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assemblage of book-worms gazing at me with astonishment. Nothing of the dream had been real but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom as to electrify the fraternity.

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The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had a card of admission. At first I did not comprehend him, but I soon found that the library was a kind of literary,,preserve subject to game laws, and that no one must presume to hunt there without special license and permission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole pack of authors let loose upon me.

A ROYAL POET.

Though your body be confined,
And soft love a prisoner bound,
Yet the beauty of your mind

Neither check nor chain hath found.
Look out nobly, then, and dare
Even the fetters that you wear.
FLETCHER1.

ON a soft sunny morning in the genial' month of May, I made an excursion to Windsor Castle3. It is a proud old pile,

50) presérve (zum verb. preserve, fr. préserver, lat. praeservare) fruit preserved; dann a place set apart for the preservation of game Gehege. (Diese Bedeutung findet sich bei Thieme und Grieb nicht.) 1) Ueber Fletcher vergl. S. 93, Anm. 42. 2) gènial (lat. genialis) contributing to the production of life, and hence, contributing to its continuance and enjoyment; giving warmth of feeling, giving cheerfulness; gay, merry; dtsch. belebend; fröhlich.

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3) Windsor, 5 Meilen westlich von London, am r. Ufer der Themse, war eine von Eduard dem Bekenner den Ordensbrüdern der WestminsterAbtei überlassene Besitzung, welche Wilhelm der Eroberer durch Kauf oder Tausch von den geistlichen Besitzern an sich brachte, um auf dem einzeln stehenden Hügel eine Burg zu errichten. Eduard III. (1327— 1377), der zu Windsor geboren war, liess später die alte Burg des Eroberers niederreissen und an deren Stelle durch William of Wykeham, den kunstsinnigen Bischof von Winchester, das jetzige Schloss (Windsor Castle) erbauen. Elisabeth hielt sich häufig hier auf, und Karl H. hatte seine gewöhnliche Sommerresidenz daselbst. Seine jetzige Gestalt und Einrichtung verdankt das Schloss Georg IV. (1820-1830), der ungeheure Summen auf die Restauration und innere Ausschmückung desselben verwandte. Das Ganze ist ein längliches Viereck und in

full of storied and poetical interest, and its very external aspect is sufficient to inspire a train of fanciful and romantic associations. It rears its irregular walls, and massive towers, like a mural crown, round the brow of a lofty ridge, waves its royal banner in the clouds, and looks down, with a lordly air, upon the surrounding world.

On this morning the weather was of that voluptuous vernal kind, which calls forth all the latent romance of a man's temperament, filling his mind with music, and disposing him to quote poetry and dream of beauty. In wandering through the magnificent saloons and long echoing galleries of the castle, I passed with indifference by whole rows of portraits of warriors and statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where hang the likenesses of the beauties that graced the gay court of Charles the Second; and as I gazed upon them, depicted with amorous half-dishevelled tresses, and the sleepy5 eye of love, I blessed the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, which had thus enabled me to bask in the reflected rays of beauty. In traversing also the ,,large green courts" with sunshine beaming on the grey walls, and glancing along the velvet turf, my mind was engrossed with the image of the tender, the gallant, but hapless Surrey, and his account of his loiterings about them in his stripling days, when enamoured of the Lady Geraldine:

With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower,
With easie sighs, such as imen draw in love.

In this mood of mere poetical susceptibility', I visited the

zwei Höfe getheilt, The Upper Ward und The Lower Ward. Zwischen beiden erhebt sich auf einer kleinen Erhöhung der 80 Fuss hohe runde Thurm, the Round Tower, auch wol the Keep (vergl. weiter unten) oder Middle Ward genannt.

4) associations, viz. of ideas; dtsch. etwa eine Reihe poetischer und romantischer Ideenverbindungen wach zu rufen.

5) schmachtend.

