LIFE, CHARACTER AND GENIUS 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING./ 
 
 BY WILLIAM CULLEF BRYANT.,
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 LIFE, CHAKACTEK AND GENIUS 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC IN NEW YORK, 
 
 ON THE 3D OP APRIL, 1860. 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM, 115 NASSAU STREET, 
 1860.
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of 
 New York. 
 
 R. CRAIGHEAD, Printer.
 
 A DISCOUESE 
 
 ON THE LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS OF WASHINGTON IRVING, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, IN NEW YORK, 
 
 ON THE 3D OF APRIL, 1860, 
 
 BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 WE have come together, my friends, on the birthday of an 
 illustrious citizen of our republic; but so recent is his de- 
 parture from among us, that our assembling is rather an expres- 
 sion of sorrow for his death than of congratulation that such a man 
 was born into the world. His admirable writings, the beauti- 
 ful products of his peculiar genius, remain, to be the enjoyment 
 of the present and future generations. We keep the recollection 
 of his amiable and blameless life, and his kindly manners, and 
 for these we give thanks ; but the thought will force itself upon 
 us that the light of his friendly eye is quenched, that we must 
 no more hear his beloved voice, nor take his welcome hand. It 
 is as if some genial year had just closed and left us in frost and 
 gloom; its flowery spring, its leafy summer, its plenteous autumn, 
 flown, never to return. Its gifts are strewn around us ; its 
 harvests are in our garners ; but its season of bloom, and warmth, 
 
 87010?
 
 6 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 and fruitfulness is past. We look around us and see that the 
 sunshine, which filled the golden ear and tinged the reddening 
 apple, brightens the earth no more. 
 
 Twelve years since, the task was assigned me to deliver the 
 funeral eulogy of Thomas Cole, the great father of landscape 
 painting in America, the artist who first taught the pencil to 
 portray, with the boldness of nature, our wild forests and lake 
 shores, our mountain regions and the borders of our majestic 
 rivers. Five years later I was bidden to express, in such terms 
 as I could command, the general sorrow which was felt for the 
 death of Fenimore Cooper, equally great and equally the leader 
 of his countrymen in a different walk of creative genius. 
 Another grave has been opened, and he who has gone down to 
 it, earlier than they in his labors and his fame, was, like them, 
 foremost in the peculiar walk to which his genius attracted him. 
 Cole was taken from us in the zenith of his manhood ; Cooper, 
 when the sun of life had stooped from its meridian. In both 
 instances the day was darkened by the cloud of death before the 
 natural hour of its close ; but Irving was permitted to behold 
 its light until, in the fulness of time and by the ordinary appoint- 
 ment of nature, it was carried below the horizon. 
 
 Washington Irving was born in New York, on the third of 
 April, 1183, but a few days after the news of the treaty with 
 Great Britain, acknowledging our independence, had been re- 
 ceived, to the great contentment of the people. He opened his 
 eyes to the light, therefore, just in the dawn of that Sabbath of 
 peace which brought rest to the land after a weary seven years' 
 war -just as the city of which he was a native, and the republic 
 of which he was yet to be the ornament, were entering upon a 
 career of greatness and prosperity of which those who inhabited 
 them could scarce have dreamed. It seems fitting that one of
 
 ANECDOTE OF WASHINGTON. 7 
 
 the first births of the new peace, so welcome to the country, 
 should be that of a genius as kindly and fruitful as peace itself, 
 and destined to make the world better and happier by its gentle 
 influences. In one respect, those who were born at that time 
 had the advantage of those who are educated under the more 
 vulgar influences of the present age. Before their eyes were 
 placed, in the public actions of the men who achieved our revo- 
 lution, noble examples of steady rectitude, magnanimous self- 
 denial, and cheerful self-sacrifice for the sake of their country. 
 Irving came into the world when these great and virtuous men 
 were in the prime of their manhood, and passed his youth in the 
 midst of that general reverence which gathered round them as 
 they grew old. 
 
 "William Irving, the father of the great author, was a native 
 of Scotland one of a race in which the instinct of veneration is 
 strong and a Scottish woman was employed as a nurse in his 
 household. It is related that one day while she was walking in 
 the street with her little charge, then five years old, she saw 
 General Washington in a shop, and, entering, led up the boy, 
 whom she presented as one to whom his name had been given. 
 The general turned, laid his hand on the child's head, and gave 
 him his smile and his blessing, little thinking that they were 
 bestowed upon his future biographer. The gentle pressure of 
 that hand Irving always remembered, and that blessing, he 
 believed, attended him through life. Who shall say what power 
 that recollection may have had in keeping him true to high and 
 generous aims ? 
 
 At the time that Washington Irving was bora, the city of 
 New York contained scarcely more than twenty thousand in- 
 habitants. During the war its population had probably 
 diminished. The town was scarcely built up to Warren street ;
 
 8 OLD NEW YORK. 
 
 Broadway, a little beyond, was lost among grassy pastures and 
 tilled fields ; the Park, in which now stands our City Hall, was 
 an open common, and beyond it gleamed, in a hollow among the 
 meadows, a little sheet of fresh water, the Kolch, from which a 
 sluggish rivulet stole through the low grounds called Lispenard's 
 Meadows, and following the course of what is now Canal street, 
 entered the Hudson. With the exception of the little corner of 
 the island below the present City Hall, the rural character of 
 the whole region was unchanged, and the fresh air of the country 
 entered New York at every street. The town at that tune 
 contained a mingled population, drawn from different countries ; 
 but the descendants of the old Dutch settlers formed a large 
 proportion of the inhabitants, and these preserved many of their 
 peculiar customs, and had not ceased to use the speech of their 
 ancestors at their firesides. Many of them lived in the quaint 
 old houses, built of small yellow bricks from Holland, with their 
 notched gable-ends on the streets, which have since been swept 
 away with the language of those who built them. 
 
 In the surrounding country, along its rivers and beside its 
 harbors, and in many parts far inland, the original character of 
 the Dutch settlements was still less changed. Here they read 
 their Bibles and said their prayers and listened to sermons in 
 the ancestral tongue. Remains of this language yet linger in a 
 few neighborhoods ; but in most, the common schools, and 1he 
 irruptions of the Yankee race, and the growth of a population 
 newly derived from Europe, have stifled the ancient utterances 
 of New Amsterdam. I remember that twenty years since the 
 market people of Bergen chattered Dutch in the steamers which 
 brought them in the early morning to New York. I remember 
 also that, about ten years before, there were families in the 
 westernmost towns of Massachusetts where Dutch was still the
 
 THE KNICKERBOCKERS. 9 
 
 household tongue, and matrons of the English stock, marrying 
 into them, were laughed at for speaking it so badly. 
 
 It will be readily inferred that the isolation in which the use 
 of a language, strai'ge to the rest of the country, placed these 
 people, would form them to a character of peculiar simplicity, 
 in which there was a great deal that was quaint and not a 
 little that would appear comic to their neighbors of the Anglo- 
 Saxon stock. It was among such a population, friendly and 
 hospitable, wearing their faults on the outside, and living in 
 homely comfort on their fertile and ample acres, that the boy- 
 hood and early youth of Irving were passed. He began, while 
 yet a stripling, to wander about the surrounding country; for the 
 love of rambling was the most remarkable peculiarity of that 
 period of his life. He became, as he himself writes, familiar with 
 all the neighboring places famous in history or fable, knew 
 every spot where a murder or a robbery had been committed or 
 a ghost seen ; strolled into the villages, noted their customs and 
 talked with their sages, a welcome guest, doubtless, with his 
 kindly and ingenuous manners and the natural playful turn of his 
 conversation. 
 
 I dwell upon these particulars because they help to show here 
 how the mind of Irving was trained, and by what process he 
 made himself master of the materials afterward wrought into 
 the forms we so much admire. It was in these rambles that his 
 strong love of nature was awakened and nourished. Those who 
 only know the island of New York as it now is, see few traces 
 of the beauty it wore before it was levelled and smoothed from 
 side to side for the builder. Immediately without the little 
 town, it was charmingly diversified with heights and hollows, 
 groves alternating with sunny openings, shining tracks of riv- 
 ulets, quiet country-seats with trim gardens, broad avenues of 
 1*
 
 10 THE BANKS OF THE HUDSON. 
 
 trees, and lines of pleached hawthorn hedges. I came to New 
 York in 1825, and I well recollect how much I admired the 
 shores of the Hudson above Canal street, where the dark rocks 
 jutted far out in the water, with little bays between, above 
 which drooped forest trees overrun with wild vines. No less 
 beautiful were the shores of the East River, where the orchards 
 of the Stuyvesant estate reached to cliffs beetling over the 
 water, and still further on were inlets between rocky banks 
 bristling with red cedars. Some idea of this beauty may be 
 formed from looking at what remains of the natural shore of 
 New York island where the tides of the East River rush to and 
 fro by the rocky verge of Jones's Wood. 
 
