A few faint traces of its sparkling decorations inlaid on solid mortar catches the rays of the sun, forever set on its splendor. . . Only two of the spiral pillars remain. The wooden Ionic top is much broken, and covered with dust. The mosaic is picked away in every part within reach; only the lozenges of about a foot square and five circular pieces of the rich marble remain."— Malcolm, Lond. rediv.

INSCRIPTION ON A MONUMENT ALLUDED TO IN THE SKETCH.

Here lyes the Loyal Duke of Newcastle, and his Duchess his second wife, by whom he had no issue. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble family; for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous. This Duchess was a wise, witty, and learned lady, which her many Bookes do well testify: she was a most virtuous, and loving and careful wife, and was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home, never parted from him in his solitary retirements.

In the winter-time, when the days are short, the service in the afternoon is performed by the light of tapers. The effect is fine of the choir partially lighted up, while the main body of the cathedral and the transepts are in profound and cavernous darkness. The white dresses of the choristers gleam amidst the deep brown of the open slats and canopies; the partial illumination makes enormous shadows from columns and screens, and darting into the surrounding gloom, catches here and there upon a sepulchral decoration, or monumental effigy. The swelling notes of the organ accord well with the scene.

When the service is over, the dean is lighted to his dwelling, in the old conventual part of the pile, by the boys of the choir, in their white dresses, bearing tapers, and the procession passes through the abbey and along the shadowy cloisters, lighting up angles and arches and grim sepulchral monuments, and leaving all behind in darkness.

On entering the cloisters at night from what is called the Dean's Yard, the eye ranging through a dark vaulted passage catches a distant view of a white marble figure reclining on a tomb, on which a strong glare thrown by a gas light has quite a spectral effect. It is a mural monument of one of the Pultneys.

NOTES.

Some English classics require close annotation and critical verbal, analytical, and textual study, in order that they may be fully understood and appreciated. The SketchBook is not of this class. It needs but light annotation — oftentimes a mere reference, question, or suggestion — since it contains few obscurities or subtleties requiring exposition.

The following notes are not intended to supply the student with information which he can readily procure for himself, nor to deprive him of the wholesome benefits and scholarly habits which are to be acquired through systematic use of the ordinary books of reference. The ambitious student will often prefer to master his difficulties in his own way, and such self-dependence is an earnest of the future scholar.

Many of these notes have not hitherto appeared in any edition of the Sketch-Book, so far as the editor is aware; others have been used in numeroùs editions until they have become common property. The editor has availed himself freely of all material within his reach. To have searched for the original commentators in order to give credit in each case, would have been an affectation of erudition and scholarship quite outside the purposes of this unpretentious volume.

Quickly; speedily.

Page 9. eftsoons. 9. Lyly's Euphues. John Lyly (1553-1609) was a celebrated writer of the Elizabethan period. He won fame by his novel "Euphues" in 1579 and afterwards became a dramatist. The distinguishing marks of his writings are extravagant language, studied mannerisms, abundant antitheses, fanciful conceits, superficial allegory, and repartee. The word "euphuism," which has been applied to this style of writing, is taken from the name of Lyly's novel "Euphues," in which he first popularized and propagated this kind of prose literature.

9. In the early authorized editions of the Sketch-Book the following quotation from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy was printed on the title-page: "I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene."

9. my native city. Read chap. XXII. of Todd's The Story of the City of New York, published by Putnams. Read pp. 23-25 of Warner's Washington Irving in American Men of Letters Series.

9. town-crier. Consult the Century Dictionary and the Standard Dictionary. Read Holmes's The Last Leaf.

11. for I had read in the works of various philosophers. Read Irving's English Writers on America, p. 53 of this book; also Lowell's paper On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners.

11. St. Peter's, or the Coliseum, etc. -Consult Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, chapters 17, 38, 39; Byron's Childe Harold, canto IV.; also T. B. Read's poem, Drifting.

The Church of St. Peter in Rome is built upon the site of the religious edifice erected in the time of Constantine. It is the most famous church building in the world. Consult the encyclopædias.

The Coliseum was a vast amphitheatre in Rome, built about the beginning of the Christian era. It was used for public purposes about five hundred years, and was the greatest popular resort that Rome ever had. It was partly destroyed by the overflowing of the Tiber in the year 555. Consult the encyclopædias. Terni is a town of Italy in the province of Perugia, noted for the Falls of Velino - a cascade of remarkable volume and beauty. "No other place in the world combines within the same compass so much natural beauty with so many objects of interest to the antiquary, the historian, and the geologist, as the Bay of Naples."

