Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (74 page)

See p. 447.

That is, Throg’s Neck, a cape on Long Island Sound in Bronx County, New York.

King Charles II of Great Britain and Ireland seized the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664; the colony was renamed New York when Charles granted it to his brother James, duke of York.

William “Captain” Kidd (c.1645-1701), Scottish privateer turned pirate.

Pirate.

That is, a storm-petrel, a seabird that lives its life far out at sea.

Or Kedah, a Malaysian state.

Richard Coote, earl of Bellamont, colonial governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire (1695-1701).

Dive.

European explorer known for mapping the coastal region of New York and Connecticut (c.1614).

Moneylender who charges exorbitantly high interest.

Slang for “money.”

Jonathan Belcher, colonial governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (1730-1741); he was voted out of office because of his efforts to break up the Land Bank, a joint-stock company formed by merchants after the colony was forbidden to issue paper money.

See footnote on p. 93.

The stock exchange.

Heavenward.

Game of wit (French).

In chapter 16 of
Robinson Crusoe
(1719), by English novelist Daniel Defoe, Crusoe makes a dugout canoe from an enormous cedar only to discover it is too large for him to move.

Unexplored region.

From Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
(act 5, scene 2).

Highly critical.

John Wesley Jarvis (1781-1839) and Joseph Wood (1778?-1832?), New York artists famous for their silhouettes and miniatures; Jarvis painted Irving’s portrait in 1809.

From the Latin
compos mentis
(“in good mental health”).

Men of letters.

Collecting on a debt.

See footnote on p. 240.

See footnote on p. 87.

Irving indulges here in a moment of self-portraiture; critics often praised Irving for his style.

The Philadelphia
Port Folio,
a weekly edited by Joseph Dennie, favorably reviewed Irving’s
A History of New York
in October 1812.

Beloe’s Herodotus [Irving’s note].
The History of Herodotus,
by William Beloe (London, 1791).

For notes on Wouter Van Twiller, William Kieft, and Peter Stuyvesant, see footnotes on pp. 411, 424, and 447, respectively.

Romulus and Remus: mythical founders of Rome; Charlemagne (742?-814): Carolingian king of the Franks, whose exploits are recounted in the French medieval epic
Chanson de Roland;
King Arthur: legendary Celtic warrior whose Knights of the Round Table are the subject of numerous medieval epics, including Sir Thomas Malory’s
Morte d’Arthur;
Rinaldo: title character of a chivalric poem (1562) by Italian poet Torquato Tasso; Godfrey of Bologne, or Godfrey of Bouillon (c.1058-1100): leader of the First Crusade, who was crowned king of Jerusalem in 1099.

This manuscript is an invention of Irving’s.

Xenophon (c.430-c.355 B.C.), Gaius Sallustius Crispus (or Sallust, c.86-c.34 B.C.), Thucydides (c.460-c.400 B.C.), Tacitus (A.D. c.55-c.117), Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), and Polybius (c.203-c.120 B.C.) were all historians of ancient Greece and Rome.

Quotation from
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
(1783), by Scottish clergyman Hugh Blair.

The quote is unlocated.

A bad pun in Dutch: “point by point, rump by rump.”

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
by English historian Edward Gibbon (6 vols., 1776-1788).

In fact, two separate histories sometimes printed together by later publishers:
The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688,
by Scottish historian David Hume (1754-1762), and
History of England from the Revolution in 1688 to the Death of George III, Designed as a Continuation of Mr. Hume’s History,
by Scottish author Tobias Smollett (1757-1758).

The architectural plan for Washington, D.C., drafted by French-born American architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant in 1791, took decades to complete.

See endnote 9 to
The Sketch-Book.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1554?-1618), English explorer who sought to establish a colony at Roanoke Island, North Carolina, between 1584 and 1589.

Broadsword bearing the mark of the famed craftsmen of the Italian house of Ferrara.

(Gaius) Julius Caesar (100?-44 B.C.): Roman general and statesman; Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 21-180): Roman emperor and stoic philosopher; Apollo of Belvidere, or Apollo Belvedere: Roman copy of the famous statue of the Greek god Apollo attributed to Leochares (fourth century B.C.), named after the Belvedere Court in Vatican City, where it once stood.
^‡
Robert Juet (died c.1611) was a crewman on Henry Hudson’s expedition into Hudson Bay and was set adrift with Hudson after the crew’s mutiny (see endnote 9 to
The Sketch-Book);
Juet’s journal was included in
Purchas, His Pilgrimes
(1625), travel literature compiled by English clergyman Samuel Purchas.

See footnote on p. 267.