 Here wandered Irving in his youth, and allowed the aspect of 
 that nature which he afterward portrayed so well to engrave 
 itself on his heart ; but his excursions were not confined to this 
 island. He became familiar with the banks of the Hudson, the 
 extraordinary beauty of which he was the first to describe. He 
 made acquaintance with the Dutch neighborhoods sheltered by 
 its hills, Nyack, Haverstraw, Sing Sing and Sleepy Hollow, and 
 with the majestic Highlands beyond. His rambles in another 
 direction led him to ancient Communipaw, lying in its quiet 
 recess by New York bay ; to the then peaceful Gowanus, now 
 noisy with the passage of visitors to Greenwood and thronged 
 with funerals ; to Hobokcn, Horsimus and Paulus Hook, which 
 has since become a city. A ferry-boat dancing on the rapid 
 tides took him over to Brooklyn, now our flourishing and 
 beautiful neighbor city ; then a cluster of Dutch farms, whose 
 possessors lived in broad, low houses, with stoops in front, over- 
 shadowed by trees. 
 
 The generation with whom Irving grew up read the " Specta- 
 tor " and the " Rambler," the essays and tales of Mackenzie and
 
 SCHOOL DAYS. 11 
 
 those of Goldsmith ; the novels of the day were those of Rich- 
 ardson, Fielding and Smollett ; the religious world were occu- 
 pied with the pages of Hannah More, fresh from the press, and 
 with the writings of Doddridge ; politicians sought their models 
 of style and reasoning in the speeches of Burke and the writ- 
 ings of Mackintosh and Junius. These were certainly masters 
 of whom no pupil needed to be ashamed, but it can hardly be 
 said that the style of Irving was formed in the school of any 
 of them. His father's library was enriched with authors of the 
 Elizabethan age, and he delighted, we are told, in reading Chau- 
 cer and Spenser. The elder of these great poets might have 
 taught him the art of heightening his genial humor with poetic 
 graces, and from both he might have learned a freer mastery 
 over his native English than the somewhat formal taste of that 
 day encouraged. Cowper's poems, at that time, were in every- 
 body's hands, and if his father had not those of Burns, we must 
 believe that he was no Scotchman. I think we may fairly 
 infer that if the style of Irving took a bolder range than was 
 allowed in the way of writing which prevailed when he was a 
 youth, it was owing, in a great degree, to his studies in the 
 poets, and especially in those of the earlier English literature. 
 
 He owed little to the schools, though he began to attend 
 them early. His first instructions were given when he was 
 between four and six years old, by Mrs. Ann Kilmaster, at her 
 school in Ann street, who seems to have had some difficulty in 
 getting him through the alphabet. In 1189, he was transferred 
 to a school in Fulton street, then called Partition street, kept 
 by Benjamin Romaine, who had been a soldier in the Revolution 
 a sensible man and a good disciplinarian, but probably an 
 indifferent scholar and here he continued till he was fourteen 
 years of age. He was a favorite with the master, but preferred
 
 12 EAELT TEACHERS. 
 
 reading to regular study. At ten years of age he delighted in 
 the wild tales of Ariosto, as translated by Hoole ; at eleven, he 
 was deep in books of voyages and travels, which he took to 
 school and read by stealth. At that tune he composed with 
 remarkable ease and fluency, and exchanged tasks with the other 
 boys, writing their compositions, while they solved his problems 
 in arithmetic, which he detested. At the age of thirteen he 
 tried his hand at composing a play, which was performed by 
 children at a friend's house, and of which he afterward forgot 
 every part, even the title. 
 
 Romaine gave up teaching in 1797, and in that year Irving 
 entered a school kept in Beekman street, by Jonathan Irish, 
 probably the most accomplished of his instructors. He left this 
 school in March, 1798, but continued for a time to receive pri- 
 vate lessons from the same teacher, at home. Dr. Francis, in 
 his pleasant reminiscences of Irving's early life, speaks of him as 
 preparing to enter Columbia College, and as being prevented by 
 the state of his health ; but it is certain that an indifference to 
 the acquisition of learning had taken possession of him at that 
 age, which he afterward greatly regretted. 
 
 At the age of sixteen he entered his name as a student at law 
 in the office of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, an eminent advocate, 
 who, in later life, became a judge in one of our principal tribu- 
 nals. It was while engaged in his professional studies that he 
 made his first appearance as an author. I should have men- 
 tioned, among the circumstances that favored the unfolding of 
 his literary capacities, that two of his elder brothers were men 
 of decided literary tastes, "William Irving, some seventeen years 
 his senior, and Dr. Peter Irving, who, in the year 1802, founded 
 a daily paper in Kew York, at a time when a daily paper was 
 not, as now, an enterprise requiring a large outlay of capital,
 
 FIEST JOUKNEY ABKOAD. 13 
 
 but an experiment that might be tried and abandoned with lit- 
 tle risk. Dr. Irving established the " Morning Chronicle," and 
 his younger brother contributed a series of essays, bearing the 
 signature of Jonathan Oldstyle, of which Mr. Duyckinck, whose 
 judgment I willingly accept, says that they show how early he 
 acquired the style which so much charms us in his later writ- 
 ings. 
 
 In 1804, having reached the age of twenty-one, Irving, 
 alarmed by an increasing weakness of the chest, visited Europe 
 for the sake of his health. He sailed directly to the south of 
 France, landed at Bordeaux in May, and passed two months in 
 Genoa, where he embarked for Messina, in search of a softer 
 climate than any to be found on the Italian peninsula. While 
 at Messina, he saw the fleet of Nelson sweeping by that port on 
 its way to fight the great naval battle of Trafalgar. He made 
 the tour of Sicily, and crossing from Palermo to Naples, pro- 
 ceeded to Rome. Here he formed the acquaintance of Washing- 
 ton Allston, who was then entering on a career of art as extra- 
 ordinary as that of Irving in literature. With Allston he made 
 long rambles in the picturesque neighborhood of that old city, 
 visited the galleries of its palaces and villas, and studied their 
 works of art with a delight that rose to enthusiasm. He thought 
 of the dry pursuit of the law which awaited his return to Ame- 
 rica, and for which he had no inclination, and almost deter- 
 mined to be a painter. Allston encouraged him in this disposi- 
 tion, and together they planned the scheme of a life devoted to 
 the pursuit of art. It was fortunate for the world that, as 
 Irving reflected on the matter, doubts arose in his mind which 
 tempered his enthusiasm, and led him to a different destiny. The 
 two friends separated, each to take his own way to renown 
 Allston to become one of the greatest of painters, and Irving to
 
 14: WILLIAM IRVING. 
 
 take his place among the greatest of authors. Leaving Italy, 
 Irving passed through Switzerland to France, resided in Paris 
 several months, travelled through Flanders and Holland, went 
 to England, and returned to his native country in 1806, after 
 an absence of two years. 
 
 At the close of the year he was admitted to practice as an 
 attorney-at-law. He opened an office, but it could not be said 
 that he ever became a practitioner. He began the year 1801 
 with the earliest of those literary labors which have won him 
 the admiration of the world. On the 24th of January 
 appeared, in the form of a small pamphlet, the first number of 
 a periodical entitled " Salmagundi," the joint production of him- 
 self, his brother William, and James K. Paulding. The elder 
 brother contributed the poetry, with hints and outlines for some 
 of the essays, but nearly all the prose was written by the two 
 younger associates. 
 
 William Irving, however, had talent enough to have taken a 
 more important part in the work. He was a man of wit, well 
 educated, well informed, and the author of many clever things 
 written for the press, in a vein of good natured satire and pub- 
 lished without his name. He was held in great esteem on 
 account of his personal character, and had great weight in Con- 
 gress, of which he was for some years a member.* 
 
 When " Salmagundi " appeared, the quaint old Dutch town in 
 which Irving was born had become transformed to a compara- 
 tively gay metropolis. Its population of twenty thousand souls 
 had enlarged to more than eighty thousand, although its aris- 
 tocratic class had yet their residences in what seems now to us 
 the narrow space between the Battery and Wall street. The 
 
 * See a brief but well written memoir of William Irving by Dr. Berrian.
 
