, so that this churchyard is now
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: full of them. When the deceased had been unhappy in
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: their loves, emblems of a more gloomy character were used,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: such as the hue and cypress, and if flowers were strewn,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: they were of the most melancholy colors. Thus, in poems
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: by Thomas Stanley Esquire, published in sixteen fifty one, is
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: the following stanza, Yet strue upon my dismal grave. Such
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: offerings as you have forsaken cypress, and you for kinder
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: flowers can take no birth or growth from such unhappy earth.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: In the Mate Tragedy, a pathetic little air is introduced
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: who had been disappointed in love. Lay a garland on
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: my hearse of the dismal hue. Maidens willow branches, where
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: say I died true, My love was false, but I
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: was firm for my hour of birth upon my buried body,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: Lie lightly gentle earth. The natural effect of sorrow over
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: the dead is to refine and elevate the mind, and
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: we have a proof of it in the purity of sentiment,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: in the unaffected elegance of thought, which pervaded the whole
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: of these funeral observances. Thus it was an especial precaution
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: that none but sweet sunted ever greens and flowers should
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: be employed. The intention seems to have been to soften
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind from
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: brooding over the disgraces of perishing mortality, and to associate
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: the memory of the deceased with the most delicate and
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: beautiful objects in nature. There is a dismal process going
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: on in the grave. Ere dust can return to its
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: kindred dust, which the imagination shrinks from contemplating, And we
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: seek still to think of the form we have loved
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: with those refined associations, which it awakened when blooming before
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: us in youth and beauty. Lay her in the earth,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: says Laertes, of his virgin sister. And from her fair
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: and unpolluted flesh, may violet spring. Herrick, also, in his
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: dirge of Jephtha, pours forth a fragrant flow of poetical
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: thoughts and image, which, in a manner embalms the dead
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: in the recollections of the living. Sleep in thy peace,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: thy bed of spice, and make this place all paradise.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: May sweets grow here and smoke from hence fat frankencense,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Let balm and cassia send their scent from out thy
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: maiden monument. May all she maids at wonted hours come
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: forth to strew thy tomb with flowers. May virgins, when
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: they come to mourn mail incense, burn upon thy altar,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: then return and leave thee sleeping in thy urn. I
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: might crowd my pages with extracts from the older British poets,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: who wrote when these rites were more prevalent, and delighted
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: frequently to allude to them. But I have already quoted
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: more than is necessary. I cannot, however, refrain from giving
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: a passage from Shakespeare, even though it should appear trite,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: which illustrates the emblematical meaning often conveyed in these floral tributes,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: and at the same time possesses that magic of language
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: and apostedness of imagery for which he stands pre eminent.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: With fairest flowers, whilst summer lasts, and I live here fidel,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack the
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: flower that's like thy face, pell primrose, nor the azort
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: hairbell like thy veins. No, nor the leaf of Anglantine,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: whom not to slander, outsweetened, not thy breath. There is
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: certainly something more affecting in these prompt and spontaneous offerings
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: of nature than in the most costly monuments of art.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: The hand strews the flower while the heart is warm,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: and the tear falls on the grave as effect is binding.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: The oester round the sod, but pathos expars under the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: colt conceits of sculptured marble. It is greatly to be
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: regretted that a custom so truly elegant and touching has
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: disappeared from general use, and exists only in the most
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: remote and insignificant villages. But it seems as if poetical
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: custom always shuns the walks of cultivated society in proportion.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: As people grow polite, they cease to be poetical. They
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: talk of poetry, but they have learnt to check its
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: free impulses, to distrust its sallying emotions, and to supply
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: its most affecting and picturesque usages by studied form and
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: pompous ceremonial. Few pageants can be more stately and frigid
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: than an English funeral in town. It is made up
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: of show and gloomy parade, mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning plumes,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and hireling mourners who make a mockery of grief. There
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: is a grave digged, says Jeremy Taylor, in a solemn morning,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: and a great talk in the neighborhood. And when the
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: days are finished, they shall be, and they shall be
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: remembered no more. The associate in the gay and crowded
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: city is soon forgotten. The hurrying succession of new intimates
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: and new pleasures. He faces him from our minds in
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: the very scenes and circles in which he moved are
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: incessantly fluctuating, but funerals in the country are solemnly impressive.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: The stroke of death makes a wider space in the
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: village circle, and is an awful event in the tranquil
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: uniformity of rural life. The passing bell tolls its knell
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: in every ear. It steals with its pervading melancholy over
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: hill and vale and sadness all the landscape. The fixed
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: and unchanging features of the country also perpetuate the memory
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: of the friend with whom we once enjoyed them, who
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: was the companion of our most retired walks, and gave
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: animation to every lonely scene. His idea is associated with
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: every charm of nature. We hear his voice in the
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: echo which he once delighted to awaken. His spirit haunts
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: the grove which he once frequented it. We think of
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: him in the wild upland solitude, or amidst the pensive
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: beauty of the valley, in the freshness of joyous mourning,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: we remember his beaming smiles and bounding gayety. And when
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: sober evening returns, with its gathering shadows and subduing quiet,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: we call to mind many a twilight hour of gentle
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: talk and sweet souled melancholy. Each lonely place shall him
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: restore for him. The tears be duly shed, beloved till
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: life can charm no more, and mourned till pity's self
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: be dead. Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: deceased in the country is that the grave is more
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: immediately in sight of the survivors. They pass it on
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: their way to prayer. It meets their eyes when their
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: hearts are softened by the exercises of devotion. They linger
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: about it on the Sabbath, when the mind is disengaged
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: from worldly cares and most disposed to turn aside from
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: present pleasures and present loves, and to sit down among
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: the solemn mementoes of the past. In North Wales, the
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: peasantry kneel and pray over the graves of their deceased
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: friends for several Sundays after the interment, and where the
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: tender right of strewing and planting flowers is still practiced.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: It is always renewed on Easter, Whitsuntide and other festivals
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: when the season brings the companion of former festivity were
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: vividly to mind. It is also invariably performed by the
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: nearest relatives and friends. No menials nor hirelings are employed,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: and if a neighbor yields assistance, it would be deemed