True it is—and I am not ignorant of the fact—that in a certain apooryphal book of voyages, compiled by one Hakluyt, [Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616), English geographer whose
The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation
(1589) gave some of the first European accounts of the New World] is to be found a letter written to Francis the First, by one Giovanne, or John Verazzani, [Or Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485-1528), Italian navigator who explored the New World for the French] on which some writers are inclined to found a belief that this delightful bay had been visited nearly a century previous to the voyage of the enterprising Hudson. Now this (albeit it has met with the countenance of certain very judicious and learned men) I hold in utter disbelief, [worthless] and that for various good and substantial reasons:
First,
Because on strict examination it will be found, that the description given by this Verazzani applies about as well to the bay of New York as it does to my nightcap.
Secondly,
Because that this John Verazzani, for whom I already begin to feel a most bitter enmity, is a native of Florence; and everybody knows the crafty wiles of these losel Florentines, by which they filched away the laurels from the brows of the immortal Colon (vulgarly called Columbus), and bestowed them on their officious townsman, Amerigo Vespucci; [Italian-Spanish explorer (1454-1512) of the New World] and I make no doubt they are equally ready to rob the illustrious Hudson of the credit of discovering this beautiful island, adorned by the city of New York, and placing it beside their usurped discovery of South America. And,
thirdly,
I award my decision in favor of the pretensions of Hendrick Hudson, inasmuch as his expedition sailed from Holland, being truly and absolutely a Dutch enterprise;—and though all the proofs in the world were introduced on the other side, I would set them at naught, as undeserving my attention. If these three reasons be not sufficient to satisfy every burgher of this ancient city, all I can say is, they are degenerate descendants from their venerable Dutch ancestors, and totally unworthy the trouble of convincing. Thus, therefore, the title of Hendrick Hudson to his renowned discovery is fully vindicated.

John Josselyn (flourished 1638-1675) published two histories in 1674:
An Account of Two Voyages to New England and Chronological Observations of America.

This river is likewise laid down in Ogilvy’s map as Manhattan—Noordt—Montaigne and Mauritius river [Irving’s note]. See
America,
by John Ogilby (London, 1671).

Richard Blome, author of
The Present State of His Majesties Isles and Territories in America
(London, 1687).

Juet’s Journ. Purch. Pil. [Irving’s note]. See footnote on p. 391.

See footnote on p. 353.

Figures of classical mythology: Jupiter, supreme ruler of the Roman gods; Neptune, Roman god of the sea; and the hero Hercules, who possessed remarkable strength and the courage to accomplish any task.

The imagery and customs associated with St. Nicholas in Irving’s
A History of New York
contributed to the spread of the Santa Claus tradition in American culture.

Fraternal organization in New York City founded in 1786; it became the political machine of the Democratic Party in the early decades of the nineteenth century.

Noah’s ark; see the Bible, Genesis 6-8.

Razed cities of antiquity.

Men by inaction degenerate into oysters.—Kaimes [Irving’s note]. Possibly a quote by Henry Home, Lord Kames, Scottish lawyer and philosopher best known for his
Elements of Criticism
(3 vols., 1762).

Pavonia, in the ancient maps, is given to a tract of country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy [Irving’s note].

The lyre of Orpheus, a celebrated musician of Greek myth, could charm all creatures.

Greek philosopher and mathematician (c.580-c.500 B.C.) who believed that all knowledge could be reduced to numerical relationships.

Hereditary title of the ruler of the Dutch empire from 1572 to 1795.

After defeating British admiral Robert Blake in 1652, Dutch admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp sailed up and down the English Channel with a broom tied to his masthead as a sign that he would sweep the British navy from the seas.

Oloff Van Cortlandt (1600-1684), one of the founders of the Dutch colony at Manhattan.

MSS. of the Rev. John Heckwelder; New York Historical Society [Irving’s note]. John Heckwelder (1743-1823) was a Moravian missionary to the Native American tribes in the Ohio River Valley. He transcribed an account of the Dutch settlement of Manhattan from elders of the Delaware and Mohegan tribes. See the New York Historical Society Collections, second series, vol. 1 (1841), pages 71-74.

See footnote on p. 395.

That is, the ends of the earth, after the ancient name for the two promontories at the eastern end of the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic.

The utmost limit (Latin).

Second Dutch director-general of New Netherland (1632-1637).

That is, the sun; after Phoebus Apollo, the god of light in Greek mythology.

See endnote 2 to
Salmagundi.

In Aesop’s fable “The Frogs Desiring a King,” Jove (Zeus) throws down a log in answer to the frogs’ prayer for a great ruler; when the frogs become dissatisfied, he sends them a stork, which devours them. The lesson is that a ruler who does nothing is preferable to a tyrant.

Caliph in the
Arabian Nights
tale “Abou Hassan, or the Sleeper Awakened.”

In Roman mythology, after Jupiter defeated the Titans, the Titan ruler Saturn fled Mount Olympus, settled in Rome, and founded a community in which all people were equal and harvests were plentiful.

Peninsula off Russia’s eastern Siberian coast.

Northern region of Scandinavia and northwestern Russia.

Two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriages.

Loose trousers or hose leggings.

That is, gambling.

In Greek mythology, the prince Acis falls in love with Galatea, a sea nymph, and is murdered by the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus; Irving most likely has in mind the libretto of Georg Friedrich Handel’s opera
Acis and Galatea
(c.1718).

In book 7 of Homer’s
Iliad,
the hero Ajax’s brass shield is described as being covered with seven folds of a bull’s hide.

That is, Willem Kieft, third Dutch director-general of New Netherland (1638-1646).

Named after London’s Newgate Prison,
The Newgate Calendar; or, Malefactor’s Bloody Register
(first published 1774) contained narrative accounts of notorious crimes.

Spoils of war (Latin).

Buddhist monk at Peking (modern-day Beijing, China).