 SALMAGUNDI. 15 
 
 modes and fashions of Europe were imported fresh and fresh. 
 " Salmagundi " speaks of leather breeches as all the rage for a 
 morning dress, and flesh-colored smalls for an evening party. 
 Gay equipages dashed through the streets. A new theatre had 
 risen in Park Row, on the boards of which Cooper, one of the 
 finest declaimers, was performing to crowded houses. The 
 churches had multiplied faster than the places of amusement ; 
 other public buildings of a magnificence hitherto unknown, 
 including our present City Hall, had been erected ; Tammany 
 Hall, fresh from the hands of the builder, overlooked the Park. 
 We began to affect a taste for pictures, and the rooms of 
 Michael Paff, the famous German picture- dealer in Broadway, 
 were a favorite lounge for such connoisseurs as we then had, 
 who amused themselves with making him talk of Michael 
 Angelo. Ballston Springs were the great fashionable watering- 
 place of the country, to which resorted the planters of the South 
 with splendid equipages and troops of shining blacks in livery. 
 " Salmagundi" satirized the follies and ridiculed the humors of 
 the time with great prodigality of wit and no less exuberance of 
 good nature. In form it resembles the " Tattler," and that numer- 
 ous brood of periodical papers to which the success of the " Tat- 
 tler " and " Spectator " gave birth ; but it is in no sense an imita- 
 tion. Its gaiety is its own ; its style of humor is not that of Addi- 
 son nor Goldsmith, though it has all the genial spirit of theirs; 
 nor is it borrowed from any other writer. It is far more frolic- 
 some and joyous, yet tempered by a native gracefulness. " Salma- 
 gundi " was manifestly written without the fear of criticism before 
 the eyes of the authors, and to this sense of perfect freedom in 
 the exercise of their genius the charm is probably owing which 
 makes us still read it with so much delight. Irving never 
 seemed to place much value on the part he contributed to this
 
 16 CONTEMPORARY AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 work, yet I doubt whether he ever excelled some of those papers 
 in Salmagundi which bear the most evident marks of his style, 
 and Paulding, though he has since acquired a reputation by his 
 other writings, can hardly be said to have written anything bet- 
 ter than the best of those which are ascribed to his pen. 
 
 Just before Salmagundi appeared, several of the authors who 
 gave the literature of England its present character had begun 
 to write. For five years the quarterly issues of the " Edin- 
 burgh Review," then in the most brilliant period of its existence, 
 had been before the public. Hazlitt had taken his place among 
 the authors, and John Foster had published his essays. Of the 
 poets, Rogers, Campbell and Moore were beginning to be popu- 
 lar ; Wordsworth had published his Lyrical Ballads, Scott, his 
 Lay of the Last Ministrel, Southey, his Madoc, and Joanna 
 Baillie two volumes of her plays. In this revival of the crea-" 
 tive power in literature it is pleasant to see that our own coun- 
 try took part, contributing a work of a character as fresh and 
 original as any they produced on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Nearly two years afterward, in the autumn of 1809, 
 appeared in the " Evening Post," addressed to the humane, an 
 advertisement requesting information concerning a small elderly 
 gentleman named Knickerbocker, dressed in a black coat and 
 cocked hat, who had suddenly left his lodgings at the Columbian 
 Hotel in Mulberry street, and had not been heard of after- 
 ward. In the beginning of November, a " Traveller " commu- 
 nicated to the same journal the information that he had seen a 
 person answering to this description, apparently fatigued with 
 his journey, resting by the road-side a little north of Kings- 
 bridge. Ten days later Seth Handaside, the landlord of the 
 Columbian Hotel, gave notice, through the same journal, that he 
 had found in the missing gentleman's chamber " a curious kind
 
 DIEDKICH KNICKERBOCKER. 17 
 
 of written book," which he should print by way of reimbursing 
 himself for what his lodger owed him. In December following, 
 Inskeep and Bradford, booksellers, published " Diedrich Knicker- 
 bocker's History of New York." 
 
 " Salmagundi " had prepared the public to receive this work 
 with favor, and Seth Handasidc had no reason to regret having 
 undertaken its publication. I recollect well its early and imme- 
 diate popularity. I was then a youth in college, and having 
 committed to memory a portion of it to repeat as a declamation 
 before my class, I was so overcome with laughter, when I 
 appeared on the floor, that I was unable to proceed, and drew 
 upon myself the rebuke of the tutor. 
 
 I have just read this " History of New York " over again, 
 and I found myself no less delighted than when I first turned its 
 pages in my early youth. When I compare it with other 
 works of wit and humor of a similar length, I find that, unlike 
 most of them, it carries forward the reader to the conclusion 
 without weariness or satiety, so unsought, spontaneous, self-sug- 
 gested are the wit and the humor. The author makes us laugh, 
 because he can no more help it than we can help laughing. 
 Scott, in one of his letters, compared the humor of this work to 
 that of Swift. The rich vein of Irving's mirth is of a quality 
 quite distinct from the dry drollery of Swift, but they have this 
 in common, that they charm by the utter absence of effort, and 
 this was probably the ground of Scott's remark. A critic in the 
 " London Quarterly," some years after its appearance, spoke of 
 it as a " tantalizing book," on account of his inability to under- 
 stand what he called " the point of many of the allusions in this 
 political satire." I fear he must have been one of those respect- 
 able persons who find it difficult to understand a joke unless it 
 be accompanied with a commentary opening and explaining it
 
 18 AN OLDEN FLAVOR. 
 
 to the humblest capacity. Scott found no such difficulty. 
 " Our sides," he says, in a letter to Mr. Brevoort, a friend of 
 Irving, written just after he had read the book, "are absolutely 
 sore with laughing." The mirth of the " History of New 
 York " is of the most transparent sort, and the author, even in 
 the later editions, judiciously abstained from any attempt to 
 make it more intelligible by notes. 
 
 I find in this work more manifest traces than in his other 
 writings of what Irving owed to the earlier authors in our lan- 
 guage. The quaint poetic coloring, and often the phraseology, 
 betray the disciple of Chaucer and Spenser. We are conscious 
 of a flavor of the olden time, as of a racy wine of some rich 
 vintage 
 
 " Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth. 
 
 I will not say that there are no passages in this work which 
 are not worthy of their context ; that we do not sometimes 
 meet with phraseology which we could wish changed, that the 
 wit does not sometimes run wild and drop here and there a jest 
 which we could willingly spare. We forgive, we overlook, we 
 forget all this as we read, in consideration of the entertainment 
 we have enjoyed, and of that which beckons us onward in the 
 next page. Of all mock-heroic works, " Knickerbocker's His- 
 tory of New York " is the gayest, the airiest, and the least tire- 
 some. 
 
 In 1848 Mr. Irving issued an edition of this work, to which 
 he prefixed what he called an " Apology," intended in part as 
 an answer to those who thought he had made too free with the 
 names of our old Dutch families. To speak frankly, I do not 
 much wonder that the descendants of the original founders of 
 New Amsterdam should have hardly known whether to laugh
 
 MAGAZINE WRITING. 19 
 
 or look grave on finding the names of their ancestors, of whom 
 they never thought but with respect, now connected with ludi- 
 crous associations, by a wit of another race. In one of his 
 excellent historical discourses Mr. Yerplanck had gently com- 
 plained of this freedom, expressing himself, as he said, more in 
 sorrow than in anger. Even the sorrow, I believe, must have 
 long since wholly passed away, when it is seen how little 
 Irving's pleasantries have detracted from the honor paid to the 
 early history of our city at all events, I do not see how it 
 could survive Irving's good-humored and graceful Apology. 
 
 It was not long after the publication of the " History of New 
 York " that Irving abandoned the profession of law, for which he 
 had so decided a distaste as never to have fully tried his capa- 
 city for pursuing it. Two of his brothers were engaged in com- 
 merce, and they received him as a silent partner. He did not, 
 however, renounce his literary occupations. He wrote, in 1810, 
 a memoir of Campbell, the poet, prefaced to an edition of the 
 writings of that author, which appeared in Philadelphia ; and 
 in 1813 and the following year, employed himself as editor of 
 the " Analectic Magazine," published in the same city ; making 
 the experiment of his talent for a vocation to which men of 
 decided literary tastes in this country are strongly inclined to 
 betake themselves. Those who remember this magazine cannot 
 have forgotten that it was a most entertaining miscellany, 
 partly compiled from English publications, mostly periodicals, 
 and partly made up of contributions of some of our own best 
 writers. Paulding wrote for it a series of biographical accounts 
 of the naval commanders of the United States, which added 
 greatly to its popularity ; and Verplauck contributed memoirs of 
 Commodore Stewart and' General Scott, Barlow, the poet, and 
 other distinguished Americans, which were received with favor.
 
 20 IN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 The Life of Campbell, with the exception perhaps of some less 
 important contributions to the magazine, is the only published 
 work of Irving between the appearance of the " History of Kew 
 York," in 1809, and that of the " Sketch Book," in 1819. 
 
 It was during this interval that an event took place which 
 had a marked influence on Irving's future life, affected the char- 
 acter of his writings, and, now that the death of both parties 
 allow it to be spoken of without reserve, gives a peculiar inter- 
 est to his personal history. He became attached to a young 
 lady whom he was to have married. She died unwedded, in the 
 flower of her age ; there was a sorrowful leave-taking between 
 her and her lover, as the grave was about to separate them on 
 the eve of what should have been her bridal ; and Irving, ever 
 after, to the close of his life, tenderly and faithfully cherished 
 her memory. In one of the biographical notices published 
 immediately after Irving's death, an old, well-worn copy of 
 the Bible is spoken of, which was kept lying on the table in 
 his chamber, within reach of his bedside, bearing her name on 
 the title page in a delicate female hand a relic which we may 
 presume to have been his constant companion. Those who are 
 fond of searching, in the biographies of eminent men, for the 
 circumstances which determined the bent of their genius, find in 
 this sad event, and the cloud it threw over the hopeful and 
 cheerful period of early manhood, an explanation of the transi- 
 tion from the unbounded playfulness of the " History of Xew 
 York " to the serious, tender and meditative vein of the " Sketch 
 Book." 
 
