1~ Q 0. MEMOIR OF WASHINGTON IRVING. WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS WORKS, AND CRITICISMS. BY CHARLES 'ADAMS, D.D. NEW YORK : CARLTON &, LANAHAN. SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS. CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. SUNDAY-SCHOOL I) IfiP A RT U V NT. Entered according to Act of Coiigreta, in the year 1870. BY CARLTON & LANAHAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United SUtet for the Southern District of New York. WS2 T7Z ' TO HON. JACOB SLEEPER, A FKIBND OF MANY YEARS, Cbts Volume 18 AFFECTIONATELY AND GRATEFULLY DEDICATED. 768 PREFACE. THE " Life and Letters of Washington Irving," m four volumes, prepared by his nephew, Pierre M. Irving, and published since the death of his illuscrious uncle, has been for several years before the public, and may be con- sidered a model work of its kind. It seems quite certain, however, that a brief and direct history of Irving, such as would be comprised in a single volume of moderate size, and includ- ing slight specimens of some of his more popu- lar compositions, would supply a positive de- sideratum, and be an acceptable service, espe- cially to multitudes of our youth, and others besides, who would shrink from the expense of a much more voluminous biography. Washington Irving was one of the distin- guished fathers of American Literature, and his service in this field must ev*r be deemed of great and special importance to his country. Hence it has very seriously impressed the author of this little work that the history and many of the writings of Jrying should be as widely known as the language itself, and to 6 Preface. further such an object was a prominent purpose of these pages. Of course to the literati, pro- fessional men, and students of the country, the eminent author and his works are sufficiently familiar. At the same time, to thousands of both sexes, outside of these several classes, the author of the " Sketch Book" is still a stranger, and to this day the magical pen he wielded has brought no instruction or amusement. If, therefore, to such this unpretending volume shall tend to bring the distinguished writer and his Works more prominently to notice, and en- tice to a still wider perusal and study of them, then will our humble effort not be in vain. And what was remarked by Edward Everett in the North American Review touching one of Mr. Irving's volumes may be well applied to the majority of his published writings : " The Ameri- can father who can afford it and docs not buy a copy (of 'Tour on the Prairies') docs not de- serve that his sons should prefer his fireside to the bar-room, the pure and chaste pleasures of a cultivated taste to the gross indulgences of sense. He does not deserve that his daughters should pass their leisure hours in maidenly seclusion, and the improvement of their minds, rather than to flaunt on the sidewalks by day, and pursue, by night, an eternal round of taste- less dissipation." CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Irving's Birth Name General Washington's Blessing- Boyhood Reading Tendencies Theater Wai ning His Limited Education Literary Eminence Page 15 CHAPTER II. Irving commences the Study of Law Incompatibility- Belles Lettres Excursions Deep Interest First Movements of his Pen Jonathan Old style "Success Interesting Ex- cursion to Ogdensburgh The Party The Disasters Fifty Years afterward Affecting Memories 22 CHAPTER III. Irving at Twenty-one Personal Appearance Social Char* acter Popularity Feeble jiealth Embarks for Europe Reflections oa Shipboard Arrival at Bordeaux.. ....... 28 CHAPTER IV. French Language Journal French " Diligence "The " Little Doctor " Montpelier Marseilles NiceGenoa Delightful Times Embarks for Sicily Syracuse Mount Etna Palermo Naples Rome Washington A list on Painting Fortunate Escape Madame de Stael rHer Conversation t Writings Irving reaches Paris Residence there 32 s. Contents. CHAPTER V. Irving leaves Paris for London Brussels Holland Thea- ter going Mrs. Siddons Irving enraptured Brief Excursions Embarksfor New York Established Health Resumes Law Studies Admitted to the Bar Declines Practicing" Salma- gundi " Its Character and Influence Discontinuance Page 41 CHAPTER VI. "Salmagundi" Will Wizard His Ball Dress His Dan- cing Charity Cockloft Her Character Piety Curiosity 46 CHAPTER VII. " History of New York "History of the " History "The "Work Its Superabundant Humor Contemporaneous No- tices Blackwood North American Walter Scott Style of the " History" Offense taken by certain Dutch Descendants Laughable Instance at Albany. . . : 52 CHAPTER VIII. " History " Wouter Von Twiller His Prodigious Intellect Personal Appearance Wilhelmus Kieft His Peculiar Tem- perament Remarkable Countenance A Fine Lady of the Dutch Dynasty The Fashionable Dutch Gentleman The New England Barbarians, or Yankees . , 57 CHAPTER IX. Irving' s Apparent Indifference to the Success of his " His- tory" Temperament Manners Life Crisis Matilda Hoff- manA Mutual Attachment Her Sickness and Death Stunning Influences upon Irving "Cast down, but not destroyed" Rallies and takes heart again 67 Contents. 