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: an insult to offer compensation. I have dealt upon this
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: beautiful rural custom because as it is one of the last,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: so it is one of the holiest offices of love.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: The grave is the ordeal of true affection. It is
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: there that the divine passion of the soul manifests its
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: superiority to the instinctive impulse of mere animal attachment. The
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: latter must be continually refreshed and kept alive by the
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: presence of its object, But the love that is seated
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: in the soul can live on long remembrance. The mere
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: inclinations of sense languish and decline with the charms which
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: excited them, and turn with shuddering disgust from the dismal
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: precincts of the tomb. But it is thence that truly
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: spiritual affection rises, purified from every sensual desire, and returns
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: like a holy flame to illumine and sanctify the heart
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: of the survivor. The sorrow for the dead is the
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: But this wound we consider it a duty to keep open.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: This affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: perish like a blossom from her arms? Though every recollection
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: is a pang. Where is the child that would willingly
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: forget the most tender of parents? Though to remember be
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: but to lament, Who, even in the hour of agony,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: would forget the friend over whom he mourns, Who, even
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: most loved, when he feels his heart as it were
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept of
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness. No, the love
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: of the soul. If it has its woes, it is
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: likewise its delights. And when the overwhelming burst of grief
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: of all that we most loved, is softened away into
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: pensive meditation on all that it was in the days
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: of its loveliness. Who would root out such a sorrow
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: cloud over the bright hour of gaiety, or spread a
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: deeper sadness over the hour of gloom it, who would
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: exchange it even for the song of pleasure or the
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: burst of revelry. No, there is a voice from the
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: the grave, the grave it buries every error, covers every defect,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosoms spring none but
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: the grave, even of an enemy and not feel a
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: compunctuous throb they should ever have warred with the poor
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: handful of earth that lies moldering before him. But the
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: grave of those we loved, What a place for meditation.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: There it is that we call up in long review
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: the whole history of virtue and gentleness, in the thousand
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded in the daily intercourse
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: of intimacy. There it is that we dwell upon the tenderness,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene, the bed
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendants,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: its mute, watchful assiduities, last testimonies of expiring love, the
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: feeble fluttering thrilling, Oh how thrilling pressure of the hand,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: the faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give one
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: more assurance of affection, the last fond look of the
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: glazing eye turning upon us even from the threshold of existence. Ay,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: go to the grave of buried love, and meditate there
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: subtly account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: every past endearment unregarded, with that departed being who can never, never,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: never return to be soothed by thy contrition. If thou
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: art a child and hast ever added a sorrow to
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: the soul, or a furrow to the silver brow and
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: affectionate parent, if thou art a husband and hast ever
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: thy truth, If thou art a friend, and hast ever
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: wronged in thought or word or deed the spirit that
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: generously confided in thee. If thou art a lover, and
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: which thou lies cold and still beneath thy feet, then
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory and
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: knocking dolefully at thy soul. Then be sure that thou
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: wilt lie down, sorrowing and repentant on the grins, and
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear more deep,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: more bitter. Because unheard and unavailing, then weave thy chaplet
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: Console thy broken spirit. If thou canst with these tender
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: yet futile tributes of regret, but take warning by the
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: bitterness of this thy contry affliction over the dead, and
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: thy duties to the living. In writing the preceding article,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: it was not intended to give a full detail of
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: the funeral customs of the English peasantry, but merely to
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: furnish a few hints and quotations illustrative of particular rites,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: to be appended by way of note to another paper
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: which has been withheld. The article swelled insensibly into its
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: present fame. This is mentioned as an apology for so
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: brief and casual, a notice of these usages, after they
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: have been amply and learnedly investigated in other works. I
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: must observe also that I am well aware that his
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: custom of adorning graves with flowers prevails in other countries
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: besides England. Indeed, in some it is much more general,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: and is observed even by the rich and fashionable. But
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: it is then apt to lose its simplicity and to
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: degenerate into affectation. Bright in his travels in Lower Hungary,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: tells of monuments of marble and recesses formed for retirement,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: with seats placed among bowers of greenhouse plants, and that
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: the graves generally are covered with the gayest flowers of
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: the season. He gives a casual picture of fallopiety, which
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: I cannot but transcribe, for I trust it is as
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: useful as it is delightful to illustrate the amiable virtues
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: of the sex. When I was at Berlin, says he,
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: I have filed the celebrated iffland to the grave. Mingled
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: with some pomp, you might trace much real feeling. In
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: the midst of the ceremony. My attention was attracted by
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: a young woman who stood on a mound of earth
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: newly covered with turf, which she anxiously protected from the
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: feet of the passing crowd. It was the tomb of
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: her parent, and the figure of this affectionate daughter presented
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: a monument more striking than the most costly work of art.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: I will barely add an instance of sepulchral decoration that
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: I once met with among the mountains of Switzerland. It
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: was at the village of Gersau, which stands on the
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: borders of the Lake of Lucerne at the foot of
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: Mount Rigi. Was once the capital of a miniature republic,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: shut up between the Alps and the lake, and accessible
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: on the land side only by footpaths. The whole force
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: of the republic did not exceed six hundred fighting men,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: and a few miles of circumference scooped out as it were,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: from the bosom of the mountains comprised its territory. The
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: village of Gersau seemed separated from the rest of the
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: world and retained the golden simplicity of a purer age.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: It had a small church with a burying ground adjoining.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: At the heads of the graves replaced crosses of wood
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: or iron. On some were affixed miniatures, rudely executed but
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: evidently attempts at likenesses of the deceased. On the crosses
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: were hung chaplets of flowers, some withering, others fresh, as
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: if occasionally renewed. I paused with interest at this scene.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: I felt that I was at the source of poetical description.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: From these were the beautiful but unaffected offerings of the heart,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: which poets are fain to record in a gayer and