 In 1815, soon after our second peace with Great Britain, 
 Irving sailed again for Europe, and fixed himself at Liverpool, 
 where a branch of the large commercial house to which he be- 
 longed was established. His old love of rambling returned upon
 
 THE SKETCH BOOK. 21 
 
 him ; he wandered first into Wales, and over some of the finest 
 counties of England, and then northward to the sterner region 
 of the Scottish Highlands. His memoir of Campbell had pro- 
 cured him the acquaintance and friendship of that poet. Camp- 
 bell gave him, more than a year after his arrival in England, a 
 letter of introduction to Scott, who, already acquainted with him 
 by his writings, welcomed him warmly to Abbotsford, and made 
 him his friend for life. Scott sent a special message to Camp- 
 bell, thanking him for having made him known to Irving. 
 " He is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances," said 
 Scott, " that I have made this many a day." 
 
 In the same year that he visited Abbotsford his brothers failed. 
 The changes which followed the peace of 1815, swept away their 
 fortunes and his together, and he was now to begin the world 
 anew. 
 
 In 1819, he began to publish the Sketch Book. It was writ- 
 ten in England and sent over to New York, where it was issued 
 by Van Winkle, in octavo numbers, containing from seventy to 
 a hundred pages. In the preface he remarked that he was 
 " unsettled in his abode," that he had " his cares and vicissi- 
 tudes," and could not, therefore, give these papers the " tranquil 
 attention necessary to finished composition." Several of them 
 were copied with praise in the London " Literary Gazette," and 
 an intimation was conveyed to the author, that some person hi 
 London was about to publish them entire. He preferred to do 
 this himself, and accordingly offered the work to the famous 
 bookseller, Murray. Murray was slow in giving the matter his 
 attention, and Irving, after a reasonable delay, wrote to ask 
 that the copy which he had left with him might be returned. It 
 was sent back with a note, pleading excess of occupation, the 
 great cross of all eminent booksellers, and alleging the " want
 
 22 MIRTH AND PATHOS. 
 
 of scope in the nature of the work," as a reason for declining it. 
 This was discouraging, but Irving had the enterprise to print 
 the first volume in London, at his own risk. It was issued by 
 John Miller, and was well received, but in a month afterward 
 the publisher failed. Immediately Sir Walter Scott came to 
 London and saw Murray, who allowed himself to be persuaded, 
 the more easily, doubtless, on account of the partial success of 
 the first volume, that the work had more " scope" than he sup- 
 posed, and purchased the copyright of both volumes for two hun- 
 dred pounds, which he afterward liberally raised to four hundred. 
 Whoever compares the Sketch Book with the History of New 
 York might at first, perhaps, fail to recognize it as the work of 
 the same hand, so much graver and more thoughtful is the 
 strain in which it is written. A more attentive examination, 
 however, shows that the humor in the lighter parts is of the 
 same peculiar and original cast, wholly unlike that of any author 
 who ever wrote, a humor which Mr. Dana happily characterized 
 as "a fanciful playing with common things, and here and 
 there beautiful touches, till the ludicrous becomes half pictur- 
 esque." Yet one cannot help perceiving that the author's 
 spirit had been sobered since he last appeared before the pub- 
 lic, as if the shadow of a great sorrow had fallen upon it. The 
 greater number of the papers are addressed to our deeper 
 sympathies, and some of them, as, for example, the Broken 
 Heart, the Widow and Her Son, and Rural Funerals, dwell 
 upon the saddest themes. Only in two of them Rip Yan 
 Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow does he lay the reins 
 loose on the neck of his frolicsome fancy, and allow it to dash 
 forward without restraint ; and these rank among the most de- 
 lightful and popular tales ever written. In our country they have 
 been read, I believe, by nearly everybody who can read at all.
 
 ENGLAND AND AMEKICA. 23 
 
 The "Sketch Book," and the two succeeding works of Irving, 
 " Bracebridge Hall" and the " Tales of a Traveller," abound with 
 agreeable pictures of English life, seen under favorable lights 
 and sketched with a friendly pencil. Let me say here, that it 
 was not to pay court to the English that he thus described them 
 and their country ; it was because he could not describe them 
 otherwise. It was the instinct of his mind to attach itself to 
 the contemplation of the good and the beautiful, wherever he 
 found them, and to turn away from the sight of what was evil, 
 misshapen and hateful. His was not a nature to pry for faults, 
 or disabuse the world of good-natured mistakes ; he looked for 
 virtue, love and truth among men, and thanked God that he found 
 them in such large measure. If there are touches of satire in 
 his writings, he is the best-natured and most amiable of satirists, 
 amiable beyond Horace ; and in his irony for there is a vein 
 of playful irony running through many of his works there is no 
 tinge of bitterness. 
 
 I rejoice, for my part, that we have had such a writer as 
 Irving to bridge over the chasm between the two great nations 
 that an illustrious American lived so long in England, and was 
 so much beloved there, and sought so earnestly to bring the 
 people of the two countries to a better understanding with each 
 other, and to wean them from the animosities of narrow minds. 
 I am sure that there is not a large-minded and large-hearted 
 man in all our country who can read over the " Sketch Book " and 
 the other writings of Irving, and disown one of the magnani- 
 mous sentiments they express with regard to England, or desire 
 to abate the glow of one of his warm and cheerful pictures of 
 English life. Occasions will arise, no doubt, for saying some 
 things in a less accommodating spirit, and there are men 
 enough on both sides of the Atlantic who can say them ; but
 
 24 LITERARY PROGRESS. 
 
 Irving was not sent into the world on that errand. A different 
 work was assigned him in the very structure of his mind, and 
 the endowments of his heart a work of peace and brotherhood, 
 and I will say for him that he nobly performed it. 
 
 Let me pause here to speak of what I believe to have been 
 the influence of the " Sketch Book " upon American literature. 
 At the time it appeared the periodical lists of new American 
 publications were extremely meagre, and consisted, to a great 
 extent, of occasional pamphlets and dissertations on the ques- 
 tions of the day. The works of greater pretension were, for 
 the most part, crudely and languidly made up, and destined to 
 be little read. A work like the " Sketch Book," welcomed on 
 both sides of the Atlantic, showed the possibility of an Ameri- 
 can author acquiring a fame bounded only by the limits of his 
 own language, and gave an example of the qualities by which it 
 might be won. Within two years afterward we had Cooper's 
 " Spy " and Dana's " Idle Man;" the press of our country began, 
 by degrees, to teem with works composed with a literary skill 
 and a spirited activity of intellect until then little known among 
 us. Every year the assertion that we had no literature of our 
 own became less and less true : and now, when we look over a 
 list of new works by native authors, we find, with an astonish- 
 ment amounting almost to alarm, that the most voracious 
 devourer of books must despair of being able to read half those 
 which make a fair claim upon his attention. It was since 3819 
 that the great historians of our country, whose praise is in the 
 mouths of all the nations, began to write. One of them built 
 up the fabric of his fame long after Irving appeared as an 
 author, and slept with Herodotus two years before Irving's 
 death ; another of the band lives yet to be the ornament of the 
 association before which I am called to speak, and is framing
 
 OUR MEN OF LETTERS. 25 
 
 tbe annals of his country into a work for future ages. Within 
 that period has arisen among us the class who hold vast multi- 
 tudes spell-bound in motionless attention by public discourses, 
 the most perfect of their kind, such as make the fame of Everett. 
 Within that period our theologians have learned to write 
 with the elegance and vivacity of the essayists. We had but 
 one novelist before the era of the " Sketch Book ;" their num- 
 ber is now beyond enumeration by any but a professed cata- 
 logue-maker, and many of them are read in every cultivated 
 form of human speech. Those whom we acknowledge as our 
 poets one of whom is the special favorite of our brothers in 
 language who dwell beyond sea appeared in the world of let- 
 ters and won its attention after Irving had become famous. 
 We have wits, and humorists, and amusing essayists, authors 
 of some of the airiest and most graceful compositions of the pre- 
 sent century, and we owe them to the new impulse given to our 
 literature in 1819. I look abroad on these stars of our literary 
 firmament some crowded together with their minute points of 
 light in a galaxy some standing apart in glorious constellations; 
 I recognize Arcturus, and Orion, and Perseus, and the glittering 
 jewels of the Southern Crown, and the Pleiades shedding sweet 
 influences ; but the Evening Star, the soft and serene light 
 that glowed in their van, the precursor of them all, has sunk 
 below the horizon. The spheres, meantime, perform their 
 appointed courses ; the same motion which lifted them up to 
 the mid-sky bears them onward to their setting ; and they, too, 
 like their bright leader, must soon be carried by it below the 
 earth. 
 
