9

nouses before the sun should be fairly verti- | G., engrossed all day with his business in the
cal, we were now admonished that it was city and only at home at night, sometimes
time. Mr. Irving at once taking his straw takes a look at his gardener's work by the
hat to accompany us. A remark upon the aid of a lantern.
beauty of the verdure near his door, drew
from him a most poetical outburst as to the
happy superiority of our climate. In Spain,
he said, he had found it most depressing
the lack of verdure. In England, they have
the most beautiful fields and lawns, but it is
so damp that you can never sit down, out
of doors, without taking cold. In our
country alone is the grass green enough,
the sun bright enough, and the sward dry
enough.

At the door of the hot-house, Mr. Irving said it was warm enough for him outside. He preferred to stand under a tree and wait for us-particularly as he had seen the grapes before and hoped to see some of them again. Astonished as my own wildernesstrained eyes were, of course, with the wonderful fecundity of those glass-covered vines, I was more interested in the visit to Mr. Grinnell's sumptuous stables; and here Mr. Irving kept us close company. He loves horses. And, as the groom led out one of the favorito" bloods" for us to look at, he gave us a thrilling account of his being run away with, a year or two ago-not by Van Tassel's horse " Gunpowder," of whose viciousness he has himself been the chronicler, though it was upon the very same ground and with the very same result. He and "Ichabod Crane were both thrown at the entrance to Sleepy Hollow.

While we were still in the immediate grounds of Sunnyside, I observed two remarkable triplets of the tulip tree-superb growths of three equal shafts, tall and of arrowy straightness, from each root-and in these fine specimens of the cleanest-leaved and healthiest looking of trees, he said he took great pleasure. A squirrel ran up one of them as we approached, and upon this race of depredators he had been obliged to make war this summer. They were a little As we strolled slowly through the grounds, bit more destructive than their beauty was we came to two dwarf statues-grotesque an excuse for. With another class of de- representations of "The Spendthrift" and structives, however, he did not know so well" The Miser "-and Mr. Irving gave us a how to contend, the visitors who drive into his grounds and tie their horses to the

trees.

The well-shaded ravine which has Sunnyside sitting on one of its knees-(once called "Wolfert's Roost," and long used by that famous Dutchman as the covert-way between the river and his haunts)—is conveniently and gracefully intersected with paths; but I remarked to Mr. Irving that they were somewhat of the outline character of ours at Idlewild. Yes, he said; on his side of the dell they were merely dug out and walked hard; but as they communicated with those of his rich neighbor, he was very often lucky enough to get the credit of the smooth gravel-walks, too! And he presently gave another of his crayonesque touches to his neighbor, assuring us, very solemnly, while we were wondering at the growth to which the transplanted trees had attained in so short a time, that "it was done by Mr. Grinnell's going round at night, himself, with a lantern and water-pot, to see that the trees did not oversleep themselves; "- -a fact, seen through Irving's spectacles,) as Mr.

comic history of their amusing a party of friends by playing at "tableaux," the other day-stopping in their walk, and dressing those figures up with the shawls and bonnets of the ladies. Our walk was varied with incidental questions of landscape-gardening, as we came to points which commanded the river-views more or less effectively; and Mr. Irving made one remark which, I thought, embodied the whole science of woodthinning, in ornamental grounds—that "a tree is only to be cut down when the picture it hides is worth more than the tree."

But the event of the day, to me, was to be the drive through Sleepy Hollow. A live ramble through Fairy-land with Spenser, would hardly be a promise of more pleasure. Mr. Grinnell's horses were at the door(after a dinner, during which I marvelled at the inexhaustible frolicsomeness of the wit and spirits of the master of Sunnyside)— and, though I should have preferred to take the trip, mounted from the Sketch-Book, (Geoffrey Crayon on Van Tassel's horse Gunpowder," and myself on the "Dare

contented, as it was.

devil" of "Brom Bones,") I was very well for a warm ride with a thick coat on; and With my knees inter- the frolicsome pulling of him back from the locked with Mr. Irving's, as I sat facing him carriage-door, stripping him to his shirtin the carriage, there was, at least, a shorter sleeves, in spite of his remonstrances, and road for magnetism from him to me than on re-clothing him in an over all of brown two separate horses; and, with so energetic linen, brought meantime from our host's a millionaire on the box with the driver, and dressing-room above. The tender petting of a President of a Railroad inside-to say the genial uncle by the half-dozen young nothing of the beloved lady who made one ladies, and his humorous pleadings against of our interior quartette-we were likely to the awkwardness of their forcible helpings be treated with respect, I think, by any off and on of his masculine habiliments, hobgoblin with Dutch feelings in his formed an exquisite picture-trifling, perbosom, or even by the "Headless Horse-haps, in itself, but valuable as showing the man," should we be belated enough to meet charming reality of the temperament visible him. in his books. The playful and affectionate reciprocity betwen Geoffrey Crayon and his readers, is the key-note of Washington Irving's life at home.