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: more populous place. I should have suspected them to have
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: been suggested by a factitious sentiment derived from books. But
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: the good people of Garsau knew little of books. There
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: was not a novel nor a love poem in the village,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: And I question whether any peasant of the place dreamt
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: while he was twining a fresh chaplet for the grave
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: of his mistress, that he was fulfilling one of the
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: most fanciful rites of poetical devotion, and that he was
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: practically a poet. End of Chapter five recording by Greg Giardano, Newport, Ritchie, Florida.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: Chapter six of Washington Irving's Visit to England by Washington Irving.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: Greg Giardano. Stratford on Avon, thou soft flowing Avon, by
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: thy silver stream of things more than mortal, sweet Shakespeare
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: would dream the fairies by moonlight, dance round his green bed,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: for hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. Garrick
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: to a homeless man who has no spot on this
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: wide world which he can truly call his own. There
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: consequence when, after a weary day's travel, he kicks off
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: his boots, thrust his feet into slippers, and stretches himself
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: before and in fire. Let the world without go as
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: it may, let kingdoms rise or fall. So long as
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is,
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: for the time being the very monarch of all he surveys.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: The arm chair is his throne, the poker his scepter
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: in the little parlor some twelve feet square his undisputed empire.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: It is a morsel of certainly snatched from the midst
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: of the uncertainties of life. Is a sunny moment gleaming
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: out kindly on a cloudy day. And he who has
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence knows the
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: importance of husbanding even morsels in moments of enjoyment. Shall
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: I not take my knees in mine? Inn? Thought I,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: my elbow chair, and cast a complaisant look about the
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: little parlor of the Red Horse at Stratford on Avon.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: The words of sweet Shakespeare were just passing through my mind.
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: As the clock struck midnight from the tower of the
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: church in which he lies buried, there was a gentle
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: tap at the door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: her smiling face, inquired with a hesitating air whether I
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: had rung. I understood it as a modest hint that
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: it was time to retire. My dream of absolute dominion
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: was at an end, So abdicating my throne like a
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: prudent potentate to avoid being deposed, and putting the Stratford
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: guide Book under my arm as a pillow companion, I
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: went to bed and dreamt all night of Shakespeare, the Jubilee,
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: and David Garrick. The next morning was one of those
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: quickening mornings which we sometimes have in early spring. For
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: it was about the middle of March. The chills of
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: a long winter had suddenly given way, the north wind
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: had spent its last gasp, and a mild air came
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life into nature,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: and wooing every bud and flower to burst forth into
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: fragrance and beauty. I had come to Stratford on a
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: brought up to his father's craft of woolcombing. It is
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: a small, mean looking edifice of wood and plaster, a
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: true nestling place of genius, which seems to delight in
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: hatching its offspring in by corners. The walls of his
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: language by pilgrims of all nations, ranks and conditions from
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: the prince to the peasant, and present a simple but
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: to the great poet of nature. The house is shown
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: by a garrulous old lady in a frosty red face,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: lighted up by a cold blue, anxious eye, and garnished
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: with artificial locks of flaxen hair curling from under an
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: There was a shattered stock of the very matchlock with
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: which Shakespeare shot the deer on his poaching exploits. There
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: too was his tobacco box, which proves that he was
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh, the sword also
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: with which he played Hamlet in the Identity lantern with
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: which Friar Lawrence discovered Romeo and Juliet. At the tomb
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: there was an ample supply also of Shakespeare's mulberry tree,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self multiplication
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: as the wood of the true Cross, at which there
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: is enough extent to build a ship of the line.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakespeare's chair.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: It stands in a chimney nook of a small, gloomy chamber,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: just behind what was his father's shop. Here he may
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: many a time have sat, when a boy, watching the
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: slowly revolving spit with all the longing of an urchin,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: or of an evening, listening to the cronies and gossips
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: of Stratford, healing Forth, churchyard tales, and legendary anecdotes of
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: the troublesome times of England. In this chair it is
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: the custom of every one that visits the house to sit,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: Whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: the inspiration of the bard, I am at a loss
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: to say, I merely mentioned the fact, and mine hostess
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: privately assured me that, though built of solid oak, such
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: was the fervent zeal of devotees, that chare had to
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: be new bottomed at least once in three years. It
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: is worthy of notice, also in the history of this
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: extraordinary chair, that it partakes something of the bottle nature
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the flying chair
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: of the Arabian enchanter. For though sold some few years
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: since to a northern princess. Yet strange to tell it
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: has found its way back again to the old Geminy corner.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: I am always of easy faith in such matters, and
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: am ever willing to be deceived where the deceit is
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: pleasant and cost nothing. I am therefore a ready believer
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblins and great men,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: and would advise all travelers who travel for their gratification
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: to be the same. What is it to us whether
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: these stories be true or false? So long as we
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: can persuade ourselves into the belief of them and enjoy
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: all the charm of the reality. There is nothing like resolute, good,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: humored credulity in these matters. And on this occasion I
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: went even so far as willingly to believe the claims
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: of mine hostess, to a lineal descent from the poet,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: when unluckily for my faith, she put into my hands
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: a play of her own composition, which set all belief
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: in her own consanguinity at defiance. From the birthplace of Shakespeare,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: a few paces brought me to his grave. He lies
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: buried in the chancel of the parish church, a large
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: and venerable pile, moldering with age, but richly ornamented. It
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered point,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: Its situation is quiet and retired. The river runs murmuring
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: interlaced so as to form in summer an arched way
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: to the church porch. The graves are overgrown with grass.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: The gray tombstones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth,
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: are half covered with moss, which has likewise tinted the
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: reverend old building. Small birds have built their nests among
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: the cornices and fissures of the walls, and keep up
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: a continual flutter and chirping, and rooks are sailing and
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: cawing about its lofty gray spire. In the course of
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: my rambles I met with the gray headed sexton Edmunds,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: and accompanied him home to get the key of the church.
