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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Washington Irving, by Charles Dudley Warner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Washington Irving
+
+Author: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15984]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON IRVING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               [Illustration]
+
+
+                          American Men of Letters.
+
+
+                             WASHINGTON IRVING.
+
+
+
+                                     BY
+
+                           CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
+
+
+
+
+                              FIFTH THOUSAND.
+
+
+
+                                  BOSTON:
+                      HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
+                  11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK.
+                     The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
+                                  1884.
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1881,
+                        BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
+
+                         _All rights reserved_.
+
+                   _The Riverside Press, Cambridge:_
+            Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+                                  CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.                PAGE
+           PRELIMINARY                                        1
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+           BOYHOOD                                           21
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+           MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE                    31
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+           SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI"                          43
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+           THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD                          58
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+           LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY                 94
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+           IN SPAIN                                         141
+
+                                 CHAPTER VIII.
+           RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE: THE MISSION TO
+             MADRID                                         158
+
+                                 CHAPTER IX.
+           THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS                         190
+
+                                 CHAPTER X.
+           LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE      282
+
+
+
+
+                           WASHINGTON IRVING.
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                              PRELIMINARY.
+
+
+It is over twenty years since the death of Washington Irving removed
+that personal presence which is always a powerful, and sometimes the
+sole, stimulus to the sale of an author's books, and which strongly
+affects the contemporary judgment of their merits. It is nearly a
+century since his birth, which was almost coeval with that of the
+Republic, for it took place the year the British troops evacuated the
+city of New York, and only a few months before General Washington
+marched in at the head of the Continental army and took possession of
+the metropolis. For fifty years Irving charmed and instructed the
+American people, and was the author who held, on the whole, the first
+place in their affections. As he was the first to lift American
+literature into the popular respect of Europe, so for a long time he was
+the chief representative of the American name in the world of letters.
+During this period probably no citizen of the Republic, except the
+Father of his Country, had so wide a reputation as his namesake,
+Washington Irving.
+
+It is time to inquire what basis this great reputation had in enduring
+qualities, what portion of it was due to local and favoring
+circumstances, and to make an impartial study of the author's literary
+rank and achievement.
+
+The tenure of a literary reputation is the most uncertain and
+fluctuating of all. The popularity of an author seems to depend quite as
+much upon fashion or whim, as upon a change in taste or in literary
+form. Not only is contemporary judgment often at fault, but posterity is
+perpetually revising its opinion. We are accustomed to say that the
+final rank of an author is settled by the slow consensus of mankind in
+disregard of the critics; but the rank is after all determined by the
+few best minds of any given age, and the popular judgment has very
+little to do with it. Immediate popularity, or currency, is a nearly
+valueless criterion of merit. The settling of high rank even in the
+popular mind does not necessarily give currency; the so-called best
+authors are not those most widely read at any given time. Some who
+attain the position of classics are subject to variations in popular and
+even in scholarly favor or neglect. It happens to the princes of
+literature to encounter periods of varying duration when their names are
+revered and their books are not read. The growth, not to say the
+fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity is one of the curiosities of
+literary history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, apostrophized by
+Milton only fourteen years after his death as the "dear son of memory,
+great heir to fame,"--
+
+               "So sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,
+          That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die,"--
+
+he was neglected by the succeeding age, the subject of violent extremes
+of opinion in the eighteenth century, and so lightly esteemed by some
+that Hume could doubt if he were a poet "capable of furnishing a proper
+entertainment to a refined and intelligent audience," and attribute to
+the rudeness of his "disproportioned and misshapen" genius the "reproach
+of barbarism" which the English nation had suffered from all its
+neighbors. Only recently has the study of him by English scholars--I do
+not refer to the verbal squabbles over the text--been proportioned to
+his preeminence, and his fame is still slowly asserting itself among
+foreign peoples.
+
+There are already signs that we are not to accept as the final judgment
+upon the English contemporaries of Irving the currency their writings
+have now. In the case of Walter Scott, although there is already visible
+a reaction against a reaction, he is not, at least in America, read by
+this generation as he was by the last. This faint reaction is no doubt a
+sign of a deeper change impending in philosophic and metaphysical
+speculation. An age is apt to take a lurch in a body one way or another,
+and those most active in it do not always perceive how largely its
+direction is determined by what are called mere systems of philosophy.
+The novelist may not know whether he is steered by Kant, or Hegel, or
+Schopenhauer. The humanitarian novel, the fictions of passion, of
+realism, of doubt, the poetry and the essays addressed to the mood of
+unrest, of questioning, to the scientific spirit and to the shifting
+attitudes of social change and reform, claim the attention of an age
+that is completely adrift in regard to the relations of the supernatural
+and the material, the ideal and the real. It would be natural if in such
+a time of confusion the calm tones of unexaggerated literary art should
+be not so much heeded as the more strident voices. Yet when the passing
+fashion of this day is succeeded by the fashion of another, that which
+is most acceptable to the thought and feeling of the present may be
+without an audience; and it may happen that few recent authors will be
+read as Scott and the writers of the early part of this century will be
+read. It may, however, be safely predicted that those writers of fiction
+worthy to be called literary artists will best retain their hold who
+have faithfully painted the manners of their own time.
+
+Irving has shared the neglect of the writers of his generation. It
+would be strange, even in America, if this were not so. The development
+of American literature (using the term in its broadest sense) in the
+past forty years is greater than could have been expected in a nation
+which had its ground to clear, its wealth to win, and its new
+governmental experiment to adjust; if we confine our view to the last
+twenty years, the national production is vast in amount and encouraging
+in quality. It suffices to say of it here, in a general way, that the
+most vigorous activity has been in the departments of history, of
+applied science, and the discussion of social and economic problems.
+Although pure literature has made considerable gains, the main
+achievement has been in other directions. The audience of the literary
+artist has been less than that of the reporter of affairs and
+discoveries and the special correspondent. The age is too busy, too
+harassed, to have time for literature; and enjoyment of writings like
+those of Irving depends upon leisure of mind. The mass of readers have
+cared less for form than for novelty and news and the satisfying of a
+recently awakened curiosity. This was inevitable in an era of
+journalism, one marked by the marvelous results attained in the fields
+of religion, science, and art, by the adoption of the comparative
+method. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the vigor and
+intellectual activity of the age than a living English writer, who has
+traversed and illuminated almost every province of modern thought,
+controversy, and scholarship; but who supposes that Mr. Gladstone has
+added anything to permanent literature? He has been an immense force in
+his own time, and his influence the next generation will still feel and
+acknowledge, while it reads not the writings of Mr. Gladstone but may be
+those of the author of "Henry Esmond" and the biographer of "Rab and his
+Friends." De Quincey divides literature into two sorts, the literature
+of power and the literature of knowledge. The latter is of necessity for
+to-day only, and must be revised to-morrow. The definition has scarcely
+De Quincey's usual verbal felicity, but we can apprehend the distinction
+he intended to make.
+
+It is to be noted also, and not with regard to Irving only, that the
+attention of young and old readers has been so occupied and distracted
+by the flood of new books, written with the single purpose of satisfying
+the wants of the day, produced and distributed with marvelous cheapness
+and facility that the standard works of approved literature remain for
+the most part unread upon the shelves. Thirty years ago Irving was much
+read in America by young people and his clear style helped to form a
+good taste and correct literary habits. It is not so now. The
+manufacturers of books, periodicals, and newspapers for the young keep
+the rising generation fully occupied, with a result to its taste and
+mental fibre which, to say the least of it, must be regarded with some
+apprehension. The "plant," in the way of money and writing industry
+invested in the production of juvenile literature, is so large and is so
+permanent an interest, that it requires more discriminating
+consideration than can be given to it in a passing paragraph.
+
+Besides this, and with respect to Irving in particular, there has been
+in America a criticism--sometimes called the destructive, sometimes the
+Donnybrook Fair--that found "earnestness" the only thing in the world
+amusing, that brought to literary art the test of utility, and
+disparaged what is called the "Knickerbocker School" (assuming Irving to
+be the head of it) as wanting in purpose and virility, a merely romantic
+development of the post-Revolutionary period. And it has been to some
+extent the fashion to damn with faint admiration the pioneer if not the
+creator of American literature as the "genial" Irving.
+
+Before I pass to an outline of the career of this representative
+American author, it is necessary to refer for a moment to certain
+periods, more or less marked, in our literature. I do not include in it
+the works of writers either born in England or completely English in
+training, method, and tradition, showing nothing distinctively American
+in their writings except the incidental subject. The first authors whom
+we may regard as characteristic of the new country--leaving out the
+productions of speculative theology--devoted their genius to politics.
+It is in the political writings immediately preceding and following the
+Revolution--such as those of Hamilton, Madison, Jay, Franklin,
+Jefferson--that the new birth of a nation of original force and ideas is
+declared. It has been said, and I think the statement can be maintained,
+that for any parallel to those treatises on the nature of government, in
+respect to originality and vigor, we must go back to classic times. But
+literature, that is, literature which is an end in itself and not a
+means to something else, did not exist in America before Irving. Some
+foreshadowings (the autobiographical fragment of Franklin was not
+published till 1817) of its coming may be traced, but there can be no
+question that his writings were the first that bore the national
+literary stamp, that he first made the nation conscious of its gift and
+opportunity, and that he first announced to trans-Atlantic readers the
+entrance of America upon the literary field. For some time he was our
+only man of letters who had a reputation beyond seas.
+
+Irving was not, however, the first American who made literature a
+profession and attempted to live on its fruits. This distinction belongs
+to Charles Brockden Brown, who was born in Philadelphia, January 17,
+1771, and, before the appearance in a newspaper of Irving's juvenile
+essays in 1802, had published several romances, which were hailed as
+original and striking productions by his contemporaries, and even
+attracted attention in England. As late as 1820 a prominent British
+review gives Mr. Brown the first rank in our literature as an original
+writer and characteristically American. The reader of to-day who has the
+curiosity to inquire into the correctness of this opinion will, if he is
+familiar with the romances of the eighteenth century, find little
+originality in Brown's stories, and nothing distinctively American. The
+figures who are moved in them seem to be transported from the pages of
+foreign fiction to the New World, not as it was, but as it existed in
+the minds of European sentimentalists.
+
+Mr. Brown received a fair education in a classical school in his native
+city, and studied law, which he abandoned on the threshold of practice,
+as Irving did, and for the same reason. He had the genuine literary
+impulse, which he obeyed against all the arguments and entreaties of his
+friends. Unfortunately, with a delicate physical constitution he had a
+mind of romantic sensibility, and in the comparative inaction imposed by
+his frail health he indulged in visionary speculation, and in solitary
+wanderings which developed the habit of sentimental musing. It was
+natural that such reveries should produce morbid romances. The tone of
+them is that of the unwholesome fiction of his time, in which the
+"seducer" is a prominent and recognized character in social life, and
+female virtue is the frail sport of opportunity. Brown's own life was
+fastidiously correct, but it is a curious commentary upon his estimate
+of the natural power of resistance to vice in his time, that he regarded
+his feeble health as good fortune, since it protected him from the
+temptations of youth and virility.
+
+While he was reading law he constantly exercised his pen in the
+composition of essays, some of which were published under the title of
+the "Rhapsodist;" but it was not until 1797 that his career as an author
+began, by the publication of "Alcuin: a Dialogue on the Rights of
+Women." This and the romances which followed it show the powerful
+influence upon him of the school of fiction of William Godwin, and the
+movement of emancipation of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the leader.
+The period of social and political ferment during which "Alcuin" was put
+forth was not unlike that which may be said to have reached its height
+in extravagance and millennial expectation in 1847-48. In "Alcuin" are
+anticipated most of the subsequent discussions on the right of women to
+property and to self-control, and the desirability of revising the
+marriage relation. The injustice of any more enduring union than that
+founded upon the inclination of the hour is as ingeniously urged in
+"Alcuin" as it has been in our own day.
+
+Mr. Brown's reputation rests upon six romances: "Wieland," "Ormond,"
+"Arthur Mervyn," "Edgar Huntly," "Clara Howard," and "Jane Talbot." The
+first five were published in the interval between the spring of 1798 and
+the summer of 1801, in which he completed his thirtieth year. "Jane
+Talbot" appeared somewhat later. In scenery and character, these
+romances are entirely unreal. There is in them an affectation of
+psychological purpose which is not very well sustained, and a somewhat
+clumsy introduction of supernatural machinery. Yet they have a power of
+engaging the attention in the rapid succession of startling and uncanny
+incidents and in adventures in which the horrible is sometimes
+dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had not a particle of humor. Of
+literary art there is little, of invention considerable; and while the
+style is to a certain extent unformed and immature, it is neither feeble
+nor obscure, and admirably serves the author's purpose of creating what
+the children call a "crawly" impression. There is undeniable power in
+many of his scenes, notably in the descriptions of the yellow fever in
+Philadelphia, found in the romance of "Arthur Mervyn." There is,
+however, over all of them a false and pallid light; his characters are
+seen in a spectral atmosphere. If a romance is to be judged not by
+literary rules, but by its power of making an impression upon the mind,
+such power as a ghastly story has, told by the chimney-corner on a
+tempestuous night, then Mr. Brown's romances cannot be dismissed without
+a certain recognition. But they never represented anything
+distinctively American, and their influence upon American literature is
+scarcely discernible.
+
+Subsequently Mr. Brown became interested in political subjects, and
+wrote upon them with vigor and sagacity. He was the editor of two
+short-lived literary periodicals which were nevertheless useful in their
+day: "The Monthly Magazine and American Review," begun in New York in
+the spring of 1798, and ending in the autumn of 1800; and "The Literary
+Magazine and American Register," which was established in Philadelphia
+in 1803. It was for this periodical that Mr. Brown, who visited Irving
+in that year, sought in vain to enlist the service of the latter, who,
+then a youth of nineteen, had a little reputation as the author of some
+humorous essays in the "Morning Chronicle" newspaper.
+
+Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim of a lingering consumption, in
+1810, at the age of thirty-nine. In pausing for a moment upon his
+incomplete and promising career, we should not forget to recall the
+strong impression he made upon his contemporaries as a man of genius,
+the testimony to the charm of his conversation and the goodness of his
+heart, nor the pioneer service he rendered to letters before the
+provincial fetters were at all loosened.
+
+The advent of Cooper, Bryant, and Halleck, was some twenty years after
+the recognition of Irving, but thereafter the stars thicken in our
+literary sky, and when in 1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn in
+Europe, he found an immense advance in fiction, poetry, and historical
+composition. American literature was not only born,--it was able to go
+alone. We are not likely to overestimate the stimulus to this movement
+given by Irving's example, and by his success abroad. His leadership is
+recognized in the respectful attitude towards him of all his
+contemporaries in America. And the cordiality with which he gave help
+whenever it was asked, and his eagerness to acknowledge merit in others,
+secured him the affection of all the literary class, which is popularly
+supposed to have a rare appreciation of the defects of fellow craftsmen.
+
+The period from 1830 to 1860 was that of our greatest purely literary
+achievement, and, indeed, most of the greater names of to-day were
+familiar before 1850. Conspicuous exceptions are Motley and Parkman and
+a few belles-lettres writers, whose novels and stories mark a distinct
+literary transition since the War of the Rebellion. In the period from
+1845 to 1860, there was a singular development of sentimentalism; it had
+been growing before, it did not altogether disappear at the time named,
+and it was so conspicuous that this may properly be called the
+sentimental era in our literature. The causes of it, and its relation to
+our changing national character, are worthy the study of the historian.
+In politics, the discussion of constitutional questions, of tariffs and
+finance, had given way to moral agitations. Every political movement was
+determined by its relation to slavery. Eccentricities of all sorts were
+developed. It was the era of "transcendentalism" in New England, of
+"come-outers" there and elsewhere, of communistic experiments, of reform
+notions about marriage, about woman's dress, about diet; through the
+open door of abolitionism women appeared upon its platform, demanding a
+various emancipation; the agitation for total abstinence from
+intoxicating drinks got under full headway, urged on moral rather than
+on the statistical and scientific grounds of to-day; reformed drunkards
+went about from town to town depicting to applauding audiences the
+horrors of delirium tremens,--one of these peripatetics led about with
+him a goat, perhaps as a scapegoat and sin-offering; tobacco was as
+odious as rum; and I remember that George Thompson, the eloquent apostle
+of emancipation, during his tour in this country, when on one occasion
+he was the cynosure of a protracted antislavery meeting at Peterboro,
+the home of Gerrit Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, and
+lost the admiration of many of his admirers, the maiden devotees of
+green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift up the voice" and wear longhair
+were signs of devotion to a purpose.
+
+In that seething time, the lighter literature took a sentimental tone,
+and either spread itself in manufactured fine writing, or lapsed into a
+reminiscent and melting mood. In a pretty affectation, we were asked to
+meditate upon the old garret, the deserted hearth, the old letters, the
+old well-sweep, the dead baby, the little shoes; we were put into a mood
+in which we were defenseless against the lukewarm flood of the Tupperean
+Philosophy. Even the newspapers caught the bathetic tone. Every "local"
+editor breathed his woe over the incidents of the police court, the
+falling leaf, the tragedies of the boarding-house, in the most
+lachrymose periods he could command, and let us never lack fine writing,
+whatever might be the dearth of news. I need not say how suddenly and
+completely this affectation was laughed out of sight by the coming of
+the "humorous" writer, whose existence is justified by the excellent
+service he performed in clearing the tearful atmosphere. His keen and
+mocking method, which is quite distinct from the humor of Goldsmith and
+Irving, and differs, in degree at least, from the comic almanac
+exaggeration and coarseness which preceded it, puts its foot on every
+bud of sentiment, holds few things sacred, and refuses to regard
+anything in life seriously. But it has no mercy for any sham.
+
+I refer to this sentimental era--remembering that its literary
+manifestation was only a surface disease, and recognizing fully the
+value of the great moral movement in purifying the national
+life--because many regard its literary weakness as a legitimate
+outgrowth of the Knickerbocker School, and hold Irving in a manner
+responsible for it. But I find nothing in the manly sentiment and true
+tenderness of Irving to warrant the sentimental gush of his followers,
+who missed his corrective humor as completely as they failed to catch
+his literary art. Whatever note of localism there was in the
+Knickerbocker School, however _dilettante_ and unfruitful it was, it was
+not the legitimate heir of the broad and eclectic genius of Irving. The
+nature of that genius we shall see in his life.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+                                BOYHOOD.
+
+
+Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. He
+was the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving, and the youngest of
+eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. His parents, though of
+good origin, began life in humble circumstances. His father was born on
+the island of Shapinska. His family, one of the most respectable in
+Scotland, traced its descent from William De Irwyn, the secretary and
+armor-bearer of Robert Bruce; but at the time of the birth of William
+Irving its fortunes had gradually decayed, and the lad sought his
+livelihood, according to the habit of the adventurous Orkney Islanders,
+on the sea.
+
+It was during the French War, and while he was serving as a petty
+officer in an armed packet plying between Falmouth and New York, that he
+met Sarah Sanders, a beautiful girl, the only daughter of John and Anna
+Sanders, who had the distinction of being the granddaughter of an
+English curate. The youthful pair were married in 1761, and two years
+after embarked for New York, where they landed July 18, 1763. Upon
+settling in New York William Irving quit the sea and took to trade, in
+which he was successful until his business was broken up by the
+Revolutionary War. In this contest he was a staunch Whig, and suffered
+for his opinions at the hands of the British occupants of the city, and
+both he and his wife did much to alleviate the misery of the American
+prisoners. In this charitable ministry his wife, who possessed a rarely
+generous and sympathetic nature, was especially zealous, supplying the
+prisoners with food from her own table, visiting those who were ill, and
+furnishing them with clothing and other necessaries.
+
+Washington was born in a house on William Street, about half-way between
+Fulton and John; the following year the family moved across the way into
+one of the quaint structures of the time, its gable end with attic
+window towards the street, the fashion of which, and very likely the
+bricks, came from Holland. In this homestead the lad grew up, and it was
+not pulled down till 1849, ten years before his death. The patriot army
+occupied the city. "Washington's work is ended," said the mother, "and
+the child shall be named after him." When the first President was again
+in New York, the first seat of the new government, a Scotch maid-servant
+of the family, catching the popular enthusiasm, one day followed the
+hero into a shop and presented the lad to him. "Please, your honor,"
+said Lizzie, all aglow, "here's a bairn was named after you." And the
+grave Virginian placed his hand on the boy's head and gave him his
+blessing. The touch could not have been more efficacious, though it
+might have lingered longer, if he had known he was propitiating his
+future biographer.
+
+New York at the time of our author's birth was a rural city of about
+twenty-three thousand inhabitants, clustered about the Battery. It did
+not extend northward to the site of the present City Hall Park; and
+beyond, then and for several years afterwards, were only country
+residences, orchards, and corn-fields. The city was half burned down
+during the war, and had emerged from it in a dilapidated condition.
+There was still a marked separation between the Dutch and the English
+residents, though the Irvings seem to have been on terms of intimacy
+with the best of both nationalities. The habits of living were
+primitive; the manners were agreeably free; conviviality at the table
+was the fashion, and strong expletives had not gone out of use in
+conversation. Society was the reverse of intellectual: the aristocracy
+were the merchants and traders; what literary culture found expression
+was formed on English models, dignified and plentifully garnished with
+Latin and Greek allusions; the commercial spirit ruled, and the
+relaxations and amusements partook of its hurry and excitement. In their
+gay, hospitable, and mercurial character, the inhabitants were true
+progenitors of the present metropolis. A newspaper had been established
+in 1732, and a theatre had existed since 1750. Although the town had a
+rural aspect, with its quaint dormer-window houses, its straggling lanes
+and roads, and the water-pumps in the middle of the streets, it had the
+aspirations of a city, and already much of the metropolitan air.
+
+These were the surroundings in which the boy's literary talent was to
+develop. His father was a deacon in the Presbyterian church, a sedate,
+God-fearing man, with the strict severity of the Scotch Covenanter,
+serious in his intercourse with his family, without sympathy in the
+amusements of his children; he was not without tenderness in his nature,
+but the exhibition of it was repressed on principle,--a man of high
+character and probity, greatly esteemed by his associates. He endeavored
+to bring up his children in sound religious principles, and to leave no
+room in their lives for triviality. One of the two weekly half-holidays
+was required for the catechism, and the only relaxation from the three
+church services on Sunday was the reading of "Pilgrim's Progress." This
+cold and severe discipline at home would have been intolerable but for
+the more lovingly demonstrative and impulsive character of the mother,
+whose gentle nature and fine intellect won the tender veneration of her
+children. Of the father they stood in awe; his conscientious piety
+failed to waken any religious sensibility in them, and they revolted
+from a teaching which seemed to regard everything that was pleasant as
+wicked. The mother, brought up an Episcopalian, conformed to the
+religious forms and worship of her husband but she was never in sympathy
+with his rigid views. The children were repelled from the creed of their
+father, and subsequently all of them except one became attached to the
+Episcopal Church. Washington, in order to make sure of his escape, and
+feel safe while he was still constrained to attend his father's church,
+went stealthily to Trinity Church at an early age, and received the rite
+of confirmation. The boy was full of vivacity, drollery, and innocent
+mischief. His sportiveness and disinclination to religious seriousness
+gave his mother some anxiety, and she would look at him, says his
+biographer, with a half mournful admiration, and exclaim, "O Washington!
+if you were only good!" He had a love of music, which became later in
+life a passion, and great fondness for the theatre. The stolen delight
+of the theatre he first tasted in company with a boy who was somewhat
+his senior, but destined to be his literary comrade,--James K. Paulding,
+whose sister was the wife of Irving's brother William. Whenever he could
+afford this indulgence, he stole away early to the theatre in John
+Street, remained until it was time to return to the family prayers at
+nine, after which he would retire to his room, slip through his window
+and down the roof to a back alley, and return to enjoy the after-piece.
+
+Young Irving's school education was desultory, pursued under several
+more or less incompetent masters, and was over at the age of sixteen.
+The teaching does not seem to have had much discipline or solidity; he
+studied Latin a few months, but made no other incursion into the
+classics. The handsome, tender-hearted, truthful, susceptible boy was no
+doubt a dawdler in routine studies, but he assimilated what suited him.
+He found his food in such pieces of English literature as were floating
+about, in "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad;" at ten he was inspired by a
+translation of "Orlando Furioso;" he devoured books of voyages and
+travel; he could turn a neat verse, and his scribbling propensities
+were exercised in the composition of childish plays. The fact seems to
+be that the boy was a dreamer and saunterer; he himself says that he
+used to wander about the pier heads in fine weather, watch the ships
+departing on long voyages, and dream of going to the ends of the earth.
+His brothers Peter and John had been sent to Columbia College, and it is
+probable that Washington would have had the same advantage if he had not
+shown a disinclination to methodical study. At the age of sixteen he
+entered a law office, but he was a heedless student, and never acquired
+either a taste for the profession or much knowledge of law. While he sat
+in the law office, he read literature, and made considerable progress in
+his self-culture; but he liked rambling and society quite as well as
+books. In 1798 we find him passing a summer holiday in Westchester
+County, and exploring with his gun the Sleepy Hollow region which he was
+afterwards to make an enchanted realm; and in 1800 he made his first
+voyage up the Hudson, the beauties of which he was the first to
+celebrate, on a visit to a married sister who lived in the Mohawk
+Valley. In 1802 he became a law clerk in the office of Josiah Ogden
+Hoffman, and began that enduring intimacy with the refined and charming
+Hoffman family which was so deeply to influence all his life. His health
+had always been delicate, and his friends were now alarmed by symptoms
+of pulmonary weakness. This physical disability no doubt had much to do
+with his disinclination to severe study. For the next two or three years
+much time was consumed in excursions up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and
+in adventurous journeys as far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and to
+Montreal, to the great improvement of his physical condition, and in the
+enjoyment of the gay society of Albany, Schenectady, Ballston, and
+Saratoga Springs. These explorations and visits gave him material for
+future use, and exercised his pen in agreeable correspondence; but his
+tendency at this time, and for several years afterwards, was to the idle
+life of a man of society. Whether the literary impulse which was born in
+him would have ever insisted upon any but an occasional and fitful
+expression, except for the necessities of his subsequent condition, is
+doubtful.
+
+Irving's first literary publication was a series of letters, signed
+Jonathan Oldstyle, contributed in 1802 to the "Morning Chronicle," a
+newspaper then recently established by his brother Peter. The attention
+that these audacious satires of the theatre, the actors, and their
+audience attracted is evidence of the literary poverty of the period.
+The letters are open imitations of the "Spectator" and the "Tatler," and
+although sharp upon local follies are of no consequence at present
+except as foreshadowing the sensibility and quiet humor of the future
+author, and his chivalrous devotion to woman. What is worthy of note is
+that a boy of nineteen should turn aside from his caustic satire to
+protest against the cruel and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient
+maidens. It was enough for him that they are women, and possess the
+strongest claim upon our admiration, tenderness, and protection.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III.
+
+                     MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.
+
+
+Irving's health, always delicate, continued so much impaired when he
+came of age, in 1804, that his brothers determined to send him to
+Europe. On the 19th of May he took passage for Bordeaux in a sailing
+vessel, which reached the mouth of the Garonne on the 25th of June. His
+consumptive appearance when he went on board caused the captain to say
+to himself, "There's a chap who will go overboard before we get across;"
+but his condition was much improved by the voyage.
+
+He stayed six weeks at Bordeaux to improve himself in the language, and
+then set out for the Mediterranean. In the diligence he had some merry
+companions, and the party amused itself on the way. It was their habit
+to stroll about the towns in which they stopped, and talk with whomever
+they met. Among his companions was a young French officer and an
+eccentric, garrulous doctor from America. At Tonneins, on the Garonne,
+they entered a house where a number of girls were quilting. The girls
+gave Irving a needle and set him to work. He could not understand their
+patois, and they could not comprehend his bad French, and they got on
+very merrily. At last the little doctor told them that the interesting
+young man was an English prisoner whom the French officer had in
+custody. Their merriment at once gave place to pity. "Ah! le pauvre
+garcon!" said one to another; "he is merry, however, in all his
+trouble." "And what will they do with him?" asked a young woman. "Oh,
+nothing of consequence," replied the doctor; "perhaps shoot him, or cut
+off his head." The good souls were much distressed; they brought him
+wine, loaded his pockets with fruit, and bade him good-by with a hundred
+benedictions. Over forty years after, Irving made a detour, on his way
+from Madrid to Paris, to visit Tonneins, drawn thither solely by the
+recollection of this incident, vaguely hoping perhaps to apologize to
+the tender-hearted villagers for the imposition. His conscience, had
+always pricked him for it; "It was a shame," he said, "to leave them
+with such painful impressions." The quilting party had dispersed by that
+time. "I believe I recognized the house," he says; "and I saw two or
+three old women who might once have formed part of the merry group of
+girls; but I doubt whether they recognized, in the stout elderly
+gentleman, thus rattling in his carriage through their streets, the pale
+young English prisoner of forty years since."
+
+Bonaparte was emperor. The whole country was full of suspicion. The
+police suspected the traveler, notwithstanding his passport, of being an
+Englishman and a spy, and dogged him at every step. He arrived at
+Avignon, full of enthusiasm at the thought of seeing the tomb of Laura.
+"Judge of my surprise," he writes, "my disappointment, and my
+indignation, when I was told that the church, tomb, and all were utterly
+demolished in the time of the Revolution. Never did the Revolution, its
+authors and its consequences, receive a more hearty and sincere
+execration than at that moment. Throughout the whole of my journey I
+had found reason to exclaim against it for depriving me of some valuable
+curiosity or celebrated monument, but this was the severest
+disappointment it had yet occasioned." This view of the Revolution is
+very characteristic of Irving, and perhaps the first that would occur to
+a man of letters. The journey was altogether disagreeable, even to a
+traveler used to the rough jaunts in an American wilderness: the inns
+were miserable; dirt, noise, and insolence reigned without control. But
+it never was our author's habit to stroke the world the wrong way: "When
+I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to
+suit my dinner." And he adds: "There is nothing I dread more than to be
+taken for one of the Smell-fungi of this world. I therefore endeavor to
+be pleased with everything about me, and with the masters, mistresses,
+and servants of the inns, particularly when I perceive they have 'all
+the dispositions in the world' to serve me; as Sterne says, 'It is
+enough for heaven and ought to be enough for me.'"
+
+The traveler was detained at Marseilles, and five weeks at Nice, on one
+frivolous pretext of the police or another, and did not reach Genoa
+till the 20th of October. At Genoa there was a delightful society, and
+Irving seems to have been more attracted by that than by the historical
+curiosities. His health was restored, and his spirits recovered
+elasticity in the genial hospitality; he was surrounded by friends to
+whom he became so much attached that it was with pain he parted from
+them. The gayety of city life, the levees of the Doge, and the balls
+were not unattractive to the handsome young man; but what made Genoa
+seem like home to him was his intimacy with a few charming families,
+among whom he mentions those of Mrs. Bird, Madame Gabriac, and Lady
+Shaftesbury. From the latter he experienced the most cordial and
+unreserved friendship; she greatly interested herself in his future, and
+furnished him with letters from herself and the nobility to persons of
+the first distinction in Florence, Rome, and Naples.
+
+Late in December Irving sailed for Sicily in a Genoese packet. Off the
+island of Planoca it was overpowered and captured by a little pickaroon,
+with lateen sails and a couple of guns, and a most villainous crew, in
+poverty-stricken garments, rusty cutlasses in their hands and stilettos
+and pistols stuck in their waistbands. The pirates thoroughly ransacked
+the vessel, opened all the trunks and portmanteaus, but found little
+that they wanted except brandy and provisions. In releasing the vessel,
+the ragamuffins seem to have had a touch of humor, for they gave the
+captain a "receipt" for what they had taken, and an order on the British
+consul at Messina to pay for the same. This old-time courtesy was hardly
+appreciated at the moment.
+
+Irving passed a couple of months in Sicily, exploring with some
+thoroughness the ruins, and making several perilous inland trips, for
+the country was infested by banditti. One journey from Syracuse through
+the centre of the island revealed more wretchedness than Irving supposed
+existed in the world. The half-starved peasants lived in wretched cabins
+and often in caverns, amid filth and vermin. "God knows my mind never
+suffered so much as on this journey," he writes, "when I saw such scenes
+of want and misery continually before me, without the power of
+effectually relieving them." His stay in the ports was made agreeable by
+the officers of American ships cruising in those waters. Every ship was
+a home, and every officer a friend. He had a boundless capacity for
+good-fellowship. At Messina he chronicles the brilliant spectacle of
+Lord Nelson's fleet passing through the straits in search of the French
+fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In less than a year, Nelson's
+young admirer was one of the thousands that pressed to see the remains
+of the great admiral as they lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the
+flag that had floated at the mast-head of the Victory.
+
+From Sicily he passed over to Naples in a fruit boat which dodged the
+cruisers, and reached Rome the last of March. Here he remained several
+weeks, absorbed by the multitudinous attractions. In Italy the worlds of
+music and painting were for the first time opened to him. Here he made
+the acquaintance of Washington Allston, and the influence of this
+friendship came near changing the whole course of his life. To return
+home to the dry study of the law was not a pleasing prospect; the
+masterpieces of art, the serenity of the sky, the nameless charm which
+hangs about an Italian landscape, and Allston's enthusiasm as an artist,
+nearly decided him to remain in Rome and adopt the profession of a
+painter. But after indulging in this dream, it occurred to him that it
+was not so much a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely scenery and
+Allston's companionship that had attracted him to it. He saw something
+of Roman society; Torlonia the banker was especially assiduous in his
+attentions. It turned out when Irving came to make his adieus that
+Torlonia had all along supposed him a relative of General Washington.
+This mistake is offset by another that occurred later, after Irving had
+attained some celebrity in England. An English lady passing through an
+Italian gallery with her daughter stopped before a bust of Washington.
+The daughter said, "Mother, who was Washington?" "Why, my dear, don't
+you know?" was the astonished reply. "He wrote the 'Sketch-Book.'" It
+was at the house of Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian minister, that
+Irving first met Madame de Stael, who was then enjoying the celebrity
+of "Delphine." He was impressed with her strength of mind, and somewhat
+astounded at the amazing flow of her conversation, and the question upon
+question with which she plied him.
+
+In May the wanderer was in Paris, and remained there four months,
+studying French and frequenting the theatres with exemplary regularity.
+Of his life in Paris there are only the meagrest reports, and he records
+no observations upon political affairs. The town fascinated him more
+than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying
+under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and _Vive la
+bagatelle!_ is again the burden of their song. His excuse for remissness
+in correspondence was, "I am a young man and in Paris."
