Columbia Library columns (v.9(1959Nov-1960May))

(New York :  Friends of the Columbia Libraries.  )

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  v.9,no.2(1960:Feb): Page 29  



Alma Mater to "Geoffrey Crayon"                  29

despair of ever doing enough to prove myself worthy of the
rewards already lavished upon me.

Accept my thanks for the good wishes you are so kind as to
express, on your own part, and which I most heartily reciprocate.
Hoping that you may long continue to fill with dignity and ability
the distinguished situation in which you are placed,

I remain

Dear Sir,
with great respect

Your friend ir very humble Serv'
Washington Irving
London. Aug 6th. 1821.
The Rev' William Harris
etc.      etc.      etc.

Curiously, this letter from Britain is dated almost the same day
as the August 7 commencement that year at the old college on
Park Place, and almost exactly six months to the day after his
degree had been voted by the Trustees. The minutes for their
meeting on February 5, 1821, include this simple but precedential
sentence, "RESOL\''ED that the honorary degree of .Master of
Arts be conferred on ^^^lshington Irving, Esquire and that the
President of the College cause the diploma to be prepared and
transmitted to iVIr. Irving." And as the minutes for December 3,
1821, show, when Irving's reply had crossed the Atlantic the
Reverend Dr. Harris dutifully ptesented it to the Trustees who
had set all this in motion, "The following letter from Mr. Irving
was received and ordered to be entered on the minutes."

The reason for saluting Irving with an Artiiim Magister is easy
to see if we turn back briefly to 1821. Under the pen name of
"Geoffrey Crayon," he had just written the first transatlantic best
seller in our two centuries young literary history. The Sketch
Book (1819-20), in which he creared the immortal "Rip Van
  v.9,no.2(1960:Feb): Page 29