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: He had lived in Stratford, man and boy for eighty years,
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: and seemed still to consider himself a vigorous man, with
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: of his legs for a few years past. His dwelling
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: was a cotter's looking out upon the Avon and its
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: bordering meadows, and was a picture of that neatness, order
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: and comfort which pervade the humblest dwellings in his country.
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: A low, whitewashed room with a stone floor carefully scrubbed,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: served for parlor kitchen, an hall rows of pewter and
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: earthen dishes glittered along the dresser. On an old oaken table,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: well rubbed and polished laid the family Bible and prayer book,
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: and the drawer contained the family library, composed of about
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: half a score of well thumbed volumes, an ancient clock,
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: that important article of cottage furniture, ticked on the opposite
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: side of the room, with a bright warming pan hanging
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: on one side of it, and the old man's horn
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: handled Sunday cane on the other. The fireplace, as usual,
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: was wide and deep enough to admit a gossip knot
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: within its gems in one corner sat the old man's granddaughter, Sewing,
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: a pretty blue white girl, And in the opposite corner
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: was a super annuated crony, whom he addressed by the
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: name of John Ange, and who I found had been
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: his companion from childhood. They had played together in infancy,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: they had worked together in manhood. They were now tottering
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: about and gossiping away the evening of life, and in
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: a short time they will probably be buried together in
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: the neighboring churchyard. It is not often that we see
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: two streams of existence running thus evenly and tranquility side
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: by side. Is only in such bosom scenes of life
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: that they are to be met with. I had hoped
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: to gather some traditionary anecdotes of the Bard from these
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: ancient chroniclers, but they had nothing new to impart. The
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: long interval during which Shakespeare's writings lay in comparative neglect
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: has spread its shadow over his history, and it is
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: his good or evil lot that scarcely anything remains to
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures. The sexton
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: and his companion had been employed as carpenters on the
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: preparations for the celebrated Stratford Jubilee, and they remembered Garrick,
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: the prime mover of the fete, who superintended the arrangements,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: and who, according to the sexton, was a short punch man,
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: very lively and bustling. John Ange had assisted also in
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: cutting down Shakespeare's mulberry tree, of which he had a
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: morsel in his pocket for sale, no doubt, a sovereign
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: quickener of literary conception. I was grieved to hear these
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: two worthy whites speak very dubiously of the eloquant dame
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: who shows the Shakespeare house. John h shook his head
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: when I mentioned her valuable and inexhaustible collection of relics,
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: particularly her remains with the mulberry tree, and the old
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: sexton even expressed a doubt as to Shakespeare having been
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: born in her house. I soon discovered that he looked
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: to the poet's tomb, the latter having comparatively but few visitors.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: Thus it is that historians differ at the very outset,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: and mere pebbles make the stream of truth diverge into
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: different channels. Even at the fountain Head, we approached the
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: church through the avenue of limes, and entered by a
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: Gothic porch highly ornamented with carved doors of massive oak.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: The interior is spacious in the architecture and embellishments superior
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: to those of most country churches. There are several ancient
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: monuments of nobility and gentry, over some of which hang
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: funeral as cutcheons and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: The tomb of Shakespeare is in the chancel. The place
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: is solemn and supparancal. Tall elms wave before the pointed windows,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: and the avon, which runs at a short distance from
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: the walls, keeps up a low, perpetual murmur. A flat
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: stone marks the spot where the Bard is buried. There
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: are four lined inscribed on it, said to have been
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: written by himself, and which have in them something extremely awful.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: If they are indeed his own. They show that solicitude
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: about the quiet of the grave, which seems natural to
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: find sensibilities and thoughtful minds, good friend for Jesus sake,
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: forbear to dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be he
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: my bones just over the grave. In a niche of
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: the wall is a bust of Shakespeare, put up shortly
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: after his death, and considered as a resemblance. The aspect
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: is pleasant and serene, with a finely arched forehead, and
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: I thought I could read in it clear indications of
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: that cheerful social disposition by which he was as much
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: characterized among his contemporaries as by the vastness of his genius.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: The inscription mentions his age at the time of his
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: decease fifty three years, an untimely death for the world,
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: For what fruit might not have been expected from the
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in the
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: sunshine of popular and royal favor. The inscription on the
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: tombstone has not been without its effect. It has prevented
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: the removal of its remains from the bosom of his
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: native place to Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: A few years since, also, as some laborers were digging
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in so
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: as to leave a vacant space, almost like an arch,
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however,
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: presumed to meddle with his remains, so awfully guarded by
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: a malediction, and lest any of the idol or the curious,
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: or any collector of relics should be tempted to commit depredations.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: The old sexton kept watch over the place for two days,
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: until the vault was finished and the aperture closed again.
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: He told me that he had made bold to look
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: in at the hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones,
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: nothing but dust. It was something I thought to have seen,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: the dust of Shakespeare. Next to this grave are those
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: of his wife, his favorite daughter, Missus Hall, and others
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: of his family. On a tomb. Close by. Also is
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: a full length effigy of his old friend John Combe
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: of eusurious memory, of whom he is said to have
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: written a ludicrous epitaph. There are other monuments around, but
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: the mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: connected with Shakespeare. His idea pervades the place. The whole
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: pile seems, but as his mausoleum. The feelings no longer
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: checked and thwarted by doubt, Here indulge in perfect confidence.