+
+By way of the Netherlands he reached London in October and remained in
+England till January. The attraction in London seems to have been the
+theatre, where he saw John Kemble, Cooke, and Mrs. Siddons. Kemble's
+acting seemed to him too studied and over-labored; he had the
+disadvantage of a voice lacking rich, base tones. Whatever he did was
+judiciously conceived and perfectly executed; it satisfied the head, but
+rarely touched the heart. Only in the part of Zanga was the young critic
+completely overpowered by his acting,--Kemble seemed to have forgotten
+himself. Cooke, who had less range than Kemble, completely satisfied
+Irving as Iago. Of Mrs. Siddons, who was then old, he scarcely dares to
+give his impressions lest he should be thought extravagant. "Her looks,"
+he says, "her voice, her gestures, delighted me. She penetrated in a
+moment to my heart. She froze and melted it by turns; a glance of her
+eye, a start, an exclamation, thrilled through my whole frame. The more
+I see her the more I admire her. I hardly breathe while she is on the
+stage. She works up my feelings till I am like a mere child." Some years
+later, after the publication of the "Sketch-Book," in a London assembly
+Irving was presented to the tragedy queen, who had left the stage, but
+had not laid aside its stately manner. She looked at him a moment, and
+then in a deep-toned voice slowly enunciated, "You've made me weep."
+The author was so disconcerted that he said not a word, and retreated in
+confusion. After the publication of "Bracebridge Hall" he met her in
+company again, and was persuaded to go through the ordeal of another
+presentation. The stately woman fixed her eyes on him as before, and
+slowly said, "You've made me weep again." This time the bashful author
+acquitted himself with more honor.
+
+This first sojourn abroad was not immediately fruitful in a literary
+way, and need not further detain us. It was the irresolute pilgrimage of
+a man who had not yet received his vocation. Everywhere he was received
+in the best society, and the charm of his manner and his ingenuous
+nature made him everywhere a favorite. He carried that indefinable
+passport which society recognizes and which needs no _vise_. He saw the
+people who were famous, the women whose recognition is a social
+reputation; he made many valuable friends; he frequented the theatre, he
+indulged his passion for the opera; he learned how to dine, and to
+appreciate the delights of a brilliant salon; he was picking up
+languages; he was observing nature and men, and especially women. That
+he profited by his loitering experience is plain enough afterward, but
+thus far there is little to prophesy that Irving would be anything more
+in life than a charming _flaneur_.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+                        SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI."
+
+
+On Irving's return to America in February, 1806, with reestablished
+health, life did not at first take on a more serious purpose. He was
+admitted to the bar, but he still halted.[1] Society more than ever
+attracted him and devoured his time. He willingly accepted the office of
+"champion at the tea-parties;" he was one of a knot of young fellows of
+literary tastes and convivial habits, who delighted to be known as "The
+Nine Worthies," or "Lads of Kilkenny." In his letters of this period I
+detect a kind of callowness and affectation which is not discernible in
+his foreign letters and journal.
+
+     [Footnote 1: Irving once illustrated his legal acquirements at
+     this time by the relation of the following anecdote to his
+     nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, an effective
+     and witty advocate, had been appointed to examine students for
+     admission. One student acquitted himself very lamely, and at
+     the supper which it was the custom for the candidates to give
+     to the examiners, when they passed upon their several merits,
+     Hoffman paused in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins
+     said, as if in hesitation, though all the while intending to
+     admit him, "Martin, I think he knows a _little_ law." "Make it
+     stronger, Jo," was the reply; "_d----d_ little."]
+
+These social worthies had jolly suppers at the humble taverns of the
+city, and wilder revelries in an old country house on the Passaic, which
+is celebrated in the "Salmagundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. We are
+reminded of the change of manners by a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of
+his comrades, written twenty years after, who recalls to mind the keeper
+of a porter house, "who whilom wore a long coat, in the pockets whereof
+he jingled two bushels of sixpenny pieces, and whose daughter played the
+piano to the accompaniment of broiled oysters." There was some
+affectation of roystering in all this; but it was a time of social
+good-fellowship, and easy freedom of manners in both sexes. At the
+dinners there was much sentimental and bacchanalian singing; it was
+scarcely good manners not to get a little tipsy; and to be laid under
+the table by the compulsory bumper was not to the discredit of a guest.
+Irving used to like to repeat an anecdote of one of his early friends,
+Henry Ogden, who had been at one of these festive meetings. He told
+Irving the next day that in going home he had fallen through a grating
+which had been carelessly left open, into a vault beneath. The solitude,
+he said, was rather dismal at first, but several other of the guests
+fell in, in the course of the evening, and they had on the whole a
+pleasant night of it.
+
+These young gentlemen liked to be thought "sad dogs." That they were
+less abandoned than they pretended to be the sequel of their lives
+shows: among Irving's associates at this time who attained honorable
+consideration were John and Gouverneur Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry
+Ogden, James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving. The saving influence for all
+of them was the refined households they frequented and the association
+of women who were high-spirited without prudery, and who united purity
+and simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm of manner. There is some
+pleasant correspondence between Irving and Miss Mary Fairlie, a belle of
+the time, who married the tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the "fascinating
+Fairlie," as Irving calls her, and the Sophie Sparkle of the
+"Salmagundi." Irving's susceptibility to the charms and graces of
+women--a susceptibility which continued always fresh--was tempered and
+ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration for the sex as a whole. He
+placed them on an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions always
+conformed to his romantic ideal, although in his writings he sometimes
+adopts the conventional satire which was more common fifty years ago
+than now. In a letter to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, where he
+was attending the trial of Aaron Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion
+of the sex. It was said in accounting for the open sympathy of the
+ladies with the prisoner that Burr had always been a favorite with them;
+"but I am not inclined," he writes, "to account for it in so illiberal a
+manner; it results from that merciful, that heavenly disposition,
+implanted in the female bosom, which ever inclines in favor of the
+accused and the unfortunate. You will smile at the high strain in which
+I have indulged; believe me, it is because I feel it; and I love your
+sex ten times better than ever."[1]
+
+     [Footnote 1: An amusing story in connection with this Richmond
+     visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character.
+     Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes
+     for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,--knee-breeches
+     being still worn,--and the actor carried them off to Baltimore.
+     From that city he wrote that he had found in the pocket an
+     emblem of love, a mysterious locket of hair in the shape of a
+     heart. The history of it is curious: when Irving sojourned at
+     Genoa he was much taken with the beauty of a young Italian
+     lady, the wife of a Frenchman. He had never spoken with her,
+     but one evening before his departing he picked up from the
+     floor her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more
+     gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily. His pocket was
+     picked of the precious relic while he was attending a religious
+     function in Catania, and he wrote to his friend Storm, the
+     consul at Genoa, deploring his loss. The consul communicated
+     the sad misfortune to the lovely Bianca, for that was the
+     lady's name, who thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with
+     the request that he would come to see her on his return. He
+     never saw her again, but the lock of hair was inclosed in a
+     locket and worn about his neck, in memory of a radiant vision
+     that had crossed his path and vanished.]
+
+Personally, Irving must have awakened a reciprocal admiration. A drawing
+by Vanderlyn, made in Paris in 1805, and a portrait by Jarvis in 1809,
+present him to us in the fresh bloom of manly beauty. The face has an
+air of distinction and gentle breeding; the refined lines, the poetic
+chin, the sensitive mouth, the shapely nose, the large dreamy eyes, the
+intellectual forehead, and the clustering brown locks are our ideal of
+the author of the "Sketch-Book" and the pilgrim in Spain. His
+biographer, Mr. Pierre M. Irving, has given no description of his
+appearance; but a relative, who saw much of our author in his latter
+years, writes to me: "He had dark gray eyes; a handsome straight nose,
+which might perhaps be called large; a broad, high, full forehead, and a
+small mouth. I should call him of medium height, about five feet eight
+and a half to nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. There was
+no peculiarity about his voice; but it was pleasant and had a good
+intonation. His smile was exceedingly genial, lighting up his whole face
+and rendering it very attractive; while, if he were about to say
+anything humorous, it would beam forth from his eyes even before the
+words were spoken. As a young man his face was exceedingly handsome, and
+his head was well covered with dark hair; but from my earliest
+recollection of him he wore neither whiskers nor moustache, but a dark
+brown wig, which, although it made him look younger, concealed a
+beautifully shaped head." We can understand why he was a favorite in the
+society of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and Albany, as well as
+of New York, and why he liked to linger here and there, sipping the
+social sweets, like a man born to leisure and seemingly idle observation
+of life.
+
+It was in the midst of these social successes, and just after his
+admission to the bar, that Irving gave the first decided evidence of the
+choice of a career. This was his association with his eldest brother,
+William, and Paulding in the production of "Salmagundi," a semi-monthly
+periodical, in small duodecimo sheets, which ran with tolerable
+regularity through twenty numbers, and stopped in full tide of success,
+with the whimsical indifference to the public which had characterized
+its every issue. Its declared purpose was "simply to instruct the young,
+reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." In manner and
+purpose it was an imitation of the "Spectator" and the "Citizen of the
+World," and it must share the fate of all imitations; but its wit was
+not borrowed, and its humor was to some extent original; and so
+perfectly was it adapted to local conditions that it may be profitably
+read to-day as a not untrue reflection of the manners and spirit of the
+time and city. Its amusing audacity and complacent superiority, the
+mystery hanging about its writers, its affectation of indifference to
+praise or profit, its fearless criticism, lively wit, and irresponsible
+humor, piqued, puzzled, and delighted the town. From the first it was an
+immense success; it had a circulation in other cities, and many
+imitations of it sprung up. Notwithstanding many affectations and
+puerilities it is still readable to Americans. Of course, if it were
+offered now to the complex and sophisticated society of New York, it
+would fail to attract anything like the attention it received in the
+days of simplicity and literary dearth; but the same wit, insight, and
+literary art, informed with the modern spirit and turned upon the
+follies and "whim-whams" of the metropolis, would doubtless have a great
+measure of success. In Irving's contributions to it may be traced the
+germs of nearly everything that he did afterwards; in it he tried the
+various stops of his genius; he discovered his own power; his career was
+determined; thereafter it was only a question of energy or necessity.
+
+In the summer of 1808 there were printed at Ballston-Spa--then the
+resort of fashion and the arena of flirtation--seven numbers of a
+duodecimo bagatelle in prose and verse, entitled "The Literary Picture
+Gallery and Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors of Ballston-Spa, by
+Simeon Senex, Esquire." This piece of summer nonsense is not referred to
+by any writer who has concerned himself about Irving's life, but there
+is reason to believe that he was a contributor to it if not the
+editor.[1]
+
+     [Footnote 1: For these stray reminders of the old-time gayety
+     of Ballston-Spa, I am indebted to J. Carson Brevoort, Esq.,
+     whose father was Irving's most intimate friend, and who told
+     him that Irving had a hand in them.]
+
+In these yellow pages is a melancholy reflection of the gayety and
+gallantry of the Sans Souci hotel seventy years ago. In this "Picture
+Gallery," under the thin disguise of initials, are the portraits of
+well-known belles of New York whose charms of person and graces of mind
+would make the present reader regret his tardy advent into this world,
+did not the "Admonitory Epistles," addressed to the same sex, remind him
+that the manners of seventy years ago left much to be desired. In
+respect of the habit of swearing, "Simeon" advises "Myra" that if ladies
+were to confine themselves to a single round oath, it would be quite
+sufficient; and he objects, when he is at the public table, to the
+conduct of his neighbor who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and used
+it as a tooth-pick. All this, no doubt, passed for wit in the beginning
+of the century. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse
+which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its
+object, an affectation of gallantry and of _ennui_, with anecdotes of
+distinguished visitors, out of which the screaming fun has quite
+evaporated, make up the staple of these faded mementos of ancient
+watering-place. Yet how much superior is our comedy of to-day? The
+beauty and the charms of the women of two generations ago exist only in
+tradition; perhaps we should give to the wit of that time equal
+admiration if none of it had been preserved.
+
+Irving, notwithstanding the success of "Salmagundi," did not immediately
+devote himself to literature, nor seem to regard his achievements in it
+as anything more than aids to social distinction. He was then, as
+always, greatly influenced by his surroundings. These were unfavorable
+to literary pursuits. Politics was the attractive field for preferment
+and distinction; and it is more than probable that, even after the
+success of the Knickerbocker history, he would have drifted through
+life, half lawyer and half placeman, if the associations and stimulus of
+an old civilization, in his second European residence, had not fired his
+ambition. Like most young lawyers with little law and less clients, he
+began to dabble in local politics. The experiment was not much to his
+taste, and the association and work demanded, at that time, of a ward
+politician soon disgusted him. "We have toiled through the purgatory of
+an election," he writes to the fair Republican, Miss Fairlie, who
+rejoiced in the defeat he and the Federals had sustained:--
+
+     "What makes me the more outrageous is, that I got fairly drawn into
+     the vortex, and before the third day was expired, I was as deep in
+     mud and politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish to be; and
+     I drank beer with the multitude; and I talked hand-bill fashion
+     with the demagogues; and I shook hands with the mob, whom my heart
+     abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the first two days I maintained my
+     coolness and indifference. The first day I merely hunted for whim,
+     character, and absurdity, according to my usual custom; the second
+     day being rainy, I sat in the bar-room at the Seventh Ward, and
+     read a volume of 'Galatea,' which I found on a shelf; but before I
+     had got through a hundred pages, I had three or four good Feds
+     sprawling round me on the floor, and another with his eyes half
+     shut, leaning on my shoulder in the most affectionate manner, and
+     spelling a page of the book as if it had been an electioneering
+     hand-bill. But the third day--ah! then came the tug of war. My
+     patriotism then blazed forth, and I determined to save my country!
+     Oh, my friend, I have been in such holes and corners; such filthy
+     nooks and filthy corners; sweep offices and oyster cellars! 'I have
+     sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can drink with any tinker
+     in his own language during my life,'--faugh! I shall not be able to
+     bear the smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to come....
+     Truly this saving one's country is a nauseous piece of business,
+     and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue,--prythee, no more of it."
+
+He unsuccessfully solicited some civil appointment at Albany, a very
+modest solicitation, which was never renewed, and which did not last
+long, for he was no sooner there than he was "disgusted by the servility
+and duplicity and rascality witnessed among the swarm of scrub
+politicians." There was a promising young artist at that time in Albany,
+and Irving wishes he were a man of wealth, to give him a helping hand; a
+few acts of munificence of this kind by rich nabobs, he breaks out,
+"would be more pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and more to the glory
+and advantage of their country, than building a dozen shingle church
+steeples, or buying a thousand venal votes at an election." This was in
+the "good old times!"
+
+Although a Federalist, and, as he described himself, "an admirer of
+General Hamilton, and a partisan with him in politics," he accepted a
+retainer from Burr's friends in 1807, and attended his trial in
+Richmond, but more in the capacity of an observer of the scene than a
+lawyer. He did not share the prevalent opinion of Burr's treason, and
+regarded him as a man so fallen as to be shorn of the power to injure
+the country, one for whom he could feel nothing but compassion. That
+compassion, however, he received only from the ladies of the city, and
+the traits of female goodness manifested then sunk deep into Irving's
+heart. Without pretending, he says, to decide on Burr's innocence or
+guilt, "his situation is such as should appeal eloquently to the
+feelings of every generous bosom. Sorry am I to say the reverse has been
+the fact: fallen, proscribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness has been
+administered to him with an unsparing hand. It has almost been
+considered as culpable to evince toward him the least sympathy or
+support; and many a hollow-hearted caitiff have I seen, who basked in
+the sunshine of his bounty while in power, who now skulked from his
+side, and even mingled among the most clamorous of his enemies.... I bid
+him farewell with a heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar warmth
+and feeling his sense of the interest I had taken in his fate. I never
+felt in a more melancholy mood than when I rode from his solitary
+prison." This is a good illustration of Irving's tender-heartedness; but
+considering Burr's whole character, it is altogether a womanish case of
+misplaced sympathy with the cool slayer of Alexander Hamilton.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                        THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD.
+
+
+Not long after the discontinuance of "Salmagundi," Irving in connection
+with his brother Peter projected the work that was to make him famous.
+At first nothing more was intended than a satire upon the "Picture of
+New York," by Dr. Samuel Mitchell, just then published. It was begun as
+a mere burlesque upon pedantry and erudition, and was well advanced,
+when Peter was called by his business to Europe, and its completion was
+fortunately left to Washington. In his mind the idea expanded into a
+different conception. He condensed the mass of affected learning, which
+was their joint work, into five introductory chapters,--subsequently he
+said it would have been improved if it had been reduced to one, and it
+seems to me it would have been better if that one had been thrown
+away,--and finished "A History of New York," by Diedrich Knickerbocker,
+substantially as we now have it. This was in 1809, when Irving was
+twenty-six years old.
+
+But before this humorous creation was completed, the author endured the
+terrible bereavement which was to color all his life. He had formed a
+deep and tender passion for Matilda Hoffman, the second daughter of
+Jeremiah Ogden Hoffman, in whose family he had long been on a footing of
+the most perfect intimacy, and his ardent love was fully reciprocated.
+He was restlessly casting about for some assured means of livelihood
+which would enable him to marry, and perhaps his distrust of a literary
+career was connected with this desire, when after a short illness Miss
+Hoffman died, in the eighteenth year of her age. Without being a
+dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person and mind, with most engaging
+manners, a refined sensibility, and a delicate and playful humor. The
+loss was a crushing blow to Irving, from the effects of which he never
+recovered, although time softened the bitterness of his grief into a
+tender and sacred memory. He could never bear to hear her name spoken
+even by his most intimate friends, or any allusion to her. Thirty years
+after her death, it happened one evening at the house of Mr. Hoffman,
+her father, that a granddaughter was playing for Mr. Irving, and in
+taking her music from the drawer, a faded piece of embroidery was
+brought forth. "Washington," said Mr. Hoffman, picking it up, "this is a
+piece of poor Matilda's workmanship." The effect was electric. He had
+been talking in the sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at once into
+utter silence, and in a few moments got up and left the house.
+
+After his death, in a private repository of which he always kept the
+key, was found a lovely miniature, a braid of fair hair, and a slip of
+paper, on which was written in his own hand, "Matilda Hoffman;" and with
+these treasures were several pages of a memorandum in ink long since
+faded. He kept through life her Bible and Prayer Book; they were placed
+nightly under his pillow in the first days of anguish that followed her
+loss, and ever after they were the inseparable companions of all his
+wanderings. In this memorandum--which was written many years
+afterwards--we read the simple story of his love:--
+
+     "We saw each other every day, and I became excessively attached to
+     her. Her shyness wore off by degrees. The more I saw of her the
+     more I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold leaf by
+     leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her so
+     well as I, for she was generally timid and silent; but I in a
+     manner studied her excellence. Never did I meet with more intuitive
+     rectitude of mind, more native delicacy, more exquisite propriety
+     in word, thought, and action, than in this young creature. I am not
+     exaggerating; what I say was acknowledged by all who knew her. Her
+     brilliant little sister used to say that people began by admiring
+     her, but ended by loving Matilda. For my part, I idolized her. I
+     felt at times rebuked by her superior delicacy and purity, and as
+     if I was a coarse, unworthy being in comparison."
+
+At this time Irving was much perplexed about his career. He had "a fatal
+propensity to belles-lettres;" his repugnance to the law was such that
+his mind would not take hold of the study; he anticipated nothing from
+legal pursuits or political employment; he was secretly writing the
+humorous history, but was altogether in a low-spirited and disheartened
+state. I quote again from the memorandum:--
+
+     "In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, and that helped to
+     distract me. In the midst of this struggle and anxiety she was
+     taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first; but she
+     grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. I cannot tell you
+     what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone in this life have
+     been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their
+     bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away; beautiful, and more
+     beautiful, and more angelical to the last. I was often by her
+     bedside; and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me
+     with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence, that was
+     overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that
+     delirious state than I had ever known before. Her malady was rapid
+     in its career, and hurried her off in two months. Her dying
+     struggles were painful and protracted. For three days and nights I
+     did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I was by her when she
+     died; all the family were assembled round her, some praying, others
+     weeping, for she was adored by them all. I was the last one she
+     looked upon. I have told you as briefly as I could what, if I were
+     to tell with all the incidents and feelings that accompanied it,
+     would fill volumes. She was but about seventeen years old when she
+     died.
+
+     "I cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long
+     time. I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I
+     abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but
+     could not bear solitude, yet could not endure society. There was a
+     dismal horror continually in my mind, that made me fear to be
+     alone. I had often to get up in the night, and seek the bedroom of
+     my brother, as if the having a human being by me would relieve me
+     from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts.
+
+     "Months elapsed before my mind would resume any tone; but the
+     despondency I had suffered for a long time in the course of this
+     attachment, and the anguish that attended its catastrophe, seemed
+     to give a turn to my whole character, and throw some clouds into my
+     disposition, which have ever since hung about it. When I became
+     more calm and collected, I applied myself, by way of occupation, to
+     the finishing of my work. I brought it to a close, as well as I
+     could, and published it; but the time and circumstances in which it
+     was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with
+     satisfaction. Still it took with the public, and gave me celebrity,
+     as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in
+     America. I was noticed, caressed, and, for a time, elevated by the
+     popularity I had gained. I found myself uncomfortable in my
+     feelings in New York, and traveled about a little. Wherever I went
+     I was overwhelmed with attentions; I was full of youth and
+     animation, far different from the being I now am, and I was quite
+     flushed with this early taste of public favor. Still, however, the
+     career of gayety and notoriety soon palled on me. I seemed to drift
+     about without aim or object, at the mercy of every breeze; my heart
+     wanted anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried to form
+     other attachments, but my heart would not hold on; it would
+     continually recur to what it had lost; and whenever there was a
+     pause in the hurry of novelty and excitement, I would sink into
+     dismal dejection. For years I could not talk on the subject of this
+     hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image
+     was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly."
+
+This memorandum, it subsequently appeared, was a letter, or a transcript
+of it, addressed to a married lady, Mrs. Foster, in which the story of
+his early love was related, in reply to her question why he had never
+married. It was in the year 1823, the year after the publication of
+"Bracebridge Hall," while he sojourned in Dresden, that he became
+intimate with an English family residing there, named Foster, and
+conceived for the daughter, Miss Emily Foster, a warm friendship and
+perhaps a deep attachment. The letter itself, which for the first time
+broke the guarded seclusion of Irving's heart, is evidence of the tender
+confidence that existed between him and this family. That this intimacy
+would have resulted in marriage, or an offer of marriage, if the lady's
+affections had not been preoccupied, the Fosters seem to have believed.
+In an unauthorized addition to the "Life and Letters," inserted in the
+English edition without the knowledge of the American editor, with some
+such headings as, "History of his First Love brought to us, and
+returned," and "Irving's Second Attachment," the Fosters tell the
+interesting story of Irving's life in Dresden, and give many of his
+letters, and an account of his intimacy with the family. From this
+account I quote:--
+
+     "Soon after this, Mr. Irving, who had again for long felt 'the
+     tenderest interest warm his bosom, and finally enthrall his whole
+     soul,' made one vigorous and valiant effort to free himself from a
+     hopeless and consuming attachment. My mother counseled him, I
+     believe, for the best, and he left Dresden on an expedition of
+     several weeks into a country he had long wished to see, though, in
+     the main, it disappointed him; and he started with young Colbourne
+     (son of General Colbourne) as his companion. Some of his letters on
+     this journey are before the public; and in the agitation and
+     eagerness he there described, on receiving and opening letters from
+     us, and the tenderness in his replies,--the longing to be once more
+     in the little Pavilion, to which we had moved in the beginning of
+     the summer,--the letters (though carefully guarded by the delicacy
+     of her who intrusted them to the editor, and alone retained among
+     many more calculated to lay bare his true feelings), even
+     fragmentary as they are, point out the truth.
+
+     "Here is the key to the journey to Silesia, the return to Dresden,
+     and, finally, to the journey from Dresden to Rotterdam in our
+     company, first planned so as to part at Cassel, where Mr. Irving
+     had intended to leave us and go down the Rhine, but subsequently
+     could not find in his heart to part. Hence, after a night of pale
+     and speechless melancholy, the gay, animated, happy countenance
+     with which he sprang to our coachbox to take his old seat on it,
+     and accompany us to Rotterdam. There even could he not part, but
+     joined us in the steamboat; and, after bearing us company as far as
+     a boat could follow us, at last tore himself away, to bury himself
+     in Paris, and try to work....
+
+     "It was fortunate, perhaps, that this affection was returned by the
+     _warmest friendship_ only, since it was destined that the
+     accomplishment of his wishes was impossible, for many obstacles
+     which lay in his way; and it is with pleasure I can truly say that
+     in time he schooled himself to view, also with friendship only, one
+     who for some time past has been the wife of another."
+
+Upon the delicacy of this revelation the biographer does not comment,
+but he says that the idea that Irving thought of marriage at that time
+is utterly disproved by the following passage from the very manuscript
+which he submitted to Mrs. Foster:--
+
+     "You wonder why I am not married. I have shown you why I was not
+     long since. When I had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I
+     became involved in ruin. It was not for a man broken down in the
+     world, to drag down any woman to his paltry circumstances. I was
+     too proud to tolerate the idea of ever mending my circumstances by
+     matrimony. My time has now gone by; and I have growing claims upon
+     my thoughts and upon my means, slender and precarious as they are.
+     I feel as if I already had a family to think and provide for."
+
+Upon the question of attachment and depression, Mr. Pierre Irving
+says:--
+
+     "While the editor does not question Mr. Irving's great enjoyment of
+     his intercourse with the Fosters, or his deep regret at parting
+     from them, he is too familiar with his occasional fits of
+     depression to have drawn from their recurrence on his return to
+     Paris any such inference as that to which the lady alludes. Indeed,
+     his 'memorandum book' and letters show him to have had, at this
+     time, sources of anxiety of quite a different nature. The allusion
+     to his having 'to put once more to sea' evidently refers to his
+     anxiety on returning to his literary pursuits, after a season of
+     entire idleness."
+
+It is not for us to question the judgment of the biographer, with his
+full knowledge of the circumstances and his long intimacy with his
+uncle; yet it is evident that Irving was seriously impressed at Dresden,
+and that he was very much unsettled until he drove away the impression
+by hard work with his pen; and it would be nothing new in human nature
+and experience if he had for a time yielded to the attractions of
+loveliness and a most congenial companionship, and had returned again to
+an exclusive devotion to the image of the early loved and lost.
+
+That Irving intended never to marry is an inference I cannot draw either
+from his fondness for the society of women, from his interest in the
+matrimonial projects of his friends and the gossip which has feminine
+attractions for its food, or from his letters to those who had his
+confidence. In a letter written from Birmingham, England, March 15,
+1816, to his dear friend Henry Brevoort, who was permitted more than
+perhaps any other person to see his secret heart, he alludes, with
+gratification, to the report of the engagement of James Paulding, and
+then says:--
+
+     "It is what we must all come to at last. I see you are hankering
+     after it, and I confess I have done so for a long time past. We
+     are, however, past that period [Irving was thirty-two] when a man
+     marries suddenly and inconsiderately. We may be longer making a
+     choice, and consulting the convenience and concurrence of easy
+     circumstances, but we shall both come to it sooner or later. I
+     therefore recommend you to marry without delay. You have sufficient
+     means, connected with your knowledge and habits of business, to
+     support a genteel establishment, and I am certain that as soon as
+     you are married you will experience a change in your ideas. All
+     those vagabond, roving propensities will cease. They are the
+     offspring of idleness of mind and a want of something to fix the
+     feelings. You are like a bark without an anchor, that drifts about
+     at the mercy of every vagrant breeze or trifling eddy. Get a wife,
+     and she'll anchor you. But don't marry a fool because she has a
+     pretty face, and don't seek after a great belle. Get such a girl as
+     Mary ----, or get her if you can; though I am afraid she has still
+     an unlucky kindness for poor ----, which will stand in the way of
+     her fortunes. I wish to God they were rich, and married, and
+     happy!"
+
+The business reverses which befell the Irving brothers, and which drove
+Washington to the toil of the pen, and cast upon him heavy family
+responsibilities, defeated his plans of domestic happiness in marriage.
+It was in this same year, 1816, when the fortunes of the firm were daily
+becoming more dismal, that he wrote to Brevoort, upon the report that
+the latter was likely to remain a bachelor: "We are all selfish beings.
+Fortune by her tardy favors and capricious freaks seems to discourage
+all my matrimonial resolves, and if I am doomed to live an old bachelor,
+I am anxious to have good company. I cannot bear that all my old
+companions should launch away into the married state, and leave me alone
+to tread this desolate and sterile shore." And, in view of a possible
+life of scant fortune, he exclaims: "Thank Heaven, I was brought up in
+simple and inexpensive habits, and I have satisfied myself that, if need
+be, I can resume them without repining or inconvenience. Though I am
+willing, therefore, that Fortune should shower her blessings upon me,
+and think I can enjoy them as well as most men, yet I shall not make
+myself unhappy if she chooses to be scanty, and shall take the position
+allotted me with a cheerful and contented mind."
+
+When Irving passed the winter of 1823 in the charming society of the
+Fosters at Dresden, the success of the "Sketch-Book" and "Bracebridge
+Hall" had given him assurance of his ability to live comfortably by the
+use of his pen.
+
+To resume. The preliminary announcement of the History was a humorous
+and skillful piece of advertising. Notices appeared in the newspapers of
+the disappearance from his lodging of "a small, elderly gentleman,
+dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of
+Knickerbocker." Paragraphs from week to week, purporting to be the
+result of inquiry, elicited the facts that such an old gentleman had
+been seen traveling north in the Albany stage; that his name was
+Diedrich Knickerbocker; that he went away owing his landlord; and that
+he left behind a very curious kind of a written book, which would be
+sold to pay his bills if he did not return. So skillfully was this
+managed that one of the city officials was on the point of offering a
+reward for the discovery of the missing Diedrich. This little man in
+knee-breeches and cocked hat was the germ of the whole "Knickerbocker
+legend," a fantastic creation, which in a manner took the place of
+history, and stamped upon the commercial metropolis of the New World the
+indelible Knickerbocker name and character; and even now in the city it
+is an undefined patent of nobility to trace descent from "an old
+Knickerbocker family."
+
+The volume, which was first printed in Philadelphia, was put forth as a
+grave history of the manners and government under the Dutch rulers, and
+so far was the covert humor carried that it was dedicated to the New
+York Historical Society. Its success was far beyond Irving's
+expectation. It met with almost universal acclaim. It is true that some
+of the old Dutch inhabitants who sat down to its perusal, expecting to
+read a veritable account of the exploits of their ancestors, were
+puzzled by the indirection of its commendation; and several excellent
+old ladies of New York and Albany were in blazing indignation at the
+ridicule put upon the old Dutch people, and minded to ostracize the
+irreverent author from all social recognition. As late as 1818, in an
+address before the Historical Society, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving's
+friend, showed the deep irritation the book had caused, by severe
+strictures on it as a "coarse caricature." But the author's winning ways
+soon dissipated the social cloud, and even the Dutch critics were
+erelong disarmed by the absence of all malice in the gigantic humor of
+the composition. One of the first foreigners to recognize the power and
+humor of the book was Walter Scott. "I have never," he wrote, "read
+anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of
+Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in
+reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our
+sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are
+passages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different
+kind, and has some touches which remind me of Sterne."
+
+The book is indeed an original creation, and one of the few masterpieces
+of humor. In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of conception, and joyous
+vigor, it belongs to the spring-time of literature. It has entered into
+the popular mind as no other American book ever has, and it may be said
+to have created a social realm which, with all its whimsical conceit,
+has almost historical solidity. The Knickerbocker pantheon is almost as
+real as that of Olympus. The introductory chapters are of that
+elephantine facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, but
+which is exceedingly tedious to modern taste; and the humor of the book
+occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate to our apprehension,
+though it perhaps did not shock our great-grandmothers. But,
+notwithstanding these blemishes, I think the work has more enduring
+qualities than even the generation which it first delighted gave it
+credit for. The world, however, it must be owned, has scarcely yet the
+courage of its humor, and dullness still thinks it necessary to
+apologize for anything amusing. There is little doubt that Irving
+himself supposed that his serious work was of more consequence to the
+world.
+
+It seems strange that after this success Irving should have hesitated to
+adopt literature as his profession. But for two years, and with leisure,
+he did nothing. He had again some hope of political employment in a
+small way; and at length he entered into a mercantile partnership with
+his brothers, which was to involve little work for him, and a share of
+the profits that should assure his support, and leave him free to follow
+his fitful literary inclinations. Yet he seems to have been mainly
+intent upon society and the amusements of the passing hour, and, without
+the spur of necessity to his literary capacity, he yielded to the
+temptations of indolence, and settled into the unpromising position of a
+"man about town." Occasionally, the business of his firm and that of
+other importing merchants being imperiled by some threatened action of
+Congress, Irving was sent to Washington to look after their interests.
+The leisurely progress he always made to the capital through the
+seductive society of Philadelphia and Baltimore did not promise much
+business dispatch. At the seat of government he was certain to be
+involved in a whirl of gayety. His letters from Washington are more
+occupied with the odd characters he met than with the measures of
+legislation. These visits greatly extended his acquaintance with the
+leading men of the country; his political leanings did not prevent an
+intimacy with the President's family, and Mrs. Madison and he were sworn
+friends.
+
+It was of the evening of his first arrival in Washington that he writes:
+"I emerged from dirt and darkness into the blazing splendor of Mrs.
+Madison's drawing-room. Here I was most graciously received; found a
+crowded collection of great and little men, of ugly old women and
+beautiful young ones, and in ten minutes was hand and glove with half
+the people in the assemblage. Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, buxom
+dame, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. Her sisters,
+Mrs. Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two merry wives of Windsor; but
+as to Jemmy Madison,--oh, poor Jemmy!--he is but a withered little
+apple-john."
+
+Odd characters congregated then in Washington as now. One honest fellow,
+who, by faithful fagging at the heels of Congress, had obtained a
+profitable post under government, shook Irving heartily by the hand, and
+professed himself always happy to see anybody that came from New York;
+"somehow or another, it was _natteral_ to him," being the place where he
+was _first_ born. Another fellow-townsman was "endeavoring to obtain a
+deposit in the Mechanics' Bank, in case the United States Bank does not
+obtain a charter. He is as deep as usual; shakes his head and winks
+through his spectacles at everybody he meets. He swore to me the other
+day that he had not told anybody what his opinion was,--whether the bank
+ought to have a charter or not. Nobody in Washington knew what his
+opinion was--not one--nobody; he defied any one to say what it
+was--'anybody--damn the one! No, sir, nobody knows;' and if he had added
+nobody cares, I believe honest ---- would have been exactly in the
+right. Then there's his brother George: 'Damn that fellow,--knows eight
+or nine languages; yes, sir, nine languages,--Arabic, Spanish, Greek,
+Ital--And there's his wife, now,--she and Mrs. Madison are always
+together. Mrs. Madison has taken a great fancy to her little daughter.
+Only think, sir, that child is only six years old, and talks the Italian
+like a book, by ----; little devil learnt it from an Italian
+servant,--damned clever fellow; lived with my brother George ten years.