 Irving went to Paris in 1820, where he passed the remainder 
 of the year and part of the next, and where he became 
 acquainted with the poet Moore, who frequently mentions him 
 2
 
 iio BKACEBKIDGE HALL. 
 
 in his Diary. Moore and he were much in each other's com- 
 pany and the poet has left on record an expression of his amaze- 
 ment at the rapidity with which " Bracebridge Hall " was com- 
 posed one hundred and thirty pages in ten days. The winter 
 of 1822 found him in Dresden. In that year was published 
 " Bracebridge Hall," the groundwork of which is a charming 
 description of country life in England, interspersed with narra- 
 tives, the scene of which is laid in other countries. Of these, 
 the Norman tale of " Annette Delarbre " seems to me the most 
 beautiful and affecting thing of its kind in all his works ; so 
 beautiful, indeed, that I can hardly see how he who has once 
 read it can resist the desire to read it again. In " Bracebridge 
 Hall" we have the Stout Gentleman, full of certain minute 
 paintings of familiar objects, where not a single touch is thrown 
 in that does not heighten the comic effect of the narrative. If 
 I am not greatly mistaken, the most popular novelists of the 
 day have learned from this pattern the skill with which they 
 have wrought up some of their most striking passages, both 
 grave and gay. In composing " Bracebridge Hall," Irving 
 showed that he had not forgotten his native country ; and in 
 the pleasant tale of Dolph Heyleger he went back to the banks 
 of that glorious river beside which he was born. 
 
 In 1823, Irving, still a wanderer, returned to Paris, and in 
 the year following gave the world his " Tales of a Traveller." 
 Murray, in the meantime, had become fully weaned from the 
 notion that Irving's writings lacked the quality which he called 
 " scope," for he had paid a thousand guineas for the copyright 
 of " Bracebridge Hall," and now offered fifteen hundred pounds 
 for the "Tales of a Traveller," which Irving accepted. "He 
 might have had two thousand," says Moore, but this assembly will 
 not, I hope, think the worse of him, if it be acknowledged that
 
 VISIT TO SPAIN. 27 
 
 the world contained men who were sharper than he at driving a 
 bargain. The " Tales of a Traveller " are most remarkable for 
 their second part, entitled " Buckthorne and his Friends/' in which 
 the author introduces us to literary life in its various aspects, as he 
 had observed it in London, and to the relations in which authors 
 at that time stood to the booksellers. His sketches of the dif- 
 ferent personages are individual, characteristic and diverting, yet 
 with what a kindly pencil they are all drawn! His good nature 
 overspreads and harmonizes everything, like the warm atmos- 
 phere which so much delights us in a painting. 
 
 Irving, still " unsettled in his abode," passed the winter of 
 1825 in the south of France. When you are in that region 
 you see the snowy summits of the Spanish Pyrenees looking 
 down upon you ; Spanish visitors frequent the watering-places ; 
 Spanish pedlers, in their handsome costume, offer you the 
 fabrics of Barcelona and Yalencia ; Spanish peasants come to 
 the fairs ; the traveller feels himself almost in Spain already, 
 and is haunted by the desire of visiting that remarkable country. 
 To Spain, Irving went in the latter part of the year, invited by 
 our Minister at Madrid, Alexander H. Everett, at the sugges- 
 tion of Mr. Rich, the American Consul, an industrious and 
 intelligent collector of Spanish works relating to America. His 
 errand was to translate into English the documents relating to 
 the discovery and early history of our Continent, collected by 
 the research of Navarrete. He passed the winter of 1826 at 
 the Spanish capital, as the guest of Mr. Rich ; the following 
 season took him to Granada, and he lingered awhile in that 
 beautiful region, profusedly watered by the streams that break 
 from the Snowy Ridge. In 1827, he again visited the South of 
 Spain, gathering materials for his " Life of Columbus," which, 
 immediately after his arrival in Spain, he had determined to write,
 
 28 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 instead of translating the documents of Navarrete. In Spain 
 he began and finished that work, after having visited the places 
 associated with the principal events in the life of his hero. 
 Murray was so well satisfied with its " scope " that he gave him 
 three thousand guineas for the copyright, and laid it before the 
 public in 1828. Like the other works of Irving's, it was pub- 
 lished here at the same time as in London. 
 
 The " Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus " placed 
 Irving amojig the historians, for the biography of that great dis- 
 coverer is a part, and a remarkable part, of the history of the 
 world. Of what was strictly and simply personal in his adven- 
 tures, much, of course, has passed into irremediable oblivion ; what 
 was both personal and historical is yet outstanding above the 
 shadow that has settled upon the rest. The work of Irving 
 was at once in everybody's hands and eagerly read. Navarrete 
 vouched for its historical accuracy and completeness. Jeffrey 
 declared that no work could ever take its place. It was written 
 with a strong love of the subject, and to this it owes much of 
 its power over the reader. Columbus was one of those who, 
 with all their faculties occupied by one great idea, and bent 
 On making it a practical reality, are looked upon as crazed, and 
 pitied and forgotten if they fail, but if they succeed are vene- 
 rated as the glory of their age. The poetic elements of his cha- 
 racter and history, the grandeur and mystery of his design, his 
 prophetic sagacity, his hopeful and devout courage, and his dis- 
 regard of the ridicule of meaner intellects, took a strong hold 
 on the mind of Irving, and formed the inspiration of the work. 
 
 Mr. Duyckinck gives, on the authority of one who knew 
 Irving intimately, an instructive anecdote relating to the " Life 
 of Columbus." When the work was nearly finished it was put 
 into the hands of Lieutenant Slidell Mackenzie, himself an agree-
 
 AN EXPERIMENT ON STYLE. 29 
 
 able writer, then on a visit to Spain, who read it with a view of 
 giving a critical opinion of its merits. " It is quite perfect," 
 said he, on returning the manuscript, " except the style, and that 
 is unequal." The remark made such an impression on the mind 
 of the author that he wrote over the whole narrative with the 
 view of making the style more uniform, but he afterward 
 thought that he had not improved it. 
 
 In this I have no doubt that Irving was quite right, and that 
 it would have been better if he had never touched the work 
 after he had brought it to the state which satisfied his indi- 
 vidual judgment. An author can scarce commit a greater error 
 than to alter what he writes, except when he has a clear per- 
 ception that the alteration is for the better, and can make it 
 with as hearty a confidence in himself as he felt in giving the 
 work its first shape. What strikes me as an occasional defect 
 in the " Life of Columbus " is this elaborate uniformity of style 
 a certain prismatic coloring in passages where absolute simplicity 
 would have satisfied us better. It may well be supposed that 
 Irving originally wrote some parts of the work with the quiet 
 plainness of a calm relater of facts, and others, with the 
 spirit and fire of one who had become warmed with his subject, 
 and this probably gave occasion to what was said of the in- 
 equality of the style. The attempt to elevate the diction of the 
 simpler portions, we may suppose, marred what Irving after- 
 ward perceived had really been one of the merits of the work. 
 
 In the spring of 1829, Irving made another visit to the south 
 of Spain, collecting materials from which he afterward com- 
 posed some of his most popular works. When the traveller 
 now visits Granada and is taken to the Alhambra, his guide 
 will say, " Here is one of the curiosities of the place ; this is the 
 chamber occupied by Washington Irving," and he will show an
 
 30 WOKKS ON SPANISH SUBJECTS. 
 
 apartment, from the windows of which you have a view of the 
 glorious valley of the Genii, with the mountain peaks overlook- 
 ing it, and hear the murmur of many mountain brooks at once, 
 as they hurry to the plain. In July of the same year, he 
 repaired to London, where he was to act as Secretary of the 
 American Legation. We had at that time certain controver- 
 sies with the British government which were the subject of nego- 
 tiation. Irving took great interest in these, and in some let- 
 ters which I saw at the time, stated the points in dispute at 
 considerable length and with admirable method and perspicuity. 
 In London he published his " Chronicles of the Conquest of 
 Granada," one of the most delightful of his works, an exact his- 
 tory, for snch^it is admitted to be by those who have searched 
 most carefully the ancient records of Spain, yet so full of per- 
 sonal incident, so diversified with surprising turns of fortune, 
 and these wrought up with such picturesque effect, that, to use 
 an expression of Pope, a young lady might read it by mistake 
 for a romance. In 1831, he gave the world another work on 
 Spanish history, the " Yoyages of the Companions of Colum- 
 bus," and in the year following the " Alhambra," which is another 
 " Sketch Book," with the scenes laid in Spain. 
 
 While in Spain, Irving had planned a Life of Cortez, the Con- 
 queror of Mexico, and collected the facts from which it was to 
 be written. When, afterward, he had actually begun the com- 
 position of the work, he happened to learn that Prescott 
 designed to write the " History of the Mexican Conquest," and 
 immediately he desisted. It was his intention to interweave 
 with the narrative, descriptions of the ancient customs of the 
 aborigines, such as their modes of warfare and their gorgeous 
 pageants, by way of relief to the sanguinary barbarities of the 
 Conquest. He saw what rich materials of the picturesque these
 
 KETUBN TO NEW YOKK. 31 
 
 opened to him, and if he had accomplished his plan, he would 
 probably have produced one of his most popular works. 
 