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: Other traces of him may be false. Or dubious, But
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: here is palpable evidence and absolute certainty. As I tried
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: the sounding pavement, there was something intense and thrilling in
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: the idea that, in very truth, the remains of Shakespeare
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: were moldering beneath my feet. It was a long time
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: before I could prevail upon myself to leave the place,
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: And as I passed through the churchyard, I plucked a
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: branch from one of the yew trees, the only relic
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: that I have brought from Stratford. I had now visited
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, but I had
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: a desire to see the old family seat of the
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: Lucy's at Charlecotte, and to ramble through the park were Shakespeare,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: in company with some of the roisterers of Stratford, committed
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: his youthful offense of deer stealing. In this hair brained exploit,
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: we are told that he was taken prisoner and carried
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: to the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: doleful captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: his treatment must have been galling and humiliating, for it
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: so wrought upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade,
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: which was affixed to the park gate at Charlotte Co
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: footnote the following is the only standza extant of this lampoon.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: A parliament member, a justice of peace at homey poor
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: scarecrow at London, and asks, if Loesy is Lucy, as
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: some volke must call it, then Lucy is Lowsey, would
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: ever befall it? He thinks himself great, yet an ass
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: in his state we allow by his ears, but with
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: asses to mate, if Lucy is Lowsey, as some volke
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: must call it, then, seeing lousy, Lucy would ever befall it.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: And a footnote. This flagitious attack upon the dignity of
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: the knight so incensed him that he applied to a
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of the laws
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: in force against the rhyming deer stalker. Shakespeare did not
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: wait to brave the united presence of a Knight of
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: the Shire and country attorney. The forthwith abandoned the pleasant
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: banks of the Avon and his paternal trade, wandered away
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: to London, became a hanger on to the theaters, then
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: an actor, and finally wrote for the stage, and thus
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: through the persecution of Sir Thomas, Lucy Stratford lost an
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: indifferent wool comber, and the world gained an immortal poet.
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: He retained, however, for a long time, a sense of
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: the harsh treatment of the Lord of Charleco, and revenged
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: himself in his writings, but in the sportive way of
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: a good natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: the original of justice shallow, and the satires slyly fixed
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: upon him by the Justice's armorial bearings, which like those
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: of the Knight, had white louses in the quarterings footnote,
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: the loose as a pike or jack, and a balance
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: in the avon about Charlco end of footnote. Various attempts
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: have been made by his biographers to soften and explain
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: away this early transgression of the poet. I look upon
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural to his
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: situation and turn of mind. Shakespeare, when young, had doubtless
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, undisciplined, and
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: undirected genius. The poetic temperament is naturally something in it
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: of the vagabond. When left to itself, it runs loosely
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: and wildly, and delights in everything eccentric and licentious. It
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: is often a turn up of a die in the
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius so turn
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: out a great rogue or a great poet. And had
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: not Shakespeare's mind fortunately taken a literary by us, he
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: might have as daringly transcended all civil as he has
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: all dramatic laws. I have doubt that in early life,
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: when running like an unbroken colt about the neighborhood of Stratford,
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: he was to be found in the company of all
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: kinds of odd enomalous characters. They associated with all the
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: madicaps of the place, and was one of those unlucky
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: urchins that mention of whom old men shake their heads
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: and predict that they will one day come to the gallows.
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: To him, the poaching in Sir Thomas Lucy's Park was
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: doubtless like a foray to a Scottish knight, and struck
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: his eager and as yet untamed imagination as something delightfully adventurous. Footnote.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: A proof of Shakespeare's random habits and associates in his
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: youthful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote picked
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: up at Stratford by the Elder Ireland and mentioned in
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: his Picturesque Views on the Avon end of footnote. About
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market town
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: of Bedford, famous for its ale. Two societies of the
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: village yeomanry used to meet, under the appellation of the
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: Bedford Toppers, to challenge the lovers of good ale of
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: the neighboring villages to a contest of drinking, among others.
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: The people of Stratford were called out to prove the
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: strength of their heads, and in the number of the
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: champions was Shakespeare, who, in spite of the proverb that
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: they who drink beer will think beer, was as true
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The chivalry
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: of Strafford was staggered at the first onset and sounded
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: a retreat while they had yet the legs to carry
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: them off the field. They had scarcely marched a mile.
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: When their legs failing them, they were forced to lie
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: down under a crab tree, where they passed the night.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: It was still standing and goes by the name of
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's tree. In the morning, his companions awake the Bard
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: and proposed returning to Bedford, but he declined, saying he
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: had enough, having drank with piping, Bepworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hilborough,
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: Hungry Grafton, dodging ex Hall, Papist Wixford, Beggarly Broom, and
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: drunken Bedford. The villages here alluded to, says Ireland, still
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: bear the epithets thus given them. The people of Pebworth
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: are still famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor,
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: Hilborough is now called Haunted Hilborough, and Grafton is famous
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: for the poverty of its soil. The old mansion of
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the possession
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: of the Lucy family, and our peculiarly interesting front being
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: connected with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the scanty
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: history of the Bard. As the house stood little more
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: than three miles distant from Stratford, I resolved to pay
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: a pedestrian visit that I might stroll leisurely through some
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: of these scenes from which Shakespeare must have derived its
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: earliest ideas of rural imagery. The country was yet naked
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: and leafless, but English scenery is always verdant, and the
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: sudden change in the temperature of the weather was surprising
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: in its quickening effects upon the landscape. It was inspiring
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: and animating to witness this first awakening of spring, to
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: feel its warm breath stealing over the senses, to see
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: the moist, mellow earth beginning to put forth the green
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: sprout and the tender blade, and the trees and shrubs
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: in the reviving tints and bursting buds, giving the promise
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: of returning foliage and flower. The cold snowdrop the little
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: borderer on the skirts of winter, but to be seen
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: with its chased white blossoms in the small gardens before
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: the cottages. The bleating of the new dropped lambs was
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: faintly heard from the fields. The sparrow twittered about the
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: thatched eaves, eaves and budding hedges. The robin threw a
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: livelier note into his late quarrelous wintry strain, and the lark,
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: springing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: away into the bright, fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents of melody.