+George says he would not part with him for all Tripoli,'" etc.
+
+It was always difficult for Irving, in those days, to escape from the
+genial blandishments of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Writing to Brevoort
+from Philadelphia, March 16, 1811, he says: "The people of Baltimore are
+exceedingly social and hospitable to strangers, and I saw that if I once
+let myself get into the stream I should not be able to get out under a
+fortnight at least; so, being resolved to push home as expeditiously as
+was honorably possible, I resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil
+at Baltimore; and after three days' and nights' stout carousal, and a
+fourth's sickness, sorrow, and repentance, I hurried off from that
+sensual city."
+
+Jarvis, the artist, was at that time the eccentric and elegant lion of
+society in Baltimore. "Jack Randolph" had recently sat to him for his
+portrait. "By the bye [the letter continues] that little 'hydra and
+chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious circulation at Baltimore. The
+gentlemen have all voted him a rare wag and most brilliant wit; and the
+ladies pronounce him one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable little
+creatures in the world. The consequence is there is not a ball,
+tea-party, concert, supper, or other private regale but that Jarvis is
+the most conspicuous personage; and as to a dinner, they can no more do
+without him than they could without Friar John at the roystering revels
+of the renowned Pantagruel." Irving gives one of his _bon mots_ which
+was industriously repeated at all the dinner tables, a profane sally,
+which seemed to tickle the Baltimoreans exceedingly. Being very much
+importuned to go to church, he resolutely refused, observing that it was
+the same thing whether he went or stayed at home. "If I don't go," said
+he, "the minister says I'll be d----d, and I'll be d----d if I do go."
+
+This same letter contains a pretty picture, and the expression of
+Irving's habitual kindly regard for his fellow-men:--
+
+     "I was out visiting with Ann yesterday, and met that little
+     assemblage of smiles and fascinations, Mary Jackson. She was
+     bounding with youth, health, and innocence, and good humor. She had
+     a pretty straw hat, tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and
+     looked like some little woodland nymph, just turned out by spring
+     and fine weather. God bless her light heart, and grant it may never
+     know care or sorrow! It's enough to cure spleen and melancholy only
+     to look at her.
+
+     "Your familiar pictures of home made me extremely desirous again
+     to be there.... I shall once more return to sober life, satisfied
+     with having secured three months of sunshine in this valley of
+     shadows and darkness. In this space of time I have seen
+     considerable of the world, but I am sadly afraid I have not grown
+     wiser thereby, inasmuch as it has generally been asserted by the
+     sages of every age that wisdom consists in a knowledge of the
+     wickedness of mankind, and the wiser a man grows the more
+     discontented he becomes with those around him. Whereas, woe is me,
+     I return in infinitely better humor with the world than I ever was
+     before, and with a most melancholy good opinion and good will for
+     the great mass of my fellow-creatures!"
+
+Free intercourse with men of all parties, he thought, tends to divest a
+man's mind of party bigotry.
+
+     "One day [he writes] I am dining with a knot of honest, furious
+     Federalists, who are damning all their opponents as a set of
+     consummate scoundrels, panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day I
+     dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I have heard thus
+     anathematized, and find them equally honest, warm, and indignant;
+     and if I take their word for it, I had been dining the day before
+     with some of the greatest knaves in the nation, men absolutely paid
+     and suborned by the British government."
+
+His friends at this time attempted to get him appointed secretary of
+legation to the French mission, under Joel Barlow, then minister, but he
+made no effort to secure the place. Perhaps he was deterred by the
+knowledge that the author of "The Columbiad" suspected him, though
+unjustly, of some strictures on his great epic. He had in mind a book of
+travel in his own country, in which he should sketch manners and
+characters; but nothing came of it. The peril to trade involved in the
+War of 1812 gave him some forebodings, and aroused him to exertion. He
+accepted the editorship of a periodical called "Select Reviews,"
+afterwards changed to the "Analectic Magazine," for which he wrote
+sketches, some of which were afterwards put into the "Sketch-Book," and
+several reviews and naval biographies. A brief biography of Thomas
+Campbell was also written about this time, as introductory to an edition
+of "Gertrude of Wyoming." But the slight editorial care required by the
+magazine was irksome to a man who had an unconquerable repugnance to
+all periodical labor.
+
+In 1813 Francis Jeffrey made a visit to the United States. Henry
+Brevoort, who was then in London, wrote an anxious letter to Irving to
+impress him with the necessity of making much of Mr. Jeffrey. "It is
+essential," he says, "that Jeffrey may imbibe a just estimate of the
+United States and its inhabitants; he goes out strongly biased in our
+favor, and the influence of his good opinion upon his return to this
+country will go far to efface the calumnies and the absurdities that
+have been laid to our charge by ignorant travelers. Persuade him to
+visit Washington, and by all means to see the Falls of Niagara." The
+impression seems to have prevailed that if Englishmen could be made to
+take a just view of the Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings between
+the two countries would be reduced. Peter Irving, who was then in
+Edinburgh, was impressed with the brilliant talent of the editor of the
+"Review," disguised as it was by affectation, but he said he "would not
+give the Minstrel for a wilderness of Jeffreys."
+
+The years from 1811 to 1815, when he went abroad for the second time,
+were passed by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on Providence. His
+letters to Brevoort during this period are full of the _ennui_ of
+irresolute youth. He idled away weeks and months in indolent enjoyment
+in the country; he indulged his passion for the theatre when opportunity
+offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little
+stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America
+at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling.
+There were few pictures and no galleries; there was no music, except the
+amateur torture of strings which led the country dance, or the martial
+inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and
+there over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the
+broad or pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial table; and there
+was no literary atmosphere.
+
+After three months of indolent enjoyment in the winter and spring of
+1811, Irving is complaining to Brevoort in June of the enervation of his
+social life: "I do want most deplorably to apply my mind to something
+that will arouse and animate it; for at present it is very indolent and
+relaxed, and I find it very difficult to shake off the lethargy that
+enthralls it. This makes me restless and dissatisfied with myself, and I
+am convinced I shall not feel comfortable and contented until my mind is
+fully employed. Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and leaves the
+mind more enfeebled than before. Give me rugged toils, fierce
+disputation, wrangling controversy, harassing research,--give me
+anything that calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's
+sake shield me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those
+enervating triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some
+time indulged in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which
+benumb its powers, and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to
+regain its activity and independence!"
+
+Irving at this time of life seemed always waiting by the pool for some
+angel to come and trouble the waters. To his correspondent, who was in
+the wilds of Michilimackinac, he continues to lament his morbid
+inability. The business in which his thriving brothers were engaged was
+the importation and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that spring his
+services were required at the "store." "By all the martyrs of Grub
+Street [he exclaims], I'd sooner live in a garret, and starve into the
+bargain, than follow so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way of life,
+though certain it would make me as rich as old Croesus, or John Jacob
+Astor himself!" The sparkle of society was no more agreeable to him than
+the rattle of cutlery. "I have scarcely [he writes] seen anything of the
+----s since your departure; business and an amazing want of inclination
+have kept me from their threshold. Jim, that sly poacher, however,
+prowls about there, and vitrifies his heart by the furnace of their
+charms. I accompanied him there on Sunday evening last, and found the
+Lads and Miss Knox with them. S---- was in great spirits, and played the
+sparkler with such great success as to silence the whole of us excepting
+Jim, who was the _agreeable rattle_ of the evening. God defend me from
+such vivacity as hers, in future,--such smart speeches without meaning,
+such bubble and squeak nonsense! I'd as lieve stand by a frying-pan for
+an hour and listen to the cooking of apple fritters. After two hours'
+dead silence and suffering on my part I made out to drag him off, and
+did not stop running until I was a mile from the house." Irving gives
+his correspondent graphic pictures of the social warfare in which he was
+engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" in which he was
+entangled; and some of his portraits of the "divinities," the
+"blossoms," and the beauties of that day would make the subjects of them
+flutter with surprise in the church-yards where they lie. The writer was
+sated with the "tedious commonplace of fashionable society," and
+languishing to return to his books and his pen.
+
+In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war and the depression of business,
+Irving was getting out a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," which
+Inskeep was to publish, agreeing to pay $1,200 at six months for an
+edition of fifteen hundred. The modern publisher had not then arisen and
+acquired a proprietary right in the brains of the country, and the
+author made his bargains like an independent being who owned himself.
+
+Irving's letters of this period are full of the gossip of the town and
+the matrimonial fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating Mary Fairlie
+is at length married to Cooper, the tragedian, with the opposition of
+her parents, after a dismal courtship and a cloudy prospect of
+happiness. "Goodhue is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to the
+pretty one. The engagement suddenly took place as they walked from
+church on Christmas Day, and report says the action was shorter than any
+of our naval victories, for the lady struck on the first broadside." The
+war colored all social life and conversation. "This war [the letter is
+to Brevoort, who is in Europe] has completely changed the face of things
+here. You would scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. Nothing is
+talked of but armies, navies, battles, etc." The same phenomenon was
+witnessed then that was observed in the war for the Union: "Men who had
+loitered about, the hangers-on and encumbrances of society, have all at
+once risen to importance, and been the only useful men of the day." The
+exploits of our young navy kept up the spirits of the country. There was
+great rejoicing when the captured frigate Macedonian was brought into
+New York, and was visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound above
+Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was given to the naval heroes, at which all
+the great eaters and drinkers of the city were present. It was the
+noblest entertainment of the kind I ever witnessed. On New Year's Eve a
+grand ball was likewise given, where there was a vast display of great
+and little people. The Livingstons were there in all their glory. Little
+Rule Britannia made a gallant appearance at the head of a train of
+beauties, among whom were the divine H----, who looked very inviting,
+and the little Taylor, who looked still more so. Britannia was
+gorgeously dressed in a queer kind of hat of stiff purple and silver
+stuff, that had marvelously the appearance of copper, and made us
+suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was
+trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in
+honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that
+it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent
+furrier had been there to wonder and admire!"
+
+With a little business and a good deal of loitering, waiting upon the
+whim of his pen, Irving passed the weary months of the war. As late as
+August, 1814, he is still giving Brevoort, who has returned, and is at
+Rockaway Beach, the light gossip of the town. It was reported that
+Brevoort and Dennis had kept a journal of their foreign travel, "which
+is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. Cooper, on only looking at the
+first word, fell into a fit of laughing that lasted half an hour."
+Irving is glad that he cannot find Brevoort's flute, which the latter
+requested should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent
+amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the
+expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on,
+affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of
+September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that
+had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly
+after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe
+patriotic indignation at the insulting proposals of the British and
+their rumored attack on New York, and all his similes, even those having
+love for their subject, are martial and bellicose. Item: "The gallant
+Sam has fairly changed front, and, instead of laying siege to Douglas
+castle, has charged sword in hand, and carried little Cooper's
+entrenchments."
+
+As a Federalist and an admirer of England, Irving had deplored the war,
+but his sympathies were not doubtful after it began, and the burning of
+the national Capitol by General Ross aroused him to an active
+participation in the struggle. He was descending the Hudson in a
+steamboat when the tidings first reached him. It was night, and the
+passengers had gone into the cabin, when a man came on board with the
+news, and in the darkness related the particulars: the burning of the
+President's house and government offices, and the destruction of the
+Capitol, with the library and public archives. In the momentary silence
+that followed, somebody raised his voice, and in a tone of complacent
+derision "wondered what _Jimmy_ Madison would say now." "Sir," cried
+Mr. Irving, in a burst of indignation that overcame his habitual
+shyness, "do you seize upon such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me
+tell you, sir, it is not now a question about _Jimmy_ Madison or _Jimmy_
+Armstrong. The pride and honor of the nation are wounded; the country is
+insulted and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal
+citizen would feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it." There was
+an outburst of applause, and the sneerer was silenced. "I could not see
+the fellow," said Mr. Irving, in relating the anecdote, "but I let fly
+at him in the dark."
+
+The next day he offered his services to Governor Tompkins, and was made
+the governor's aid and military secretary, with the right to be
+addressed as Col. Washington Irving. He served only four months in this
+capacity, when Governor Tompkins was called to the session of the
+legislature at Albany. Irving intended to go to Washington and apply for
+a commission in the regular army, but he was detained at Philadelphia by
+the affairs of his magazine, until news came in February, 1815, of the
+close of the war. In May of that year he embarked for England to visit
+his brother, intending only a short sojourn. He remained abroad
+seventeen years.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                    LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY.
+
+
+When Irving sailed from New York, it was with lively anticipations of
+witnessing the stirring events to follow the return of Bonaparte from
+Elba. When he reached Liverpool the curtain had fallen in Bonaparte's
+theatre. The first spectacle that met the traveler's eye was the mail
+coaches, darting through the streets, decked with laurel and bringing
+the news of Waterloo. As usual, Irving's sympathies were with the
+unfortunate. "I think," he says, writing of the exile of St. Helena,
+"the cabinet has acted with littleness toward him. In spite of all his
+misdeeds he is a noble fellow [_pace_ Madame de Remusat], and I am
+confident will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, all the crowned
+wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming confederacy. If
+anything could place the Prince Regent in a more ridiculous light, it is
+Bonaparte suing for his magnanimous protection. Every compliment paid
+to this bloated sensualist, this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to
+the keenest sarcasm."
+
+After staying a week with his brother Peter, who was recovering from an
+indisposition, Irving went to Birmingham, the residence of his
+brother-in-law, Henry Van Wart, who had married his youngest sister,
+Sarah; and from thence to Sydenham, to visit Campbell. The poet was not
+at home. To Mrs. Campbell Irving expressed his regret that her husband
+did not attempt something on a grand scale.
+
+     "'It is unfortunate for Campbell,' said she, 'that he lives in the
+     same age with Scott and Byron.' I asked why. 'Oh,' said she, 'they
+     write so much and so rapidly. Mr. Campbell writes slowly, and it
+     takes him some time to get under way; and just as he has fairly
+     begun out comes one of their poems, that sets the world agog, and
+     quite daunts him, so that he throws by his pen in despair.' I
+     pointed out the essential difference in their kinds of poetry, and
+     the qualities which insured perpetuity to that of her husband. 'You
+     can't persuade Campbell of that,' said she. 'He is apt to
+     undervalue his own works, and to consider his own little lights
+     put out, whenever they come blazing out with their great torches.'
+
+     "I repeated the conversation to Scott some time afterward, and it
+     drew forth a characteristic comment. 'Pooh!' said he, good
+     humoredly; 'how can Campbell mistake the matter so much? Poetry
+     goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere cairngorms, wrought
+     up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the market
+     as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch
+     pebbles, after all. Now, Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and
+     diamonds of the first water.'"
+
+Returning to Birmingham, Irving made excursions to Kenilworth, Warwick,
+and Stratford-on-Avon, and a tour through Wales with James Renwick, a
+young American of great promise, who at the age of nineteen had for a
+time filled the chair of natural philosophy in Columbia College. He was
+a son of Mrs. Jane Renwick, a charming woman and a life-long friend of
+Irving, the daughter of the Rev. Andrew Jeffrey, of Lochmaben, Scotland,
+and famous in literature as "The Blue-Eyed Lassie" of Burns. From
+another song, "When first I saw my Jeanie's Face," which does not
+appear in the poet's collected works, the biographer quotes:--
+
+                "But, sair, I doubt some happier swain
+                   Has gained my Jeanie's favor;
+                 If sae, may every bliss be hers,
+                   Tho' I can never have her.
+
+                "But gang she east, or gang she west,
+                  'Twixt Nith and Tweed all over,
+                 While men have eyes, or ears, or taste,
+                   She'll always find a lover."
+
+During Irving's protracted stay in England he did not by any means lose
+his interest in his beloved New York and the little society that was
+always dear to him. He relied upon his friend Brevoort to give him the
+news of the town, and in return he wrote long letters,--longer and more
+elaborate and formal than this generation has leisure to write or to
+read; letters in which the writer laid himself out to be entertaining,
+and detailed his emotions and state of mind as faithfully as his travels
+and outward experiences.
+
+No sooner was our war with England over than our navy began to make a
+reputation for itself in the Mediterranean. In his letter of August,
+1815, Irving dwells with pride on Decatur's triumph over the Algerine
+pirates. He had just received a letter from that "worthy little tar,
+Jack Nicholson," dated on board the Flambeau, off Algiers. In it
+Nicholson says that "they fell in with and captured the admiral's ship,
+and _killed him_." Upon which Irving remarks: "As this is all that
+Jack's brevity will allow him to say on the subject, I should be at a
+loss to know whether they killed the admiral _before_ or _after_ his
+capture. The well-known humanity of our tars, however, induces me to the
+former conclusion." Nicholson, who has the honor of being alluded to in
+"The Croakers," was always a great favorite with Irving. His gallantry
+on shore was equal to his bravery at sea, but unfortunately his
+diffidence was greater than his gallantry; and while his susceptibility
+to female charms made him an easy and a frequent victim, he could never
+muster the courage to declare his passion. Upon one occasion, when he
+was desperately enamored of a lady whom he wished to marry, he got
+Irving to write for him a love-letter, containing an offer of his heart
+and hand. The enthralled but bashful sailor carried the letter in his
+pocket till it was worn out, without ever being able to summon pluck
+enough to deliver it.
+
+While Irving was in Wales the Wiggins family and Madame Bonaparte passed
+through Birmingham, on their way to Cheltenham. Madame was still
+determined to assert her rights as a Bonaparte. Irving cannot help
+expressing sympathy for Wiggins: "The poor man has his hands full, with
+such a bevy of beautiful women under his charge, and all doubtless bent
+on pleasure and admiration." He hears, however, nothing further of her,
+except the newspapers mention her being at Cheltenham. "There are so
+many stars and comets thrown out of their orbits, and whirling about the
+world at present, that a little star like Madame Bonaparte attracts but
+slight attention, even though she draw after her so sparkling a tail as
+the Wiggins family." In another letter he exclaims: "The world is surely
+topsy-turvy, and its inhabitants shaken out of place: emperors and
+kings, statesmen and philosophers, Bonaparte, Alexander, Johnson, and
+the Wigginses, all strolling about the face of the earth."
+
+The business of the Irving brothers soon absorbed all Washington's time
+and attention. Peter was an invalid, and the whole weight of the
+perplexing affairs of the failing firm fell upon the one who detested
+business, and counted every hour lost that he gave to it. His letters
+for two years are burdened with harassments in uncongenial details and
+unsuccessful struggles. Liverpool, where he was compelled to pass most
+of his time, had few attractions for him, and his low spirits did not
+permit him to avail himself of such social advantages as were offered.
+It seems that our enterprising countrymen flocked abroad, on the
+conclusion of peace. "This place [writes Irving] swarms with Americans.
+You never saw a more motley race of beings. Some seem as if just from
+the woods, and yet stalk about the streets and public places with all
+the easy nonchalance that they would about their own villages. Nothing
+can surpass the dauntless independence of all form, ceremony, fashion,
+or reputation of a downright, unsophisticated American. Since the war,
+too, particularly, our lads seem to think they are 'the salt of the
+earth' and the legitimate lords of creation. It would delight you to
+see some of them playing Indian when surrounded by the wonders and
+improvements of the Old World. It is impossible to match these fellows
+by anything this side the water. Let an Englishman talk of the battle of
+Waterloo, and they will immediately bring up New Orleans and Plattsburg.
+A thoroughbred, thoroughly appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky
+rifleman," etc., etc. In contrast to this sort of American was Charles
+King, who was then abroad: "Charles is exactly what an American should
+be abroad: frank, manly, and unaffected in his habits and manners,
+liberal and independent in his opinions, generous and unprejudiced in
+his sentiments towards other nations, but most loyally attached to his
+own." There was a provincial narrowness at that date and long after in
+America, which deprecated the open-minded patriotism of King and of
+Irving as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of Fenimore Cooper.
+
+The most anxious time of Irving's life was the winter of 1815-16. The
+business worry increased. He was too jaded with the din of pounds,
+shillings, and pence to permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn
+realities. Nevertheless, he occasionally escapes from the tread-mill. In
+December he is in London, and entranced with the acting of Miss O'Neil.
+He thinks that Brevoort, if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love
+with this "divine perfection of a woman." He writes: "She is, to my
+eyes, the most soul-subduing actress I ever saw; I do not mean from her
+personal charms, which are great, but from the truth, force, and pathos
+of her acting. I have never been so completely melted, moved, and
+overcome at a theatre as by her performances.... Kean, the prodigy, is
+to me insufferable. He is vulgar, full of trick, and a complete
+mannerist. This is merely my opinion. He is cried up as a second
+Garrick, as a reformer of the stage, etc. It may be so. He may be right,
+and all the other actors wrong. This is certain: he is either very good
+or very bad. I think decidedly the latter; and I find no medium opinions
+concerning him. I am delighted with Young, who acts with great judgment,
+discrimination, and feeling. I think him much the best actor at present
+on the English stage.... In certain characters, such as may be classed
+with Macbeth, I do not think that Cooper has his equal in England. Young
+is the only actor I have seen who can compare with him." Later, Irving
+somewhat modified his opinion of Kean. He wrote to Brevoort: "Kean is a
+strange compound of merits and defects. His excellence consists in
+sudden and brilliant touches, in vivid exhibitions of passion and
+emotion. I do not think him a discriminating actor, or critical either
+at understanding or delineating character; but he produces effects which
+no other actor does."
+
+In the summer of 1816, on his way from Liverpool to visit his sister's
+family at Birmingham, Irving tarried for a few days at a country place
+near Shrewsbury on the border of Wales, and while there encountered a
+character whose portrait is cleverly painted. It is interesting to
+compare this first sketch with the elaboration of it in the essay on The
+Angler in the "Sketch-Book."
+
+     "In one of our morning strolls [he writes, July 15th] along the
+     banks of the Aleen, a beautiful little pastoral stream that rises
+     among the Welsh mountains and throws itself into the Dee, we
+     encountered a veteran angler of old Isaac Walton's school. He was
+     an old Greenwich out-door pensioner, had lost one leg in the battle
+     of Camperdown, had been in America in his youth, and indeed had
+     been quite a rover, but for many years past had settled himself
+     down in his native village, not far distant, where he lived very
+     independently on his pension and some other small annual sums,
+     amounting in all to about L40. His great hobby, and indeed the
+     business of his life, was to angle. I found he had read Isaac
+     Walton very attentively; he seemed to have imbibed all his
+     simplicity of heart, contentment of mind, and fluency of tongue. We
+     kept company with him almost the whole day, wandering along the
+     beautiful banks of the river, admiring the ease and elegant
+     dexterity with which the old fellow managed his angle, throwing the
+     fly with unerring certainty at a great distance and among
+     overhanging bushes, and waving it gracefully in the air, to keep it
+     from entangling, as he stumped with his staff and wooden leg from
+     one bend of the river to another. He kept up a continual flow of
+     cheerful and entertaining talk, and what I particularly liked him
+     for was, that though we tried every way to entrap him into some
+     abuse of America and its inhabitants, there was no getting him to
+     utter an ill-natured word concerning us. His whole conversation and
+     deportment illustrated old Isaac's maxims as to the benign
+     influence of angling over the human heart.... I ought to mention
+     that he had two companions--one, a ragged, picturesque varlet, that
+     had all the air of a veteran poacher, and I warrant would find any
+     fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest night; the other was a
+     disciple of the old philosopher, studying the art under him, and
+     was son and heir apparent to the landlady of the village tavern."
+
+A contrast to this pleasing picture is afforded by some character
+sketches at the little watering-place of Buxton, which our kindly
+observer visited the same year.
+
+     "At the hotel where we put up [he writes] we had a most singular
+     and whimsical assemblage of beings. I don't know whether you were
+     ever at an English watering-place, but if you have not been, you
+     have missed the best opportunity of studying English oddities, both
+     moral and physical. I no longer wonder at the English being such
+     excellent caricaturists, they have such an inexhaustible number and
+     variety of subjects to study from. The only care should be not to
+     follow fact too closely, for I'll swear I have met with characters
+     and figures that would be condemned as extravagant, if faithfully
+     delineated by pen or pencil. At a watering-place like Buxton, where
+     people really resort for health, you see the great tendency of the
+     English to run into excrescences and bloat out into grotesque
+     deformities. As to noses, I say nothing of them, though we had
+     every variety: some snubbed and turned up, with distended nostrils,
+     like a dormer window on the roof of a house; others convex and
+     twisted like a buck-handled knife; and others magnificently
+     efflorescent, like a full-blown cauliflower. But as to the persons
+     that were attached to these noses, fancy any distortion,
+     protuberance, and fungous embellishment that can be produced in the
+     human form by high and gross feeding, by the bloating operations of
+     malt liquors, and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy,
+     vaporous climate. One old fellow was an exception to this, for
+     instead of acquiring that expansion and sponginess to which old
+     people are prone in this country, from the long course of internal
+     and external soakage they experience, he had grown dry and stiff in
+     the process of years. The skin of his face had so shrunk away that
+     he could not close eyes or mouth--the latter, therefore, stood on a
+     perpetual ghastly grin, and the former on an incessant stare. He
+     had but one serviceable joint in his body, which was at the bottom
+     of the backbone, and that creaked and grated whenever he bent. He
+     could not raise his feet from the ground, but skated along the
+     drawing-room carpet whenever he wished to ring the bell. The only
+     sign of moisture in his whole body was a pellucid drop that I
+     occasionally noticed on the end of a long, dry nose. He used
+     generally to shuffle about in company with a little fellow that was
+     fat on one side and lean on the other. That is to say, he was
+     warped on one side as if he had been scorched before the fire; he
+     had a wry neck, which made his head lean on one shoulder; his hair
+     was smugly powdered, and he had a round, smirking, smiling, apple
+     face, with a bloom on it like that of a frost-bitten leaf in
+     autumn. We had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, who had,
+     I suspect, been promoted to his high rank to get him out of the way
+     of more able and active officers, being an instance that a man may
+     occasionally rise in the world through absolute lack of merit. I
+     could not help watching the movements of this redoubtable old Hero,
+     who, I'll warrant, has been the champion and safeguard of half the
+     garrison towns in England, and fancying to myself how Bonaparte
+     would have delighted in having such toast-and-butter generals to
+     deal with. This old cad is doubtless a sample of those generals
+     that flourished in the old military school, when armies would
+     manoeuvre and watch each other for months; now and then have a
+     desperate skirmish, and, after marching and countermarching about
+     the 'Low Countries' through a glorious campaign, retire on the
+     first pinch of cold weather into snug winter quarters in some fat
+     Flemish town, and eat and drink and fiddle through the winter.
+     Boney must have sadly disconcerted the comfortable system of these
+     old warriors by the harrowing, restless, cut-and-slash mode of
+     warfare that he introduced. He has put an end to all the old _carte
+     and tierce_ system in which the cavaliers of the old school fought
+     so decorously, as it were with a small sword in one hand and a
+     chapeau bras in the other. During his career there has been a sad
+     laying on the shelf of old generals who could not keep up with the
+     hurry, the fierceness and dashing of the new system; and among the
+     number I presume has been my worthy house-mate, old Trotter. The
+     old gentleman, in spite of his warlike title, had a most pacific
+     appearance. He was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face,
+     a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a deep ravine from
+     each corner of his mouth, not occasioned by any irascible
+     contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels
+     of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls
+     that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that
+     were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix
+     about the old general because you desired me in one of your letters
+     to give you ample details whenever I happened to be in company with
+     the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter is more deserving of the
+     epithet than any of the personages I have lately encountered."
+
+It was at the same resort of fashion and disease that Irving observed a
+phenomenon upon which Brevoort had commented as beginning to be
+noticeable in America.
+
+     "Your account [he writes] of the brevity of the old lady's nether
+     garments distresses me.... I cannot help observing that this
+     fashion of short skirts must have been invented by the French
+     ladies as a complete trick upon John Bull's 'woman-folk.' It was
+     introduced just at the time the English flocked in such crowds to
+     Paris. The French women, you know, are remarkable for pretty feet
+     and ankles, and can display them in perfect security. The English
+     are remarkable for the contrary. Seeing the proneness of the
+     English women to follow French fashions, they therefore led them
+     into this disastrous one, and sent them home with their petticoats
+     up to their knees, exhibiting such a variety of sturdy little legs
+     as would have afforded Hogarth an ample choice to match one of his
+     assemblages of queer heads. It is really a great source of
+     curiosity and amusement on the promenade of a watering-place to
+     observe the little sturdy English women, trudging about in their
+     stout leather shoes, and to study the various 'understandings'
+     betrayed to view by this mischievous fashion."
+
+The years passed rather wearily in England. Peter continued to be an
+invalid, and Washington himself, never robust, felt the pressure more
+and more of the irksome and unprosperous business affairs. Of his own
+want of health, however, he never complains; he maintains a patient
+spirit in the ill turns of fortune, and his impatience in the business
+complications is that of a man hindered from his proper career. The
+times were depressing.
+
+     "In America [he writes to Brevoort] you have financial
+     difficulties, the embarrassments of trade, the distress of
+     merchants, but here you have what is far worse, the distress of the
+     poor--not merely mental sufferings, but the absolute miseries of
+     nature: hunger, nakedness, wretchedness of all kinds that the
+     laboring people in this country are liable to. In the best of times
+     they do but subsist, but in adverse times they starve. How the
+     country is to extricate itself from its present embarrassment, how
+     it is to escape from the poverty that seems to be overwhelming it,
+     and how the government is to quiet the multitudes that are already
+     turbulent and clamorous, and are yet but in the beginning of their
+     real miseries, I cannot conceive."
+
+The embarrassments of the agricultural and laboring classes and of the
+government were as serious in 1816 as they have again become in 1881.
+
+During 1817 Irving was mostly in the depths of gloom, a prey to the
+monotony of life and torpidity of intellect. Rays of sunlight pierce the
+clouds occasionally. The Van Wart household at Birmingham was a frequent
+refuge for him, and we have pretty pictures of the domestic life there;
+glimpses of Old Parr, whose reputation as a gourmand was only second to
+his fame as a Grecian, and of that delightful genius, the Rev. Rann
+Kennedy, who might have been famous if he had ever committed to paper
+the long poems that he carried about in his head, and the engaging sight
+of Irving playing the flute for the little Van Warts to dance. During
+the holidays Irving paid another visit to the haunts of Isaac Walton,
+and his description of the adventures and mishaps of a pleasure party
+on the banks of the Dove suggest that the incorrigible bachelor was
+still sensitive to the allurements of life, and liable to wander over
+the "dead-line" of matrimonial danger. He confesses that he was all day
+in Elysium. "When we had descended from the last precipice," he says,
+"and come to where the Dove flowed musically through a verdant
+meadow--then--fancy me, oh, thou 'sweetest of poets,' wandering by the
+course of this romantic stream--a lovely girl hanging on my arm,
+pointing out the beauties of the surrounding scenery, and repeating in
+the most dulcet voice tracts of heaven-born poetry. If a strawberry
+smothered in cream has any consciousness of its delicious situation, it
+must feel as I felt at that moment." Indeed, the letters of this doleful
+year are enlivened by so many references to the graces and attractions
+of lovely women, seen and remembered, that insensibility cannot be
+attributed to the author of the "Sketch-Book."
+
+The death of Irving's mother in the spring of 1817 determined him to
+remain another year abroad. Business did not improve. His
+brother-in-law Van Wart called a meeting of his creditors, the Irving
+brothers floundered on into greater depths of embarrassment, and
+Washington, who could not think of returning home to face poverty in New
+York, began to revolve a plan that would give him a scanty but
+sufficient support. The idea of the "Sketch-Book" was in his mind. He
+had as yet made few literary acquaintances in England. It is an
+illustration of the warping effect of friendship upon the critical
+faculty that his opinion of Moore at this time was totally changed by
+subsequent intimacy. At a later date the two authors became warm friends
+and mutual admirers of each other's productions. In June, 1817, "Lalla
+Rookh" was just from the press, and Irving writes to Brevoort: "Moore's
+new poem is just out. I have not sent it to you, for it is dear and
+worthless. It is written in the most effeminate taste, and fit only to
+delight boarding-school girls and lads of nineteen just in their first
+loves. Moore should have kept to songs and epigrammatic conceits. His
+stream of intellect is too small to bear expansion--it spreads into
+mere surface." Too much cream for the strawberry!
+
+Notwithstanding business harassments in the summer and fall of 1817 he
+found time for some wandering about the island; he was occasionally in
+London, dining at Murray's, where he made the acquaintance of the elder
+D'Israeli and other men of letters (one of his notes of a dinner at
+Murray's is this: "Lord Byron told Murray that he was much happier after
+breaking with Lady Byron--he hated this still, quiet life"); he was
+publishing a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," illustrated by Leslie
+and Allston; and we find him at home in the friendly and brilliant
+society of Edinburgh; both the magazine publishers, Constable and
+Blackwood, were very civil to him, and Mr. Jeffrey (Mrs. Renwick was his
+sister) was very attentive; and he passed some days with Walter Scott,
+whose home life he so agreeably describes in his sketch of "Abbotsford."
+He looked back longingly to the happy hours there (he writes to his
+brother): "Scott reading, occasionally, from 'Prince Arthur'; telling
+border stories or characteristic anecdotes; Sophy Scott singing with
+charming _naivete_ a little border song; the rest of the family disposed
+in listening groups, while greyhounds, spaniels, and cats bask in
+unbounded indulgence before the fire. Everything about Scott is perfect
+character and picture."
+
+In the beginning of 1818 the business affairs of the brothers became so
+irretrievably involved that Peter and Washington went through the
+humiliating experience of taking the bankrupt act. Washington's
+connection with the concern was little more than nominal, and he felt
+small anxiety for himself, and was eager to escape from an occupation
+which had taken all the elasticity out of his mind. But on account of
+his brothers, in this dismal wreck of a family connection, his soul was
+steeped in bitterness. Pending the proceedings of the commissioners, he
+shut himself up day and night to the study of German, and while waiting
+for the examination used to walk up and down the room, conning over the
+German verbs.
+
+In August he went up to London and cast himself irrevocably upon the
+fortune of his pen. He had accumulated some materials, and upon these
+he set to work. Efforts were made at home to procure for him the
+position of Secretary of Legation in London, which drew from him the
+remark, when they came to his knowledge, that he did not like to have
+his name hackneyed about among the office-seekers in Washington.
+Subsequently his brother William wrote him that Commodore Decatur was
+keeping open for him the office of Chief Clerk in the Navy Department.
+To the mortification and chagrin of his brothers, Washington declined
+the position. He was resolved to enter upon no duties that would
+interfere with his literary pursuits.