6) Sir Peter Lely, mit eigentl. Namen Peter van der Faes, 1618 in Soest geboren, widmete sich in Haarlem in der Schule P. F. Grebbers der Landschaftsmalerei, sodann seit 1641 in London, ward von Karl I. zum Hofmaler und von Karl II. zum Ritter ernannt, † zu London 1680.

7) Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (circa 1517-1546) wurde des Hochverraths angeklagt und im J. 1546 hingerichtet. Seine Gedichte wurden im J. 1557 in Tottel's Miscellany veröffentlicht. Er führte den blank verse ein. Die von Irving angeführten Verse sind aus dem Gedicht: Prisoner in Windsor, he recounteth his Pleasure there passed. 8) easy etwa = leicht entströmend.

9) dtsch. etwa: In dieser Stimmung wahrhaft dichterischer Empfänglichkeit.

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ancient Keep of the Castle, where James the First of Scotland 1o, the pride and theme of Scottish poets and historians, was for many years of his youth detained prisoner of state. It is a huge grey tower, that has stood the brunt of ages, and is still in good preservation. It stands on a mound, which elevates it above the other parts of the castle, and a great flight of steps leads to the interior. In the armoury, which is a gothic hall furnished with weapons of various kinds and ages, I was shown a coat of armour hanging against the wall, which I was told had once belonged to James. From hence I was conducted up a staircase to a suite of apartments of faded magnificence, hung with storied tapestry 12, which formed his prison, and the scene of that passionate and fanciful amour .13, which has woven into the web of his story the magical hues of poetry and fiction. The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate prince is highly romantic. At the tender age of eleven he was sent from home by his father, Robert III. and destined for the French court, to be reared under the eye of the French monarch, secure from the treachery and danger that surrounded the royal house of Scotland. It was his mishap, in the course of his voyage, to fall into the hands of the English; and he was detained prisoner by Henry IV., notwithstanding that a truce existed between the two countries.

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The intelligence of his capture, coming in the train1 of many sorrows and disasters, proved fatal to his unhappy father. ,,The news," we are told,,, was brought to him while at supper, and did so overwhelm him with grief, that he was almost ready to give up the ghost into the hands 15 of the servants that attended him. But being carried to his bed-chamber, he abstained from all food, and in three days died of hunger and grief, at Rothesay 16.

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10) Ueber die Schicksale Jacobs I. von Schottland vergl. Sir Walter Scott, Tales of a Grandfather, herausg. von E. Pfundheller, Capit. VIII u. IX, p. 92–105.

11) suite aus d. Franz., mit franz. Aussprache, Reihe.
12) storied adorned with historical paintings

==

lichen Darstellungen.

mit geschicht

18) fanciful poetisch, romantisch; amour (mit franz. Ausspr.) Liebeshandel.

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im Gefolge.

15) dtsch. mit anderer Anschauung: unter den Händen der Diener. 16) Buchanan (Note of W. Irving). George Buchanan (1506—1582), Schotte, eifriger Protestant, Lehrer Maria Stuarts und Jacobs VI. Er schrieb lateinisch eine Geschichte Schottlands,,,a work equal to

Irving, The Sketch Book.

7

17

James was detained in captivity above eighteen years; but, though deprived of personal liberty, he was treated with the respect due to his rank. Care was taken to instruct him in all the branches of useful knowledge cultivated at that period, and to give him those mental and personal accomplishments deemed proper for a prince. Perhaps, in this respect, his imprisonment was an advantage, as it enabled him to apply himself the more exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to imbibe that rich fund of knowledge, and to cherish those elegant tastes, which have given such a lustre to his memory. The picture drawn of him in early life, by the Scottish historians, is highly captivating, and seems rather the description of a hero of romance than of a character in real history. He was well learnt, we are told,,,to fight with the sword, to joust 18, to tournay, to wrestle, to sing and dance; he was an expert mediciner 19, right crafty in playing both of lute and harp, and sundry other instruments of music, and was expert in grammar, oratory, and poetry 2o.