I should not omit here the mention of a little merriment at starting, which I since find myself remembering very vividly-the sudden discovery among the group of nieces and grand-nieces, that Mr. Irving was going

"HUON DE BOURDEAUX." What was a book | Dunlop's History of Fiction, i. 894. et seq; called Huon de Bourdeaulx? Is the title the Nisard, Histoire des Livres Populaires, &c., name of the author or of a fiction? It is men- ii. 535.]-Notes and Queries. tioned in a late number of the Quarterly, in the article on "Montaigne," where, describing his library, it is said it seemed a place better fitted for writing Pilgrim's Progress, The Castle of Otranto, or a third part to Huon de Bourdeaulx? and in a previous volume of the Quarterly, in the review of some travels thought to be rather fictitious, it is said "this sounds more like the adventures of Sindbad the Sailor, Huon de Bourdeaulx, or Ernest of

Bavaria."

[Huon de Bourdeaux is an old French Romance, originally written in verse by Huon de Villeneuve, as far back as the thirteenth century, but in its present form supposed not to be long anterior to the invention of printing. The earliest printed edition is in folio without date, and what is believed to be the second is in 4to, 1516. It was translated into English by Lord Berners in the reign of Henry VIII. The Oberon of the Poet Wieland, so admirably translated by Sotheby, is a German poetical version of the same story: which has long been so popular in France that it forms not only a portion of the well-known Biblothèque Bleue, but is still reprinted as a chap-book. It is also a popular Story Book in Germany and the Low Countries. For further information see

INSTRUCTION IN COOKERY.-The New York Evening Post says that we need in America schools for the training of cooks. Our large eating establishments ought to be prepared to graduate a class of male and female cooks every half year, whose diplomas would be sufficient evidence of their competence. They could, in part, pay for their tuition by their service, and partly in money. If the head cook of such hotels as the Astor House, or the St. Nicholas, would engraft a branch of instruction like this upon their culinary departments, his pupils would soon command large premiums. We want schools for cooks as much as for physicians, even more, for people want to eat every day, but they only want a doctor occasionally; and they would want one much less frequently if they were better fed, that is, if their food were better prepared. How often does it happen that the professing cooks of this metropolis know how to make good bread or to boil a potato or a cabbage? It is as much as a man's life is worth to travel through the interior and less frequented portions of our western country, so apt are they at spoiling the produce of the soil in preparing it for the table.

From Household Words.

WHO WAS HE?

spirit, proclaimed his readiness to pay to the Desdichado Sir Robert, the sum of fourteen MYSTERIES of all kinds environ the mem- thousand five hundred pounds, for his title to ory of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the castle and domains. The death of this the proud favorite of Queen Elizabeth. He amiable and generous prince, the very conseemed peculiarly prone to placing himself in trast to his cold-hearted father, prevented awkward predicaments by contracting mar- the payment of the money, except three riages which, if discovered, were sure to thousand pounds which, arrested by unbring upon him the wrath of his jealous and vain mistress. That he was really the hus-worthy hands before it reached Sir Robert, band of the unfortunate Amy Robsart, the heroine of Sir Walter Scott's inimitable novel, cannot be positively asserted; but it seems a received opinion that he was privately married, or else that he feigned a marriage to deceive the Lady Douglas Sheffield, the mother of his son, who was called Sir Robert Dudley.

The fate of this young man is peculiarly
sad. During his mother's lifetime, the earl
became the acknowledged husband of another
lady, and it was not till after his father's
death that he endeavored to prove his legiti-
macy. Kenilworth Castle was left by the
earl to his brother Ambrose, Earl of War-
wick, for his life, but to descend on the
demise of that brother to Sir Robert Dudley,

whom he names in his will as his son. It
happened that he came into possession in a
very short time, and then, probably from
some proofs he obtained, resolved to establish
an undoubted right to the estates he enjoyed
by his father's gift.

Scarcely had proceedings been commenced
than all question was abruptly concluded by
a special order of the lords and peremptory
orders issued that all the depositions brought
forward should be sealed up, and no copies
taken without the king's special license.