+
+This resolution, which exhibited a modest confidence in his own powers,
+and the energy with which he threw himself into his career, showed the
+fibre of the man. Suddenly, by the reverse of fortune, he who had been
+regarded as merely the ornamental genius of the family became its stay
+and support. If he had accepted the aid of his brothers, during the
+experimental period of his life, in the loving spirit of confidence in
+which it was given, he was not less ready to reverse the relations when
+the time came; the delicacy with which his assistance was rendered, the
+scrupulous care taken to convey the feeling that his brothers were doing
+him a continued favor in sharing his good fortune, and their own
+unjealous acceptance of what they would as freely have given if
+circumstances had been different, form one of the pleasantest instances
+of brotherly concord and self-abnegation. I know nothing more admirable
+than the life-long relations of this talented and sincere family.
+
+Before the "Sketch-Book" was launched, and while Irving was casting
+about for the means of livelihood, Walter Scott urged him to take the
+editorship of an Anti-Jacobin periodical in Edinburgh. This he declined
+because he had no taste for politics, and because he was averse to
+stated, routine literary work. Subsequently Mr. Murray offered him a
+salary of a thousand guineas to edit a periodical to be published by
+himself. This was declined, as also was another offer to contribute to
+the "London Quarterly" with the liberal pay of one hundred guineas an
+article. For the "Quarterly" he would not write, because, he says, "it
+has always been so hostile to my country, I cannot draw a pen in its
+service." This is worthy of note in view of a charge made afterwards,
+when he was attacked for his English sympathies, that he was a frequent
+contributor to this anti-American review. His sole contributions to it
+were a gratuitous review of the book of an American author, and an
+explanatory article, written at the desire of his publisher, on the
+"Conquest of Granada." It is not necessary to dwell upon the small
+scandal about Irving's un-American feeling. If there was ever a man who
+loved his country and was proud of it; whose broad, deep, and strong
+patriotism did not need the saliency of ignorant partisanship, it was
+Washington Irving. He was like his namesake an American, and with the
+same pure loyalty and unpartisan candor.
+
+The first number of the "Sketch-Book" was published in America in May,
+1819. Irving was then thirty-six years old. The series was not completed
+till September, 1820. The first installment was carried mainly by two
+papers, "The Wife" and "Rip Van Winkle;" the one full of tender pathos
+that touched all hearts, because it was recognized as a genuine
+expression of the author's nature; and the other a happy effort of
+imaginative humor,--one of those strokes of genius that recreate the
+world and clothe it with the unfading hues of romance; the theme was an
+old-world echo, transformed by genius into a primal story that will
+endure as long as the Hudson flows through its mountains to the sea. A
+great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas.
+
+The "Sketch-Book" created a sensation in America, and the echo of it was
+not long in reaching England. The general chorus of approval and the
+rapid sale surprised Irving, and sent his spirits up, but success had
+the effect on him that it always has on a fine nature. He writes to
+Leslie: "Now you suppose I am all on the alert, and full of spirit and
+excitement. No such thing. I am just as good for nothing as ever I was;
+and, indeed, have been flurried and put out of my way by these puffings.
+I feel something as I suppose you did when your picture met with
+success,--anxious to do something better, and at a loss what to do."
+
+It was with much misgiving that Irving made this venture. "I feel great
+diffidence," he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819, "about this reappearance
+in literature. I am conscious of my imperfections, and my mind has been
+for a long time past so pressed upon and agitated by various cares and
+anxieties, that I fear it has lost much of its cheerfulness and some of
+its activity. I have attempted no lofty theme, nor sought to look wise
+and learned, which appears to be very much the fashion among our
+American writers at present. I have preferred addressing myself to the
+feelings and fancy of the reader more than to his judgment. My writings
+may appear, therefore, light and trifling in our country of philosophers
+and politicians. But if they possess merit in the class of literature to
+which they belong, it is all to which I aspire in the work. I seek only
+to blow a flute accompaniment in the national concert, and leave others
+to play the fiddle and French-horn." This diffidence was not assumed.
+All through his career, a breath of criticism ever so slight acted
+temporarily like a hoar-frost upon his productive power. He always saw
+reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking of "vanity" in a letter
+of March, 1820, when Scott and Lockhart and all the Reviews were in a
+full chorus of acclaim, he says: "I wish I did possess more of it, but
+it seems my curse at present to have anything but confidence in myself
+or pleasure in anything I have written."
+
+In a similar strain he had written, in September, 1819, on the news of
+the cordial reception of the "Sketch-Book" in America:--
+
+     "The manner in which the work has been received and the eulogiums
+     that have been passed upon it in the American papers and periodical
+     works, have completely overwhelmed me. They go far, _far_ beyond my
+     most sanguine expectations, and indeed are expressed with such
+     peculiar warmth and kindness as to affect me in the tenderest
+     manner. The receipt of your letter, and the reading of some of the
+     criticisms this morning, have rendered me nervous for the whole
+     day. I feel almost appalled by such success, and fearful that it
+     cannot be real, or that it is not fully merited, or that I shall
+     not act up to the expectations that may be formed. We are
+     whimsically constituted beings. I had got out of conceit of all
+     that I had written, and considered it very questionable stuff; and
+     now that it is so extravagantly bepraised, I begin to feel afraid
+     that I shall not do as well again. However, we shall see as we get
+     on. As yet I am extremely irregular and precarious in my fits of
+     composition. The least thing puts me out of the vein, and even
+     applause flurries me and prevents my writing, though of course it
+     will ultimately be a stimulus....
+
+     "I have been somewhat touched by the manner in which my writings
+     have been noticed in the 'Evening Post.' I had considered Coleman
+     as cherishing an ill-will toward me, and, to tell the truth, have
+     not always been the most courteous in my opinions concerning him.
+     It is a painful thing either to dislike others or to fancy they
+     dislike us, and I have felt both pleasure and self-reproach at
+     finding myself so mistaken with respect to Mr. Coleman. I like to
+     out with a good feeling as soon as it rises, and so I have dropt
+     Coleman a line on the subject.
+
+     "I hope you will not attribute all this sensibility to the kind
+     reception I have met to an author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds
+     from very different sources. Vanity could not bring the tears into
+     my eyes as they have been brought by the kindness of my countrymen.
+     I have felt cast down, blighted, and broken-spirited, and these
+     sudden rays of sunshine agitate me more than they revive me. I
+     hope--I hope I may yet do something more worthy of the
+     appreciation lavished on me."
+
+Irving had not contemplated publishing in England, but the papers began
+to be reprinted, and he was obliged to protect himself. He offered the
+sketches to Murray, the princely publisher, who afterwards dealt so
+liberally with him, but the venture was declined in a civil note,
+written in that charming phraseology with which authors are familiar,
+but which they would in vain seek to imitate. Irving afterwards greatly
+prized this letter. He undertook the risks of the publication himself,
+and the book sold well, although "written by an author the public knew
+nothing of, and published by a bookseller who was going to ruin." In a
+few months Murray, who was thereafter proud to be Irving's publisher,
+undertook the publication of the two volumes of the "Sketch-Book," and
+also of the "Knickerbocker" history, which Mr. Lockhart had just been
+warmly praising in "Blackwood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright of the
+"Sketch-Book" for two hundred pounds. The time for the publisher's
+complaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott predicted in one of his
+kindly letters to Irving, "when
+
+                     'Your name is up and may go
+                      From Toledo to Madrid.'"
+
+Irving passed five years in England. Once recognized by the literary
+world, whatever was best in the society of letters and of fashion was
+open to him. He was a welcome guest in the best London houses, where he
+met the foremost literary personages of the time, and established most
+cordial relations with many of them; not to speak of statesmen,
+soldiers, and men and women of fashion, there were the elder D'Israeli,
+Southey, Campbell, Hallam, Gifford, Milman, Foscolo, Rogers, Scott, and
+Belzoni fresh from his Egyptian explorations. In Irving's letters this
+old society passes in review: Murray's drawing-rooms; the amusing
+blue-stocking coteries of fashion of which Lady Caroline Lamb was a
+promoter; the Countess of Besborough's, at whose house The Duke could be
+seen; the Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady Spence; Belzoni, a
+giant of six feet five, the centre of a group of eager auditors of the
+Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious
+talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with
+something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth,
+reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance
+that you would expect from his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming
+man,--he it is who prunes the contributions and takes the sting out of
+them (one would like to have seen them before the sting was taken out);
+and Scott, the right honest-hearted, entering into the passing scene
+with the hearty enjoyment of a child, to whom literature seems a sport
+rather than a labor or ambition, an author void of all the petulance,
+egotism, and peculiarities of the craft. We have Moore's authority for
+saying that the literary dinner described in the "The Tales of a
+Traveller," whimsical as it seems and pervaded by the conventional
+notion of the relations of publishers and authors, had a personal
+foundation. Irving's satire of both has always the old-time Grub Street
+flavor, or at least the reminiscent tone, which is, by the way, quite
+characteristic of nearly everything that he wrote about England. He was
+always a little in the past tense. Buckthorne's advice to his friend
+is, never to be eloquent to an author except in praise of his own works,
+or, what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the work of his
+contemporaries. "If ever he speaks favorably of the productions of a
+particular friend, dissent boldly from him; pronounce his friend to be a
+blockhead; never fear his being vexed. Much as people speak of the
+irritability of authors, I never found one to take offense at such
+contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly candid in
+admitting the faults of their friends." At the dinner Buckthorne
+explains the geographical boundaries in the land of literature: you may
+judge tolerably well of an author's popularity by the wine his
+bookseller gives him. "An author crosses the port line about the third
+edition, and gets into claret; and when he has reached the sixth or
+seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy." The two ends of the
+table were occupied by the two partners, one of whom laughed at the
+clever things said by the poet, while the other maintained his
+sedateness and kept on carving. "His gravity was explained to us by my
+friend Buckthorne. He informed me that the concerns of the house were
+admirably distributed among the partners. Thus, for instance, said he,
+the grave gentleman is the carving partner, who attends to the joints;
+and the other is the laughing partner, who attends to the jokes." If any
+of the jokes from the lower end of the table reached the upper end, they
+seldom produced much effect. "Even the laughing partner did not think it
+necessary to honor them with a smile; which my neighbor Buckthorne
+accounted for by informing me that there was a certain degree of
+popularity to be obtained before a bookseller could afford to laugh at
+an author's jokes."
+
+In August, 1820, we find Irving in Paris, where his reputation secured
+him a hearty welcome: he was often at the Cannings' and at Lord
+Holland's; Talma, then the king of the stage, became his friend, and
+there he made the acquaintance of Thomas Moore, which ripened into a
+familiar and lasting friendship. The two men were drawn to each other;
+Irving greatly admired the "noble-hearted, manly, spirited little
+fellow, with a mind as generous as his fancy is brilliant." Talma was
+playing Hamlet to overflowing houses, which hung on his actions with
+breathless attention, or broke into ungovernable applause; ladies were
+carried fainting from the boxes. The actor is described as short in
+stature, rather inclined to fat, with a large face and a thick neck; his
+eyes are bluish, and have a peculiar cast in them at times. He said to
+Irving that he thought the French character much changed--graver; the
+day of the classic drama, mere declamation and fine language, had gone
+by; the Revolution had taught them to demand real life, incident,
+passion, character. Irving's life in Paris was gay enough, and seriously
+interfered with his literary projects. He had the fortunes of his
+brother Peter on his mind also, and invested his earnings, then and for
+some years after, in enterprises for his benefit that ended in
+disappointment.
+
+The "Sketch-Book" was making a great fame for him in England. Jeffrey,
+in the "Edinburgh Review," paid it a most flattering tribute, and even
+the savage "Quarterly" praised it. A rumor attributed it to Scott, who
+was always masquerading; at least, it was said, he might have revised
+it, and should have the credit of its exquisite style. This led to a
+sprightly correspondence between Lady Littleton, the daughter of Earl
+Spencer, one of the most accomplished and lovely women of England, and
+Benjamin Rush, Minister to the Court of St. James, in the course of
+which Mr. Rush suggested the propriety of giving out under his official
+seal that Irving was the author of "Waverley." "Geoffrey Crayon is the
+most fashionable fellow of the day," wrote the painter Leslie. Lord
+Byron, in a letter to Murray, underscored his admiration of the author,
+and subsequently said to an American: "His Crayon,--I know it by heart;
+at least, there is not a passage that I cannot refer to immediately."
+And afterwards he wrote to Moore, "His writings are my delight." There
+seemed to be, as some one wrote, "a kind of conspiracy to hoist him over
+the heads of his contemporaries." Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence
+of his popularity was his publisher's enthusiasm. The publisher is an
+infallible contemporary barometer.
+
+It is worthy of note that an American should have captivated public
+attention at the moment when Scott and Byron were the idols of the
+English-reading world.
+
+In the following year Irving was again in England, visiting his sister
+in Birmingham, and tasting moderately the delights of London. He was,
+indeed, something of an invalid. An eruptive malady,--the revenge of
+nature, perhaps, for defeat in her earlier attack on his
+lungs,--appearing in his ankles, incapacitated him for walking,
+tormented him at intervals, so that literary composition was impossible,
+sent him on pilgrimages to curative springs, and on journeys undertaken
+for distraction and amusement, in which all work except that of seeing
+and absorbing material had to be postponed. He was subject to this
+recurring invalidism all his life, and we must regard a good part of the
+work he did as a pure triumph of determination over physical
+discouragement. This year the fruits of his interrupted labor appeared
+in "Bracebridge Hall," a volume that was well received, but did not add
+much to his reputation, though it contained "Dolph Heyliger," one of his
+most characteristic Dutch stories, and the "Stout Gentleman," one of
+his daintiest and most artistic bits of restrained humor.[1]
+
+     [Footnote 1: I was once [says his biographer] reading aloud in
+     his presence a very flattering review of his works, which had
+     been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came to
+     this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always a serious
+     end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that air of whimsical
+     significance so natural to him, "but it is true. I have kept
+     that to myself hitherto, but that man has found me out. He has
+     detected the moral of the _Stout Gentleman_."]
+
+Irving sought relief from his malady by an extended tour in Germany. He
+sojourned some time in Dresden, whither his reputation had preceded him,
+and where he was cordially and familiarly received, not only by the
+foreign residents, but at the prim and antiquated little court of King
+Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. Of Irving at this time Mrs. Emily
+Fuller (_nee_ Foster), whose relations with him have been referred to,
+wrote in 1860:--
+
+     "He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely in external manners and
+     look, but to the inner-most fibres and core of his heart:
+     sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with the
+     warmest affections; the most delightful and invariably interesting
+     companion; gay and full of humor, even in spite of occasional fits
+     of melancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject to when with
+     those he liked; a gift of conversation that flowed like a full
+     river in sunshine,--bright, easy, and abundant."
+
+Those were pleasant days at Dresden, filled up with the society of
+bright and warm-hearted people, varied by royal boar hunts, stiff
+ceremonies at the little court, tableaux, and private theatricals, yet
+tinged with a certain melancholy, partly constitutional, that appears in
+most of his letters. His mind was too unsettled for much composition. He
+had little self-confidence, and was easily put out by a breath of
+adverse criticism. At intervals he would come to the Fosters to read a
+manuscript of his own.
+
+     "On these occasions strict orders were given that no visitor should
+     be admitted till the last word had been read, and the whole praised
+     or criticised, as the case may be. Of criticism, however, we were
+     very spare, as a slight word would put him out of conceit of a
+     whole work. One of the best things he has published was thrown
+     aside, unfinished, for years, because the friend to whom he read
+     it, happening, unfortunately, not to be well, and sleepy, did not
+     seem to take the interest in it he expected. Too easily
+     discouraged, it was not till the latter part of his career that he
+     ever appreciated himself as an author. One condemning whisper
+     sounded louder in his ear than the plaudits of thousands."
+
+This from Miss Emily Foster, who elsewhere notes his kindliness in
+observing life:--
+
+     "Some persons, in looking upon life, view it as they would view a
+     picture, with a stern and criticising eye. He also looks upon life
+     as a picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights,--not its
+     defects and shadows. On the former he loves to dwell. He has a
+     wonderful knack at shutting his eyes to the sinister side of
+     anything. Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive to the
+     sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, but doubly alive to
+     their virtues and goodness. Indeed, people seemed to grow more good
+     with one so unselfish and so gentle."
+
+In London, some years later:--
+
+     "He was still the same; time changed him very little. His
+     conversation was as interesting as ever [he was always an excellent
+     relater]; his dark gray eyes still full of varying feeling; his
+     smile half playful, half melancholy, but ever kind. All that was
+     mean, or envious, or harsh, he seemed to turn from so completely
+     that, when with him, it seemed that such things were not. All
+     gentle and tender affections, Nature in her sweetest or grandest
+     moods, pervaded his whole imagination, and left no place for low or
+     evil thoughts; and when in good spirits, his humor, his droll
+     descriptions, and his fun would make the gravest or the saddest
+     laugh."
+
+As to Irving's "state of mind" in Dresden, it is pertinent to quote a
+passage from what we gather to be a journal kept by Miss Flora Foster:--
+
+     "He has written. He has confessed to my mother, as to a true and
+     dear friend, his love for E----, and his conviction of its utter
+     hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he
+     must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind. Yet he
+     cannot bear to give up our friendship,--an intercourse become so
+     dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happiness. Poor Irving!"
+
+It is well for our peace of mind that we do not know what is going down
+concerning us in "journals." On his way to the Herrnhuthers, Mr. Irving
+wrote to Mrs. Foster:--
+
+     "When I consider how I have trifled with my time, suffered painful
+     vicissitudes of feeling, which for a time damaged both mind and
+     body,--when I consider all this, I reproach myself that I did not
+     listen to the first impulse of my mind, and abandon Dresden long
+     since. And yet I think of returning! Why should I come back to
+     Dresden? The very inclination that dooms me thither should furnish
+     reasons for my staying away."
+
+In this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their right-angled, whitewashed
+world, were little attractive.
+
+     "If the Herrnhuthers were right in their notions, the world would
+     have been laid out in squares and angles and right lines, and
+     everything would have been white and black and snuff-color, as they
+     have been clipped by these merciless retrenchers of beauty and
+     enjoyment. And then their dormitories! Think of between one and two
+     hundred of these simple gentlemen cooped up at night in one great
+     chamber! What a concert of barrel-organs in this great resounding
+     saloon! And then their plan of marriage! The very birds of the air
+     choose their mates from preference and inclination; but this
+     detestable system of _lot_! The sentiment of love may be, and is,
+     in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry and romance, and
+     balderdashed with false sentiment; but with all its vitiations, it
+     is the beauty and the charm, the flavor and the fragrance, of all
+     intercourse between man and woman; it is the rosy cloud in the
+     morning of life; and if it does too often resolve itself into the
+     shower, yet, to my mind, it only makes our nature more fruitful in
+     what is excellent and amiable."
+
+Better suited him Prague, which is certainly a part of the "naughty
+world" that Irving preferred:--
+
+     "Old Prague still keeps up its warrior look, and swaggers about
+     with its rusty corselet and helm, though both sadly battered. There
+     seems to me to be an air of style and fashion about the first
+     people of Prague, and a good deal of beauty in the fashionable
+     circle. This, perhaps, is owing to my contemplating it from a
+     distance, and my imagination lending it tints occasionally. Both
+     actors and audience, contemplated from the pit of a theatre, look
+     better than when seen in the boxes and behind the scenes. I like to
+     contemplate society in this way occasionally, and to dress it up by
+     the help of fancy, to my own taste. When I get in the midst of it,
+     it is too apt to lose its charm, and then there is the trouble and
+     _ennui_ of being obliged to take an active part in the farce; but
+     to be a mere spectator is amusing. I am glad, therefore, that I
+     brought no letters to Prague. I shall leave it with a favorable
+     idea of its society and manners, from knowing nothing accurate of
+     either; and with a firm belief that every pretty woman I have seen
+     is an angel, as I am apt to think every pretty woman, until I have
+     found her out."
+
+In July, 1823, Irving returned to Paris, to the society of the Moores
+and the fascinations of the gay town, and to fitful literary work. Our
+author wrote with great facility and rapidity when the inspiration was
+on him, and produced an astonishing amount of manuscript in a short
+period; but he often waited and fretted through barren weeks and months
+for the movement of his fitful genius. His mind was teeming constantly
+with new projects, and nothing could exceed his industry when once he
+had taken a work in hand; but he never acquired the exact methodical
+habits which enable some literary men to calculate their power and
+quantity of production as accurately as that of a cotton mill.
+
+The political changes in France during the period of Irving's long
+sojourn in Paris do not seem to have taken much of his attention. In a
+letter dated October 5, 1824, he says: "We have had much bustle in Paris
+of late, between the death of one king and the succession of another. I
+have become a little callous to public sights, but have,
+notwithstanding, been to see the funeral of the late king, and the
+entrance into Paris of the present one. Charles X. begins his reign in a
+very conciliating manner, and is really popular. The Bourbons have
+gained great accession of power within a few years."
+
+The succession of Charles X. was also observed by another foreigner, who
+was making agreeable personal notes at that time in Paris, but who is
+not referred to by Irving, who for some unexplained reason failed to
+meet the genial Scotsman at breakfast. Perhaps it is to his failure to
+do so that he owes the semi-respectful reference to himself in Carlyle's
+"Reminiscences." Lacking the stimulus to his vocabulary of personal
+acquaintance, Carlyle simply wrote: "Washington Irving was said to be in
+Paris, a kind of lion at that time, whose books I somewhat esteemed.
+One day the Emerson-Tennant people bragged that they had engaged him to
+breakfast with us at a certain _cafe_ next morning. We all attended
+duly, Strackey among the rest, but no Washington came. 'Couldn't rightly
+come,' said Malcolm to me in a judicious _aside_, as we cheerfully
+breakfasted without him. I never saw Washington at all, but still have a
+mild esteem of the good man." This ought to be accepted as evidence of
+Carlyle's disinclination to say ill-natured things of those he did not
+know.
+
+The "Tales of a Traveller" appeared in 1824. In the author's opinion,
+with which the best critics agreed, it contained some of his best
+writing. He himself said in a letter to Brevoort, "There was more of an
+artistic touch about it, though this is not a thing to be appreciated by
+the many." It was rapidly written. The movement has a delightful
+spontaneity, and it is wanting in none of the charms of his style,
+unless, perhaps, the style is over-refined; but it was not a novelty,
+and the public began to criticise and demand a new note. This may have
+been one reason why he turned to a fresh field and to graver themes.
+For a time he busied himself on some American essays of a semi-political
+nature, which were never finished, and he seriously contemplated a Life
+of Washington; but all these projects were thrown aside for one that
+kindled his imagination,--the Life of Columbus; and in February, 1826,
+he was domiciled at Madrid, and settled down to a long period of
+unremitting and intense labor.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                                IN SPAIN.
+
+
+Irving's residence in Spain, which was prolonged till September, 1829,
+was the most fruitful period in his life, and of considerable
+consequence to literature. It is not easy to overestimate the debt of
+Americans to the man who first opened to them the fascinating domain of
+early Spanish history and romance. We can conceive of it by reflecting
+upon the blank that would exist without "The Alhambra," "The Conquest of
+Granada," "The Legends of the Conquest of Spain," and I may add the
+popular loss if we had not "The Lives of Columbus and his Companions."
+Irving had the creative touch, or at least the magic of the pen, to give
+a definite, universal, and romantic interest to whatever he described.
+We cannot deny him that. A few lines about the inn of the Red Horse at
+Stratford-on-Avon created a new object of pilgrimage right in the
+presence of the house and tomb of the poet. And how much of the romantic
+interest of all the English-reading world in the Alhambra is due to him;
+the name invariably recalls his own, and every visitor there is
+conscious of his presence. He has again and again been criticised almost
+out of court, and written down to the rank of the mere idle humorist;
+but as often as I take up "The Conquest of Granada" or "The Alhambra" I
+am aware of something that has eluded the critical analysis, and I
+conclude that if one cannot write for the few it may be worth while to
+write for the many.
+
+It was Irving's intention, when he went to Madrid, merely to make a
+translation of some historical documents which were then appearing,
+edited by M. Navarrete, from the papers of Bishop Las Casas and the
+journals of Columbus, entitled "The Voyages of Columbus." But when he
+found that this publication, although it contained many documents,
+hitherto unknown, that threw much light on the discovery of the New
+World, was rather a rich mass of materials for a history than a history
+itself, and that he had access in Madrid libraries to great collections
+of Spanish colonial history, he changed his plan, and determined to
+write a Life of Columbus. His studies for this led him deep into the old
+chronicles and legends of Spain, and out of these, with his own travel
+and observation, came those books of mingled fables, sentiment, fact,
+and humor which are after all the most enduring fruits of his residence
+in Spain.
+
+Notwithstanding his absorption in literary pursuits, Irving was not
+denied the charm of domestic society, which was all his life his chief
+delight. The house he most frequented in Madrid was that of Mr.
+D'Oubril, the Russian Minister. In his charming household were Madame
+D'Oubril and her niece, Mademoiselle Antoinette Bollviller, and Prince
+Dolgorouki, a young _attache_ of the legation. His letters to Prince
+Dolgorouki and to Mademoiselle Antoinette give a most lively and
+entertaining picture of his residence and travels in Spain. In one of
+them to the prince, who was temporarily absent from the city, we have
+glimpses of the happy hours, the happiest of all hours, passed in this
+refined family circle. Here is one that exhibits the still fresh
+romance in the heart of forty-four years:--
+
+     "Last evening, at your house, we had one of the most lovely
+     tableaux I ever beheld. It was the conception of Murillo,
+     represented by Madame A----. Mademoiselle Antoinette arranged the
+     tableau with her usual good taste, and the effect was enchanting.
+     It was more like a vision of something spiritual and celestial than
+     a representation of anything merely mortal; or rather it was woman
+     as in my romantic days I have been apt to imagine her, approaching
+     to the angelic nature. I have frequently admired Madame A----as a
+     mere beautiful woman, when I have seen her dressed up in the
+     fantastic attire of the _mode_; but here I beheld her elevated into
+     a representative of the divine purity and grace, exceeding even the
+     _beau ideal_ of the painter, for she even surpassed in beauty the
+     picture of Murillo. I felt as if I could have knelt down and
+     worshiped her. Heavens! what power women would have over us, if
+     they knew how to sustain the attractions which nature has bestowed
+     upon them, and which we are so ready to assist by our imaginations!
+     For my part, I am superstitious in my admiration of them, and like
+     to walk in a perpetual delusion, decking them out as divinities. I
+     thank no one to undeceive me, and to prove that they are mere
+     mortals."
+
+And he continues in another strain:--
+
+     How full of interest everything is connected with the old times in
+     Spain! I am more and more delighted with the old literature of the
+     country, its chronicles, plays, and romances. It has the wild vigor
+     and luxuriance of the forests of my native country, which, however
+     savage and entangled, are more captivating to my imagination than
+     the finest parks and cultivated woodlands.
+
+     "As I live in the neighborhood of the library of the Jesuits'
+     College of St. Isidoro, I pass most of my mornings there. You
+     cannot think what a delight I feel in passing through its
+     galleries, filled with old parchment-bound books. It is a perfect
+     wilderness of curiosity to me. What a deep-felt, quiet luxury there
+     is in delving into the rich ore of these old, neglected volumes!
+     How these hours of uninterrupted intellectual enjoyment, so
+     tranquil and independent, repay one for the _ennui_ and
+     disappointment too often experienced in the intercourse of society!
+     How they serve to bring back the feelings into a harmonious tone,
+     after being jarred and put out of tune by the collisions with the
+     world!"
+
+With the romantic period of Spanish history Irving was in ardent
+sympathy. The story of the Saracens entranced his mind; his imagination
+disclosed its Oriental quality while he pored over the romance and the
+ruin of that land of fierce contrasts, of arid wastes beaten by the
+burning sun, valleys blooming with intoxicating beauty, cities of
+architectural splendor and picturesque squalor. It is matter of regret
+that he, who seemed to need the southern sun to ripen his genius, never
+made a pilgrimage into the East, and gave to the world pictures of the
+lands that he would have touched with the charm of their own color and
+the witchery of their own romance.
+
+I will quote again from the letters, for they reveal the man quite as
+well as the more formal and better known writings. His first sight of
+the Alhambra is given in a letter to Mademoiselle Bollviller:--
+
+     "Our journey through La Mancha was cold and uninteresting,
+     excepting when we passed through the scenes of some of the exploits
+     of Don Quixote. We were repaid, however, by a night amidst the
+     scenery of the Sierra Morena, seen by the light of the full moon. I
+     do not know how this scenery would appear in the daytime, but by
+     moonlight it is wonderfully wild and romantic, especially after
+     passing the summit of the Sierra. As the day dawned we entered the
+     stern and savage defiles of the Despena Perros, which equals the
+     wild landscapes of Salvator Rosa. For some time we continued
+     winding along the brinks of precipices, overhung with cragged and
+     fantastic rocks; and after a succession of such rude and sterile
+     scenes we swept down to Carolina, and found ourselves in another
+     climate. The orange-trees, the aloes, and myrtle began to make
+     their appearance; we felt the warm temperature of the sweet South,
+     and began to breathe the balmy air of Andalusia. At Andujar we were
+     delighted with the neatness and cleanliness of the houses, the
+     _patios_ planted with orange and citron trees, and refreshed by
+     fountains. We passed a charming evening on the banks of the famous
+     Guadalquivir, enjoying the mild, balmy air of a southern evening,
+     and rejoicing in the certainty that we were at length in this land
+     of promise....
+
+     "But Granada, _bellissima_ Granada! Think what must have been our
+     delight when, after passing the famous bridge of Pinos, the scene
+     of many a bloody encounter between Moor and Christian, and
+     remarkable for having been the place where Columbus was overtaken
+     by the messenger of Isabella, when about to abandon Spain in
+     despair, we turned a promontory of the arid mountains of Elvira,
+     and Granada, with its towers, its Alhambra, and its snowy
+     mountains, burst upon our sight! The evening sun shone gloriously
+     upon its red towers as we approached it, and gave a mellow tone to
+     the rich scenery of the vega. It was like the magic glow which
+     poetry and romance have shed over this enchanting place....
+
+     "The more I contemplate these places, the more my admiration is
+     awakened for the elegant habits and delicate taste of the Moorish
+     monarchs. The delicately ornamented walls; the aromatic groves,
+     mingling with the freshness and the enlivening sounds of fountains
+     and rivers of water; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and
+     refinement; the balconies and galleries, open to the fresh mountain
+     breeze, and overlooking the loveliest scenery of the valley of the
+     Darro and the magnificent expanse of the vega,--it is impossible to
+     contemplate this delicious abode and not feel an admiration of the
+     genius and the poetical spirit of those who first devised this
+     earthly paradise. There is an intoxication of heart and soul in
+     looking over such scenery at this genial season. All nature is just
+     teeming with new life, and putting on the first delicate verdure
+     and bloom of spring. The almond-trees are in blossom; the fig-trees
+     are beginning to sprout; everything is in the tender bud, the
+     young leaf, or the half-open flower. The beauty of the season is
+     but half developed, so that while there is enough to yield present
+     delight there is the flattering promise of still further enjoyment.
+     Good heavens! after passing two years amidst the sunburnt wastes of
+     Castile, to be let loose to rove at large over this fragrant and
+     lovely land!"
+
+It was not easy, however, even in the Alhambra, perfectly to call up the
+past:--
+
+     "The verity of the present checks and chills the imagination in its
+     picturings of the past. I have been trying to conjure up images of
+     Boabdil passing in regal splendor through these courts; of his
+     beautiful queen; of the Abencerrages, the Gomares, and the other
+     Moorish cavaliers, who once filled these halls with the glitter of
+     arms and the splendor of Oriental luxury; but I am continually
+     awakened from my reveries by the jargon of an Andalusian peasant
+     who is setting out rose-bushes, and the song of a pretty Andalusian
+     girl who shows the Alhambra, and who is chanting a little romance
+     that has probably been handed down from generation to generation
+     since the time of the Moors."
+
+In another letter, written from Seville, he returns to the subject of
+the Moors. He is describing an excursion to Alcala de la Guadayra:--
+
+     "Nothing can be more charming than the windings of the little river
+     among banks hanging with gardens and orchards of all kinds of
+     delicate southern fruits, and tufted with flowers and aromatic
+     plants. The nightingales throng this lovely little valley as
+     numerously as they do the gardens of Aranjuez. Every bend of the
+     river presents a new landscape, for it is beset by old Moorish
+     mills of the most picturesque forms, each mill having an embattled
+     tower,--a memento of the valiant tenure by which those gallant
+     fellows, the Moors, held this earthly paradise, having to be ready
+     at all times for war, and as it were to work with one hand and
+     fight with the other. It is impossible to travel about Andalusia
+     and not imbibe a kind feeling for those Moors. They deserved this
+     beautiful country. They won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously
+     and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a
+     mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate
+     and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to
+     embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain.
+     Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high
+     poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in
+     this part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and
+     agreeable living, and all those habitudes and customs which throw a
+     peculiar and Oriental charm over the Andalusian mode of living may
+     be traced to the Moors. Whenever I enter these beautiful marble
+     _patios_, set out with shrubs and flowers, refreshed by fountains,
+     sheltered with awnings from the sun; where the air is cool at
+     noonday, the ear delighted in sultry summer by the sound of falling
+     water; where, in a word, a little paradise is shut up within the
+     walls of home, I think on the poor Moors, the inventors of all
+     these delights. I am at times almost ready to join in sentiment
+     with a worthy friend and countryman of mine whom I met in Malaga,
+     who swears the Moors are the only people that ever deserved the
+     country, and prays to Heaven that they may come over from Africa
+     and conquer it again."
+
+In a following paragraph we get a glimpse of a world, however, that the
+author loves still more:--
+
+     "Tell me everything about the children. I suppose the discreet
+     princess will soon consider it an indignity to be ranked among the
+     number. I am told she is growing with might and main, and is
+     determined not to stop until she is a woman outright. I would give
+     all the money in my pocket to be with those dear little women at
+     the round table in the saloon, or on the grass-plot in the garden,
+     to tell them some marvelous tales."
+
+And again:--
+
+     "Give my love to all my dear little friends of the round table,
+     from the discreet princess down to the little blue-eyed boy. Tell
+     _la petite Marie_ that I still remain true to her, though
+     surrounded by all the beauties of Seville; and that I swear (but
+     this she must keep between ourselves) that there is not a little
+     woman to compare with her in all Andalusia."
+
+The publication of "The Life of Columbus," which had been delayed by
+Irving's anxiety to secure historical accuracy in every detail, did not
+take place till February, 1828. For the English copyright Mr. Murray
+paid him L3,150. He wrote an abridgment of it, which he presented to his
+generous publisher, and which was a very profitable book (the first
+edition of ten thousand copies sold immediately). This was followed by
+the "Companions," and by "The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada," for
+which he received two thousand guineas. "The Alhambra" was not published
+till just before Irving's return to America, in 1832, and was brought
+out by Mr. Bentley, who bought it for one thousand guineas.