 In 1832, Irving returned to New York. He returned, after 
 an absence of seventeen years, to find his native city doubled in 
 population ; its once quiet waters alive with sails and furrowed 
 by steamers passing to and fro, its wharves crowded with masts ; 
 the heights which surround it, and which he remembered wild 
 and solitary and lying in forest, now crowned with stately coun- 
 try seats, or with dwellings clustered in villages, and everywhere 
 the activity and bustle of a prosperous and hopeful people. 
 And he, too, how had he returned ? The young and compa- 
 ratively obscure author, whose works had only found here and 
 there a reader in England, had achieved a fame as wide as the 
 civilized world. All the trophies he had won in this field he 
 brought home to lay at the feet of his country. Meanwhile all 
 the country was moved to meet him ; the rejoicing was univer- 
 sal that one who had represented us so illustriously abroad was 
 henceforth to live among us. 
 
 Irving hated public dinners, but he was forced to accept one 
 pressed upon him by his enthusiastic countrymen. It was given at 
 the City Hotel on the 30th of May, Chancellor Kent presiding, 
 and the most eminent citizens of New York assembled at the 
 table. I remember the accounts of this festivity reaching me as 
 I was wandering in Illinois, hovering on the skirts of the Indian 
 war, in a region now populous, but then untilled and waste, 
 and I could only write to Irving and ask leave to add my voice 
 to the general acclamation. In his address at the dinner, Chan- 
 cellor Kent welcomed the historian of New Amsterdam back to 
 his native city, and Irving, in reply, poured forth his heart in the 
 warmest expressions of delight at finding himself again among his 
 countrymen and kindred, in a land of sunshine and freedom and
 
 32 ASTORIA. 
 
 hope. " I am asked," he said, " how long I mean to remain 
 here. They know little of my heart who can ask me this ques- 
 tion. I answer, as long as I live." 
 
 The instinct of rambling, had not, however, forsaken him. 
 In the summer after his return he made a journey to the coun- 
 try west of the Mississippi, in company with Mr. Ellsworth, a 
 commissioner intrusted with the removal of certain Indian 
 tribes, and roamed over wild regions, then the hunting-grounds 
 of the savage, but into which the white man has since brought 
 his plough and his herds. He did not publish his account of this 
 journey until 1835, when it appeared as the first volume of the 
 " Crayon Miscellany," under the title of a " Tour on the Prai- 
 ries." In this work the original West is described as Irving 
 knew how to describe it, and the narrative is in that vein of 
 easy gaiety peculiar to his writings. " Abbotsford and New- 
 stead Abbey " formed the second volume of the " Crayon Mis- 
 cellany," and to these he afterward added another, entitled 
 " Legends of the Conquest of Spain." 
 
 In 1836, he published "Astoria ; or, Anecdotes of an Enter- 
 prise beyond the Rocky Mountains ;" a somewhat curious 
 example of literary skill. A voluminous commercial correspon- 
 dence was the dull ore of the earth which he refined and 
 wrought into symmetry and splendor. Irving reduced to a 
 regular narrative the events to which it referred, bringing out 
 the picturesque whenever he found it, and enlivening the whole 
 with touches of his native humor. His nephew, Pierre M. 
 Irving, lightened his labor materially by examining and collat- 
 ing the letters and making memoranda of their contents. In 
 1837, he prepared for the press the " Adventures of Captain 
 Bonneville, of the United States Army, in the Rocky Mountains 
 and the Far West." He had the manuscript journal of Bonne-
 
 A CONTROVERSY. 33 
 
 ville before him, but the hand of Irving is apparent in every 
 sentence. 
 
 About the time that this work appeared, Irving was drawn 
 into the only public controversy in which, so far as I know, he 
 ever engaged. William Leggett then conducted a weekly 
 periodical entitled the " Plaindealer," remarkable both for its 
 ability and its love of disputation. It attacked Mr. Irving for 
 altering a line or two in one of my poems, with a view of mak- 
 ing it less offensive to English readers, and for writing a preface 
 to the American edition of his "Tour on the Prairies," full of 
 professions of love for his country, which were studiously omitted 
 from the English edition. From these circumstances the 
 " Plaindealer " drew an inference unfavorable to Irving's sincerity. 
 
 I should here mention, and I hope I may do it without much 
 egotism, that when a volume of my poems was published here 
 in the year 1832, Mr. Verplanck had the kindness to send a 
 copy of it to Irving, desiring him to find a publisher for it in 
 England. This he readily engaged to do, though wholly unac- 
 quainted with me, and offered the volume to Murray. " Poetry 
 does not sell at present," said Murray, and declined it. A book- 
 seller in Bond street, named Andrews, undertook its publica- 
 tion, but required that Irving should introduce it with a preface 
 of his own. He did so, speaking of my verses in such terms as 
 would naturally command for them the attention of the public, 
 and allowing his name to be placed in the title-page as the 
 editor. The edition, in consequence, found a sale. It happened, 
 however, that the publisher objected to two lines in a poem 
 called the " Song of Marion's Men." One of them was 
 
 " The British soldier trembles," 
 
 and Irving good-naturedly consented that it should be altered to 
 
 2*
 
 34 IKVING'S VINDICATION. 
 
 " The foeman trembles in his camp." 
 
 The other alteration was of a similar character. 
 
 To the accusations of the " Plaindealer," Irving replied with 
 a mingled spirit and dignity which almost makes us regret that 
 his faculties were not oftener roused into energy by such collisions, 
 or, at least, that he did not sometimes employ his pen on contro- 
 verted points. He fully vindicated himself in both instances, 
 showing that he had made the alterations in my poem from a 
 simple desire to do me service, and that with regard to the " Tour 
 on the Prairies," he had sent a manuscript copy of it to England 
 for publication, at the same time that he sent another to the 
 printer here, and that it would have been an absurdity to 
 address the English edition to the American public. But as 
 this was the first time that he had appeared before his country- 
 men as an author since his return from Europe, it was but pro- 
 per that he should express to them the feelings awakened by 
 their generous welcome. " These feelings," he said, " were 
 genuine, and were not expressed with half the warmth with 
 which they were entertained ;" an assertion which every reader, 
 I believe, was disposed to receive literally. 
 
 In his answer to the " Plaindealer," some allusions were made 
 to me which seemed to imply that I had taken part in this 
 attack upon him. To remove the impression, I sent a note to 
 the " Plaindealer " for publication, in which I declared in sub- 
 stance that I never had complained of the alterations of my 
 poem that though they were not such as I should have made, 
 I was certain they were made with the kindest intentions, and 
 that I had no feeling toward Mr. Irving but gratitude for the 
 service he had rendered me. The explanation was graciously 
 accepted, and in a brief note, printed in the "Plaindealer," 
 Irving pronounced my acquittal.
 
 AGAIN IN SPAIN. 35 
 
 Several papers were written by Irving in 1839 and the fol- 
 lowing year, for the " Knickerbocker," a monthly periodical 
 conducted by his friend, Lewis Gaylord Clark, all of them such 
 as he only could write. They were afterward collected into a 
 volume, entitled " Wolfert's Roost," from the ancient name of 
 that beautiful residence of his on the banks of the Hudson, in 
 which they were mostly written. They were, perhaps, read 
 with more interest in the volume than in the magazine, just as 
 some paintings of the highest merit are seen with more pleasure 
 in the artist's room than on the walls of an exhibition. 
 
 In 1842, he went to Spain as the American minister, and 
 remained in that country for four years. I have never under- 
 stood that anything occurred during that time to put his talents 
 as a negotiator to any rigorous test. He was a sagacious and 
 intelligent observer; his connection with the American Legation 
 in London had given him diplomatic experience, and I have 
 heard that he sent home to his government some valuable des- 
 patches on the subject of our relations with Spain. In other 
 respects, he did, at least, what all American ministers at the 
 European courts are doing, and I suppose my hearers under- 
 stand very well what that is ; but if there had been any ques- 
 tion of importance to be settled, I think he might have acquitted 
 himself as well as many who have had a higher reputation for 
 dexterity in business. When I was at Madrid in 1851, a dis- 
 tinguished Spaniard said to me : " Why does not your govern- 
 ment send out Washington Irving to this court ? Why do you 
 not take as your agent the man whom all Spain admires, vene- 
 rates, loves ? I assure you, it would be difficult for our govern- 
 ment to refuse anything which Irving should ask, and his signa- 
 ture would make almost any treaty acceptable to our people." 
 
 Returning in 1846, Irving went back to Sunnyside, on the
 
 36 LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Hudson, and continued to make it his abode for the rest of his 
 life. Those who passed up and down the river before the year 
 1835, may remember a neglected cottage on a green bank, with 
 a few locust-trees before it, close to where a little brook brings 
 in its tribute to the mightier stream. In that year Irving be- 
 came its possessor ; he gave it the name it now wears, planted 
 its pleasant slopes with trees and shrubs, laid it out in walks, 
 built outhouses, and converted the cottage into a more spacious 
 dwelling, in the old Dutch style of architecture, with crow-steps 
 on the gables ; a quaint, picturesque building, with " as many 
 angles and corners," to use his own words, " as a cocked hat." 
 He caused creeping plants and climbing roses to be trained up 
 its walls ; the trees he planted prospered in that sheltered situa- 
 tion, and were filled with birds, which would not leave their 
 nests at the approach of the kind master of the place. The 
 house became almost hidden from sight by their lofty summits, 
 the perpetual rustlings of which, to those who sat within, were 
 blended with the murmurs cf the water. Van Tassel would 
 have had some difficulty in recognizing his old abode in this lit- 
 tle paradise, with the beauty of which one of Irving's friends * 
 has made the public familiar in prose and verse. 
 
