Quotes from Washington Irving's books, and about them
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon on The Flower and the Leaf: “those incomparable descriptions of Nature, that abound in the British poets--that have continued down from "The Flower and the Leaf," of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape.”
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon on The Kingis Quair: “we may consider The King's Quair,* 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 Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon on The Knight's Tale: “There is, in this charming scene, an evident resemblance to the early part of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, where Palamon and Arcite fall in love with Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of their prison.”
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon on Arcadia: “nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Sackville's stately plays and Mirror for Magistrates, or the fine-spun euphuisms of the 'unparalleled John Lyly.'"”
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon on Mirror for Magistrates: “nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Sackville's stately plays and Mirror for Magistrates, or the fine-spun euphuisms of the 'unparalleled John Lyly.'"”
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon on The Maid's Tragedy: “In The Maid's Tragedy, by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind describing the capricious melancholy of a broken-hearted girl:”