+
+"The Conquest of Granada," which I am told Irving in his latter years
+regarded as the best of all his works, was declared by Coleridge "a
+_chef-d'oeuvre_ of its kind." I think it bears re-reading as well as any
+of the Spanish books. Of the reception of the "Columbus" the author was
+very doubtful. Before it was finished he wrote:--
+
+     "I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition of my
+     countrymen, and look forward to cold scrutiny and stern criticism,
+     and this is a line of writing in which I have not hitherto
+     ascertained my own powers. Could I afford it, I should like to
+     write, and to lay my writings aside when finished. There is an
+     independent delight in study and in the creative exercise of the
+     pen; we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets in the
+     noisy rabble of the world, and there is an end of our dreaming."
+
+In a letter to Brevoort, February 23, 1828, he fears that he can never
+regain
+
+     "That delightful confidence which I once enjoyed of not the good
+     opinion, but the good will, of my countrymen. To me it is always
+     ten times more gratifying to be liked than to be admired; and I
+     confess to you, though I am a little too proud to confess it to the
+     world, the idea that the kindness of my countrymen toward me was
+     withering caused me for a long time the most weary depression of
+     spirits, and disheartened me from making any literary exertions."
+
+It has been a popular notion that Irving's career was uniformly one of
+ease. In this same letter he exclaims: "With all my exertions, I seem
+always to keep about up to my chin in troubled water, while the world, I
+suppose, thinks I am sailing smoothly, with wind and tide in my favor."
+
+In a subsequent letter to Brevoort, dated at Seville, December 26, 1828,
+occurs almost the only piece of impatience and sarcasm that this long
+correspondence affords. "Columbus" had succeeded beyond his expectation,
+and its popularity was so great that some enterprising American had
+projected an abridgment, which it seems would not be protected by the
+copyright of the original. Irving writes:--
+
+     "I have just sent to my brother an abridgment of 'Columbus' to be
+     published immediately, as I find some paltry fellow is pirating an
+     abridgment. Thus every line of life has its depredation. 'There be
+     land rats and water rats, land pirates and water pirates,--I mean
+     thieves,' as old Shylock says. I feel vexed at this shabby attempt
+     to purloin this work from me, it having really cost me more toil
+     and trouble than all my other productions, and being one that I
+     trusted would keep me current with my countrymen; but we are making
+     rapid advances in literature in America, and have already attained
+     many of the literary vices and diseases of the old countries of
+     Europe. We swarm with reviewers, though we have scarce original
+     works sufficient for them to alight and prey upon, and we closely
+     imitate all the worst tricks of the trade and of the craft in
+     England. Our literature, before long, will be like some of those
+     premature and aspiring whipsters, who become old men before they
+     are young ones, and fancy they prove their manhood by their
+     profligacy and their diseases."
+
+But the work had an immediate, continued, and deserved success. It was
+critically contrasted with Robertson's account of Columbus, and it is
+open to the charge of too much rhetorical color here and there, and it
+is at times too diffuse; but its substantial accuracy is not questioned,
+and the glow of the narrative springs legitimately from the romance of
+the theme. Irving understood, what our later historians have fully
+appreciated, the advantage of vivid individual portraiture in historical
+narrative. His conception of the character and mission of Columbus is
+largely outlined, but firmly and most carefully executed, and is one of
+the noblest in literature. I cannot think it idealized, though it
+required a poetic sensibility to enter into sympathy with the
+magnificent dreamer, who was regarded by his own generation as the fool
+of an idea. A more prosaic treatment would have utterly failed to
+represent that mind, which existed from boyhood in an ideal world, and,
+amid frustrated hopes, shattered plans, and ignoble returns for his
+sacrifices, could always rebuild its glowing projects, and conquer
+obloquy and death itself with immortal anticipations.
+
+Towards the close of his residence in Spain, Irving received
+unexpectedly the appointment of Secretary of Legation to the Court of
+St. James, at which Louis McLane was American Minister; and after some
+hesitation, and upon the urgency of his friends, he accepted it. He was
+in the thick of literary projects. One of these was the History of the
+Conquest of Mexico, which he afterwards surrendered to Mr. Prescott and
+another was the "Life of Washington," which was to wait many years for
+fulfillment. His natural diffidence and his reluctance to a routine life
+made him shrink from the diplomatic appointment; but once engaged in it,
+and launched again in London society, he was reconciled to the
+situation. Of honors there was no lack, nor of the adulation of social
+and literary circles. In April, 1830, the Royal Society of Literature
+awarded him one of the two annual gold medals placed at the disposal of
+the society by George IV., to be given to authors of literary works of
+eminent merit, the other being voted to the historian Hallam; and this
+distinction was followed by the degree of D.C.L. from the University of
+Oxford,--a title which the modest author never used.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+
+           RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE: THE MISSION TO MADRID.
+
+
+In 1831 Mr. Irving was thrown, by his diplomatic position, into the
+thick of the political and social tumult, when the Reform Bill was
+pending and war was expected in Europe. It is interesting to note that
+for a time he laid aside his attitude of the dispassionate observer, and
+caught the general excitement. He writes in March, expecting that the
+fate of the cabinet will be determined in a week, looking daily for
+decisive news from Paris, and fearing dismal tidings from Poland.
+"However," he goes on to say in a vague way, "the great cause of all the
+world will go on. What a stirring moment it is to live in! I never took
+such intense interest in newspapers. It seems to me as if life were
+breaking out anew with me, or that I were entering upon quite a new and
+almost unknown career of existence, and I rejoice to find my
+sensibilities, which were waning as to many objects of past interest,
+reviving with all their freshness and vivacity at the scenes and
+prospects opening around me." He expects the breaking of the thralldom
+of falsehood woven over the human mind; and, more definitely, hopes that
+the Reform Bill will prevail. Yet he is oppressed by the gloom hanging
+over the booksellers' trade, which he thinks will continue until reform
+and cholera have passed away.
+
+During the last months of his residence in England, the author renewed
+his impressions of Stratford (the grateful landlady of the Red Horse Inn
+showed him a poker which was locked up among the treasures of her house,
+on which she had caused to be engraved "Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre");
+spent some time at Newstead Abbey; and had the sorrowful pleasure in
+London of seeing Scott once more, and for the last time. The great
+novelist, in the sad eclipse of his powers, was staying in the city, on
+his way to Italy, and Mr. Lockhart asked Irving to dine with him. It was
+but a melancholy repast. "Ah," said Scott, as Irving gave him his arm,
+after dinner, "the times are changed, my good fellow, since we went over
+the Eildon Hills together. It is all nonsense to tell a man that his
+mind is not affected when his body is in this state."
+
+Irving retired from the legation in September, 1831, to return home, the
+longing to see his native land having become intense; but his arrival in
+New York was delayed till May, 1832.
+
+If he had any doubts of the sentiments of his countrymen toward him, his
+reception in New York dissipated them. America greeted her most famous
+literary man with a spontaneous outburst of love and admiration. The
+public banquet in New York, that was long remembered for its brilliancy,
+was followed by the tender of the same tribute in other cities,--an
+honor which his unconquerable shrinking from this kind of publicity
+compelled him to decline. The "Dutch Herodotus, Diedrich Knickerbocker,"
+to use the phrase of a toast, having come out of one such encounter with
+fair credit, did not care to tempt Providence further. The thought of
+making a dinner-table speech threw him into a sort of whimsical
+panic,--a noble infirmity, which characterized also Hawthorne and
+Thackeray.
+
+The enthusiasm manifested for the homesick author was equaled by his own
+for the land and the people he supremely loved. Nor was his surprise at
+the progress made during seventeen years less than his delight in it.
+His native place had become a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants;
+the accumulation of wealth and the activity of trade astonished him, and
+the literary stir was scarcely less unexpected. The steamboat had come
+to be used, so that he seemed to be transported from place to place by
+magic; and on a near view the politics of America seemed not less
+interesting than those of Europe. The nullification battle was set; the
+currency conflict still raged; it was a time of inflation and land
+speculation; the West, every day more explored and opened, was the land
+of promise for capital and energy. Fortunes were made in a day by buying
+lots in "paper towns." Into some of these speculations Irving put his
+savings; the investments were as permanent as they were unremunerative.
+
+Irving's first desire, however, on his recovery from the state of
+astonishment into which these changes plunged him, was to make himself
+thoroughly acquainted with the entire country and its development. To
+this end he made an extended tour in the South and West, which passed
+beyond the bounds of frontier settlement. The fruit of his excursion
+into the Pawnee country, on the waters of the Arkansas, a region
+untraversed by white men, except solitary trappers, was "A Tour on the
+Prairies," a sort of romance of reality, which remains to-day as good a
+description as we have of hunting adventure on the plains. It led also
+to the composition of other books on the West, which were more or less
+mere pieces of book-making for the market.
+
+Our author was far from idle. Indeed, he could not afford to be.
+Although he had received considerable sums from his books, and perhaps
+enough for his own simple wants, the responsibility of the support of
+his two brothers, Peter and Ebenezer, and several nieces, devolved upon
+him. And, besides, he had a longing to make himself a home, where he
+could pursue his calling undisturbed, and indulge the sweets of domestic
+and rural life, which of all things lay nearest his heart. And these
+two undertakings compelled him to be diligent with his pen to the end of
+his life. The spot he chose for his "Roost" was a little farm on the
+bank of the river at Tarrytown, close to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt,
+one of the loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situations on the
+Hudson. At first he intended nothing more than a summer retreat,
+inexpensive and simply furnished. But his experience was that of all who
+buy, and renovate, and build. The farm had on it a small stone Dutch
+cottage, built about a century before, and inhabited by one of the Van
+Tassels. This was enlarged, still preserving the quaint Dutch
+characteristics; it acquired a tower and a whimsical weathercock, the
+delight of the owner ("it was brought from Holland by Gill Davis, the
+King of Coney Island, who says he got it from a windmill which they were
+demolishing at the gate of Rotterdam, which windmill has been mentioned
+in 'Knickerbocker'"), and became one of the most snug and picturesque
+residences on the river. When the slip of Melrose ivy, which was
+brought over from Scotland by Mrs. Renwick and given to the author, had
+grown and well overrun it, the house, in the midst of sheltering groves
+and secluded walks, was as pretty a retreat as a poet could desire. But
+the little nook proved to have an insatiable capacity for swallowing up
+money, as the necessities of the author's establishment increased: there
+was always something to be done to the grounds; some alterations in the
+house; a green-house, a stable, a gardener's cottage, to be built,--and
+to the very end the outlay continued. The cottage necessitated economy
+in other personal expenses, and incessant employment of his pen. But
+Sunnyside, as the place was named, became the dearest spot on earth to
+him; it was his residence, from which he tore himself with reluctance,
+and to which he returned with eager longing; and here, surrounded by
+relatives whom he loved, he passed nearly all the remainder of his
+years, in as happy conditions, I think, as a bachelor ever enjoyed. His
+intellectual activity was unremitting, he had no lack of friends, there
+was only now and then a discordant note in the general estimation of his
+literary work, and he was the object of the most tender care from his
+nieces. Already, he writes, in October, 1838, "my little cottage is well
+stocked. I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself also, whenever he can
+be spared from town; sister Catherine and her daughter; Mr. Davis
+occasionally, with casual visits from all the rest of our family
+connection. The cottage, therefore, is never lonely." I like to dwell in
+thought upon this happy home, a real haven of rest after many
+wanderings; a seclusion broken only now and then by enforced absence,
+like that in Madrid as minister, but enlivened by many welcome guests.
+Perhaps the most notorious of these was a young Frenchman, a "somewhat
+quiet guest," who, after several months' imprisonment on board a French
+man-of-war, was set on shore at Norfolk, and spent a couple of months in
+New York and its vicinity, in 1837. This visit was vividly recalled to
+Irving in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Storrow, who was in Paris in
+1853, and had just been presented at court:--
+
+     "Louis Napoleon and Eugenie Montijo, Emperor and Empress of France!
+     one of whom I have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson; the
+     other, whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Granada. It
+     seems to cap the climax of the strange dramas of which Paris has
+     been the theatre during my life-time. I have repeatedly thought
+     that each grand _coup de theatre_ would be the last that would
+     occur in my time; but each has been succeeded by another equally
+     striking; and what will be the next, who can conjecture?
+
+     "The last time I saw Eugenie Montijo she was one of the reigning
+     belles of Madrid; and she and her giddy circle had swept away my
+     charming young friend, the beautiful and accomplished ---- ----,
+     into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugenie is upon a
+     throne, and ---- a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the
+     most rigorous orders! Poor ----! Perhaps, however, her fate may
+     ultimately be the happiest of the two. 'The storm' with her 'is
+     o'er, and she's at rest;' but the other is launched upon a
+     returnless shore, on a dangerous sea, infamous for its tremendous
+     shipwrecks. Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her career, and
+     the end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which seems to be of
+     'such stuff as dreams are made of'?"
+
+As we have seen, the large sums Irving earned by his pen were not spent
+in selfish indulgence. His habits and tastes were simple, and little
+would have sufficed for his individual needs. He cared not much for
+money, and seemed to want it only to increase the happiness of those who
+were confided to his care. A man less warm-hearted and more selfish, in
+his circumstances, would have settled down to a life of more ease and
+less responsibility.
+
+To go back to the period of his return to America. He was now past
+middle life, having returned to New York in his fiftieth year. But he
+was in the full flow of literary productiveness. I have noted the dates
+of his achievements, because his development was somewhat tardy compared
+with that of many of his contemporaries; but he had the "staying"
+qualities. The first crop of his mind was of course the most original;
+time and experience had toned down his exuberant humor; but the spring
+of his fancy was as free, his vigor was not abated, and his art was more
+refined. Some of his best work was yet to be done. And it is worthy of
+passing mention, in regard to his later productions, that his admirable
+sense of literary proportion, which is wanting in many good writers,
+characterized his work to the end.
+
+High as his position was as a man of letters at this time, the
+consideration in which he was held was much broader than that,--it was
+that of one of the first citizens of the Republic. His friends, readers,
+and admirers were not merely the literary class and the general public,
+but included nearly all the prominent statesmen of the time. Almost any
+career in public life would have been open to him if he had lent an ear
+to their solicitations. But political life was not to his taste, and it
+would have been fatal to his sensitive spirit. It did not require much
+self-denial, perhaps, to decline the candidacy for mayor of New York, or
+the honor of standing for Congress; but he put aside also the
+distinction of a seat in Mr. Van Buren's Cabinet as Secretary of the
+Navy. His main reason for declining it, aside from a diffidence in his
+own judgment in public matters, was his dislike of the turmoil of
+political life in Washington, and his sensitiveness to personal attacks
+which beset the occupants of high offices. But he also had come to a
+political divergence with Mr. Van Buren. He liked the man,--he liked
+almost everybody,--and esteemed him as a friend, but he apprehended
+trouble from the new direction of the party in power. Irving was almost
+devoid of party prejudice, and he never seemed to have strongly marked
+political opinions. Perhaps his nearest confession to a creed is
+contained in a letter he wrote to a member of the House of
+Representatives, Gouverneur Kemble, a little time before the offer of a
+position in the cabinet, in which he said that he did not relish some
+points of Van Buren's policy, nor believe in the honesty of some of his
+elbow counselors. I quote a passage from it:--
+
+     "As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly a republican, and
+     attached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of my
+     country; but I am a republican without gall, and have no bitterness
+     in my creed. I have no relish for Puritans, either in religion or
+     politics, who are for pushing principles to an extreme, and for
+     overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous
+     career.... Ours is a government of compromise. We have several
+     great and distinct interests bound up together, which, if not
+     separately consulted and severally accommodated may harass and
+     impair each other.... I always distrust the soundness of political
+     councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging
+     attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens. Such are those
+     urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and financial
+     classes of our country."
+
+During the ten years preceding his mission to Spain, Irving kept fagging
+away at the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous and ephemeral work.
+Among his other engagements was that of regular contributor to the
+"Knickerbocker Magazine," for a salary of two thousand dollars. He wrote
+the editor that he had observed that man, as he advances in life, is
+subject to a plethora of the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of
+wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes fond of telling long stories
+and doling out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. To avoid
+becoming the bore of the domestic circle, he proposed to ease off this
+surcharge of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness on the public
+through the pages of the periodical. The arrangement brought reputation
+to the magazine (which was published in the days when the honor of
+being in print was supposed by the publisher to be ample compensation to
+the scribe), but little profit to Mr. Irving. During this period he
+interested himself in an international copyright, as a means of
+fostering our young literature. He found that a work of merit, written
+by an American who had not established a commanding name in the market,
+met very cavalier treatment from our publishers, who frankly said that
+they need not trouble themselves about native works, when they could
+pick up every day successful books from the British press, for which
+they had to pay no copyright. Irving's advocacy of the proposed law was
+entirely unselfish, for his own market was secure.
+
+His chief works in these ten years were, "A Tour on the Prairies,"
+"Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "The Legends of the
+Conquest of Spain," "Astoria" (the heavy part of the work of it was done
+by his nephew Pierre), "Captain Bonneville," and a number of graceful
+occasional papers, collected afterwards under the title of "Wolfert's
+Roost." Two other books may properly be mentioned here, although they
+did not appear until after his return from his absence of four years and
+a half at the court of Madrid; these are the "Biography of Goldsmith"
+and "Mahomet and his Successors." At the age of sixty-six, he laid aside
+the "Life of Washington," on which he was engaged, and rapidly "threw
+off" these two books. The "Goldsmith" was enlarged from a sketch he had
+made twenty-five years before. It is an exquisite, sympathetic piece of
+work, without pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, but on the whole
+an excellent interpretation of the character. Author and subject had
+much in common: Irving had at least a kindly sympathy for the
+vagabondish inclinations of his predecessor, and with his humorous and
+cheerful regard of the world; perhaps it is significant of a deeper
+unity in character that both, at times, fancied they could please an
+intolerant world by attempting to play the flute. The "Mahomet" is a
+popular narrative, which throws no new light on the subject; it is
+pervaded by the author's charm of style and equity of judgment, but it
+lacks the virility of Gibbon's masterly picture of the Arabian prophet
+and the Saracenic onset.
+
+We need not dwell longer upon this period. One incident of it, however,
+cannot be passed in silence: that was the abandonment of his life-long
+project of writing the History of the Conquest of Mexico to Mr. William
+H. Prescott. It had been a scheme of his boyhood; he had made
+collections of materials for it during his first residence in Spain; and
+he was actually and absorbedly engaged in the composition of the first
+chapters, when he was sounded by Mr. Cogswell, of the Astor Library, in
+behalf of Mr. Prescott. Some conversation showed that Mr. Prescott was
+contemplating the subject upon which Mr. Irving was engaged, and the
+latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell to say that he abandoned it.
+Although our author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr. Prescott had not
+yet collected his materials, Irving renounced the glorious theme in such
+a manner that Prescott never suspected the pain and loss it cost him,
+nor the full extent of his own obligation. Some years afterwards Irving
+wrote to his nephew that in giving it up he in a manner gave up his
+bread, as he had no other subject to supply its place: "I was," he
+wrote, "dismounted from my _cheval de bataille_, and have never been
+completely mounted since." But he added that he was not sorry for the
+warm impulse that induced him to abandon the subject, and that Mr.
+Prescott's treatment of it had justified his opinion of him.
+Notwithstanding Prescott's very brilliant work, we cannot but feel some
+regret that Irving did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His method, as he
+outlined it, would have been the natural one. Instead of partially
+satisfying the reader's curiosity in a preliminary essay, in which the
+Aztec civilization was exposed, Irving would have begun with the entry
+of the conquerors, and carried his reader step by step onward, letting
+him share all the excitement and surprise of discovery which the
+invaders experienced, and learn of the wonders of the country in the
+manner most likely to impress both the imagination and the memory; and
+with his artistic sense of the value of the picturesque he would have
+brought into strong relief the _dramatis personae_ of the story.
+
+In 1842, Irving was tendered the honor of the mission to Madrid. It was
+an entire surprise to himself and to his friends. He came to look upon
+this as the "crowning honor of his life," and yet when the news first
+reached him he paced up and down his room, excited and astonished,
+revolving in his mind the separation from home and friends, and was
+heard murmuring, half to himself and half to his nephew, "It is
+hard,--very hard; yet I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the
+shorn lamb." His acceptance of the position was doubtless influenced by
+the intended honor to his profession, by the gratifying manner in which
+it came to him, by his desire to please his friends, and the belief,
+which was a delusion, that diplomatic life in Madrid would offer no
+serious interruption to his "Life of Washington," in which he had just
+become engaged. The nomination, the suggestion of Daniel Webster,
+Tyler's Secretary of State, was cordially approved by the President and
+cabinet, and confirmed almost by acclamation in the Senate. "Ah," said
+Mr. Clay, who was opposing nearly all the President's appointments,
+"this is a nomination everybody will concur in!" "If a person of more
+merit and higher qualification," wrote Mr. Webster in his official
+notification, "had presented himself, great as is my personal regard
+for you, I should have yielded it to higher considerations." No other
+appointment could have been made so complimentary to Spain, and it
+remains to this day one of the most honorable to his own country.
+
+In reading Irving's letters written during his third visit abroad, you
+are conscious that the glamour of life is gone for him, though not his
+kindliness towards the world, and that he is subject to few illusions;
+the show and pageantry no longer enchant,--they only weary. The novelty
+was gone, and he was no longer curious to see great sights and great
+people. He had declined a public dinner in New York, and he put aside
+the same hospitality offered by Liverpool and by Glasgow. In London he
+attended the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed anything he had
+seen in splendor and picturesque effect. "The personage," he writes,
+"who appeared least to enjoy the scene seemed to me to be the little
+Queen herself. She was flushed and heated, and evidently fatigued and
+oppressed with the state she had to keep up and the regal robes in
+which she was arrayed, and especially by a crown of gold, which weighed
+heavy on her brow, and to which she was continually raising her hand to
+move it slightly when it pressed. I hope and trust her real crown sits
+easier." The bearing of Prince Albert he found prepossessing, and he
+adds, "He speaks English very well;" as if that were a useful
+accomplishment for an English Prince Consort. His reception at court and
+by the ministers and diplomatic corps was very kind, and he greatly
+enjoyed meeting his old friends, Leslie, Rogers, and Moore. At Paris, in
+an informal presentation to the royal family, he experienced a very
+cordial welcome from the King and Queen and Madame Adelaide, each of
+whom took occasion to say something complimentary about his writings;
+but he escaped as soon as possible from social engagements. "Amidst all
+the splendors of London and Paris, I find my imagination refuses to take
+fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Of an
+anxious friend in Paris, who thought Irving was ruining his prospects by
+neglecting to leave his card with this or that duchess who had sought
+his acquaintance, he writes: "He attributes all this to very excessive
+modesty, not dreaming that the empty intercourse of saloons with people
+of rank and fashion could be a bore to one who has run the rounds of
+society for the greater part of half a century, and who likes to consult
+his own humor and pursuits."
+
+When Irving reached Madrid the affairs of the kingdom had assumed a
+powerful dramatic interest, wanting in none of the romantic elements
+that characterize the whole history of the peninsula. "The future career
+[he writes] of this gallant soldier, Espartero, whose merits and
+services have placed him at the head of the government, and the future
+fortunes of these isolated little princesses, the Queen and her sister,
+have an uncertainty hanging about them worthy of the fifth act in a
+melodrama." The drama continued, with constant shifting of scene, as
+long as Irving remained in Spain, and gave to his diplomatic life
+intense interest, and at times perilous excitement. His letters are full
+of animated pictures of the changing progress of the play; and although
+they belong rather to the gossip of history than to literary biography,
+they cannot be altogether omitted. The duties which the minister had to
+perform were unusual, delicate, and difficult; but I believe he
+acquitted himself of them with the skill of a born diplomatist. When he
+went to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. was, by aid of French
+troops, on the throne, the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, and
+her most enlightened men were in exile. While he still resided there, in
+1829, Ferdinand married, for his fourth wife, Maria Christina, sister of
+the King of Naples, and niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe. By her he
+had two daughters, his only children. In order that his own progeny
+might succeed him, he set aside the Salique law (which had been imposed
+by France) just before his death, in 1833, and revived the old Spanish
+law of succession. His eldest daughter, then three years old, was
+proclaimed Queen, by the name of Isabella II., and her mother guardian
+during her minority, which would end at the age of fourteen. Don Carlos,
+the king's eldest brother, immediately set up the standard of rebellion,
+supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the monks, and a great part of
+the clergy. The liberals rallied to the Queen. The Queen Regent did
+not, however, act in good faith with the popular party: she resisted all
+salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution of 1812 until
+compelled to by a popular uprising, and disgraced herself by a
+scandalous connection with one Munos, one of the royal body guards. She
+enriched this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for herself, which she
+sent out of the country. In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out of the
+country by the patriot soldier Espartero, she endeavored to gain him
+over to her side, but failed. Espartero became Regent, and Maria
+Christina repaired to Paris, where she was received with great
+distinction by Louis Philippe, and Paris became the focus of all sorts
+of machinations against the constitutional government of Spain, and of
+plots for its overthrow. One of these had just been defeated at the time
+of Irving's arrival. It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of
+the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was
+frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the
+palace. The little princesses had scarcely recovered from the horror of
+this night attack when our minister presented his credentials to the
+Queen through the Regent, thus breaking a diplomatic dead-lock, in which
+he was followed by all the other embassies except the French. I take
+some passages from the author's description of his first audience at the
+royal palace:--
+
+     "We passed through the spacious court, up the noble staircase, and
+     through the long suites of apartments of this splendid edifice,
+     most of them silent and vacant, the casements closed to keep out
+     the heat, so that a twilight reigned throughout the mighty pile,
+     not a little emblematical of the dubious fortunes of its inmates.
+     It seemed more like traversing a convent than a palace. I ought to
+     have mentioned that in ascending the grand staircase we found the
+     portal at the head of it, opening into the royal suite of
+     apartments, still bearing the marks of the midnight attack upon the
+     palace in October last, when an attempt was made to get possession
+     of the persons of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them
+     off.... The marble casements of the doors had been shattered in
+     several places, and the double doors themselves pierced all over
+     with bullet holes, from the musketry that played upon them from the
+     staircase during that eventful night. What must have been the
+     feelings of those poor children, on listening, from their
+     apartment, to the horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious
+     multitude, and the reports of fire-arms echoing and reverberating
+     through the vaulted halls and spacious courts of this immense
+     edifice, and dubious whether their own lives were not the object of
+     the assault!
+
+     "After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent
+     and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand
+     court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they were
+     glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great
+     saloon, with high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in
+     porcelain, and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight,
+     like the rest of the palace. At one end of the saloon the door
+     opened to an almost interminable range of other chambers, through
+     which, at a distance, we had a glimpse of some indistinct figures
+     in black. They glided into the saloon slowly, and with noiseless
+     steps. It was the little Queen, with her governess, Madame Mina,
+     widow of the general of that name, and her guardian, the excellent
+     Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of Orleans. The little
+     Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then paused. Madame
+     Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The Count
+     Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity,
+     and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a
+     very low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is
+     sufficiently well grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair
+     complexion, quite pale, with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave
+     demeanor, but a graceful deportment. I could not but regard her
+     with deep interest, knowing what important concerns depended upon
+     the life of this fragile little being, and to what a stormy and
+     precarious career she might be destined. Her solitary position,
+     also, separated from all her kindred except her little sister, a
+     mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded by
+     the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread sterility
+     around the occupant of a throne."
+
+I have quoted this passage not more on account of its intrinsic
+interest, than as a specimen of the author's consummate art of conveying
+an impression by what I may call the tone of his style; and this appears
+in all his correspondence relating to this picturesque and eventful
+period. During the four years of his residence the country was in a
+constant state of excitement and often of panic. Armies were marching
+over the kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, expecting an assault
+at one time; confusion reigned amid the changing adherents about the
+person of the child Queen. The duties of a minister were perplexing
+enough, when the Spanish government was changing its character and its
+_personnel_ with the rapidity of shifting scenes in a pantomime. "This
+consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to Mr. Webster, "is appalling.
+To carry on a negotiation with such transient functionaries is like
+bargaining at the window of a railroad car: before you can get a reply
+to a proposition the other party is out of sight."
+
+Apart from politics, Irving's residence was full of half-melancholy
+recollections and associations. In a letter to his old comrade Prince
+Dolgorouki, then Russian Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of
+their delightful intercourse at the D'Oubrils:--
+
+     "Time dispels charms and illusions. You remember how much I was
+     struck with a beautiful young woman (I will not mention names) who
+     appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the Assumption? She
+     was young, recently married, fresh and unhackneyed in society, and
+     my imagination decked her out with everything that was pure,
+     lovely, innocent, and angelic in womanhood. She was pointed out to
+     me in the theatre shortly after my arrival in Madrid. I turned with
+     eagerness to the original of the picture that had ever remained
+     hung up in sanctity in my mind. I found her still handsome, though
+     somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, _with her daughters,_ in
+     the box of a fashionable nobleman, younger than herself, rich in
+     purse but poor in intellect, and who was openly and notoriously her
+     _cavalier servante_. The charm was broken, the picture fell from
+     the wall. She may have the customs of a depraved country and
+     licentious state of society to excuse her; but I can never think of
+     her again in the halo of feminine purity and loveliness that
+     surrounded the Virgin of Murillo."
+
+During Irving's ministry he was twice absent, briefly in Paris and
+London, and was called to the latter place for consultation in regard to
+the Oregon boundary dispute, in the settlement of which he rendered
+valuable service. Space is not given me for further quotations from
+Irving's brilliant descriptions of court, characters, and society in
+that revolutionary time, nor of his half-melancholy pilgrimage to the
+southern scenes of his former reveries. But I will take a page from a
+letter to his sister, Mrs. Paris, describing his voyage from Barcelona
+to Marseilles, which exhibits the lively susceptibility of the author
+and diplomat who was then in his sixty-first year:--
+
+     "While I am writing at a table in the cabin, I am sensible of the
+     power of a pair of splendid Spanish eyes which are occasionally
+     flashing upon me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon the
+     paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will describe the owner of
+     them. She is a young married lady, about four or five and twenty,
+     middle sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of face, a
+     complexion sallow yet healthful, raven black hair, eyes dark,
+     large, and beaming, softened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy
+     red, yet finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. She is
+     dressed in black, as if in mourning; on one hand is a black glove;
+     the other hand, ungloved, is small, exquisitely formed, with taper
+     fingers and blue veins. She has just put it up to adjust her
+     clustering black locks. I never saw female hand more exquisite.
+     Really, if I were a young man, I should not be able to draw the
+     portrait of this beautiful creature so calmly.
+
+     "I was interrupted in my letter writing, by an observation of the
+     lady whom I was describing. She had caught my eye occasionally, as
+     it glanced from my letter toward her. 'Really, Senor,' said she, at
+     length, with a smile, 'one would think you were a painter taking my
+     likeness.' I could not resist the impulse. 'Indeed,' said I, 'I am
+     taking it; I am writing to a friend the other side of the world,
+     discussing things that are passing before me, and I could not help
+     noting down one of the best specimens of the country that I had met
+     with.' A little bantering took place between the young lady, her
+     husband, and myself, which ended in my reading off, as well as I
+     could into Spanish, the description I had just written down. It
+     occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken in excellent part.
+     The lady's cheek, for once, mantled with the rose. She laughed,
+     shook her head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait painter;
+     and the husband declared that, if I would stop at St. Filian, all
+     the ladies in the place would crowd to have their portraits
+     taken,--my pictures were so flattering. I have just parted with
+     them. The steamship stopped in the open sea, just in front of the
+     little bay of St. Filian; boats came off from shore for the party.
+     I helped the beautiful original of the portrait into the boat, and
+     promised her and her husband if ever I should come to St. Filian I
+     would pay them a visit. The last I noticed of her was a Spanish
+     farewell wave of her beautiful white hand, and the gleam of her
+     dazzling teeth as she smiled adieu. So there's a very tolerable
+     touch of romance for a gentleman of my years."
+
+When Irving announced his recall from the court of Madrid, the young
+Queen said to him in reply: "You may take with you into private life the
+intimate conviction that your frank and loyal conduct has contributed to
+draw closer the amicable relations which exist between North America and
+the Spanish nation, and that your distinguished personal merits have
+gained in my heart the appreciation which you merit by more than one
+title." The author was anxious to return. From the midst of court life
+in April, 1845, he had written: "I long to be once more back at dear
+little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy
+the simple pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family group
+once more about me. I grudge every year of absence that rolls by.
+To-morrow is my birthday. I shall then be sixty-two years old. The
+evening of life is fast drawing over me; still I hope to get back among
+my friends while there is a little sunshine left."
+
+It was the 19th of September, 1846, says his biographer, "when the
+impatient longing of his heart was gratified, and he found himself
+restored to his home for the thirteen years of happy life still
+remaining to him."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER IX.
+
+                     THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS.
+
+
+The Knickerbocker's "History of New York" and the "Sketch-Book" never
+would have won for Irving the gold medal of the Royal Society of
+Literature, or the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford.
+
+However much the world would have liked frankly to honor the writer for
+that which it most enjoyed and was under most obligations for, it would
+have been a violent shock to the constitution of things to have given
+such honor to the mere humorist and the writer of short sketches. The
+conventional literary proprieties must be observed. Only some laborious,
+solid, and improving work of the pen could sanction such distinction,--a
+book of research or an historical composition. It need not necessarily
+be dull, but it must be grave in tone and serious in intention, in order
+to give the author high recognition.
+
+Irving himself shared this opinion. He hoped, in the composition of his
+"Columbus" and his "Washington," to produce works which should justify
+the good opinion his countrymen had formed of him, should reasonably
+satisfy the expectations excited by his lighter books, and lay for him
+the basis of enduring reputation. All that he had done before was the
+play of careless genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, which might
+amuse and perhaps win an affectionate regard for the author, but could
+not justify a high respect or secure a permanent place in literature.
+For this, some work of scholarship and industry was needed.
+
+And yet everybody would probably have admitted that there was but one
+man then living who could have created and peopled the vast and humorous
+world of the Knickerbockers; that all the learning of Oxford and
+Cambridge together would not enable a man to draw the whimsical portrait
+of Ichabod Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend of Rip Van
+Winkle; while Europe was full of scholars of more learning than Irving,
+and writers of equal skill in narrative, who might have told the story
+of Columbus as well as he told it and perhaps better. The
+under-graduates of Oxford who hooted their admiration of the shy author
+when he appeared in the theatre to receive his complimentary degree
+perhaps understood this, and expressed it in their shouts of "Diedrich
+Knickerbocker," "Ichabod Crane," "Rip Van Winkle."
+
+Irving's "gift" was humor; and allied to this was sentiment. These
+qualities modified and restrained each other; and it was by these that
+he touched the heart. He acquired other powers which he himself may have
+valued more highly, and which brought him more substantial honors; but
+the historical compositions, which he and his contemporaries regarded as
+a solid basis of fame, could be spared without serious loss, while the
+works of humor, the first fruits of his genius, are possessions in
+English literature the loss of which would be irreparable. The world may
+never openly allow to humor a position "above the salt," but it clings
+to its fresh and original productions, generation after generation,
+finding room for them in its accumulating literary baggage, while more
+"important" tomes of scholarship and industry strew the line of its
+march.