 At Sunnyside, Irving wrote his " Life of Oliver Goldsmith." 
 Putnam, the bookseller, had said to him one day : " Here is 
 Foster's ' Life of Goldsmith ;' I think of republishing it." " I 
 once wrote a Memoir of Goldsmith," answered Irving, " which 
 was prefixed to an edition of his works printed at Paris ; and I 
 have thought of enlarging it and making it more pei'fect." " If 
 you will do that," was the reply of the bookseller, " I shall not 
 republish the Life by Foster." Within three months afterward, 
 
 * H. T. Tuckerman.
 
 IRVING AT SIXTY-EIGHT. 37 
 
 living's " Life of Goldsmith" was finished and in press. It 
 was so much superior to the original sketch, in the exactness of 
 the particulars, the entertainment of the anecdotes, and the 
 beauty of the style, that it was really a new work. For my 
 part, I know of nothing like it. I have read no biographical 
 memoir which carries forward the reader so delightfully and 
 with so little tediousness of recital or reflection. I never take it 
 up without being tempted to wish that Irving had written more 
 works of the kind; but this could hardly be ; for where could he 
 have found another Goldsmith ? 
 
 In 1850, appeared his "Lives of Mahomet and his Succes- 
 sors," composed principally from memoranda made by him dur- 
 ing his residence in Spain; and in the same year he completed the 
 revisal of his works for a new edition, which was brought out 
 by Putnam, a bookseller of whose obliging and honorable con- 
 duct he delighted to speak. Irving was a man with whom it 
 was not easy to have a misunderstanding ; but, even if he had 
 been of a different temper, these commendations would have 
 been none the less deserved. 
 
 When Cooper died, toward the close of the year 1850, Irving, 
 who had not long before met him, apparently in the full vigor of 
 his excellent constitution, was much shocked by the event, and 
 took part in the meetings held for the purpose of collecting funds 
 to erect a monument to his memory in this city a design which, 
 I am sorry to say, has wholly failed. He wrote a letter advis- 
 ing that the monument should be a statue, and attended the 
 great memorial meeting held in Metropolitan Hall, in February 
 of the next year, at which Webster presided. He was then 
 near the end of his sixty-eighth year, and was remarked as one 
 over whom the last twenty years had passed lightly. He, whom 
 Dr. Francis describes as in early life a slender and delicate
 
 38 LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 youth, preserving his health by habitual daily exercise, appeared 
 before that vast assembly a fresh, well-preserved gentleman 
 scarcely more than elderly, with firm but benevolent features, 
 well-knit and muscular limbs, and an elastic step, the sign of un- 
 diminished physical vigor. 
 
 In his retirement at Sunnyside, Irving planned and executed 
 his last great work, the " Life of Washington," to which he says 
 he had long looked forward as his crowning literary effort. Con- 
 stable, the Edinburgh bookseller, had proposed it to him thirty 
 years before, and he then resolved to undertake it as soon as he 
 should return to the United States. It was postponed in favor 
 of other projects, but never abandoned. At length the expected 
 time seemed to have arrived ; his other tasks had been success- 
 fully performed ; the world was waiting for new works from his 
 pen ; his mind and body were yet in their vigor; the habit and 
 the love of literary production yet remained, and he addressed 
 himself to this greatest of his labors. 
 
 Yet he had his misgivings, though they could not divert him 
 from his purpose. " They expect too much too much," he said 
 to a friend of mine, to whom he was speaking of the magnitude 
 of the task and the difficulty of satisfying the public. We can- 
 not wonder at these doubts. At the time when he began to 
 employ himself steadily on this work, he was near the age of 
 threescore and ten, when with most men the season of hope and 
 confidence is past. He was like one who should begin the great 
 labor of the day when the sun was shedding his latest beams, 
 and what if the shadows of night should descend upon him be- 
 fore his task was ended ? A vast labor had been thrown upon 
 him by the almost numberless documents and papers recently 
 brought to light relating to the events in which Washington was 
 concerned such as were amassed and digested by the research
 
 ITS SIMPLICITY. 39 
 
 of Sparks, and accompanied by the commentary of his excellent 
 biography. These were all to be carefully examined and their 
 spirit extracted. Historians had in the meantime arisen in our 
 country, of a world-wide fame, with whose works his own must 
 be compared, and he was to be judged by a public whom he, more 
 than almost any other man, had taught to be impatient of medi- 
 ocrity. 
 
 I do not believe, however, that Irving's task would have been 
 performed so ably if it had been undertaken when it was sug- 
 gested by Constable ; the narrative could not have been so com- 
 plete in its facts ; it might not have been written with the same 
 becoming simplicity. It was fortunate that the work was de- 
 layed till it could be written from the largest store of materials, 
 till its plan was fully matured in all its fair proportions, and till 
 the author's mind had become filled with the profoundest vene- 
 ration for his subject. 
 
 The simplicity already mentioned is the first quality of this 
 work which impresses the reader. Here is a man of genius, a 
 poet by temperament, writing the life of a man of transcendent 
 wisdom and virtue a life passed amidst great events, and 
 marked by inestimable public services. There is a constant 
 temptation to eulogy, but the temptation is resisted ; the actions 
 of his hero are left to speak their own praise. He records events 
 reverently, as one might have recorded them before the art of 
 rhetoric was invented, with no exaggeration, with no parade of 
 reflection ; the lessons of the narrative are made to impress 
 themselves on the mind by the earnest and conscientious relation 
 of facts. Meantime the narrator keeps himself in the back- 
 ground, solely occupied with the due presentation of his subject. 
 Our eyes are upon the actors whom he sets before us we never 
 think of Mr. Irving.
 
 40 ITS IMPARTIALITY. 
 
 A closer examination reveals another great merit of the work, 
 the admirable proportion m which the author keeps the charac- 
 ters and events of his story. I suppose he could hardly have 
 been conscious of this merit, and that it was attained without a 
 direct effort. Long meditation had probably so shaped and 
 matured the plan in his mind, and so arranged its parts in their 
 just symmetry, that, executing it as he did, conscientiously, he 
 could not have made it a different thing from what we have it. 
 There is nothing distorted, nothing placed in too broad a light 
 or thrown too far in the shade. The incidents of our Revolu- 
 tionary war, the great event of Washington's life, pass before us 
 as they passed before the eyes of the commander-iu-chief himself, 
 and from time to time varied his designs. Washington is kept 
 always in sight, and the office of the biographer is never allowed 
 to become merged in that of the historian. 
 
 The men who were the companions of Washington in the 
 field or in civil life, are shown only in their association with 
 him, yet are their characters drawn, not only with skill and spirit, 
 but with a hand that delighted to do them justice. Nothing, I 
 believe, could be more abhorrent to Irving's ideas of the province 
 of a biographer, than the slightest detraction from the merits of 
 others, that his hero might appear the more eminent. So re- 
 markable is his work in this respect, that an accomplished mem- 
 ber of the Historical Society,* who has analyzed the merits of 
 the " Life of Washington " with a critical skill which makes me 
 ashamed to speak of the work after him, has declared that no 
 writer, within the circle of his reading, " has so successfully estab- 
 lished his claim to the rare and difficult virtue of impartiality." 
 
 I confess, my admiration of this work becomes the greater the 
 
 * G. W. Greene. " Biographical Studies."
 
 IKVING'S DEATH. 41 
 
 more I examine it. In the other writings of Irving are beauties 
 which strike the reader at once. In this I recognize qualities 
 which lie deeper, and which I was not sure of finding a rare 
 equity of judgment, a large grasp of the subject, a profound phi- 
 losophy, independent of philosophical forms, and even instinc- 
 tively rejecting them, the power of reducing an immense crowd 
 of loose materials to clear and orderly arrangement, and form- 
 ing them into one grand whole, as a skillful commander, from a 
 rabble of raw recruits, forms a disciplined army, animated and 
 moved by a single will. 
 
 The greater part of this last work of Irving was composed 
 while he was in the enjoyment of what might be called a happy 
 old age. This period of his life was not without its infirmities, 
 but his frame was yet unwasted, his intellect bright and active, 
 and the hour of decay seemed distant. He had become more 
 than ever the object of public veneration, and in his beautiful 
 retreat enjoyed all the advantages with few of the molestations 
 of acknowledged greatness ; a little too much visited, perhaps, 
 but submitting to the intrusion of his admirers with his charac- 
 teristic patience and kindness. That retreat had now become 
 more charming than ever, and the domestic life within was as 
 beautiful as the nature without. A surviving brother, older than 
 himself, shared it with him, and several affectionate nephews 
 and nieces stood to him in the relation of sons and daughters. 
 He was surrounded by neighbors who saw him daily, and hon- 
 ored and loved him the more for knowing him so well. 
 