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: As I watched the little songster mounting up higher and higher,
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: until his body was a mere speck on the white
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still filled
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: with his music. It called to mind Shakespeare's exquisite little
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: song in Cymbeline, Hark Hark, the lark at Heaven's Gate sings,
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: and phoebus gins rise his steeds to water at those
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: springs on chaliced flowers, that lies and winking merry Bud's
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: begin to ope their golden eyes with every thing that
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: pretty ben my lady sweet arise. Indeed the whole country
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: about hears poetic ground. Everything is associated with the idea
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: of Shakespeare. Every old cottage that I saw, I fancied
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: into some resort of his boyhood, where he had acquired
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: his intimate knowledge of rustic life and manners, and heard
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: those legendary tales and wild superstitions, which is woven like
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: witchcraft into his dramas. For in his time we are
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: told it was a popular amusement in winter evenings to
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: sit round the fire until merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins,
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: and friars. Footnote Scott, in his Discovery of witchcraft enumerates
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: of those fireside fancies, and they have so frayed us
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: with host bull beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, fawns, sirens,
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: kit with the cannstick, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, cow cars, conjurers, nymphs, changelings, incubus,
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: Robin Goodfellow, the sporn, the mare, the man in the oak,
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: the hell wain, the fire drake, the puckle, Tom thumb, hobgoblins,
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs that we were
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: afraid of our own shadows. End of footnote. My route
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: for a part of the way lay in sight of
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: the avon, which made a variety of the most fancy
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: doublings and windings through a wide and fertile valley, sometimes
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: glittering from among willows which fringed its borders, sometimes disappearing
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: among groves or beneath green banks, and sometimes rambling out
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: into full view and making an ase or sweep round
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom of country
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: is called the veil of the Red Horse. A distant
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: line of undulating blue hills seems to be its boundary,
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: and chained in the silver lynks of the Avon. After
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: into a footpath which led along the borders of fields
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: and under hedgerows to a private gate of the park.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: There was a style, however, for the benefit of the pedestrian,
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: there being a public right of way through the grounds.
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: I delight in these hospitable estates in which everyone has
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: a kind of property, at least as far as the
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: footpath is concerned. It, in some measure, reconciles a poor
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: man to his lot, and what is more, to the
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: better lot of his neighbor. Thus, to have parks and
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: pleasure grounds thrown open for his recreation, he breathes the
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: pure air as freely and lulls as luxuriously under the
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: shade as the lord of the soil. And if he
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: is not the privilege of calling all that he sees
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: his own, he has not, at the same time the
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: trouble of paying for it and keeping it in order.
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms,
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: whose vast size bespoke the growth of centuries. The winds
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed from
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: through a long, lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: view but a distant statue and a vagrant deer stalking
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: like a shadow across the opening. There is something about
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: these stately old avenues that has the effect of Gothic architecture,
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: not merely from the pretended similarity of form, but from
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: their bearing, the evidence of long duration, and of having
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: had their origin in a period of time with which
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: we associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken, and also
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: the long subtled dignity and proudly concentrated independence of an
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: ancient family. And I have heard a worthy but aristocratic
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: old friend observe, when speaking of the sumptuous palaces of
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: modern gentry, that money could do it much with stone
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: and mortar. But thank Heaven, there is no such thing
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: as suddenly building up an avenue of oaks. It was
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: from wandering in early life among this rich scenery, and
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: about the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of Fulbrook
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: which then formed a part of the lucy estate that
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: some of Shakespeare's commentators have supposed he derived his Noble
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: Forest meditations of Jacques and the Enchanting Woodland Pictures in
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: as you like it. It is in lonely wandering through
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: such scenes that the mind drinks deep but quiet dross
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: of inspiration, and becomes intensely sensible of the beauty and
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: majesty of nature. The imagination kindles into revery and rapture.
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: Vague but exquisite images and ideas keep breaking upon it,
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: and we revel in a mute, an almost incommunicable luxury
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: of thought. It was in some such mood, and perhaps
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: under one of those very trees before me, which threw
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: their broad shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: of the Avon, that the poet's fancy may have sallied
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: forth into that little song which breeds the very soul
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: of a rural voluptuary. Unto the greenwood tree, who loves
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: to lie with me and tune his merry throat, unto
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: the sweet bird's note, come hither, come, hither, come hither.
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: Here shall he see no enemy but winter and rough weather.
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: I had now come in sight of the house. It
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: is a large building of brick with stone coins, and
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: is in the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, having
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: been built in the first year of her reign. Dexterior
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: remains very nearly in its original state. It may be
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: considered a fair specimen of the residence of a wealthy
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: country gentlemen of those days. A great gateway opens from
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: the park into a kind of courtyard in front of
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: the house, ornamented with a grass plot, shrubs and flower beds.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: The gateway is in imitation of the ancient barbican, being
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: a kind of outpost and flanked by towers, though evidently
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: for mere ornament instead of the fence. The front of
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: the house is completely in the old style, with stone
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: shafted casements, a great bow window of heavy stone work,
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: and a portal with armorial bearings over it carved in stone.