Permission, or rather a command was
given to Sir Robert to travel for three years,
at the end of which time, in consequence of
his continued absence, the considerate King
James seized his castle and estates for the use
of the crown.
Officers were sent down to
Kenilworth to make a survey, by whom it
was reported that "the like, both for strength
and pleasure, and state, was not within the
realm of England."

Doubtless, King James sincerely regretted
that the contumacious absence of the young
heir of Kenilworth should have obliged him
to take charge of these estates; to show his
disinterestedness he bestowed them, not on
his favorite Carr, but on his son, Prince
Henry, who, with his customary nobility of

never benefited him.

Kenilworth remained to the crown, and, the heir was forced to exist on a pension

granted him by the grand-duke of Tuscany, whose warm friendship supported him under his severe trials. He was held in high honor by foreign sovereigns, and the title of duke was bestowed on him by the Emperor Ferdinand the Second. He had married before he

quitted England, a daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, who, for some unexplained reason, remained behind in England, and died at the advanced age of ninety, adored by all her dependants.

She lies buried in the Church of Stonleigh in Warwickshire, with her daughter, the bears on her tomb the title of Alice, Duchess sole solace of her long bereavement. She Dudley, and above her effigies, beneath a canopy, are shields of arms to which royal jealousy disputed the right of her husband. This is a curious story, and involves much mystery. Who was Sir Robert Dudley? An entry in a manuscript, at the free school Earl of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth.* of Shrewsbury, tells of a certain son of the

*This manuscript, which is well preserved and Cathoz vicar of Shrewsbury, who in 1555 was partially illuminated, once belonged to a Roman appointed to the vicarage by Queen Mary. He afterwards conformed to the Established Church, and held the living for sixty years. This vicar, who was called Sir John Dychar, might not have been friendly to the Protestant queen; and the book may have been a piece of malice. It is, howsingular entry in his hand on the margin of the ever, remarkable that an attempt has been made to efface the entry, but unsuccessfully, the first ink being the blackest, and refusing to be overpowered by that which substituted other words, in hopes of misleading the reader. The entry runs as follows: Q. E. reg. et Robt. Comitis Leicester." "Henry Roidó Dudley Tuther Plantagenet filius written at the top of the page, nearly at the beginning of the book, and at the bottom there has cut out of the leaf, therefore the secret is effectually evidently been more; but a square piece has been preserved. There is a tradition that such a personage as this mysterious son was brought up secretly at the free-school of Shrewsbury; but what became of him is not known; nor is it easy to account for this curious entry in the parish-church book of Shrewsbury.

This is

Was this son brought up by Lady Douglas | He bought large estates in this part of WarSheffield, whose marriage was never proved, wickshire, and built his house on the site of and was the Maiden Queen, as has been sus- an abbey. It is a curious fact that his depected, in truth, privately united to her sub-scendants were staunch friends of the house ject? of Stuart, and carried their devotion to such Was this the cause of her disinclination an extent that they remained partisans up to name her successor, and was this the to the close of the last century, cherishing a reason of Sir Robert's banishment? The hostile feeling towards the reigning family, fate of Arabella Stuart, warning the heir of and dwelling on every circumstance which Kenilworth that those who had even a dis- recalled the memory of the old. Portraits tant claim to the crown were never in safety of the Stuarts adorned their halls, memorials from the cruel and crafty James. of the Stuarts surrounded them on every side, and they lived in solitary gloom, brooding over the fate of that ill-starred race, and indifferent to the moving and advancing world beyond, by whom the Stuarts were gradually forgotten. The last lord fell into a state of moody depression, and on his death and that of his sister, the estate passed to another branch.

What became of those papers so carefully sealed up and not permitted to see the light? Did Overbury know of their existence? Did Prince Henry suspect their contents, and did Somerset advise the means of concealing the knowledge forever?

The father of Fair Alice, the wife of the banished Sir Robert, was Sir Thomas Leigh, Alderman of London in Elizabeth's time.

BREEDING SHEEP SALES.-The sales of male | Jonas Webb, of Babraham, in Cambridgeshire. sheep for breeding purposes have now com- Mr. Webb's annual sale has lately taken place, menced, and are announced to take place at which 65 rams were let, and produced the during the whole of the present month and the first half of August. Judging from the number of sales and the numbers of sheep for sale of the different breeding sales, it is obvious that this trade has become a very important branch of English husbandry. The breed which, from the sales advertised, appears to have the chief demand is the Cotswold; and this is the more remarkable from the fact that it has had to encounter great opposition from the breeders of Leicester sheep, and has been treated with the "cold shoulder" by the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society.