 While he was engaged in writing the last pages of his " Life 
 of Washington," his countrymen heard with pain that his health 
 was failing and his strength ebbing away. He completed the 
 work, however, though he was not able to revise the last sheets, 
 and we then heard that his nights had become altogether sleep-
 
 4:2 THE FUNERAL. 
 
 less. He was himself of opinion that his labors had been too 
 severe for his time of life, and had sometimes feared that the 
 power to continue them would desert him before his work could 
 be finished. A catarrh to which he had been subject, had, by 
 some injudicious prescription, been converted into an asthma, 
 and the asthma, according to the testimony of his physician, 
 Dr. Peters, one of the most attentive and assiduous of his pro- 
 fession, was at length accompanied by an enlargement of the 
 heart. This disease ended in the usual way by a sudden disso- 
 lution. On the 28th of November last, in the evening, he had 
 bidden the family good night in his usual kind manner, and had 
 withdrawn to his room, attended by one of his nieces carrying 
 his medicines, when he complained of a sudden feeling of in- 
 tense sadness, sank immediately into her arms, and died with- 
 out a struggle. 
 
 Although he had reached an age beyond which life is rarely 
 prolonged, the news of his death was everywhere received with 
 profound sorrow. The whole country mourned, but the grief 
 was most deeply felt in his immediate neighborhood ; the little 
 children wept for the loss of their good friend. When the day 
 of his funeral arrived, the people gathered from far and near to 
 attend it ; this capital poured fourth its citizens ; the trains on 
 the railway were crowded, and a multitude, like a mass meeting, 
 but reverentially silent, moved through the streets of the neigh- 
 boring village, which had been dressed in the emblems of mourn- 
 ing, and clustered about the church and the burial-ground. It 
 was the first day of December ; the pleasant Indian summer of 
 our climate had been prolonged far beyond its usual date ; the 
 sun shone with his softest splendor and the elements were hushed 
 into a perfect calm ; it was like one of the blandest days of 
 October. The hills and forests, the meadows and waters which
 
 IRVING'S CHARACTER. 43 
 
 Irving had loved seemed listening, in that quiet atmosphere, as 
 the solemn funeral service was read. 
 
 It was read over the remains of one whose life had well pre- 
 pared his spirit for its new stage of being. Irving did not 
 aspire to be a theologian, but his heart was deeply penetrated 
 with the better part of religion, and he had sought humbly to 
 imitate the example of the Great Teacher of our faith. 
 
 That amiable character which makes itself so manifest in the 
 writings of Irving was seen in all his daily actions. He was 
 ever ready to do kind offices, tender of the feelings of others, 
 carefully just, but ever leaning to the merciful side of justice, 
 averse from strife, and so modest that the world never ceased to 
 wonder how it should have happened that one so much praised 
 should have gained so little assurance. He envied no man's 
 success, he sought to detract from no man's merits, but he was 
 acutely sensitive both to praise and to blame sensitive to such 
 a degree that an unfavorable criticism of any of his works would 
 almost persuade him that they were as worthless as the critic 
 represented them. He thought so little of himself that he 
 could never comprehend why it was that he should be the object 
 of curiosity or reverence. 
 
 Prom the time that he began the composition of his " Sketch 
 Book," his whole life was the life of an author. His habits of 
 composition were, however, by no means regular. When he 
 was in the vein, the periods would literally stream from his pen; 
 at other times he would scarcely write anything. For two 
 years after the failure of his brothers at Liverpool, he found it 
 almost impossible to write a line. He was throughout life an 
 early riser, and when in the mood, would write all the morning 
 and till late in the day, wholly engrossed with his subject. In 
 the evening he was ready for any cheerful pastime, in which he
 
 44 HABITS OF COMPOSITION. 
 
 took part with an animation almost amounting to high spirits. 
 These intervals of excitement and intense labor, sometimes last- 
 ing for weeks, were succeeded by languor, and at times by de- 
 pression of spirits, and for months the pen would lie untouched; 
 even to answer a letter at these times was an irksome task. 
 
 In the evening he wrote but very rarely, knowing so, at 
 least, I infer that no habit makes severer demands upon the 
 nervous system than this. It was owing, I doubt not, to this 
 prudent husbanding of his powers, along with his somewhat 
 abstinent habits and the exercise which he took every day, that 
 he was able to preserve unimpaired to so late a period the facul- 
 ties employed in original composition. He has been a vigorous 
 walker and a fearless rider, and in his declining years he drove 
 out daily, not only for the sake of the open air and motion, but 
 to refresh his mind with the aspect of nature. One of his favo- 
 rite recreations was listening to music, of which he was an indul- 
 gent critic, and he contrived to be pleased and soothed by strains 
 less artfully modulated than fastidious ears are apt to require. 
 
 His facility in writing and the charm of his style were owing 
 to very early practice, the reading of good authors and the 
 native elegance of his mind, and not, in my opinion, to any 
 special study of the graces of manner or any anxious care in the 
 use of terms and phrases. Words and combinations of words 
 are sometimes found in his writings to which a fastidious taste 
 might object ; but these do not prevent his style from being one 
 of the most agreeable in the whole range of our literature. It 
 is transparent as the light, sweetly modulated, unaffected, the 
 native expression of a fertile fancy, a benignant temper, and 
 a mind which, delighting in the noble and the beautiful, turned 
 involuntarily away from their opposities. His peculiar humor 
 was, in a great measure, the offspring of this constitution of his
 
 FUTUKE FAME. 45 
 
 mind. This " fanciful playing with common things," as Mr. 
 Dana calls it, is never coarse, never tainted with grossness, and 
 always in harmony with our better sympathies. It not only 
 tinged his writings, but overflowed in his delightful conversation. 
 I have thus set before you, my friends, with such measure of 
 ability as I possess, a rapid and imperfect sketch of the life, cha- 
 racter and genius of Washington Irving. Other hands will yet 
 give the world a bolder, more vivid and more exact portraiture. 
 In the meantime, when I consider for how many years he stood 
 before the world as an author, with a still increasing fame half 
 a century in this most changeful of centuries I cannot hesitate 
 to predict for him a deathless renown. Since he began to write, 
 empires have risen and passed away ; mighty captains have 
 appeared on the stage of the world, performed their part, and 
 been called to their account ; wars have been fought and ended, 
 which have changed the destinies of the human race. New arts 
 have been invented and adopted, and have pushed the old out of 
 use ; the household economy of half mankind has undergone a 
 revolution. Science has learned a new dialect and forgotten the 
 old ; the chemist of 1807 would be a vain babbler among his 
 brethren of the present day, and would in turn become bewil- 
 dered in the attempt to understand them. Nation utters speech 
 to nation in words that pass from realm to realm with the speed 
 of light. Distant countries have been made neighbors ; the 
 Atlantic Ocean has become a narrow frith, and the Old World 
 and the New shake hands across it ; the East and the West 
 look in at each other's windows. The new inventions bring 
 new calamities, and men perish in crowds by the recoil of their 
 own devices. War has learned more frightful modes of havoc, 
 and armed himself with deadlier weapons ; armies are borne to 
 the battle-field on the wings of the wind, and dashed against
 
 46 A FAREWELL. 
 
 each other and destroyed with infinite bloodshed. We grow 
 giddy with this perpetual whirl of strange events, these rapid 
 and ceaseless mutations ; the earth seems to reel under our feet, 
 and we turn to those who write like Irving, for some assurance 
 that we are still in the same world into which we were born ; we 
 read, and are quieted and consoled. In his pages we see 
 that the language of the heart never becomes obsolete ; that 
 Truth and Good and Beauty, the offspring of God, are not sub- 
 ject to the changes which beset the inventions of men. We 
 become satisfied that he whose works were the delight of our 
 fathers, and are still ours, will be read with the same pleasure 
 by those who come after us. 
 
 If it were becoming, at this time and in this assembly, to 
 address our departed friend as if in his immediate presence, I 
 would say : "Farewell, thou who hast entered into the rest pre- 
 pared, from the foundation of the world, for serene and gentle 
 spirits like thine. Farewell, happy in thy life, happy in thy 
 death, happier in the reward to which that death was the 
 assured passage ; fortunate in attracting the admiration of the 
 world to thy beautiful writings ; still more fortunate in having 
 written nothing which did not tend to promote the reign of 
 magnanimous forbearance and generous sympathies among thy 
 fellow-men. The brightness of that enduring fame which thou 
 hast won on earth is but a shadowy symbol of the glory to 
 which thou art admitted in the world beyond the grave. 
 Thy errand upon earth was an errand of peace and good-will to 
 men, and thou art now in a region where hatred and strife 
 never enter, and where the harmonious activity of those who 
 inhabit it acknowledges no impulse less noble or less pure than 
 that of love."
 
 Ctat of tije ttorks 
 
 Wafliington Irving, Bayard Taylor, 
 and others, 
 
 for tbt authors, 
 
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 Terms : Cash In New York. 
 
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 * # * The Life of Washington being now complete 
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