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: At each corner of the building is an octagon tower
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: surmounted by a gilt ball and weather cock. The avon,
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: which winds through the park, makes a bend just at
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: the foot of a gently sloping bank which sweeps down
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: from the rear of the house. Large herds of deer
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: refeeding or reposing upon its borders, and swans were sailing
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: majestically upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venerable old mansion,
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: I called to mind Falstaff's in comium on, just as
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: Shallow's abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: the latter Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: rich shallow barn. Barren barn, beggars, all beggars, all Sir,
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: John Marry, good heir. Whatever may have been the joviality
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: of the old mansion in the days of Shakespeare, it
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: now had an air of stillness and solitude. The great
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: iron gateway that opened into the courtyard was locked. There
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: was no show of servants bustling about the place. The
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: deer gazed quietly at me as I passed, Being no
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: longer harried by the moss troopers of Stratford. The only
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: sign of domestic life that I met with was a
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: white cat stealing with weary look and stealthy pace towards
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: the stables, as if on some nefarious expedition. I must
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: not omit to mention the carcass of a scoundrel crow,
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: which I saw suspended against the barn wall, as it
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: shows that the lucy still inherit that lordly abhorrence of poachers,
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: and maintained that rigorous exercise of territorial power which was
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: so strenuously manifested in the case of the barred. After
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: prowling about for some time, I at length found my
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: way to a lateral portal, which was the every day
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: entrance to the mansion. I was courteously received by a
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: her order, showed me the interior of the house. The
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: greater part has undergone alterations and been adapted to modern
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: tastes and modes of living. There is a fine, old
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: oaken staircase in the great hall. That noble feature in
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: an ancient manor house still retains much of the appearance
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The ceiling
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: is arched and lofty, and at one end is a
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: gallery in which stands in organ the weapons and trophies
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: of the chase, which formerly adorned the hall of a
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: country gentlemen, have made way for family portraits. There is
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: a wide, hospitable fireplace, calculated for an ample old fashioned
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: wood fire. Formerly the rallying place of winter festivity. On
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: the opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: bow window with stone shafts, which looks out upon the
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: court yard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: bearings of the Lucy family for many generations, some being
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: dated in fifteen fifty eight. I was delighted to observe
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: in the quarterings the three white luses by which the
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: character of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in the first scene of
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: The Merry Wives of Windsor, where the Justice is in
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: a rage with false death, for having beaten his men,
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: killed his deer, and broken into his lodge. The poet
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: had no doubt the offenses of himself and his comrades
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: in mind at the time, and we may suppose the
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: family pride and vindictive threats of the piscant Shallow to
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: be a caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas Shallow.
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: Sir Hugh persuade me not, I will make a star
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: chamber matter of it. If he were twenty John Faustaff's
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: he shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow, Esquire slender in
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: the County of Gloucester, justice of peace and quorum shallow,
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: I cousin slender and costellorium, slender ay and ratalorum too.
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: And a gentleman born master parson who writes himself armaghero
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: in any bill warrant quittance or obligation, armigero shallow ay
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: that I do and have done any time these three
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: hundred years, Slender. All his successors gone before him have
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: done it, and all his ancestors it came after him.
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: May they may give the dozen white looses in their
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: coat shallow. The council shall hear it. It is a riot,
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: Evans is not meet the council here of a riot.
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: There is no fear of God, and a riot the
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: council hear. You shall desire to hear the fear of God,
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: and not to hear a riot. Take your visimance in
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: that shallow ha o my life. If I were young again,
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: the sword shall end it near the window. Thus emblazoned
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: hung a portrait by Sir Peter Lely of one of
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: the Lucy family, a great beauty of the time of
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: Charles the second. The old housekeeper shook her head as
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: she pointed to the picture and inform me that this
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: lady had been sadly addicted to cards and had gambled
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: away a great portion of the family estate, among which
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: was that part of the park where Shakespeare and his
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: comrades had killed the deer. The lands thus lost had
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: not entirely regained by the family even at the present day.
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: It is but justice that is recreant dame to confess
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm. The
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: picture which most attracted my attention was a great painting
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: over the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: his family, who inhabited the hall in the latter part
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: of Shakespeare's lifetime. I at first thought that it was
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: the vindictive Knight himself, but the housekeeper assured me that
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: it was his son, the only likeness extent of the
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: former being an effigy upon his tomb in the church
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: of the neighboring hamlet of Charlotov. Footnote. This effigy is
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: in white marble and represents the Knight in complete armor.
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: her tomb is the following inscription, which if really composed
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: by her husband, places him quite above the intellectual double
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: of Master Shallow. Hereliath the Lady Joyce Lucy, wife of
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlottoe in Ye County of Warwick, Knight,
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: daughter and heir of Thomas Acton of Sutton, in Ye
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: County of Worcester, Esquire, who departed out of this wretched
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: world to her heavenly Kingdom Ye ten day of February,
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: in ye year of our Lord God, fifteen ninety five,
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: and of her age sixty and three, all the time
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: of her life, a true and faithful servant of her
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: Good God, never detected of any crime or vice in religion,
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: most sound in love to her husband, most faithful and
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: true in friendship, most constant to what intrust was committed
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: unto her, most secret in wisdom, excelling and governing of
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: her house, bringing up of youth in ye fear of
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: God that did converse with her, most rare and singular,
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: a great maintainer of hospitality, greatly esteemed of her betters,
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: misliked of none, unless of the envious. When all is spoken,
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: they can be said, a woman so garnished with virtue
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: is not to be bettered and hardly to be equalled
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: by any as she lived most virtuously, for she died
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: most gaudily sat down by him, yet best did know
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: what hath been written to be true? Thomas Lucy and
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: of footnote. The picture gives a lively idea of the
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: in rough and doublet white shoes with roses in them,
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: and as a peaked yellow or as Master Slender would say,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: a cane colored beard. His lady is seated on the
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: opposite side of the picture in white, rough and long
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: stomacher and the children have a most venerable stiffness and
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: family group. A hawk is seated on his perch in
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow,
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: all intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking and archery,
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: so indispensable to an accomplish gentlemen in those days. Footnote.
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his time,
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: observes his housekeeping is seen much in the indifferent families
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: of dogs and serving men attendant on their kennels and
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse.