20

With this combination of manly and delicate accomplishments, fitting him to shine both in active and elegant life 21, and calculated to give him an intense relish for joyous existence, it must have been a severe trial, in an age of bustle and chivalry, to pass the spring-time of his years in monotonous captivity. It was the good fortune of James, however, to be gifted with a powerful poetic fancy, and to be visited in his prison by the choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become

Livy in style, but of no historical value, as, unfortunately, its author did not attempt to investigate facts, or institute research, but clothed in noble Latin the monstrous legends and fables of former annalists." (Chambers's Cycl. of Engl. Liter.)

17) Ueber the vor dem Comparativ vergl. S. 28, Anm. 28.

18) to joust zusammentreffen mit den Waffen, zusammenstossen, turnieren, ausgesprochen wie just und auch zuweilen so geschrieben, altengl. jousten, altfr. juster, jostar, neufr. jouter v. lat. juxta neben, dicht an, indem also das Zeitwort bezeichnete aneinander bringen, aneinander stossen.

19) mediciner Arzneikundiger, Arzt, ist nicht mehr gebräuchlich. Shakspere gebraucht das Subst. médicine in diesem Sinne.

20 Bellenden's Translation of Henry Boëce (Note of W. Irving). John Bellenden, Archdean von Moray in Schottland, schrieb eine Topographie von Schottland, Briefe an Jacob V., der ihn hochschätzte, einige Gedichte, und übersetzte auf des Königs Befehl Hector Boëce's History of Scotland (1536) und die ersten 5 Bücher des Livius.

21) both in active and elegant life, dtsch. etwa: im öffentlichen Leben und in der Gesellschaft.

tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.

Have you not seen the nightingale,
A pilgrim coop'd into a cage,
How doth she chant her wonted tale,
In that her lonely hermitage!

Even there her charming melody doth prove

That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove 22.

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; that when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and, with a necromantic power 23, can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions, to make solitude populous, and to irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived round Tasso in his dismal 24 cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of his ,,Jerusalem 25," and we may consider the ,,King's Quair 26," composed by James during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison-house.

The subject of the poem is his love for the Lady Jane

22) Roger L'Estrange (Note of W. Irving). Er lebte von 16161704; politischer Schriftsteller und Dichter. Er war Royalist und wurde von dem Parlamentsheere gefangen genommen, und zum Tode verurtheilt. Während seiner vierjährigen Gefangenschaft dichtete er ,,The Liberty of the Imprisoned Royalist", zu welchem Gedicht die von Irving citierten Verse gehören. Unter der Restauration war er licenser (Censor) und eifriger Vertheidiger des absoluten Königthums in den von ihm nach einander herausgegebenen Zeitungen: Public Intelligencer, Oxford Gazette, London Gazette, The Observator.

23) něcromántic belonging to nécromancy (v. d. lat.-gr. necromantia zu vɛxoós der Todte u. uavrɛia das Weissagen) properly the art of revealing future events by communication with the dead; enchantment generally: the latter is the usual sense (Smart), daher necromántic zauberisch; n. power Zaubergewalt.

=

24) dismal (mit weich. s) traurig, unglücklich, wahrscheinlich (es war früher Hauptwort) aus lat. dies malus böser Tag, vermittelst des entsprechenden altfr. dis mal.

*25) Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), hauptsächlich berühmt durch sein Epos Gerusalemme liberata.

26) Quhair (schott. u. altengl.) Buch (franz. cahier, in älterer Schreibung quayer, neuengl. quire aus mlat. quaternum, it. quaderno.) Den Gegenstand des Gedichts bildet die Liebe des königlichen Dichters zu Lady Joan Beaufort, welche in dem allegorischen Stil damaliger Zeit in der Art Chaucers mit tiefem Gefühl und dichterischer Auffassung dargestellt wird.

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