We hope next week to obtain and notice some of the results of the Cotswold ram sales. The three principal breeds, however, are the Cotswolds, Leicesters, and Southdowns, the last of which are best suited for light land and hilly districts, where the farms are large and the sheep are required to travel considerable distances from the daily pasture to the nightly fold. They are not so well adapted to smaller farms and districts of considerable natural fertility as Cotswolds or Leicesters, from their requiring much more frequent changes of pasture. The Southdown sheep has, however, been brought to great perfection; and by no one has the breed been more improved than by Mr.

average price of £27 178 7d per head. This is not quite so high as his last year's lettings, when 77 rams were let at an average of £83 1s 4d per head. The number exposed for sale and letting was 140. The weight of wool on each sheep varied from 7 lbs to upwards of 10 lbs. The highest price realized for the hire of one sheep was £197; another let for £100, and the rest ranged from £7 to £70. Everybody who attends the larger agricultural exhibitions is aware of the general character of Mr. Webb's sheep; and there can be no doubt that so many animals of great size and substance, and carrying so much wool, must have great effect in improving the Southdown flocks of the country.Economist, 25 July.

"THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN." -I see it quoted in Punch, from some advertisement, that there is a new fashion of powdering the hair with gold dust, to give it a sunny appearance. Whoever will take the trouble to look in the seventh chapter of the eighth book of Josephus, will find the same fashion was known in the time of Solomon; the riders of his horses being accustomed to powder their hair with gold dust in the same manner.- -Notes and Queries.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 695.-19 SEPTEMBER, 1857.

To give the young any direct instruction

young à blind admiration, or a blind contempt, of the institutions under which they live. In this, as in all other branches of education, the rule of truth is the only safe rule; and truth is outraged if contempt and ridicule are the only feelings excited in the mind of an educated man by the contemplation of the political and social arrangements of his country.

This doctrine, however, is much in favor in morals or politics, unhappily forms no amongst one class of writers who are; perpart of the customary and established sys-haps, the most influential of all indirect tem of modern English education. A youth moral teachers-we mean contemporary may pass through our public schools and novelists. The popularity of a form of literuniversities hearing little of his duties to ature which is at once a stimulant and an society and to his country. Of classical and anodyne, and which engrosses the imaginatheological culture he will, indeed, expe- tion, whilst it does not absolutely exclude rience no want, but he can receive no posi- the exercise of the understanding, needs no tive moral instruction except what comes to explanation; but there is another source of him through theological channels, or from the educational influence of novels which the domestic influences of the society in most of us have felt, though it has not, we which he lives. This defect in our higher think, been usually recognised so explicitly education is in a great measure peculiar to as their other attractions. Through novels the present generation. In the last century, young people are generally addressed for the a certain set of opinions upon subjects of a first time as equals upon the most interesting political and moral character formed part of affairs of life. There they see grown-up men the creed of every person of education. and women described, and the occupations That the British Constitution combined the of mature life discussed, without any arrière advantages and the defects of monarchy, pensée as to the moral effects which the disaristocracy, and democracy; that the alli-cussion may have upon their own minds.. ance between Church and State secured the To an inquisitive youth, novels are a series liberties of both; that English law was the of lectures upon life, in which the professor perfection of reason, and the birthright of addresses his pupils as his equals and as men. every Briton; that every man had by his of the world. There, for the first time, the representatives a share in the government of springs of human actions are laid bare, and his country, and that it was his duty and the laws of human society discussed in lanhis right to take a corresponding interest in guage intelligible and attractive to young its politics: these, and many other beliefs of imaginations and young hearts. Such a similar kind, were as much part of the teachers can never be otherwise than influentraining of a gentleman as the doctrine that tial, but in the present day their influence is verbum personale concordat cum nominativo. enormously increased by the facilities which It certainly is as far from our intention, as cheap publication affords to them. Upwards it would be out of our power, to attempt to of a million of the cheap shilling volumes restore the currency of the old coin of po- which ornament railway book-stalls are dislitical dogmatism, so effectually decried in posed of annually, and the effect of these. Bentham's Book of Fallacies. But we think publications on the whole mind of the comthat negative and critical conclusions are not munity can hardly be exaggerated. the only results at which we ought to arrive Mr. Reade's novel, "It is never too late to upon these subjects, and that they are worse mend," is advertised to have reached the suited than any others to be made the staple twelfth thousand of its circulation, and we of popular education. It ought not to be believe Mr. Dickens's tales sell about 40,000 our object to instil into the minds of the copies on publication. LIVING AGE. VOL XVIII. 45.

DCXCV.

Even