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: A hawk, he esteems the true burden of nobility, and
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: is exceedingly ambitious to seem delighted with the sport and
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: have his fist gloved with his jesses and gilpin. In
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: his description of a Mister Hastings's remarks, he kept all
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: sorts of hounds that runbuck, fox, hare, otter, and badger,
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short winged.
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones, and
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. On a
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: broad parth paved with brick lay some of the choicest terriers,
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: hounds and spaniels. End of footnote. I regretted to find
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: that the ancient furniture of the hall had disappeared, For
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow chair
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: of carved oak, in which the country squire of former
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: days was wont to sway the scepter of empire over
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: his rural domains, and in which it might be presumed
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: the redoubled Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state. When
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: the recreant Shakespeare was brought before him. As I liked
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: to deck out pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: myself with the idea that his very hall had been
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: the scene of the unlucky barged examination on the morning
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: after his captivity. In the lodge, I fancied to myself
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: the royal potinate, surrounded by his body guard of butler
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: pages and blue coated serving men with their badges, while
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: the luckless culprit was brought in forlord and chop fallen,
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: and the custom of gamekeepers, huntsmen and whippers in, followed
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: by a rabel rout of country clowns. I fancied bright
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: faces of curious housemaids peeping from the half open doors,
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: while from the gallery the fair daughters of the night
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: leaned gracefully forward, eyeing the youthful prisoner with that pity
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: that dwells in womanhood. Who would have thought that his
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: poor violet, thus trembling before the brief authority of a
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: country squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was soon
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: to become the delight of princes. The theme of all
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: tongues and ages. The dictator to the human mind, and
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: was to confer immortality on his oppressor by a character
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: and a lampoon. I was now invited by the butler
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: to walk into the garden, and I felt inclined to
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: visit the orchard and harbor, where the justice treated Sir
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: John Falstaff and cousin silence to a last year's pippin
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: of his own grafting with a dish of caraways. But
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: I had already spent so much of the day in
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: my ramblings that I was obliged to give up any
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: further investigations. When about to take my leave, I was
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: gratified by the civil entreaties of the housekeeper and butler
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: that I would take some refreshment, an instance of good
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: old hospitality, which I grieve to say we castle hunters
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: seldom meet with in modern days. I make no doubt
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: it is a virtue which the present representative of the
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: Lucy's and herots from his ancestors. For Shakespeare, even in
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: his caricature, makes just as shallow importunate in this respect,
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: as witness his pressing instances to Falstaff by Cock and Pye, Sir,
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: you shall not away to night. I will not excuse you.
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: You shall not be excused excuses shall not be admitted.
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: There is no excuse shall serve you shall not be excused.
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: Some pigeons davy, a couple of short legged hens, a
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: joint of mutton, in any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: William Cook. I now bade a reluctant farewell to the
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: old hall. My mind had become so completely possessed by
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: the imagery, scenes and characters connected with it that I
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought them
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: as it were before my eyes, And as the door
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: of the dining room opened, I almost expected to hear
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: the feeble voice of Master Silence wavering forth his favorite ditty,
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: tis Mary in Hall, when beards wag all and welcome
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: Mary shrove tide. On returning to my inn, I could
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: not but reflect on the singular gift of the poets
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: to be able thus to spread the magic of his
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: mind over the very face of nature, to give to
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: things and places a charming character not their own, and
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: to turn this working day world into a perfect fairy land.
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: He is, indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates not
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: Under the wizard influence of Shakespeare. I had been walking
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: all day in a complete delusion. I had surveyed the
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: landscape through the prism of poetry, which tinged every object
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: with fancied beings, with mere airy nothings conjured up by
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: poetic power, yet which to me had all the charm
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: of reality. I had heard Jacques soliloquise beneath his oak,
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring through
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 1: the woodlands. And above all, had been once more present
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and his contemporaries from
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: the August, just as shallow down to the gentle master
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: Slender in the sweet and page ten thousand honors and
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: blessings on the Bard, who was thus gilded the dull
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: realities of life with innocent illusions, who has spread exquisite
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: and unbought pleasures in my checkered path, and beguiled my
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: spirit in many a lonely hour, with all the cordial
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: and cheerful sympathies of social life. As I crossed the
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused to
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: contemplate the distant church which the poet lies buried and
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: could not but exult in the malediction which has kept
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: his ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: honor could his name have derived from being mingled in
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: dusty companionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and venal eloquinliums
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: of a titled multitude. But would a crowded corner in
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: Westminster Abbey have been compaired with this reverend pile, which
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: seems to stand in beautiful loneliness as his soul mausoleum.
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: The solitude about the grave may be but the offspring
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: of an overwrought sensibility. But human natures, made up of
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: foibles and prejudices, and its best and tenderest affections are
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: mingled with these factitious feelings. He who has sought renown
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 1: about the world and has reaped the full harvest of
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: worldly favor, will find after all that there is no love,
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: no admiration, no applause so sweet to the soul as
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: that which springs up in his native place. It is
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: there that he seeks to be gathered in peace and
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: honor among his kindred and his early friends. And when
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: the weary heart and failing head begin to warn him
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: that the evening of life is drawing on. He turned,
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: as finally as as the infant, to the mother's arms,
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: to sink to sleep in the bosom of the scene
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: of his childhood. How would it have cheered the spirit
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: of the youthful bard, when wandering forth in disgrace upon
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: a doubtful world he casts back a heavy look upon
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: his paternal home. Could he have foreseen have before many
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: years he should return to it covered with renown, that
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: his name should become the boast and glory of his
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: native place, that his ashes should be religiously guarded as
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: its most precious treasure, And that his lessening spire, in
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: which his eyes were fixed and tearful contemplation, should one
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: day become the beacon towering amidst the gentle landscape, to
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb.
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter six recording by Gregg Giardano, Newport Richey, Florida.
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: End of Washington Irving's Visit to England by Washington Irving