12. a lengthening chain. See Goldsmith's The Traveller, line 10; also the first paragraph of his third letter in Citizen of the World: "The farther I travel I feel the pain of separation with stronger force: those ties that bind me to my native country and you, are still unbroken. By every move I only drag a greater length of chain."

13. I said that at sea.- Commentators have pointed out the melody and rhythm of this paragraph and the two or three succeeding ones, and have compared them with the sounds of the paragraph beginning “I confess," on p. 16.

15. across the banks of Newfoundland. - One of the greatest and most celebrated fisheries in the world.

17. As we sailed up the Mersey. —A river in the county of
Lancaster, England, which opens into a fine estuary before reach-
ing the sea at Liverpool.

19. Roscoe.-See Allibone's Dictionary of Authors and the
encyclopædias.

20. the Medici.—Consult the encyclopædias on this title.
The volume by Roscoe, alluded to by Irving, is one of the books
of the Bohn Library, Macmillan & Co., agents for America.

25. Pompey's column.—Consult Chambers's Encyclopædia,
under "Pompey's Pillar."

34. Diedrich Knickerbocker. -See Irving's Knickerbocker's
History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End
of the Dutch Dynasty.

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep

Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy.—This whole
introduction to Rip Van Winkle is in as fine a vein of rich, quaint
humor as is to be found in American literature.

35. a Queen Anne's farthing.— One of the rarest of English
coins; hence, eagerly sought for by coin collectors, who preserved
them with great care.

35. Kaatskill. — Catskill, a range of mountains in Eastern New
York.

35. Appalachian family. Referring to the range of moun-
tains extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Alabama, and
including the White, Green, Adirondack, Catskill, and Alleghany
mountains.

35. Peter Stuyvesant. The last of the Dutch governors of
the colony of New Netherlands, now New York. Consult the
Cyclopedia of American Biography; also Knickerbocker's History
of New York.

36. province of Great Britain. - The English under the Duke
of York took control of New Netherlands, and changed its name
to New York.

36. Fort Christina. - A Swedish fort, situated five miles
north of what is now Newcastle, Delaware. It was besieged and
captured by the Dutch of New Netherlands, under command of
Governor Stuyvesant, in 1655.

36. henpecked husband. —Note the derivation and etymol-
ogy. In what consists the appropriateness of the composition of
the word "henpecked"?

36. curtain lecture. — What is the meaning? Why called a curtain lecture?

37. galligaskins.-A kind of leggings or wide breeches, supposed to take their name from the Latin words caliga Vasconum, meaning hose worn by the people of Gascony.

38. terrors of a woman's tongue. See Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, Act I, Scene 2:

"Have I not in a pitched battle heard

Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,

That gives not half so great a blow to th' ear

As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire ? "

38. gallows air. With the appearance of one about to be hanged; a hang-dog " look.

39. George the Third. Ascended the English throne in 1760, and reigned sixty years.

39. dapper.-Neat, trim, tidy.

39. junto. —A select, deliberative assembly.

39. virago.-A turbulent woman, a scold, a vixen.

40. wallet. A kind of knapsack or bag, suspended by a strap thrown over the shoulder.

41. jerkin.-A jacket, short coat, or upper doublet, much worn in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

41. amphitheatre.-Literally, a place for looking about.

42. doublets. A close-fitting garment, covering the body from the neck to below the waist.

42. hanger.-"A short broadsword worn from the girdle, and slightly curved at the point."

43. Hollands. -Holland gin.

43. flagon.-A vessel for holding liquids. The term is usually applied to a vessel for liquors.

43. roysters. - Blustering, uproarious, turbulent fellows.

45. red night-cap.-"During the French Revolution the red cap was regarded as the symbol of liberty. Irving represents the villagers as having erected a liberty-pole with a red cap on its top, and flung the American flag to the breezes, thereby celebrating the recently-acquired independence of the country."

46. phlegm.-Dulness, sluggishness, stupidity.

46. Babylonish jargon. — Babylon is supposed to have stood on the spot where the Tower of Babel was built; unintelligible talk, gabble.