+
+I feel that this study of Irving as a man of letters would be
+incomplete, especially for the young readers of this generation, if it
+did not contain some more extended citations from those works upon which
+we have formed our estimate of his quality. We will take first a few
+passages from the "History of New York."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It has been said that Irving lacked imagination. That, while he had
+humor and feeling and fancy, he was wanting in the higher quality, which
+is the last test of genius. We have come to attach to the word
+"imagination" a larger meaning than the mere reproduction in the mind of
+certain absent objects of sense that have been perceived; there must be
+a suggestion of something beyond these, and an ennobling suggestion, if
+not a combination, that amounts to a new creation. Now, it seems to me
+that the transmutation of the crude and theretofore unpoetical
+materials, which he found in the New World, into what is as absolute a
+creation as exists in literature, was a distinct work of the
+imagination. Its humorous quality does not interfere with its largeness
+of outline, nor with its essential poetic coloring. For, whimsical and
+comical as is the "Knickerbocker" creation, it is enlarged to the
+proportion of a realm, and over that new country of the imagination is
+always the rosy light of sentiment.
+
+This largeness of modified conception cannot be made apparent in such
+brief extracts as we can make, but they will show its quality and the
+author's humor. The Low-Dutch settlers of the Nieuw Nederlandts are
+supposed to have sailed from Amsterdam in a ship called the Goede Vrouw,
+built by the carpenters of that city, who always model their ships on
+the fair forms of their countrywomen. This vessel, whose beauteous model
+was declared to be the greatest belle in Amsterdam, had one hundred feet
+in the beam, one hundred feet in the keel, and one hundred feet from the
+bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. Those illustrious adventurers
+who sailed in her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a marshy
+ground, where they could drive piles and construct dykes. They made a
+settlement at the Indian village of Communipaw, the egg from which was
+hatched the mighty city of New York. In the author's time this place had
+lost its importance:--
+
+     "Communipaw is at present but a small village pleasantly situated,
+     among rural scenery, on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore
+     which was known in ancient legends by the name of Pavonia,[1] and
+     commands a grand prospect of the superb bay of New York. It is
+     within but half an hour's sail of the latter place, provided you
+     have a fair wind, and may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay, it
+     is a well-known fact, which I can testify from my own experience,
+     that on a clear still summer evening, you may hear, from the
+     Battery of New York, the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed
+     laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw, who, like most other
+     negroes, are famous for their risible powers. This is peculiarly
+     the case on Sunday evenings, when, it is remarked by an ingenious
+     and observant philosopher who has made great discoveries in the
+     neighborhood of this city, that they always laugh loudest, which he
+     attributes to the circumstance of their having their holiday
+     clothes on.
+
+     "These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the dark ages, engross
+     all the knowledge of the place, and being infinitely more
+     adventurous and more knowing than their masters, carry on all the
+     foreign trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded
+     with oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. They are great astrologers,
+     predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as
+     an almanac; they are moreover exquisite performers on
+     three-stringed fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the
+     far-famed powers of Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the
+     place, when at the plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot
+     until he hears the well-known whistle of his black driver and
+     companion. And from their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon
+     their fingers, they are regarded with as much veneration us were
+     the disciples of Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred
+     quaternary of numbers.
+
+     "As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise men and sound
+     philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their
+     heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; so
+     that they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the
+     troubles, anxieties, and revolutions of this distracted planet. I
+     am even told that many among them do verily believe that Holland,
+     of which they have heard so much from tradition, is situated
+     somewhere on Long Island,--that _Spiking-devil_ and _the Narrows_
+     are the two ends of the world,--that the country is still under the
+     dominion of their High Mightinesses,--and that the city of New York
+     still goes by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet every Saturday
+     afternoon at the only tavern in the place, which bears as a sign a
+     square-headed likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they smoke a
+     silent pipe, by way of promoting social conviviality, and
+     invariably drink a mug of cider to the success of Admiral Van
+     Tromp, who they imagine is still sweeping the British channel with
+     a broom at his mast-head.
+
+     "Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous little villages in
+     the vicinity of this most beautiful of cities, which are so many
+     strongholds and fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our
+     Dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they are cherished with
+     devout and scrupulous strictness. The dress of the original
+     settlers is handed down inviolate, from father to son: the
+     identical broad-brimmed hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad-bottomed
+     breeches, continue from generation to generation; and several
+     gigantic knee-buckles of massy silver are still in wear, that made
+     gallant display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw. The
+     language likewise continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations;
+     and so critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his
+     dialect, that his reading of a Low-Dutch psalm has much the same
+     effect on the nerves as the filing of a handsaw."
+
+     [Footnote 1: Pavonia in the ancient maps, is given to a tract
+     of country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy.]
+
+The early prosperity of this settlement is dwelt on with satisfaction by
+the author:--
+
+     "The neighboring Indians in a short time became accustomed to the
+     uncouth sound of the Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually
+     took place between them and the new-comers. The Indians were much
+     given to long talks, and the Dutch to long silence;--in this
+     particular, therefore, they accommodated each other completely. The
+     chiefs would make long speeches about the big bull, the Wabash, and
+     the Great Spirit, to which the others would listen very
+     attentively, smoke their pipes, and grunt _yah, mynher_,--whereat
+     the poor savages were wondrously delighted. They instructed the new
+     settlers in the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while the
+     latter, in return, made them drunk with true Hollands,--and then
+     taught them the art of making bargains.
+
+     "A brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were
+     scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight,
+     establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the
+     hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It
+     is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great
+     disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle
+     of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand
+     or foot in the other, the bundle was sure to kick the beam;--never
+     was a package of furs known to weigh more than two pounds in the
+     market of Communipaw!
+
+     "This is a singular fact,--but I have it direct from my
+     great-great-grandfather, who had risen to considerable importance
+     in the colony, being promoted to the office of weigh-master, on
+     account of the uncommon heaviness of his foot.
+
+     "The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe began now to
+     assume a very thriving appearance, and were comprehended under the
+     general title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as the Sage Vander
+     Donck observes, of their great resemblance to the Dutch
+     Netherlands,--which indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the
+     former were rugged and mountainous, and the latter level and
+     marshy. About this time the tranquillity of the Dutch colonists was
+     doomed to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, Captain Sir
+     Samuel Argal, sailing under a commission from Dale, governor of
+     Virginia, visited the Dutch settlements on Hudson River, and
+     demanded their submission to the English crown and Virginian
+     dominion. To this arrogant demand, as they were in no condition to
+     resist it, they submitted for the time, like discreet and
+     reasonable men.
+
+     "It does not appear that the valiant Argal molested the settlement
+     of Communipaw; on the contrary, I am told that when his vessel
+     first hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized with such a
+     panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing
+     vehemence; insomuch that they quickly raised a cloud, which,
+     combining with the surrounding woods and marshes, completely
+     enveloped and concealed their beloved village, and overhung the
+     fair regions of Pavonia--so that the terrible Captain Argal passed
+     on totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay
+     snugly couched in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapor.
+     In commemoration of this fortunate escape, the worthy inhabitants
+     have continued to smoke, almost without intermission, unto this
+     very day; which is said to be the cause of the remarkable fog which
+     often hangs over Communipaw of a clear afternoon."
+
+The golden age of New York was under the reign of Walter Van Twiller,
+the first governor of the province, and the best it ever had. In his
+sketch of this excellent magistrate Irving has embodied the abundance
+and tranquillity of those halcyon days:--
+
+     "The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a
+     long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away
+     their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in
+     Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular
+     wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked
+     of--which, next to being universally applauded, should be the
+     object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two
+     opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world: one, by
+     talking faster than they think, and the other, by holding their
+     tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer
+     acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many
+     a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be
+     considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual
+     remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I
+     apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up
+     within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in
+     monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish
+     thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to
+     laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and
+     prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence, that
+     set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him
+     into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire
+     into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the joke was
+     made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe
+     in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim,
+     'Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about.'
+
+     "With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a
+     subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing
+     magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a
+     scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine
+     both sides of it. Certain it is, that, if any matter were
+     propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine
+     at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake
+     his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at
+     length observe, that 'he had his doubts about the matter'; which
+     gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily
+     imposed upon. What is more, it has gained him a lasting name; for
+     to this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of
+     Twiller; which is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler,
+     or, in plain English, _Doubter_.
+
+     "The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and
+     proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of some
+     cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur.
+     He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five
+     inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such
+     stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's
+     ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of
+     supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and
+     settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the
+     shoulders. His body was oblong and particularly capacious at
+     bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was
+     a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of
+     walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the
+     weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little
+     the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible
+     index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of
+     those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with
+     what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in
+     the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament,
+     and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of
+     everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and
+     streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.
+
+     "His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four
+     stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and
+     doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the
+     four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true
+     philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly
+     settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had
+     lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know
+     whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had
+     watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his
+     pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of
+     those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed
+     his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding
+     atmosphere.
+
+     "In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat
+     in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the
+     Hague, fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and
+     curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of
+     gigantic eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long
+     Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been
+     presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty
+     with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would
+     he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his
+     right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours
+     together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black
+     frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has
+     even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length
+     and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his
+     eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed
+     by external objects; and at such times the internal commotion of
+     his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his
+     admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by his
+     contending doubts and opinions....
+
+     "I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and
+     habits of Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was
+     not only the first but also the best governor that ever presided
+     over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and
+     benevolent was his reign, that I do not find throughout the whole
+     of it a single instance of any offender being brought to
+     punishment,--a most indubitable sign of a merciful governor, and a
+     case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the illustrious King
+     Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was a lineal
+     descendant.
+
+     "The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was
+     distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering
+     presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after
+     he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was
+     making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with
+     milk and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of
+     Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam,
+     who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he
+     refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was
+     a heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller,
+     as I have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise
+     a mortal enemy to multiplying writings--or being disturbed at his
+     breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle
+     Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful
+     of Indian pudding into his mouth,--either as a sign that he
+     relished the dish, or comprehended the story,--he called unto him
+     his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge
+     jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons,
+     accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant.
+
+     "This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was
+     the seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true
+     believers. The two parties being confronted before him, each
+     produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character
+     that would have puzzled any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a
+     learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter took them
+     one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and
+     attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway
+     into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying
+     a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting
+     his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has just caught a
+     subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth,
+     puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity
+     and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over the
+     leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as
+     thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final
+     opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced:
+     therefore, Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should
+     give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should pay the costs.
+
+     "This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy
+     throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that
+     they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them.
+     But its happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place
+     throughout the whole of his administration; and the office of
+     constable fell into such decay, that there was not one of those
+     losel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more
+     particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem
+     it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record, and well
+     worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it was a
+     miraculous event in the history of the renowned Wouter--being the
+     only time he was ever known to come to a decision in the whole
+     course of his life."
+
+This peaceful age ended with the accession of William the Testy, and the
+advent of the enterprising Yankees. During the reigns of William Kieft
+and Peter Stuyvesant, between the Yankees of the Connecticut and the
+Swedes of the Delaware, the Dutch community knew no repose, and the
+"History" is little more than a series of exhausting sieges and
+desperate battles, which would have been as heroic as any in history if
+they had been attended with loss of life. The forces that were gathered
+by Peter Stuyvesant for the expedition to avenge upon the Swedes the
+defeat at Fort Casimir, and their appearance on the march, give some
+notion of the military prowess of the Dutch. Their appearance, when they
+were encamped on the Bowling Green, recalls the Homeric age:--
+
+     "In the centre, then, was pitched the tent of the men of battle of
+     the Manhattoes, who, being the inmates of the metropolis, composed
+     the lifeguards of the governor. These were commanded by the valiant
+     Stoffel Brinkerhoof, who, whilom had acquired such immortal fame at
+     Oyster Bay; they displayed as a standard a beaver _rampant_ on a
+     field of orange, being the arms of the province, and denoting the
+     persevering industry and the amphibious origin of the Nederlands.
+
+     "On their right hand might be seen the vassals of that renowned
+     Mynheer, Michael Paw, who lorded it over the fair regions of
+     ancient Pavonia, and the lands away south even unto the Navesink
+     mountains, and was moreover patroon of Gibbet Island. His standard
+     was borne by his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of
+     a huge oyster _recumbent_ upon a sea-green field; being the
+     armorial bearings of his favorite metropolis Communipaw. He brought
+     to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each
+     clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by
+     broad-brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hat-bands.
+     These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of
+     Pavonia, being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled
+     to have sprung from oysters.
+
+     "At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came
+     from the neighborhood of Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy
+     Dams, and the Van Dams,--incontinent hard swearers, as their names
+     betoken. They were terrible looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted
+     gaberdines, of that curious colored cloth called thunder and
+     lightning,--and bore as a standard three devil's darning-needles,
+     _volant_, in a flame-colored field.
+
+     "Hard by was the tent of the men of battle from the marshy borders
+     of the Waale-Boght and the country thereabouts. These were of a
+     sour aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, which abound in
+     these parts. They were the first institutors of that honorable
+     order of knighthood called _Fly-market shirks_, and, if tradition
+     speak true, did likewise introduce the far-famed step in dancing
+     called 'double trouble.' They were commanded by the fearless
+     Jacobus Varra Vanger,--and had, moreover, a jolly band of
+     Breuckelen ferry-men, who performed a brave concerto on conch
+     shells.
+
+     "But I refrain from pursuing this minute description which goes on
+     to describe the warriors of Bloemen-dael, and Weehawk, and
+     Hoboken, and sundry other places, well known in history and song;
+     for now do the notes of martial music alarm the people of New
+     Amsterdam, sounding afar from beyond the walls of the city. But
+     this alarm was in a little while relieved, for lo! from the midst
+     of a vast cloud of dust, they recognized the brimstone-colored
+     breeches and splendid silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant, glaring in
+     the sunbeams; and beheld him approaching at the head of a
+     formidable army, which he had mustered along the banks of the
+     Hudson. And here the excellent but anonymous writer of the
+     Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a brave and glorious
+     description of the forces, as they defiled through the principal
+     gate of the city, that stood by the head of Wall Street.
+
+     "First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit the pleasant
+     borders of the Bronx: these were short fat men, wearing exceeding
+     large trunk-breeches, and were renowned for feats of the trencher.
+     They were the first inventors of suppawn, or mush and milk.--Close
+     in their rear marched the Van Vlotens, of Kaatskill, horrible
+     quaffers of new cider, and arrant braggarts in their liquor.--After
+     them came the Van Pelts of Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen,
+     mounted upon goodly switch-tailed steeds of the Esopus breed. These
+     were mighty hunters of minks and musk-rats, whence came the word
+     _Peltry_.--Then the Van Nests of Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers of
+     birds'-nests, as their name denotes. To these, if report may be
+     believed, are we indebted for the invention of slap-jacks, or
+     buckwheat-cakes.--Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's creek.
+     These came armed with ferules and birchen rods, being a race of
+     schoolmasters, who first discovered the marvelous sympathy between
+     the seat of honor and the seat of intellect,--and that the shortest
+     way to get knowledge into the head was to hammer it into the
+     bottom.--Then the Van Grolls, of Antony's Nose, who carried their
+     liquor in fair round little pottles, by reason they could not bouse
+     it out of their canteens, having such rare long noses.--Then the
+     Gardeniers, of Hudson and thereabouts, distinguished by many
+     triumphant feats, such as robbing water-melon patches, smoking
+     rabbits out of their holes, and the like, and by being great lovers
+     of roasted pigs' tails. These were the ancestors of the renowned
+     congressman of that name.--Then the Van Hoesens, of Sing-Sing,
+     great choristers and players upon the jews-harp. These marched two
+     and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas.--Then the
+     Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. These gave birth to a jolly race of
+     publicans, who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring a
+     quart of wine into a pint bottle.--Then the Van Kortlandts, who
+     lived on the wild banks of the Croton, and were great killers of
+     wild ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in shooting with
+     the long bow.--Then the Van Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who
+     were the first that did ever kick with the left foot. They were
+     gallant bushwhackers and hunters of raccoons by moonlight.--Then
+     the Van Winkles, of Haerlem, potent suckers of eggs, and noted for
+     running of horses, and running up of scores at taverns. They were
+     the first that ever winked with both eyes at once.--Lastly came the
+     KNICKERBOCKERS, of the great town of Scaghtikoke, where the folk
+     lay stones upon the houses in windy weather, lest they should be
+     blown away. These derive their name, as some say, from _Knicker_,
+     to shake, and _Beker_, a goblet, indicating thereby that they were
+     sturdy toss-pots of yore; but, in truth, it was derived from
+     _Knicker_, to nod, and _Boeken_, books: plainly meaning that they
+     were great nodders or dozers over books. From them did descend the
+     writer of this history."
+
+In the midst of Irving's mock-heroics, he always preserves a substratum
+of good sense. An instance of this is the address of the redoubtable
+wooden-legged governor, on his departure at the head of his warriors to
+chastise the Swedes:--
+
+     "Certain it is, not an old woman in New Amsterdam but considered
+     Peter Stuyvesant as a tower of strength, and rested satisfied that
+     the public welfare was secure so long as he was in the city. It is
+     not surprising, then, that they looked upon his departure as a sore
+     affliction. With heavy hearts they draggled at the heels of his
+     troop, as they marched down to the river-side to embark. The
+     governor, from the stern of his schooner, gave a short but truly
+     patriarchal address to his citizens, wherein he recommended them to
+     comport like loyal and peaceable subjects--to go to church
+     regularly on Sundays, and to mind their business all the week
+     besides. That the women should be dutiful and affectionate to their
+     husbands,--looking after nobody's concerns but their
+     own,--eschewing all gossipings and morning gaddings,--and carrying
+     short tongues and long petticoats. That the men should abstain from
+     intermeddling in public concerns, intrusting the cares of
+     government to the officers appointed to support them,--staying at
+     home, like good citizens, making money for themselves, and getting
+     children for the benefit of their country. That the burgomasters
+     should look well to the public interest,--not oppressing the poor
+     nor indulging the rich,--not tasking their ingenuity to devise new
+     laws, but faithfully enforcing those which were already
+     made,--rather bending their attention to prevent evil than to
+     punish it; ever recollecting that civil magistrates should consider
+     themselves more as guardians of public morals than rat-catchers
+     employed to entrap public delinquents. Finally, he exhorted them,
+     one and all, high and low, rich and poor, to conduct themselves _as
+     well as they could_, assuring them that if they faithfully and
+     conscientiously complied with this golden rule, there was no danger
+     but that they would all conduct themselves well enough. This done,
+     he gave them a paternal benediction, the sturdy Antony sounded a
+     most loving farewell with his trumpet, the jolly crews put up a
+     shout of triumph, and the invincible armada swept off proudly down
+     the bay."
+
+The account of an expedition against Fort Christina deserves to be
+quoted in full, for it is an example of what war might be, full of
+excitement, and exercise, and heroism, without danger to life. We take
+up the narrative at the moment when the Dutch host,--
+
+                   "Brimful of wrath and cabbage,"--
+
+and excited by the eloquence of the mighty Peter, lighted their pipes,
+and charged upon the fort.
+
+     "The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cunning Risingh not to fire
+     until they could distinguish the whites of their assailants' eyes,
+     stood in horrid silence on the covert-way, until the eager Dutchmen
+     had ascended the glacis. Then did they pour into them such a
+     tremendous volley, that the very hills quaked around, and were
+     terrified even unto an incontinence of water, insomuch that certain
+     springs burst forth from their sides, which continue to run unto
+     the present day. Not a Dutchman but would have bitten the dust
+     beneath that dreadful fire, had not the protecting Minerva kindly
+     taken care that the Swedes should, one and all, observe their usual
+     custom of shutting their eyes and turning away their heads at the
+     moment of discharge.
+
+     "The Swedes followed up their fire by leaping the counterscarp, and
+     falling tooth and nail upon the foe with curious outcries. And now
+     might be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song.
+     Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff brandishing his
+     quarter-staff, like the giant Blanderon his oak-tree (for he
+     scorned to carry any other weapon), and drumming a horrific tune
+     upon the hard heads of the Swedish soldiery. There were the Van
+     Kortlandts, posted at a distance, like the Locrian archers of yore,
+     and plying it most potently with the long-bow, for which they were
+     so justly renowned. On a rising knoll were gathered the valiant
+     men of Sing-Sing, assisting marvelously in the fight by chanting
+     the great song of St. Nicholas; but as to the Gardeniers of Hudson,
+     they were absent on a marauding party, laying waste the neighboring
+     water-melon patches.
+
+     "In a different part of the field were the Van Grolls of Antony's
+     Nose, struggling to get to the thickest of the fight, but horribly
+     perplexed in a defile between two hills, by reason of the length of
+     their noses. So also the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so
+     renowned for kicking with the left foot, were brought to a stand
+     for want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner they had
+     eaten, and would have been put to utter rout but for the arrival of
+     a gallant corps of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who
+     advanced nimbly to their assistance on one foot. Nor must I omit to
+     mention the valiant achievements of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a
+     good quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a little pursy
+     Swedish drummer, whose hide he drummed most magnificently, and whom
+     he would infallibly have annihilated on the spot, but that he had
+     come into the battle with no other weapon but his trumpet.
+
+     "But now the combat thickened. On came the mighty Jacobus Varra
+     Vanger and the fighting-men of the Wallabout; after them thundered
+     the Van Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van Rippers and the Van
+     Brunts, bearing down all before them; then the Suy Dams, and the
+     Van Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering oath, at the head
+     of the warriors of Hell-gate, clad in their thunder-and-lightning
+     gaberdines; and lastly, the standard-bearers and body-guard of
+     Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of the Manhattoes.
+
+     "And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the
+     maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and
+     self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged,
+     panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of
+     missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broad-swords; thump!
+     went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks,
+     cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors
+     of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter,
+     higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head-over-heels, rough-and-tumble!
+     Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried
+     the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the
+     mine! roared stout Risingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of
+     Antony Van Corlear;--until all voice and sound became
+     unintelligible,--grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of
+     triumph mingling in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if
+     struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered
+     at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even
+     Christina Creek turned from its course and ran up a hill in
+     breathless terror!
+
+     "Long hung the contest doubtful; for though a heavy shower of rain,
+     sent by the "cloud-compelling Jove," in some measure cooled their
+     ardor, as doth a bucket of water thrown on a group of fighting
+     mastiffs, yet did they but pause for a moment, to return with
+     tenfold fury to the charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense
+     column of smoke was seen slowly rolling toward the scene of battle.
+     The combatants paused for a moment, gazing in mute astonishment,
+     until the wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the flaunting
+     banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of Communipaw. That valiant
+     chieftain came fearlessly on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed
+     Pavonians and a _corps de reserve_ of the Van Arsdales and Van
+     Bummels, who had remained behind to digest the enormous dinner they
+     had eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, smoking their pipes
+     with outrageous vigor, so as to raise the awful cloud that has been
+     mentioned, but marching exceedingly slow, being short of leg, and
+     of great rotundity in the belt.
+
+     "And now the deities who watched over the fortunes of the
+     Nederlanders having unthinkingly left the field, and stepped into a
+     neighboring tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, a
+     direful catastrophe had wellnigh ensued. Scarce had the myrmidons
+     of Michael Paw attained the front of battle, when the Swedes,
+     instructed by the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows full
+     at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this assault, and dismayed at
+     the havoc of their pipes, these ponderous warriors gave way, and
+     like a drove of frightened elephants broke through the ranks of
+     their own army. The little Hoppers were borne down in the surge;
+     the sacred banner emblazoned with the gigantic oyster of Communipaw
+     was trampled in the dirt; on blundered and thundered the
+     heavy-sterned fugitives, the Swedes pressing on their rear and
+     applying their feet _a parte poste_ of the Van Arsdales and the Van
+     Bummels with a vigor that prodigiously accelerated their movements;
+     nor did the renowned Michael Paw himself fail to receive divers
+     grievous and dishonorable visitations of shoe-leather.
+
+     "But what, oh Muse! was the rage of Peter Stuyvesant, when from
+     afar he saw his army giving way! In the transports of his wrath he
+     sent forth a roar, enough to shake the very hills. The men of the
+     Manhattoes plucked up new courage at the sound, or, rather, they
+     rallied at the voice of their leader, of whom they stood more in
+     awe than of all the Swedes in Christendom. Without waiting for
+     their aid, the daring Peter dashed, sword in hand, into the
+     thickest of the foe. Then might be seen achievements worthy of the
+     days of the giants. Wherever he went the enemy shrank before him;
+     the Swedes fled to right and left, or were driven, like dogs, into
+     their own ditch; but as he pushed forward, singly with headlong
+     courage, the foe closed behind and hung upon his rear. One aimed a
+     blow full at his heart; but the protecting power which watches over
+     the great and good turned aside the hostile blade and directed it
+     to a side-pocket, where reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box,
+     endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with supernatural powers,
+     doubtless from bearing the portrait of the blessed St. Nicholas.
+     Peter Stuyvesant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and
+     seizing him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, 'Ah, whoreson
+     caterpillar,' roared he, 'here's what shall make worms' meat of
+     thee!' so saying he whirled his sword and dealt a blow that would
+     have decapitated the varlet, but that the pitying steel struck
+     short and shaved the queue forever from his crown. At this moment
+     an arquebusier leveled his piece from a neighboring mound, with
+     deadly aim; but the watchful Minerva, who had just stopped to tie
+     up her garter, seeing the peril of her favorite hero, sent old
+     Boreas with his bellows, who, as the match descended to the pan,
+     gave a blast that blew the priming from the touch-hole.
+
+     "Thus waged the fight, when the stout Risingh, surveying the field
+     from the top of a little ravelin, perceived his troops banged,
+     beaten, and kicked by the invincible Peter. Drawing his falchion,
+     and uttering a thousand anathemas, he strode down to the scene of
+     combat with some such thundering strides as Jupiter is said by
+     Hesiod to have taken when he strode down the spheres to hurl his
+     thunder-bolts at the Titans.
+
+     "When the rival heroes came face to face, each made a prodigious
+     start in the style of a veteran stage-champion. Then did they
+     regard each other for a moment with the bitter aspect of two
+     furious ram-cats on the point of a clapper-clawing. Then did they
+     throw themselves into one attitude, then into another, striking
+     their swords on the ground, first on the right side, then on the
+     left: at last at it they went with incredible ferocity. Words
+     cannot tell the prodigies of strength and valor displayed in this
+     direful encounter,--an encounter compared to which the far-famed
+     battles of Ajax with Hector, of AEneas with Turnus, Orlando with
+     Rodomont, Guy of Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that
+     renowned Welsh knight, Sir Owen of the Mountains, with the giant
+     Guylon, were all gentle sports and holiday recreations. At length
+     the valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a blow enough to
+     cleave his adversary to the very chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising
+     his sword, warded it off so narrowly, that, glancing on one side,
+     it shaved away a huge canteen in which he carried his
+     liquor,--thence pursuing its trenchant course, it severed off a
+     deep coat-pocket, stored with bread and cheese,--which provant,
+     rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between
+     the Swedes and Dutchmen, and made the general battle to wax more
+     furious than ever.
+
+     "Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, the stout Risingh,
+     collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's
+     crest. In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course.
+     The biting steel clove through the stubborn ram beaver, and would
+     have cracked the crown of any one not endowed with supernatural
+     hardness of head; but the brittle weapon shivered in pieces on the
+     skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of
+     glory, round his grizzly visage.
+
+     "The good Peter reeled with the blow, and turning up his eyes
+     beheld a thousand suns, besides moons and stars, dancing about the
+     firmament; at length, missing his footing, by reason of his wooden
+     leg, down he came on his seat of honor with a crash which shook the
+     surrounding hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he not
+     been received into a cushion softer than velvet, which Providence,
+     or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, or some cow, had benevolently prepared
+     for his reception.
+
+     "The furious Risingh, in despite of the maxim, cherished by all
+     true knights, that 'fair play is a jewel,' hastened to take
+     advantage of the hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal
+     blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over the sconce with his
+     wooden leg, which set a chime of bells ringing triple bob-majors in
+     his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and
+     the wary Peter seizing a pocket-pistol, which lay hard by,
+     discharged it full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not my
+     reader mistake; it was not a murderous weapon loaded with powder
+     and ball, but a little sturdy stone pottle charged to the muzzle
+     with a double dram of true Dutch courage, which the knowing Antony
+     Van Corlear carried about him by way of replenishing his valor, and
+     which had dropped from his wallet during his furious encounter with
+     the drummer. The hideous weapon sang through the air, and true to
+     its course as was the fragment of a rock discharged at Hector by
+     bully Ajax, encountered the head of the gigantic Swede with
+     matchless violence.
+
+     "This heaven-directed blow decided the battle. The ponderous
+     pericranium of General Jan Risingh sank upon his breast; his knees
+     tottered under him; a deathlike torpor seized upon his frame, and
+     he tumbled to the earth with such violence that old Pluto started
+     with affright, lest he should have broken through the roof of his
+     infernal palace.
+
+     "His fall was the signal of defeat and victory: the Swedes gave
+     way, the Dutch pressed forward; the former took to their heels, the
+     latter hotly pursued. Some entered with them, pell-mell, through
+     the sally-port; others stormed the bastion, and others scrambled
+     over the curtain. Thus in a little while the fortress of Fort
+     Christina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege of full ten
+     hours, was carried by assault, without the loss of a single man on
+     either side. Victory, in the likeness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat
+     perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuyvesant; and it was
+     declared by all the writers whom he hired to write the history of
+     his expedition that on this memorable day he gained a sufficient
+     quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen of the greatest heroes in
+     Christendom!"
+
+In the "Sketch-Book," Irving set a kind of fashion in narrative essays,
+in brief stories of mingled humor and pathos, which was followed for
+half a century. He himself worked the same vein in "Bracebridge Hall,"
+and "Tales of a Traveller." And there is no doubt that some of the most
+fascinating of the minor sketches of Charles Dickens, such as the story
+of the Bagman's Uncle, are lineal descendants of, if they were not
+suggested by, Irving's "Adventure of My Uncle," and the "Bold Dragoon."
+
+The taste for the leisurely description and reminiscent essay of the
+"Sketch-Book" does not characterize the readers of this generation, and
+we have discovered that the pathos of its elaborated scenes is somewhat
+"literary." The sketches of "Little Britain," and "Westminster Abbey,"
+and, indeed, that of "Stratford-on-Avon," will for a long time retain
+their place in selections of "good reading;" but the "Sketch-Book" is
+only floated, as an original work, by two papers, the "Rip Van Winkle"
+and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow;" that is to say by the use of the
+Dutch material, and the elaboration of the "Knickerbocker Legend," which
+was the great achievement of Irving's life. This was broadened and
+deepened and illustrated by the several stories of the "Money Diggers,"
+of "Wolfert Webber" and "Kidd the Pirate," in "The Tales of a
+Traveller," and by "Dolph Heyliger" in "Bracebridge Hall." Irving was
+never more successful than in painting the Dutch manners and habits of
+the early time, and he returned again and again to the task until he not
+only made the shores of the Hudson and the islands of New York harbor
+and the East River classic ground, but until his conception of Dutch
+life in the New World had assumed historical solidity and become a
+tradition of the highest poetic value. If in the multiplicity of books
+and the change of taste the bulk of Irving's works shall go out of
+print, a volume made up of his Knickerbocker history and the legends
+relating to the region of New York and the Hudson would survive as long
+as anything that has been produced in this country.
+
+The philosophical student of the origin of New World society may find
+food for reflection in the "materiality" of the basis of the
+civilization of New York. The picture of abundance and of enjoyment of
+animal life is perhaps not overdrawn in Irving's sketch of the home of
+the Van Tassels, in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is all the extract
+we can make room for from that careful study:--
+
+     "Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each
+     week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van
+     Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer.
+     She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge;
+     ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches,
+     and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast
+     expectations. She was, withal, a little of a coquette, as might be
+     perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and
+     modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the
+     ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had
+     brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden
+     time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the
+     prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.
+
+     "Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it
+     is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor
+     in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her
+     paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a
+     thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true,
+     sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his
+     own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy, and
+     well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud
+     of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance rather than the
+     style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks
+     of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in
+     which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree
+     spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up
+     a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well,
+     formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass
+     to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf
+     willows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have
+     served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed
+     bursting forth with the treasures of the farm. The flail was busily
+     resounding within it from morning till night; swallows and martins
+     skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with
+     one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their
+     heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others
+     swelling and cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the
+     sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the
+     repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and
+     then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately
+     squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying
+     whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through
+     the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like
+     ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry.
+     Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a
+     husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished
+     wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his
+     heart--sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then
+     generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to
+     enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.
+
+     "The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous
+     promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye he
+     pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding
+     in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly
+     put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of
+     crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy, and the ducks
+     pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent
+     competency of onion-sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the
+     future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey
+     but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing,
+     and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright
+     chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with
+     uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous
+     spirit disdained to ask while living.
+
+     "As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his
+     great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of
+     wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard
+     burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of
+     Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit
+     these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they
+     might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in
+     immense tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness.
+     Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to
+     him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted
+     on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and
+     kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing
+     mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky,
+     Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.
+
+     "When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete.
+     It was one of those spacious farm-houses, with high-ridged, but
+     lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first
+     Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the
+     front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were
+     hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for
+     fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the
+     sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a
+     churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important
+     porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod
+     entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion and the
+     place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged
+     on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag
+     of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey
+     just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried
+     apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled
+     with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep
+     into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark
+     mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their
+     accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of
+     asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the
+     mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended
+     above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room,
+     and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense
+     treasures of old silver and well-mended china."
+
+It is an abrupt transition from these homely scenes, which humor
+commends to our liking, to the chivalrous pageant unrolled for us in the
+"Conquest of Granada." The former are more characteristic and the more
+enduring of Irving's writings, but as a literary artist his genius lent
+itself just as readily to Oriental and mediaeval romance as to the
+Knickerbocker legend; and there is no doubt that the delicate perception
+he had of chivalric achievements gave a refined tone to his mock
+heroics, which greatly heightened their effect. It may almost be claimed
+that Irving did for Granada and the Alhambra what he did, in a totally
+different way, for New York and its vicinity.
