Law Students, The Witching Hour, and Their Books

I'm wishing good things for my property students who're taking their exam tomorrow morning and thought that I'd post a fragment of a letter I came across in an archive about studying law.  It's a letter from 1846, from a law student to a friend of his back at Washington College (now Washington and Lee).  The student opens the letter in this way:

It is now quite late at night.  My watch is not running but judging from my fire and candle it can not be far from the witching hour when ghosts troop home from church yards.  Having just laid aside my law book over which for several hours I have been [hovering?] I set down to write....

What an opening, eh?  It really drives home the surroundings -- that his watch isn't working and so he doesn't know exactly the time, but he can judge it from how far the candle (and fire) have burned down.  What I did not realize until now is what the witching hour is -- apparently midnight -- and that the phrase "witching hour" came into our lexicon through Washington Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," or so wikipedia says.

The illustration is of Washington and Lee -- though I thought about using Rembrandt's Scholar by Candlelight, which I wrote about back in December.

Comments

[JM]

Any way we can read the whole letter?

[Alfred Brophy]

Hi JM--the rest of the letter's not nearly as interesting. It relates to talk of family and friends, not law -- and it's not nearly so poetic. Alas, I didn't have time to transcribe the whole letter when I was reading it last fall, so this is all I have of it.

I was spending time on some other letters ... in those same files, however, was another letter that asked who will give the literary society address at graduation! I was really excited about that because I thought it showed that at least one person cared about literary addresses:

http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2011/06/washington-college-literary-addresses.html

[CPM]

The phrase is also found in the 18th century "A Fragment" by Mary Robinson (European Magazine and London Review, April 1, 1793, and The poetical works of the late Mrs. Mary Robinson, 1806)

Now Midnight spreads her sable vest

With Starry Rays light tissued o'er;

Now from the Desart's thistled breast

The chilling Dews begin to soar;

The Owl shrieks from the tott'ring Tow'r,

Dread watch-bird of the WITCHING HOUR!

Elsewhere in Sleepy Hollow, Irving also speaks of the "witching time of night," the exact phrase Hamlet uses in Act 2, scene 3.

Finished with my exams, I came across your post while I was searching for articles by William Carter on interest convergence.

[CPM]

The phrase is also found in the 18th century "A Fragment" by Mary Robinson (European Magazine and London Review, April 1, 1793, and The poetical works of the late Mrs. Mary Robinson, 1806)

Now Midnight spreads her sable vest

With Starry Rays light tissued o'er;

Now from the Desart's thistled breast

The chilling Dews begin to soar;

The Owl shrieks from the tott'ring Tow'r,

Dread watch-bird of the WITCHING HOUR!

Elsewhere in Sleepy Hollow, Irving also speaks of the "witching time of night," the exact phrase Hamlet uses in Act 2, scene 3.

Finished with my exams, I came across your post while I was searching for articles by William Carter on interest convergence.

[Alfred Brophy]

Very good to know, CPM -- nice pickoff. Now I'm wondering if that's where Washington Irving came up with the phrase?