+
+The first passage I take from the "Conquest" is the description of the
+advent at Cordova of the Lord Scales, Earl of Rivers, who was brother of
+the queen of Henry VII., a soldier who had fought at Bosworth field, and
+now volunteered to aid Ferdinand and Isabella in the extermination of
+the Saracens. The description is put into the mouth of Fray Antonio
+Agapida, a fictitious chronicler invented by Irving, an unfortunate
+intervention which gives to the whole book an air of unveracity:--
+
+     "'This cavalier [he observes] was from the far island of England,
+     and brought with him a train of his vassals; men who had been
+     hardened in certain civil wars which raged in their country. They
+     were a comely race of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not
+     having the sunburnt, warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery.
+     They were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and could not
+     accommodate themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must
+     fain eat and drink after the manner of their own country. They were
+     often noisy and unruly, also, in their wassail; and their quarter
+     of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl.
+     They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like our
+     inflammable Spanish pride: they stood not much upon the _pundonor_,
+     the high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes;
+     but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a remote
+     and somewhat barbarous island, they believed themselves the most
+     perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord
+     Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it
+     must be said of them that they were marvelous good men in the
+     field, dexterous archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In
+     their great pride and self-will, they always sought to press in the
+     advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish
+     chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make a
+     brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish troops, but they went
+     into the fight deliberately, and persisted obstinately, and were
+     slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal they were much
+     esteemed yet little liked by our soldiery, who considered them
+     staunch companions in the field, yet coveted but little fellowship
+     with them in the camp.
+
+     "'Their commander, the Lord Scales, was an accomplished cavalier,
+     of gracious and noble presence and fair speech; it was a marvel to
+     see so much courtesy in a knight brought up so far from our
+     Castilian court. He was much honored by the king and queen, and
+     found great favor with the fair dames about the court, who indeed
+     are rather prone to be pleased with foreign cavaliers. He went
+     always in costly state, attended by pages and esquires, and
+     accompanied by noble young cavaliers of his country, who had
+     enrolled themselves under his banner, to learn the gentle exercise
+     of arms. In all pageants and festivals, the eyes of the populace
+     were attracted by the singular bearing and rich array of the
+     English earl and his train, who prided themselves in always
+     appearing in the garb and manner of their country--and were indeed
+     something very magnificent delectable, and strange to behold.'
+
+     "The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in his description of
+     the masters of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara, and their
+     valiant knights, armed at all points, and decorated with the badges
+     of their orders. These, he affirms, were the flower of Christian
+     chivalry; being constantly in service they became more steadfast
+     and accomplished in discipline than the irregular and temporary
+     levies of feudal nobles. Calm, solemn, and stately, they sat like
+     towers upon their powerful chargers. On parades they manifested
+     none of the show and ostentation of the other troops: neither, in
+     battle, did they endeavor to signalize themselves by any fiery
+     vivacity, or desperate and vainglorious exploit,--everything, with
+     them, was measured and sedate; yet it was observed that none were
+     more warlike in their appearance in the camp, or more terrible for
+     their achievements in the field.
+
+     "The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little
+     favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a
+     competition in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune;
+     and they feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be
+     introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the war. They
+     signified their disapprobation to several of the principal
+     noblemen, and recommended a more sober and soldier-like display
+     while in actual service.
+
+     "'These are rare troops for a tournay, my lord [said Ferdinand to
+     the Duke of Infantado, as he beheld his retainers glittering in
+     gold and embroidery]; but gold, though gorgeous, is soft and
+     yielding: iron is the metal for the field.'
+
+     "'Sire [replied the duke], if my men parade in gold, your majesty
+     will find they fight with steel.' The king smiled, but shook his
+     head, and the duke treasured up his speech in his heart."
+
+Our author excels in such descriptions as that of the progress of
+Isabella to the camp of Ferdinand after the capture of Loxa, and of the
+picturesque pageantry which imparted something of gayety to the brutal
+pastime of war:--
+
+     "It was in the early part of June that the queen departed from
+     Cordova, with the Princess Isabella and numerous ladies of her
+     court. She had a glorious attendance of cavaliers and pages, with
+     many guards and domestics. There were forty mules for the use of
+     the queen, the princess and their train.
+
+     "As this courtly cavalcade approached the Rock of the Lovers, on
+     the banks of the river Yeguas, they beheld a splendid train of
+     knights advancing to meet them. It was headed by that accomplished
+     cavalier the Marques Duke de Cadiz, accompanied by the adelantado
+     of Andalusia. He had left the camp the day after the capture of
+     Illora, and advanced thus far to receive the queen and escort her
+     over the borders. The queen received the marques with distinguished
+     honor, for he was esteemed the mirror of chivalry. His actions in
+     this war had become the theme of every tongue, and many hesitated
+     not to compare him in prowess with the immortal Cid.
+
+     "Thus gallantly attended, the queen entered the vanquished frontier
+     of Granada, journeying securely along the pleasant banks of the
+     Xenel, so lately subject to the scourings of the Moors. She stopped
+     at Loxa, where she administered aid and consolation to the wounded,
+     distributing money among them for their support, according to their
+     rank.
+
+     "The king, after the capture of Illora, had removed his camp before
+     the fortress of Moclin, with an intention of besieging it. Thither
+     the queen proceeded, still escorted through the mountain roads by
+     the Marques of Cadiz. As Isabella drew near to the camp, the Duke
+     del Infantado issued forth a league and a half to receive her,
+     magnificently arrayed, and followed by all his chivalry in glorious
+     attire. With him came the standard of Seville, borne by the
+     men-at-arms of that renowned city, and the Prior of St. Juan, with
+     his followers. They ranged themselves in order of battle, on the
+     left of the road by which the queen was to pass.
+
+     "The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in his description of the
+     state and grandeur of the Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a
+     chestnut mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair, decorated with
+     silver gilt. The housings of the mule were of fine crimson cloth;
+     the borders embroidered with gold; the reins and head-piece were of
+     satin, curiously embossed with needlework of silk, and wrought with
+     golden letters. The queen wore a brial or regal skirt of velvet,
+     under which were others of brocade; a scarlet mantle, ornamented in
+     the Moresco fashion; and a black hat, embroidered round the crown
+     and brim.
+
+     "The infanta was likewise mounted on a chestnut mule, richly
+     caparisoned. She wore a brial or skirt of black brocade, and a
+     black mantle ornamented like that of the queen.
+
+     "When the royal cavalcade passed by the chivalry of the Duke del
+     Infantado, which was drawn out in battle array, the queen made a
+     reverence to the standard of Seville, and ordered it to pass to the
+     right hand. When she approached the camp, the multitude ran forth
+     to meet her, with great demonstrations of joy; for she was
+     universally beloved by her subjects. All the battalions sallied
+     forth in military array, bearing the various standards and banners
+     of the camp, which were lowered in salutation as she passed.
+
+     "The king now came forth in royal state, mounted on a superb
+     chestnut horse, and attended by many grandees of Castile. He wore a
+     jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with cuisses or short skirts
+     of yellow satin, a loose cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish
+     scimiter, and a hat with plumes. The grandees who attended him were
+     arrayed with wonderful magnificence, each according to his taste
+     and invention.
+
+     "These high and mighty princes [says Antonio Agapida] regarded each
+     other with great deference, as allied sovereigns rather than with
+     connubial familiarity, as mere husband and wife. When they
+     approached each other, therefore, before embracing, they made three
+     profound reverences, the queen taking off her hat, and remaining in
+     a silk net or cawl, with her face uncovered. The king then
+     approached and embraced her, and kissed her respectfully on the
+     cheek. He also embraced his daughter the princess; and, making the
+     sign of the cross, he blessed her, and kissed her on the lips.
+
+     "The good Agapida seems scarcely to have been more struck with the
+     appearance of the sovereigns than with that of the English earl. He
+     followed [says he] immediately after the king, with great pomp,
+     and, in an extraordinary manner, taking precedence of all the rest.
+     He was mounted '_a la guisa_,' or with long stirrups, on a superb
+     chestnut horse, with trappings of azure silk which reached to the
+     ground. The housings were of mulberry, powdered with stars of gold.
+     He was armed in proof, and wore over his armor a short French
+     mantle of black brocade; he had a white French hat with plumes, and
+     carried on his left arm a small round buckler, banded with gold.
+     Five pages attended him, apparelled in silk and brocade, and
+     mounted on horses sumptuously caparisoned; he had also a train of
+     followers, bravely attired after the fashion of his country.
+
+     "He advanced in a chivalrous and courteous manner, making his
+     reverences first to the queen and infanta, and afterwards to the
+     king. Queen Isabella received him graciously, complimenting him on
+     his courageous conduct at Loxa, and condoling with him on the loss
+     of his teeth. The earl, however, made light of his disfiguring
+     wound, saying that 'our blessed Lord, who had built all that house,
+     had opened a window there, that he might see more readily what
+     passed within;' whereupon the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida is more
+     than ever astonished at the pregnant wit of this island cavalier.
+     The earl continued some little distance by the side of the royal
+     family, complimenting them all with courteous speeches, his horse
+     curveting and caracoling, but being managed with great grace and
+     dexterity,--leaving the grandees and the people at large not more
+     filled with admiration at the strangeness and magnificence of his
+     state than at the excellence of his horsemanship.
+
+     "To testify her sense of the gallantry and services of this noble
+     English knight, who had come from so far to assist in their wars,
+     the queen sent him the next day presents of twelve horses, with
+     stately tents, fine linen, two beds with coverings of gold brocade,
+     and many other articles of great value."
+
+The protracted siege of the city of Granada was the occasion of feats of
+arms and hostile courtesies which rival in brilliancy any in the
+romances of chivalry. Irving's pen is never more congenially employed
+than in describing these desperate but romantic encounters. One of the
+most picturesque of these was known as "the queen's skirmish." The royal
+encampment was situated so far from Granada that only the general aspect
+of the city could be seen as it rose from the vega, covering the sides
+of the hills with its palaces and towers. Queen Isabella expressed a
+desire for a nearer view of the city, whose beauty was renowned
+throughout the world, and the courteous Marques of Cadiz proposed to
+give her this perilous gratification.
+
+     "On the morning of June the 18th, a magnificent and powerful train
+     issued from the Christian camp. The advanced guard was composed of
+     legions of cavalry, heavily armed, looking like moving masses of
+     polished steel. Then came the king and queen, with the prince and
+     princesses, and the ladies of the court, surrounded by the royal
+     body-guard, sumptuously arrayed, composed of the sons of the most
+     illustrious houses of Spain; after these was the rear-guard, a
+     powerful force of horse and foot; for the flower of the army
+     sallied forth that day. The Moors gazed with fearful admiration at
+     this glorious pageant, wherein the pomp of the court was mingled
+     with the terrors of the camp. It moved along in radiant line,
+     across the vega, to the melodious thunders of martial music, while
+     banner and plume, and silken scarf, and rich brocade, gave a gay
+     and gorgeous relief to the grim visage of iron war that lurked
+     beneath.
+
+     "The army moved towards the hamlet of Zubia, built on the skirts of
+     the mountain to the left of Granada, and commanding a view of the
+     Alhambra, and the most beautiful quarter of the city. As they
+     approached the hamlet, the Marques of Villena, the Count Urena, and
+     Don Alonzo de Aguilar filed off with their battalions, and were
+     soon seen glittering along the side of the mountain above the
+     village. In the mean time the Marques of Cadiz, the Count de
+     Tendilla, the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fernandez, senior of
+     Alcaudrete and Montemayor, drew up their forces in battle array on
+     the plain below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of loyal
+     chivalry between the sovereigns and the city.
+
+     "Thus securely guarded, the royal party alighted, and, entering one
+     of the houses of the hamlet, which had been prepared for their
+     reception, enjoyed a full view of the city from its terraced roof.
+     The ladies of the court gazed with delight at the red towers of the
+     Alhambra, rising from amid shady groves, anticipating the time when
+     the Catholic sovereigns should be enthroned within its walls, and
+     its courts shine with the splendor of Spanish chivalry. 'The
+     reverend prelates and holy friars, who always surrounded the queen,
+     looked with serene satisfaction,' says Fray Antonio Agapida, 'at
+     this modern Babylon, enjoying the triumph that awaited them, when
+     those mosques and minarets should be converted into churches, and
+     goodly priests and bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis.'
+
+     "When the Moors beheld the Christians thus drawn forth in full
+     array in the plain, they supposed it was to offer battle, and
+     hesitated not to accept it. In a little while the queen beheld a
+     body of Moorish cavalry pouring into the vega, the riders managing
+     their fleet and fiery steeds with admirable address. They were
+     richly armed, and clothed in the most brilliant colors, and the
+     caparisons of their steeds flamed with gold and embroidery. This
+     was the favorite squadron of Muza, composed of the flower of the
+     youthful cavaliers of Granada. Others succeeded, some heavily
+     armed, others _a la gineta_, with lance and buckler; and lastly
+     came the legions of foot-soldiers, with arquebus and cross-bow, and
+     spear and scimiter.
+
+     "When the queen saw this army issuing from the city, she sent to
+     the Marques of Cadiz, and forbade any attack upon the enemy, or the
+     acceptance of any challenge to a skirmish; for she was loth that
+     her curiosity should cost the life of a single human being.
+
+     "The marques promised to obey, though sorely against his will; and
+     it grieved the spirit of the Spanish cavaliers to be obliged to
+     remain with sheathed swords while bearded by the foe. The Moors
+     could not comprehend the meaning of this inaction of the
+     Christians, after having apparently invited a battle. They sallied
+     several times from their ranks, and approached near enough to
+     discharge their arrows; but the Christians were immovable. Many of
+     the Moorish horsemen galloped close to the Christian ranks,
+     brandishing their lances and scimiters, and defying various
+     cavaliers to single combat; but Ferdinand had rigorously prohibited
+     all duels of this kind, and they dared not transgress his orders
+     under his very eye.
+
+     "Here, however, the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, in his enthusiasm
+     for the triumphs of the faith, records the following incident,
+     which we fear is not sustained by any grave chronicler of the
+     times, but rests merely on tradition, or the authority of certain
+     poets and dramatic writers, who have perpetuated the tradition in
+     their works. While this grim and reluctant tranquillity prevailed
+     along the Christian line, says Agapida, there rose a mingled shout
+     and sound of laughter near the gate of the city. A Moorish
+     horseman, armed at all points, issued forth, followed by a rabble,
+     who drew back as he approached the scene of danger. The Moor was
+     more robust and brawny than was common with his countrymen. His
+     visor was closed; he bore a huge buckler and a ponderous lance; his
+     scimiter was of a Damascus blade, and his richly ornamented dagger
+     was wrought by an artificer of Fez. He was known by his device to
+     be Tarfe, the most insolent, yet valiant, of the Moslem
+     warriors--the same who had hurled into the royal camp his lance,
+     inscribed to the queen. As he rode slowly along in front of the
+     army, his very steed, prancing with fiery eye and distended
+     nostril, seemed to breathe defiance to the Christians.
+
+     "But what were the feelings of the Spanish cavaliers when they
+     beheld, tied to the tail of his steed, and dragged in the dust, the
+     very inscription, 'AVE MARIA,' which Hernan Perez del Pulgar had
+     affixed to the door of the mosque! A burst of horror and
+     indignation broke forth from the army. Hernan was not at hand to
+     maintain his previous achievement; but one of his young companions
+     in arms, Garcilasso de la Vega by name, putting spurs to his horse,
+     galloped to the hamlet of Zubia, threw himself on his knees before
+     the king, and besought permission to accept the defiance of this
+     insolent infidel, and to revenge the insult offered to our Blessed
+     Lady. The request was too pious to be refused. Garcilasso remounted
+     his steed, closed his helmet, graced by four sable plumes, grasped
+     his buckler of Flemish workmanship, and his lance of matchless
+     temper, and defied the haughty Moor in the midst of his career. A
+     combat took place in view of the two armies and of the Castilian
+     court. The Moor was powerful in wielding his weapons, and
+     dexterous in managing his steed. He was of larger frame than
+     Garcilasso, and more completely armed, and the Christians trembled
+     for their champion. The shock of their encounter was dreadful;
+     their lances were shivered and sent up splinters in the air.
+     Garcilasso was thrown back in his saddle--his horse made a wide
+     career before he could recover, gather up the reins, and return to
+     the conflict. They now encountered each other with swords. The Moor
+     circled round his opponent, as a hawk circles when about to make a
+     swoop; his steed obeyed his rider with matchless quickness; at
+     every attack of the infidel, it seemed as if the Christian knight
+     must sink beneath his flashing scimiter. But if Garcilasso was
+     inferior to him in power, he was superior in agility; many of his
+     blows he parried; others he received upon his Flemish shield, which
+     was proof against the Damascus blade. The blood streamed from
+     numerous wounds received by either warrior. The Moor, seeing his
+     antagonist exhausted, availed himself of his superior force, and,
+     grappling, endeavored to wrest him from his saddle. They both fell
+     to earth; the Moor placed his knee upon the breast of his victim,
+     and, brandishing his dagger, aimed a blow at his throat. A cry of
+     despair was uttered by the Christian warriors, when suddenly they
+     beheld the Moor rolling lifeless in the dust. Garcilasso had
+     shortened his sword, and, as his adversary raised his arm to
+     strike, had pierced him to the heart. 'It was a singular and
+     miraculous victory,' says Fray Antonio Agapida; 'but the Christian
+     knight was armed by the sacred nature of his cause, and the Holy
+     Virgin gave him strength, like another David, to slay this gigantic
+     champion of the Gentiles.'
+
+     "The laws of chivalry were observed throughout the combat--no one
+     interfered on either side. Garcilasso now despoiled his adversary;
+     then, rescuing the holy inscription of 'AVE MARIA' from its
+     degrading situation, he elevated it on the point of his sword, and
+     bore it off as a signal of triumph, amidst the rapturous shouts of
+     the Christian army.
+
+     "The sun had now reached the meridian, and the hot blood of the
+     Moors was inflamed by its rays, and by the sight of the defeat of
+     their champion. Muza ordered two pieces of ordnance to open a fire
+     upon the Christians. A confusion was produced in one part of their
+     ranks: Muza called to the chiefs of the army, 'Let us waste no more
+     time in empty challenges--let us charge upon the enemy: he who
+     assaults has always an advantage in the combat.' So saying, he
+     rushed forward, followed by a large body of horse and foot, and
+     charged so furiously upon the advance guard of the Christians, that
+     he drove it in upon the battalion of the Marques of Cadiz.
+
+     "The gallant marques now considered himself absolved from all
+     further obedience to the queen's commands. He gave the signal to
+     attack. 'Santiago!' was shouted along the line; and he pressed
+     forward to the encounter, with his battalion of twelve hundred
+     lances. The other cavaliers followed his example, and the battle
+     instantly became general.
+
+     "When the king and queen beheld the armies thus rushing to the
+     combat, they threw themselves on their knees, and implored the Holy
+     Virgin to protect her faithful warriors. The prince and princess,
+     the ladies of the court, and the prelates and friars who were
+     present, did the same; and the effect of the prayers of these
+     illustrious and saintly persons was immediately apparent. The
+     fierceness with which the Moors had rushed to the attack was
+     suddenly cooled; they were bold and adroit for a skirmish, but
+     unequal to the veteran Spaniards in the open field. A panic seized
+     upon the foot-soldiers--they turned and took to flight. Muza and
+     his cavaliers in vain endeavored to rally them. Some took refuge in
+     the mountains; but the greater part fled to the city, in such
+     confusion that they overturned and trampled upon each other. The
+     Christians pursued them to the very gates. Upwards of two thousand
+     were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoners; and the two pieces
+     of ordnance were brought off as trophies of the victory. Not a
+     Christian lance but was bathed that day in the blood of an infidel.
+
+     "Such was the brief but bloody action which was known among the
+     Christian warriors by the name of "The Queen's Skirmish;" for when
+     the Marques of Cadiz waited upon her majesty to apologize for
+     breaking her commands, he attributed the victory entirely to her
+     presence. The queen, however, insisted that it was all owing to her
+     troops being led on by so valiant a commander. Her majesty had not
+     yet recovered from her agitation at beholding so terrible a scene
+     of bloodshed, though certain veterans present pronounced it as gay
+     and gentle a skirmish as they had ever witnessed."
+
+The charm of "The Alhambra" is largely in the leisurely, loitering,
+dreamy spirit in which the temporary American resident of the ancient
+palace-fortress entered into its mouldering beauties and romantic
+associations, and in the artistic skill with which he wove the
+commonplace daily life of his attendants there into the more brilliant
+woof of its past. The book abounds in delightful legends, and yet these
+are all so touched with the author's airy humor that our credulity is
+never overtaxed; we imbibe all the romantic interest of the place
+without for a moment losing our hold upon reality. The enchantments of
+this Moorish paradise become part of our mental possessions, without the
+least shock to our common sense. After a few days of residence in the
+part of the Alhambra occupied by Dame Tia Antonia and her family, of
+which the handmaid Dolores was the most fascinating member, Irving
+succeeded in establishing himself in a remote and vacant part of the
+vast pile, in a suite of delicate and elegant chambers, with secluded
+gardens and fountains, that had once been occupied by the beautiful
+Elizabeth of Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma, and more than four
+centuries ago by a Moorish beauty named Lindaraxa, who flourished in the
+court of Muhamed the Left-Handed. These solitary and ruined chambers had
+their own terrors and enchantments, and for the first nights gave the
+author little but sinister suggestions and grotesque food for his
+imagination. But familiarity dispersed the gloom and the superstitious
+fancies.
+
+     "In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took place in
+     the scene and its associations. The moon, which when I took
+     possession of my new apartments was invisible, gradually gained
+     each evening upon the darkness of the night, and at length rolled
+     in full splendor above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered
+     light into every court and hall. The garden beneath my window,
+     before wrapped in gloom, was gently lighted up; the orange and
+     citron trees were tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in the
+     moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly visible.
+
+     "I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the
+     walls: 'How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the
+     earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase
+     of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but
+     the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded
+     sky!'
+
+     "On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my window
+     inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered
+     fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the
+     elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the
+     clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight
+     hour, I have sallied out on another tour and wandered over the
+     whole building; but how different from my first tour! No longer
+     dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer
+     recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious,
+     beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies;
+     Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of
+     Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions! Who
+     can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a
+     place? The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia is
+     perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; we
+     feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of
+     frame, which render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is
+     added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its
+     plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories.
+     Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and
+     weather-stain, is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness;
+     the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are
+     illuminated with a softened radiance,--we tread the enchanted
+     palace of an Arabian tale!
+
+     "What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little airy
+     pavilion of the queen's toilet (el tocador de la reyna), which,
+     like a bird-cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from
+     its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect! To the right, the
+     swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of their
+     ruggedness and softened into a fairy land, with their snowy summits
+     gleaming like silver clouds against the deep blue sky. And then to
+     lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and
+     the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep
+     repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine,
+     and beyond all these the vapory vega fading away like a dreamland
+     in the distance.
+
+     "Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise from the Alameda,
+     where some gay Andalusians are dancing away the summer night.
+     Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous
+     voice, tell perchance the whereabout of some moonstruck lover
+     serenading his lady's window.
+
+     "Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed
+     loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of this most
+     suggestive pile; 'feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and
+     enjoying that mixture of reverie and sensation which steal away
+     existence in a southern climate; so that it has been almost morning
+     before I have retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the
+     falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa."
+
+One of the writer's vantage points of observation was a balcony of the
+central window of the Hall of Ambassadors, from which he had a
+magnificent prospect of mountain, valley, and vega, and could look down
+upon a busy scene of human life in an alameda, or public walk, at the
+foot of the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling the narrow gorge
+below. Here the author used to sit for hours, weaving histories out of
+the casual incidents passing under his eye, and the occupations of the
+busy mortals below. The following passage exhibits his power in
+transmuting the commonplace life of the present into material perfectly
+in keeping with the romantic associations of the place:--
+
+     "There was scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily
+     saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story,
+     though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct
+     opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole
+     drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the
+     Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the
+     veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the
+     strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus about to
+     be consigned to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction
+     that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of her cheek, that
+     she was a victim rather than a votary. She was arrayed in bridal
+     garments, and decked with a chaplet of white flowers, but her heart
+     evidently revolted at this mockery of a spiritual union, and
+     yearned after its earthly loves. A tall stern-looking man walked
+     near her in the procession: it was, of course, the tyrannical
+     father, who, from some bigoted or sordid motive, had compelled this
+     sacrifice. Amid the crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian
+     garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. It was doubtless
+     the secret lover from whom she was forever to be separated. My
+     indignation rose as I noted the malignant expression painted on the
+     countenances of the attendant monks and friars. The procession
+     arrived at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for the last
+     time upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal
+     threshold and disappeared within the building. The throng poured in
+     with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment
+     at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he
+     mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured
+     to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled of
+     her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the
+     bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of
+     its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I
+     saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the
+     funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world;
+     her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the
+     plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved,
+     without a tear; the lover--no--my imagination refused to portray
+     the anguish of the lover--there the picture remained a blank.
+
+     "After a time the throng again poured forth and dispersed various
+     ways, to enjoy the light of the sun and mingle with the stirring
+     scenes of life; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was no
+     longer there. The door of the convent closed that severed her from
+     the world forever. I saw the father and the lover issue forth; they
+     were in earnest conversation. The latter was vehement in his
+     gesticulations; I expected some violent termination to my drama;
+     but an angle of a building interfered and closed the scene. My eye
+     afterwards was frequently turned to that convent with painful
+     interest. I remarked late at night a solitary light twinkling from
+     a remote lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, 'the
+     unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while perhaps her lover paces
+     the street below in unavailing anguish.'
+
+     "--The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and destroyed in
+     an instant the cobweb tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he
+     had gathered facts concerning the scene, which put my fictions all
+     to flight. The heroine of my romance was neither young nor
+     handsome; she had no lover; she had entered the convent of her own
+     free will, as a respectable asylum, and was one of the most
+     cheerful residents within its walls.
+
+     "It was some little while before I could forgive the wrong done me
+     by the nun in being thus happy in her cell, in contradiction to all
+     the rules of romance; I diverted my spleen, however, by watching,
+     for a day or two, the pretty coquetries of a dark-eyed brunette,
+     who, from the covert of a balcony shrouded with flowering shrubs
+     and a silken awning, was carrying on a mysterious correspondence
+     with a handsome, dark, well-whiskered cavalier, who lurked
+     frequently in the street beneath her window. Sometimes I saw him at
+     an early hour, stealing forth wrapped to the eyes in a mantle.
+     Sometimes he loitered at a corner, in various disguises, apparently
+     waiting for a private signal to slip into the house. Then there was
+     the tinkling of a guitar at night, and a lantern shifted from place
+     to place in the balcony. I imagined another intrigue like that of
+     Almaviva, but was again disconcerted in all my suppositions. The
+     supposed lover turned out to be the husband of the lady, and a
+     noted contrabandista; and all his mysterious signs and movements
+     had doubtless some smuggling scheme in view.
+
+     "--I occasionally amused myself with noting from this balcony the
+     gradual changes of the scenes below, according to the different
+     stages of the day.
+
+     "Scarce has the gray dawn streaked the sky, and the earliest cock
+     crowed from the cottages of the hill-side, when the suburbs give
+     sign of reviving animation; for the fresh hours of dawning are
+     precious in the summer season in a sultry climate. All are anxious
+     to get the start of the sun, in the business of the day. The
+     muleteer drives forth his loaded train for the journey; the
+     traveler slings his carbine behind his saddle, and mounts his steed
+     at the gate of the hostel; the brown peasant from the country urges
+     forward his loitering beasts, laden with panniers of sunny fruit
+     and fresh dewy vegetables, for already the thrifty housewives are
+     hastening to the market.
+
+     "The sun is up and sparkles along the valley, tipping the
+     transparent foliage of the groves. The matin bells resound
+     melodiously through the pure bright air, announcing the hour of
+     devotion. The muleteer halts his burdened animals before the
+     chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, and enters with
+     hat in hand, smoothing his coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to
+     put up a prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the sierra. And
+     now steals forth on fairy foot the gentle Senora, in trim basquina,
+     with restless fan in hand, and dark eye flashing from beneath the
+     gracefully folded mantilla; she seeks some well-frequented church
+     to offer up her morning orisons; but the nicely adjusted dress, the
+     dainty shoe and cobweb stocking, the raven tresses exquisitely
+     braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among them like a gem,
+     show that earth divides with Heaven the empire of her thoughts.
+     Keep an eye upon her, careful mother, or virgin aunt, or vigilant
+     duenna, whichever you may be, that walk behind!
+
+     "As the morning advances, the din of labor augments on every side;
+     the streets are thronged with man, and steed, and beast of burden,
+     and there is a hum and murmur, like the surges of the ocean. As the
+     sun ascends to his meridian, the hum and bustle gradually decline;
+     at the height of noon there is a pause. The panting city sinks into
+     lassitude, and for several hours there is a general repose. The
+     windows are closed, the curtains drawn, the inhabitants retired
+     into the coolest recesses of their mansions; the full-fed monk
+     snores in his dormitory; the brawny porter lies stretched on the
+     pavement beside his burden; the peasant and the laborer sleep
+     beneath the trees of the Alameda, lulled by the sultry chirping of
+     the locust. The streets are deserted, except by the water-carrier,
+     who refreshes the ear by proclaiming the merits of his sparkling
+     beverage, 'colder than the mountain snow (_mas fria que la
+     nieve_).'
+
+     "As the sun declines, there is again a gradual reviving, and when
+     the vesper bell rings out his sinking knell, all nature seems to
+     rejoice that the tyrant of the day has fallen. Now begins the
+     bustle of enjoyment, when the citizens pour forth to breathe the
+     evening air, and revel away the brief twilight in the walks and
+     gardens of the Darro and Xenil.
+
+     "As night closes, the capricious scene assumes new features. Light
+     after light gradually twinkles forth; here a taper from a balconied
+     window; there a votive lamp before the image of a saint. Thus, by
+     degrees, the city emerges from the pervading gloom, and sparkles
+     with scattered lights, like the starry firmament. Now break forth
+     from court and garden, and street and lane, the tinkling of
+     innumerable guitars, and the clicking of castanets; blending, at
+     this lofty height, in a faint but general concert. 'Enjoy the
+     moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no
+     time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of
+     summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and
+     the passionate serenade."
+
+How perfectly is the illusion of departed splendor maintained in the
+opening of the chapter on "The Court of Lions."
+
+     "The peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace is its power of
+     calling up vague reveries and picturings of the past, and thus
+     clothing naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the
+     imagination. As I delight to walk in these 'vain shadows,' I am
+     prone to seek those parts of the Alhambra which are most favorable
+     to this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none are more so than the
+     Court of Lions, and its surrounding halls. Here the hand of time
+     has fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance and
+     splendor exist in almost their original brilliancy. Earthquakes
+     have shaken the foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest
+     towers; yet see! not one of those slender columns has been
+     displaced, not an arch of that light and fragile colonnade given
+     way, and all the fairy fretwork of these domes, apparently as
+     unsubstantial as the crystal fabrics of a morning's frost, exist
+     after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh as if from the hand
+     of the Moslem artist. I write in the midst of these mementos of the
+     past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated Hall of the
+     Abencerrages. The blood-stained fountain, the legendary monument of
+     their massacre, is before me; the lofty jet almost casts its dew
+     upon my paper. How difficult to reconcile the ancient tale of
+     violence and blood with the gentle and peaceful scene around!
+     Everything here appears calculated to inspire kind and happy
+     feelings, for everything is delicate and beautiful. The very light
+     falls tenderly from above, through the lantern of a dome tinted and
+     wrought as if by fairy hands. Through the ample and fretted arch of
+     the portal I behold the Court of Lions, with brilliant sunshine
+     gleaming along its colonnades and sparkling in its fountains. The
+     lively swallow dives into the court, and, rising with a surge,
+     darts away twittering over the roofs; the busy bee toils humming
+     among the flower-beds; and painted butterflies hover from plant to
+     plant, and flutter up and sport with each other in the sunny air.
+     It needs but a slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pensive
+     beauty of the harem loitering in these secluded haunts of Oriental
+     luxury.
+
+     "He, however, who would behold this scene under an aspect more in
+     unison with its fortunes, let him come when the shadows of evening
+     temper the brightness of the court, and throw a gloom into the
+     surrounding halls. Then nothing can be more serenely melancholy, or
+     more in harmony with the tale of departed grandeur.
+
+     "At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of Justice, whose deep
+     shadowy arcades extend across the upper end of the court. Here was
+     performed, in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella and their
+     triumphant court, the pompous ceremonial of high mass, on taking
+     possession of the Alhambra. The very cross is still to be seen upon
+     the wall, where the altar was erected, and where officiated the
+     Grand Cardinal of Spain, and others of the highest religious
+     dignitaries of the land. I picture to myself the scene when this
+     place was filled with the conquering host, that mixture of mitred
+     prelate and shaven monk, and steel-clad knight and silken courtier;
+     when crosses and crosiers and religious standards were mingled with
+     proud armorial ensigns and the banners of the haughty chiefs of
+     Spain, and flaunted in triumph through these Moslem halls. I
+     picture to myself Columbus, the future discoverer of a world,
+     taking his modest stand in a remote corner, the humble and
+     neglected spectator of the pageant. I see in imagination the
+     Catholic sovereigns prostrating themselves before the altar, and
+     pouring forth thanks for their victory; while the vaults resound
+     with sacred minstrelsy and the deep-toned Te Deum.
+
+     "The transient illusion is over,--the pageant melts from the
+     fancy,--monarch, priest, and warrior return into oblivion with the
+     poor Moslems over whom they exulted. The hall of their triumph is
+     waste and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the
+     owl hoots from the neighboring tower of Comares."
+
+It is a Moslem tradition that the court and army of Boabdil, the
+Unfortunate, the last Moorish King of Granada, are shut up in the
+mountain by a powerful enchantment, and that it is written in the book
+of fate that when the enchantment is broken, Boabdil will descend from
+the mountain at the head of his army, resume his throne in the Alhambra,
+and gathering together the enchanted warriors from all parts of Spain,
+reconquer the Peninsula. Nothing in this volume is more amusing and at
+the same time more poetic and romantic than the story of "Governor Manco
+and the Soldier," in which this legend is used to cover the exploit of a
+dare-devil contrabandista. But it is too long to quote. I take,
+therefore, another story, which has something of the same elements, that
+of a merry, mendicant student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by name, who
+wandered from village to village, and picked up a living by playing the
+guitar for the peasants, among whom, he was sure of a hearty welcome.
+In the course of his wandering he had found a seal-ring, having for its
+device the cabalistic sign, invented by King Solomon the Wise, and of
+mighty power in all cases of enchantment.
+
+     "At length he arrived at the great object of his musical
+     vagabondizing, the far-famed city of Granada, and hailed with
+     wonder and delight its Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its
+     snowy mountains glistening through a summer atmosphere. It is
+     needless to say with what eager curiosity he entered its gates and
+     wandered through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental
+     monuments. Every female face peering through a window or beaming
+     from a balcony was to him a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor could he meet
+     a stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready to fancy her a
+     Moorish princess, and to spread his student's robe beneath her
+     feet.
+
+     "His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth and his good looks,
+     won him a universal welcome in spite of his ragged robes, and for
+     several days he led a gay life in the old Moorish capital and its
+     environs. One of his occasional haunts was the fountain of
+     Avellanos, in the valley of Darro. It is one of the popular resorts
+     of Granada, and has been so since the days of the Moors; and here
+     the student had an opportunity of pursuing his studies of female
+     beauty; a branch of study to which he was a little prone.
+
+     "Here he would take his seat with his guitar, improvise
+     love-ditties to admiring groups of majos and majas, or prompt with
+     his music the ever-ready dance. He was thus engaged one evening
+     when he beheld a padre of the church advancing, at whose approach
+     every one touched the hat. He was evidently a man of consequence;
+     he certainly was a mirror of good if not of holy living; robust and
+     rosy-faced, and breathing at every pore with the warmth of the
+     weather and the exercise of the walk. As he passed along he would
+     every now and then draw a maravedi out of his pocket and bestow it
+     on a beggar, with an air of signal beneficence. 'Ah, the blessed
+     father!' would be the cry; 'long life to him, and may he soon be a
+     bishop!'
+
+     "To aid his steps in ascending the hill he leaned gently now and
+     then on the arm of a handmaid, evidently the pet-lamb of this
+     kindest of pastors. Ah, such a damsel! Andalus from head to foot;
+     from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and lacework stocking;
+     Andalus in every movement; in every undulation of the body:--ripe,
+     melting Andalus! But then so modest!--so shy!--ever, with downcast
+     eyes, listening to the words of the padre; or, if by chance she let
+     flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and her eyes once more
+     cast to the ground.
+
+     "The good padre looked benignantly on the company about the
+     fountain, and took his seat with some emphasis on a stone bench,
+     while the handmaid hastened to bring him a glass of sparkling
+     water. He sipped it deliberately and with a relish, tempering it
+     with one of those spongy pieces of frosted eggs and sugar so dear
+     to Spanish epicures, and on returning the glass to the hand of the
+     damsel pinched her cheek with infinite loving-kindness.
+
+     "'Ah, the good pastor!' whispered the student to himself; 'what a
+     happiness would it be to be gathered into his fold with such a
+     pet-lamb for a companion!'
+
+     "But no such good fare was likely to befall him. In vain he essayed
+     those powers of pleasing which he had found so irresistible with
+     country curates and country lasses. Never had he touched his guitar
+     with such skill; never had he poured forth more soul-moving
+     ditties, but he had no longer a country curate or country lass to
+     deal with. The worthy priest evidently did not relish music, and
+     the modest damsel never raised her eyes from the ground. They
+     remained but a short time at the fountain; the good padre hastened
+     their return to Granada. The damsel gave the student one shy glance
+     in retiring; but it plucked the heart out of his bosom!
+
+     "He inquired about them after they had gone. Padre Tomas was one
+     of the saints of Granada, a model of regularity; punctual in his
+     hour of rising; his hour of taking a paseo for an appetite; his
+     hours of eating; his hour of taking his siesta; his hour of playing
+     his game of tresillo, of an evening, with some of the dames of the
+     cathedral circle; his hour of supping, and his hour of retiring to
+     rest, to gather fresh strength for another day's round of similar
+     duties. He had an easy sleek mule for his riding; a matronly
+     housekeeper skilled in preparing tidbits for his table; and the
+     pet-lamb, to smooth his pillow at night and bring him his chocolate
+     in the morning.
+
+     "Adieu now to the gay, thoughtless life of the student; the
+     side-glance of a bright eye had been the undoing of him. Day and
+     night he could not get the image of this most modest damsel out of
+     his mind. He sought the mansion of the padre. Alas! it was above
+     the class of houses accessible to a strolling student like himself.
+     The worthy padre had no sympathy with him; he had never been
+     _Estudiante sopista_, obliged to sing for his supper. He blockaded
+     the house by day, catching a glance of the damsel now and then as
+     she appeared at a casement; but these glances only fed his flame
+     without encouraging his hope. He serenaded her balcony at night,
+     and at one time was flattered by the appearance of something white
+     at a window. Alas, it was only the night-cap of the padre.
+
+     "Never was lover more devoted; never damsel more shy: the poor
+     student was reduced to despair. At length arrived the eve of St.
+     John, when the lower classes of Granada swarm into the country,
+     dance away the afternoon, and pass midsummer's night on the banks
+     of the Darro and the Xenil. Happy are they who on this eventful
+     night can wash their faces in those waters just as the cathedral
+     bell tells midnight; for at that precise moment they have a
+     beautifying power. The student, having nothing to do, suffered
+     himself to be carried away by the holiday-seeking throng until he
+     found himself in the narrow valley of the Darro, below the lofty
+     hill and ruddy towers of the Alhambra. The dry bed of the river;
+     the rocks which border it; the terraced gardens which overhang it,
+     were alive with variegated groups, dancing under the vines and
+     fig-trees to the sound of the guitar and castanets.
+
+     "The student remained for some time in doleful dumps, leaning
+     against one of the huge misshapen stone pomegranates which adorn
+     the ends of the little bridge over the Darro. He cast a wistful
+     glance upon the merry scene, where every cavalier had his dame; or,
+     to speak more appropriately, every Jack his Jill; sighed at his
+     own solitary state, a victim to the black eye of the most
+     unapproachable of damsels, and repined at his ragged garb, which
+     seemed to shut the gate of hope against him.
+
+     "By degrees his attention was attracted to a neighbor equally
+     solitary with himself. This was a tall soldier, of a stern aspect
+     and grizzled beard, who seemed posted as a sentry at the opposite
+     pomegranate. His face was bronzed by time; he was arrayed in
+     ancient Spanish armor, with buckler and lance, and stood immovable
+     as a statue. What surprised the student was, that though thus
+     strangely equipped, he was totally unnoticed by the passing throng,
+     albeit that many almost brushed against him.
+
+     "'This is a city of old time peculiarities,' thought the student,
+     'and doubtless this is one of them with which the inhabitants are
+     too familiar to be surprised.' His own curiosity, however, was
+     awakened, and being of a social disposition, he accosted the
+     soldier.
+
+     "'A rare old suit of armor that which you wear, comrade. May I ask
+     what corps you belong to?'
+
+     "The soldier gasped out a reply from a pair of jaws which seemed to
+     have rusted on their hinges.
+
+     "'The royal guard of Ferdinand and Isabella.'
+
+     "'Santa Maria! Why, it is three centuries since that corps was in
+     service.'
+
+     "'And for three centuries have I been mounting guard. Now I trust
+     my tour of duty draws to a close. Dost thou desire fortune?'
+
+     "The student held up his tattered cloak in reply.
+
+     "'I understand thee. If thou hast faith and courage, follow me, and
+     thy fortune is made.'
+
+     "'Softly, comrade, to follow thee would require small courage in
+     one who has nothing to lose but life and an old guitar, neither of
+     much value; but my faith is of a different matter, and not to be
+     put in temptation. If it be any criminal act by which I am to mend
+     my fortune, think not my ragged cloak will make me undertake it.'
+
+     "The soldier turned on him a look of high displeasure. 'My sword,'
+     said he, 'has never been drawn but in the cause of the faith and
+     the throne. I am a _Cristiano viejo_; trust in me and fear no
+     evil.'
+
+     "The student followed him wondering. He observed that no one heeded
+     their conversation, and that the soldier made his way through the
+     various groups of idlers unnoticed, as if invisible.
+
+     "Crossing the bridge, the soldier led the way by a narrow and steep
+     path past a Moorish mill and aqueduct, and up the ravine which
+     separates the domains of the Generalife from those of the Alhambra.
+     The last ray of the sun shone upon the red battlements of the
+     latter, which beetled far above; and the convent-bells were
+     proclaiming the festival of the ensuing day. The ravine was
+     overshadowed by fig-trees, vines, and myrtles, and the outer towers
+     and walls of the fortress. It was dark and lonely, and the
+     twilight-loving bats began to flit about. At length the soldier
+     halted at a remote and ruined tower apparently intended to guard a
+     Moorish aqueduct. He struck the foundation with the butt-end of his
+     spear. A rumbling sound was heard, and the solid stones yawned
+     apart, leaving an opening as wide as a door.
+
+     "'Enter in the name of the Holy Trinity', said the soldier, 'and
+     fear nothing.' The student's heart quaked, but he made the sign of
+     the cross, muttered his Ave Maria, and followed his mysterious
+     guide into a deep vault cut out of the solid rock under the tower,
+     and covered with Arabic inscriptions. The soldier pointed to a
+     stone seat hewn along one side of the vault. 'Behold,' said he, 'my
+     couch for three hundred years.' The bewildered student tried to
+     force a joke. 'By the blessed St. Anthony,' said he, 'but you must
+     have slept soundly, considering the hardness of your couch.'
+
+     "'On the contrary, sleep has been a stranger to these eyes;
+     incessant watchfulness has been my doom. Listen to my lot. I was
+     one of the royal guards of Ferdinand and Isabella; but was taken
+     prisoner by the Moors in one of their sorties, and confined a
+     captive in this tower. When preparations were made to surrender the
+     fortress to the Christian sovereigns, I was prevailed upon by an
+     alfaqui, a Moorish priest, to aid him in secreting some of the
+     treasures of Boabdil in this vault. I was justly punished for my
+     fault. The alfaqui was an African necromancer, and by his infernal
+     arts cast a spell upon me--to guard his treasures. Something must
+     have happened to him, for he never returned, and here have I
+     remained ever since, buried alive. Years and years have rolled
+     away; earthquakes have shaken this hill; I have heard stone by
+     stone of the tower above tumbling to the ground, in the natural
+     operation of time; but the spell-bound walls of this vault set both
+     time and earthquakes at defiance.
+
+     "'Once every hundred years, on the festival of St. John, the
+     enchantment ceases to have thorough sway; I am permitted to go
+     forth and post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met
+     me, waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break
+     this magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I
+     walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first
+     to accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I
+     see on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is
+     proof against all enchantment. With you it remains to deliver me
+     from this awful dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for
+     another hundred years.'
+
+     "The student listened to this tale in mute wonderment. He had heard
+     many tales of treasures shut up under strong enchantment in the
+     vaults of the Alhambra, but had treated them as fables. He now felt
+     the value of the seal-ring, which had, in a manner, been given to
+     him by St. Cyprian. Still, though armed by so potent a talisman, it
+     was an awful thing to find himself _tete-a-tete_ in such a place
+     with an enchanted soldier, who, according to the laws of nature,
+     ought to have been quietly in his grave for nearly three centuries.
+
+     "A personage of this kind, however, was quite out of the ordinary
+     run, and not to be trifled with, and he assured him he might rely
+     upon his friendship and good will to do everything in his power for
+     his deliverance.
+
+     "'I trust to a motive more powerful than friendship,' said the
+     soldier.
+
+     "He pointed to a ponderous iron coffer, secured by locks inscribed
+     with Arabic characters. 'That coffer,' said he, 'contains countless
+     treasure in gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the magic
+     spell by which I am enthralled, and one half of this treasure shall
+     be thine.'
+
+     "'But how am I to do it?'
+
+     "'The aid of a Christian priest and a Christian maid is necessary.
+     The priest to exorcise the powers of darkness; the damsel to touch
+     this chest with the seal of Solomon. This must be done at night.
+     But have a care. This is solemn work, and not to be effected by the
+     carnal-minded. The priest must be a _Cristiano viejo_, a model of
+     sanctity; and must mortify the flesh before he comes here, by a
+     rigorous fast of four-and-twenty hours: and as to the maiden, she
+     must be above reproach, and proof against temptation. Linger not in
+     finding such aid. In three days my furlough is at an end; if not
+     delivered before midnight of the third, I shall have to mount guard
+     for another century.'
+
+     "'Fear not,' said the student, 'I have in my eye the very priest
+     and damsel you describe; but how am I to regain admission to this
+     tower?'
+
+     "'The seal of Solomon will open the way for thee.'
+
+     "The student issued forth from the tower much more gayly than he
+     had entered. The wall closed behind him, and remained solid as
+     before.
+
+     "The next morning he repaired boldly to the mansion of the priest,
+     no longer a poor strolling student, thrumming his way with a
+     guitar; but an ambassador from the shadowy world, with enchanted
+     treasures to bestow. No particulars are told of his negotiation,
+     excepting that the zeal of the worthy priest was easily kindled at
+     the idea of rescuing an old soldier of the faith and a strong box
+     of King Chico from the very clutches of Satan; and then what alms
+     might be dispensed, what churches built, and how many poor
+     relatives enriched with the Moorish treasure!
+
+     "As to the immaculate handmaid, she was ready to lend her hand,
+     which was all that was required, to the pious work; and if a shy
+     glance now and then might be believed, the ambassador began to find
+     favor in her modest eyes.
+
+     "The greatest difficulty, however, was the fast to which the good
+     padre had to subject himself. Twice he attempted it, and twice the
+     flesh was too strong for the spirit. It was only on the third day
+     that he was enabled to withstand the temptations of the cupboard;
+     but it was still a question whether he would hold out until the
+     spell was broken.
+
+     "At a late hour of the night the party groped their way up the
+     ravine by the light of a lantern, and bearing a basket with
+     provisions for exorcising the demon of hunger so soon as the other
+     demons should be laid in the Red Sea.
+
+     "The seal of Solomon opened their way into the tower. They found
+     the soldier seated on the enchanted strong-box, awaiting their
+     arrival. The exorcism was performed in due style. The damsel
+     advanced and touched the locks of the coffer with the seal of
+     Solomon. The lid flew open; and such treasures of gold and jewels
+     and precious stones as flashed upon the eye!
+
+     "'Here's cut and come again!' cried the student, exultingly, as he
+     proceeded to cram his pockets.
+
+     "'Fairly and softly,' exclaimed the soldier. 'Let us get the coffer
+     out entire, and then divide.'
+
+     "They accordingly went to work with might and main; but it was a
+     difficult task; the chest was enormously heavy, and had been
+     imbedded there for centuries. While they were thus employed the
+     good dominie drew on one side and made a vigorous onslaught on the
+     basket, by way of exorcising the demon of hunger which was raging
+     in his entrails. In a little while a fat capon was devoured, and
+     washed down by a deep potation of Val de penas; and, by way of
+     grace after meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet-lamb who
+     waited on him. It was quietly done in a corner, but the tell-tale
+     walls babbled it forth as if in triumph. Never was chaste salute
+     more awful in its effects. At the sound the soldier gave a great
+     cry of despair; the coffer, which was half raised, fell back in its
+     place and was locked once more. Priest, student, and damsel found
+     themselves outside of the tower, the wall of which closed with a
+     thundering jar. Alas! the good padre had broken his fast too soon!
+
+     "When recovered from his surprise, the student would have reentered
+     the tower, but learnt to his dismay that the damsel, in her fright,
+     had let fall the seal of Solomon; it remained within the vault.
+
+     "In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight; the spell was
+     renewed; the soldier was doomed to mount guard for another hundred
+     years, and there he and the treasure remain to this day--and all
+     because the kind-hearted padre kissed his handmaid. 'Ah, father!
+     father!' said the student, shaking his head ruefully, as they
+     returned down the ravine, 'I fear there was less of the saint than
+     the sinner in that kiss!'
+
+                    *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Thus ends the legend as far as it has been authenticated. There is
+     a tradition, however, that the student had brought off treasure
+     enough in his pocket to set him up in the world; that he prospered
+     in his affairs, that the worthy padre gave him the pet-lamb in
+     marriage, by way of amends for the blunder in the vault; that the
+     immaculate damsel proved a pattern for wives as she had been for
+     handmaids, and bore her husband a numerous progeny; that the first
+     was a wonder; it was born seven months after her marriage, and
+     though a seven-months' boy, was the sturdiest of the flock. The
+     rest were all born in the ordinary course of time.
+
+     "The story of the enchanted soldier remains one of the popular
+     traditions of Granada, though told in a variety of ways; the common
+     people affirm that he still mounts guard on mid-summer eve, beside
+     the gigantic stone pomegranate on the bridge of the Darro; but
+     remains invisible excepting to such lucky mortal as may possess the
+     seal of Solomon."
+
+These passages from the most characteristic of Irving's books, do not by
+any means exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair measure of his
+purely literary skill, upon which his reputation must rest. To my
+apprehension this "charm" in literature is as necessary to the
+amelioration and enjoyment of human life as the more solid achievements
+of scholarship. That Irving should find it in the prosaic and
+materialistic conditions of the New World as well as in the
+tradition-laden atmosphere of the Old, is evidence that he possessed
+genius of a refined and subtle quality if not of the most robust order.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X.
+
+              LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE.
+
+
+The last years of Irving's life, although full of activity and
+enjoyment,--abated only by the malady which had so long tormented
+him,--offer little new in the development of his character, and need not
+much longer detain us. The calls of friendship and of honor were many,
+his correspondence was large, he made many excursions to scenes that
+were filled with pleasant memories, going even as far south as Virginia,
+and he labored assiduously at the "Life of Washington,"--attracted
+however now and then by some other tempting theme. But his delight was
+in the domestic circle at Sunnyside. It was not possible that his
+occasional melancholy vein should not be deepened by change and death
+and the lengthening shade of old age. Yet I do not know the closing days
+of any other author of note that were more cheerful serene, and happy
+than his. Of our author, in these latter days, Mr. George William Curtis
+put recently into his "Easy Chair" papers an artistically-touched little
+portrait: "Irving was as quaint a figure," he says, "as the Diedrich
+Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New
+York.' Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon
+tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes
+neatly tied, and a Talma cloak--a short garment that hung from the
+shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery,
+old-school air in his appearance which was undeniably Dutch, and most
+harmonious with the associations of his writing. He seemed, indeed, to
+have stepped out of his own books; and the cordial grace and humor of
+his address, if he stopped for a passing chat, were delightfully
+characteristic. He was then our most famous man of letters, but he was
+simply free from all self-consciousness and assumption and dogmatism."
+Congenial occupation was one secret of Irving's cheerfulness and
+contentment, no doubt. And he was called away as soon as his task was
+done, very soon after the last volume of the "Washington" issued from
+the press. Yet he lived long enough to receive the hearty approval of it
+from the literary men whose familiarity with the Revolutionary period
+made them the best judges of its merits.
+
+He had time also to revise his works. It is perhaps worthy of note that
+for several years, while he was at the height of his popularity, his
+books had very little sale. From 1842 to 1848 they were out of print,
+with the exception of some stray copies of a cheap Philadelphia edition,
+and a Paris collection (a volume of this, at my hand, is one of a series
+entitled a "Collection of Ancient and Modern _British_ Authors"), they
+were not to be found. The Philadelphia publishers did not think there
+was sufficient demand to warrant a new edition. Mr. Irving and his
+friends judged the market more wisely, and a young New York publisher
+offered to assume the responsibility. This was Mr. George P. Putnam. The
+event justified his sagacity and his liberal enterprise; from July,
+1848, to November, 1859, the author received on his copyright over
+eighty-eight thousand dollars. And it should be added that the relations
+between author and publisher, both in prosperity and in times of
+business disaster, reflect the highest credit upon both. If the like
+relations always obtained we should not have to say: "May the Lord pity
+the authors in this world, and the publishers in the next."
+
+I have outlined the life of Washington Irving in vain, if we have not
+already come to a tolerably clear conception of the character of the man
+and of his books. If I were exactly to follow his literary method I
+should do nothing more. The idiosyncrasies of the man are the strength
+and weakness of his works. I do not know any other author whose writings
+so perfectly reproduce his character, or whose character may be more
+certainly measured by his writings. His character is perfectly
+transparent: his predominant traits were humor and sentiment; his
+temperament was gay with a dash of melancholy; his inner life and his
+mental operations were the reverse of complex, and his literary method
+is simple. He _felt_ his subject, and he expressed his conception not so
+much by direct statement or description as by almost imperceptible
+touches and shadings here and there, by a diffused tone and color, with
+very little show of analysis. Perhaps it is a sufficient definition to
+say that his method was the sympathetic. In the end the reader is put in
+possession of the luminous and complete idea upon which the author has
+been brooding, though he may not be able to say exactly how the
+impression has been conveyed to him; and I doubt if the author could
+have explained his sympathetic process. He certainly would have lacked
+precision in any philosophical or metaphysical theme, and when, in his
+letters, he touches upon politics there is a little vagueness of
+definition that indicates want of mental grip in that direction. But in
+the region of feeling his genius is sufficient to his purpose; either
+when that purpose is a highly creative one, as in the character and
+achievements of his Dutch heroes, or merely that of portraiture, as in
+the "Columbus" and the "Washington." The analysis of a nature so simple
+and a character so transparent as Irving's, who lived in the sunlight
+and had no envelope of mystery, has not the fascination that attaches to
+Hawthorne.
+
+Although the direction of his work as a man of letters was largely
+determined by his early surroundings,--that is, by his birth in a land
+void of traditions, and into a society without much literary life, so
+that his intellectual food was of necessity a foreign literature that
+was at the moment becoming a little antiquated in the land of its birth,
+and his warm imagination was forced to revert to the past for that
+nourishment which his crude environment did not offer,--yet he was by
+nature a retrospective man. His face was set towards the past, not
+towards the future. He never caught the restlessness of this century,
+nor the prophetic light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, Shelley,
+and Keats; if he apprehended the stir of the new spirit he still, by
+mental affiliation, belonged rather to the age of Addison than to that
+of Macaulay. And his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain pleased a
+public that were excited and harrowed by the mocking and lamenting of
+Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased even the great pessimist
+himself.
+
+His writings induce to reflection, to quiet musing, to tenderness for
+tradition; they amuse, they entertain, they call a check to the
+feverishness of modern life; but they are rarely stimulating or
+suggestive. They are better adapted, it must be owned, to please the
+many than the critical few, who demand more incisive treatment and a
+deeper consideration of the problems of life. And it is very fortunate
+that a writer who can reach the great public and entertain it can also
+elevate and refine its tastes, set before it high ideas, instruct it
+agreeably, and all this in a style that belongs to the best literature.
+It is a safe model for young readers; and for young readers there is
+very little in the overwhelming flood of to-day that is comparable to
+Irving's books, and, especially, it seems to me, because they were not
+written for children.
+
+Irving's position in American literature, or in that of the English
+tongue, will only be determined by the slow settling of opinion, which
+no critic can foretell, and the operation of which no criticism seems
+able to explain. I venture to believe, however, that the verdict will
+not be in accord with much of the present prevalent criticism. The
+service that he rendered to American letters no critic disputes; nor is
+there any question of our national indebtedness to him for investing a
+crude and new land with the enduring charms of romance and tradition. In
+this respect, our obligation to him is that of Scotland to Scott and
+Burns; and it is an obligation due only, in all history, to here and
+there a fortunate creator to whose genius opportunity is kind. The
+Knickerbocker Legend and the romance with which Irving has invested the
+Hudson are a priceless legacy; and this would remain an imperishable
+possession in popular tradition if the literature creating it were
+destroyed. This sort of creation is unique in modern times. New York is
+the Knickerbocker city; its whole social life remains colored by his
+fiction; and the romantic background it owes to him in some measure
+supplies to it what great age has given to European cities. This
+creation is sufficient to secure for him an immortality, a length of
+earthly remembrance that all the rest of his writings together might
+not give.
+
+Irving was always the literary man; he had the habits, the
+idiosyncrasies, of his small genus. I mean that he regarded life not
+from the philanthropic, the economic, the political, the philosophic,
+the metaphysic, the scientific, or the theologic, but purely from the
+literary point of view. He belongs to that small class of which Johnson
+and Goldsmith are perhaps as good types as any, and to which America has
+added very few. The literary point of view is taken by few in any
+generation; it may seem to the world of very little consequence in the
+pressure of all the complex interests of life, and it may even seem
+trivial amid the tremendous energies applied to immediate affairs; but
+it is the point of view that endures; if its creations do not mould
+human life, like the Roman law, they remain to charm and civilize, like
+the poems of Horace. You must not ask more of them than that. This
+attitude toward life is defensible on the highest grounds. A man with
+Irving's gifts has the right to take the position of an observer and
+describer, and not to be called on for a more active participation in
+affairs than he chooses to take. He is doing the world the highest
+service of which he is capable, and the most enduring it can receive
+from any man. It is not a question whether the work of the literary man
+is higher than that of the reformer or the statesman; it is a distinct
+work, and is justified by the result, even when the work is that of the
+humorist only. We recognize this in the ease of the poet. Although
+Goethe has been reproached for his lack of sympathy with the
+liberalizing movement of his day (as if his novels were quieting social
+influences), it is felt by this generation that the author of "Faust"
+needs no apology that he did not spend his energies in the effervescing
+politics of the German states. I mean, that while we may like or dislike
+the man for his sympathy or want of sympathy, we concede to the author
+the right of his attitude; if Goethe had not assumed freedom from moral
+responsibility, I suppose that criticism of his aloofness would long ago
+have ceased. Irving did not lack sympathy with humanity in the concrete;
+it colored whatever he wrote. But he regarded the politics of his own
+country, the revolutions in France, the long struggle in Spain, without
+heat; and he held aloof from projects of agitation and reform, and
+maintained the attitude of an observer, regarding the life about him
+from the point of view of the literary artist, as he was justified in
+doing.
+
+Irving had the defects of his peculiar genius, and these have no doubt
+helped to fix upon him the complimentary disparagement of "genial." He
+was not aggressive; in his nature he was wholly unpartisan, and full of
+lenient charity; and I suspect that his kindly regard of the world,
+although returned with kindly liking, cost him something of that respect
+for sturdiness and force which men feel for writers who flout them as
+fools in the main. Like Scott, he belonged to the idealists, and not to
+the realists, whom our generation affects. Both writers stimulate the
+longing for something better. Their creed was short: "Love God and honor
+the King." It is a very good one for a literary man, and might do for a
+Christian. The supernatural was still a reality in the age in which they
+wrote, Irving's faith in God and his love of humanity were very simple;
+I do not suppose he was much disturbed by the deep problems that have
+set us all adrift. In every age, whatever is astir, literature,
+theology, all intellectual activity, takes one and the same drift, and
+approximates in color. The bent of Irving's spirit was fixed in his
+youth, and he escaped the desperate realism of this generation, which
+has no outcome, and is likely to produce little that is noble.
+
+I do not know how to account, on principles of culture which we
+recognize, for our author's style. His education was exceedingly
+defective, nor was his want of discipline supplied by subsequent
+desultory application. He seems to have been born with a rare sense of
+literary proportion and form; into this, as into a mould, were run his
+apparently lazy and really acute observations of life. That he
+thoroughly mastered such literature as he fancied there is abundant
+evidence; that his style was influenced by the purest English models is
+also apparent. But there remains a large margin for wonder how, with his
+want of training, he could have elaborated a style which is
+distinctively his own, and is as copious, felicitous in the choice of
+words, flowing, spontaneous, flexible, engaging, clear, and as little
+wearisome when read continuously in quantity as any in the English
+tongue. This is saying a great deal, though it is not claiming for him
+the compactness, nor the robust vigor, nor the depth of thought, of many
+others masters in it. It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. It is
+certainly lucid, but its simplicity is not that of Benjamin Franklin's
+style; it is often ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, and always
+exceedingly melodious. It is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity.
+But it was not in the sympathetic nature of the author, to which I just
+referred, to come sharply to the point. It is much to have merited the
+eulogy of Campbell that he had "added clarity to the English tongue."
+This elegance and finish of style (which seems to have been as natural
+to the man as his amiable manner) is sometimes made his reproach, as if
+it were his sole merit, and as if he had concealed under this charming
+form a want of substance. In literature form is vital. But his case does
+not rest upon that. As an illustration his "Life of Washington" may be
+put in evidence. Probably this work lost something in incisiveness and
+brilliancy by being postponed till the writer's old age. But whatever
+this loss, it is impossible for any biography to be less pretentious in
+style, or less ambitious in proclamation. The only pretension of matter
+is in the early chapters, in which a more than doubtful genealogy is
+elaborated, and in which it is thought necessary to Washington's dignity
+to give a fictitious importance to his family and his childhood, and to
+accept the southern estimate of the hut in which he was born as a
+"mansion." In much of this false estimate Irving was doubtless misled by
+the fables of Weems. But while he has given us a dignified portrait of
+Washington, it is as far as possible removed from that of the smileless
+prig which has begun to weary even the popular fancy. The man he paints
+is flesh and blood, presented, I believe, with substantial faithfulness
+to his character; with a recognition of the defects of his education and
+the deliberation of his mental operations; with at least a hint of that
+want of breadth of culture and knowledge of the past, the possession of
+which characterized many of his great associates; and with no
+concealment that he had a dower of passions and a temper which only
+vigorous self-watchfulness kept under. But he portrays, with an
+admiration not too highly colored, the magnificent patience, the courage
+to bear misconstruction, the unfailing patriotism, the practical
+sagacity, the level balance of judgment combined with the wisest
+toleration, the dignity of mind, and the lofty moral nature which made
+him the great man of his epoch. Irving's grasp of this character; his
+lucid marshaling of the scattered, often wearisome and uninteresting
+details of our dragging, unpicturesque Revolutionary War; his just
+judgment of men; his even, almost judicial, moderation of tone; and his
+admirable proportion of space to events, render the discussion of style
+in reference to this work superfluous. Another writer might have made a
+more brilliant performance: descriptions sparkling with antitheses,
+characters projected into startling attitudes by the use of epithets; a
+work more exciting and more piquant, that would have started a thousand
+controversies, and engaged the attention by daring conjectures and
+attempts to make a dramatic spectacle; a book interesting and notable,
+but false in philosophy and untrue in fact.
+
+When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an English critic said it should have
+been first published in England, for Irving was an English writer. The
+idea has been more than once echoed here. The truth is that while Irving
+was intensely American in feeling he was first of all a man of letters,
+and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; he certainly was not insular.
+He had a rare accommodation of tone to his theme. Of England, whose
+traditions kindled his susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen would
+like to write about it. In Spain he was saturated with the romantic
+story of the people and the fascination of the clime; and he was so true
+an interpreter of both as to earn from the Spaniards the title of "the
+poet Irving." I chanced once, in an inn at Frascati, to take up "The
+Tales of a Traveller," which I had not seen for many years. I expected
+to revive the somewhat faded humor and fancy of the past generation.
+But I found not only a sprightly humor and vivacity which are modern,
+but a truth to Italian local color that is very rare in any writer
+foreign to the soil. As to America, I do not know what can be more
+characteristically American than the Knickerbocker, the Hudson River
+tales, the sketches of life and adventure in the far West. But
+underneath all this diversity there is one constant quality,--the flavor
+of the author. Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of
+books,--it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the
+Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World
+explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent
+style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning
+excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but
+"charm."
+
+The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty
+years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed
+by any writer. England returned him to America medalled by the king,
+honored by the university which is chary of its favors, followed by the
+applause of the whole English people. In English households, in
+drawing-rooms of the metropolis, in political circles no less than among
+the literary coteries, in the best reviews, and in the popular
+newspapers the opinion of him was pretty much the same. And even in the
+lapse of time and the change of literary fashion authors so unlike as
+Byron and Dickens were equally warm in admiration of him. To the English
+indorsement America added her own enthusiasm, which was as universal.
+His readers were the million, and all his readers were admirers. Even
+American statesmen, who feed their minds on food we know not of, read
+Irving. It is true that the uncritical opinion of New York was never
+exactly re-echoed in the cool recesses of Boston culture; but the
+magnates of the "North American Review" gave him their meed of cordial
+praise. The country at large put him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to
+account for the position he occupied by his character, which won the
+love of all men, it must be remembered that the quality which won this,
+whatever its value, pervades his books also.
+
+And yet it must be said that the total impression left upon the mind by
+the man and his works is not that of the greatest intellectual force. I
+have no doubt that this was the impression he made upon his ablest
+contemporaries. And this fact, when I consider the effect the man
+produced, makes the study of him all the more interesting. As an
+intellectual personality he makes no such impression, for instance, as
+Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living who could be named. The
+incisive critical faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. He had
+neither the power nor the disposition to cut his way transversely across
+popular opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, nor to draw around him
+disciples equally well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to-day what
+they had delighted to see him set up yesterday as eternal. He evoked
+neither violent partisanship nor violent opposition. He was an extremely
+sensitive man, and if he had been capable of creating a conflict he
+would only have been miserable in it. The play of his mind depended upon
+the sunshine of approval. And all this shows a certain want of
+intellectual virility.
+
+A recent anonymous writer has said that most of the writing of our day
+is characterized by an intellectual strain. I have no doubt that this
+will appear to be the case to the next generation. It is a strain to say
+something new even at the risk of paradox, or to say something in a new
+way at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving was entirely free. There
+is no visible straining to attract attention. His mood is calm and
+unexaggerated. Even in some of his pathos, which is open to the
+suspicion of being "literary," there is no literary exaggeration. He
+seems always writing from an internal calm, which is the necessary
+condition of his production. If he wins at all by his style, by his
+humor, by his portraiture of scenes or of character, it is by a gentle
+force, like that of the sun in spring. There are many men now living, or
+recently dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stimulated thought,
+upset opinions, created mental eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in as
+fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. What verdict the next
+generation will put upon their achievements I do not know; but it is
+safe to say that their position and that of Irving as well will depend
+largely upon the affirmation or the reversal of their views of life and
+their judgments of character. I think the calm work of Irving will stand
+when much of the more startling and perhaps more brilliant intellectual
+achievement of this age has passed away.
+
+And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot
+bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of
+the current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made
+Scott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who
+had only the dimmest of ideas of their personality. This was some
+quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for
+himself; there it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part
+of the authors--an element in the estimate of their future position--as
+what we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their
+art. However you rate it, you cannot account for Irving's influence in
+the world without it. In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted
+Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art
+in the sum total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to
+Lockhart,--"Be a good man, my dear." We know well enough that the great
+author of "The Newcomes" and the great author of "The Heart of
+Midlothian" recognized the abiding value in literature of integrity,
+sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are beneficences; and Irving's
+literature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical
+instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author loved good
+women and little children and a pure life; he had faith in his
+fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience
+to the highest; he retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous
+actions, and did not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion; he was
+an author still capable of an enthusiasm.* His books are wholesome, full
+of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, of amusement without
+any stain; and their more solid qualities are marred by neither pedantry
+nor pretension.
+
+  *Transcriber's note: Word printed as "enthusiam" in original text.
+
+Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a
+lovely day of that Indian Summer which is nowhere more full of a
+melancholy charm than on the banks of the lower Hudson, and which was in
+perfect accord with the ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was
+buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow and the river he
+loved, amidst the scenes which his magic pen has made classic and his
+sepulchre hallows.
+
+
+                    *       *       *       *       *
+
+
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