9 CHAPTER x. A Silent Partnership A Pause of the Pen A Visit to Wash- ington Resigns himself to the Gayeties of the Capital As- sumes Editorial Charge of the "Analectic Review" Con- tributes many interesting Pieces The Position distasteful Embarks for Europe His Brother Peter His Sister, Mrs. Van Wart Several Visits Partnership Business Embarrass- mentsFraternal Affection Chastened Views " Fortune " and "Providence" Bankruptcy Page 72 CHAPTER XL The " Low Estate" Remarkable Letter James Ogilvie Excursion to Scotland Visit to Abbotsford Other pleasant Visits and Acquaintances So CHAPTER XII. Irving resumes his Pen Invited to a Situation in the Navy Board Declines Publishes first Number of "Sketch-Book" Its Character and Style Highly approved and successful 90 CHAPTER XIII. Mr. Roscoe A Royal Poet Westminster Abbey Medita- tionsEnglish Stage-coachman John Bull 94 CHAPTER XIV. Irving visits Paris The Poet Moore Mutual Friendship George Canning Lord John Russell John Howard Payne- Talma Bancroft 103 CHAPTER XV. Sudden Return to London Coronation of George IV. Scott Leslie, the Artist The "Stout Gentleman" A Cu- rosity of Literature Extract from Watts Sickness Other Afflictions" Bracebridge Hull " loS io Contents. CHAPTER XVL Character of " Bracebridge Hall "Lady Lfflycraft and her Dogs "Family Reliques" Pensive Reflections A "Wet Sunday "Notices of the Edinburgh Review Page 1 12 CHAPTER XVII. Relaxation Embarks for Holland Up the Rhine Aix La Chapeile Other Cities Baths of Baden Charming Scenery- Black Forest Saltzburg Vienna Prague Dresden A de- lightful ResidenceThe Fosters Royal Family Their ample Hospitality Pen inactive Weariness of " Fashionable Life*' An important Confession 120 CHAPTER XVIII. From Dresden to Paris Temporary Engagement with Mr. Payne Revision of " Salmagundi " for a French Publisher Edition of English Authors, with Biographical Sketches "Tales of a Traveler" Goes to London Poet Spencer Rogers Compton Moore Mrs. Van Wart The Fosters- Publication of "Tales of a Traveler" Moore's two Opinions Extracts from " Buckthorne : s Autobiography " 127 CHAPTER XIX. " Blackwood's " resume of Irving and his Publications His Life and Personal Appearance Newspaper Essays Salma- gundi Knickerbocker Naval Biography Sketch- Book Bracebridge Hall Talcs of a Traveler The Reviewer's Farewell 135 CHAPTER XX. Irving' s Return to Paris Long Interval of Literary Inactivity Depression of Spirits Advice to Nephew Remark upon it Autumnp.l Excursion with Peter Their Winter Establish- ment A Pleasant Picture Departure of the Brothers for Bordeaux. 148 Contents. I X CHAPTER XXI. Correspondence with Minister Everett Departure for Ma- drid Irving commences a "Life of Columbus "Writes his " Conquest of Granada " A Diligent Year Finishes " Co- lumbus " Highly Applauded Extracts : The Man ; The Ships; The Approach; The Discovery; The Landing; The Natives Page 154 CHAPTER XXII. A Vacation Irving sets out for the South Interesting Scenery Cordova Granada The Alhambra Malaga- Picturesque Journey Gibraltar Cadiz Seville Spanish People 166 CHAPTER XXIII. A Year at Seville His Companion Suburban Cottage Rational Sentiment and Rational Enjoyment Letter to Prince Dolgorouki Visit to Palos Cerillo Publication of " Con- quest of Granada" Extract : Kingdom and City of Granada before the Conquest The People Military Character Po- litical Position 4 172 CHAPTER XXIV. An Editorship proposed to Irving Declined Prepares an Abridgment jf " Columbus " A Laborious and Tranquil Year A Diploma Lodging for Home Reluctance to leave Spain An Excursion with Prince Dolgorouki Off for Gra- nada Lodgings in the Alhambra Irving in his Element- His Quarters Sets to Work Finishes Legends of the Con- quest of Spain " Appointed " Secretary of Legation to Lon- don " Accepts the Appointment Regrets at leaving the 'Alhambra" 183 12 Contents. CHAPTER XXV. Departure for England Traveling Companion The Route Traveling Companion's Sickness and Death Arrival at London The Secretaryship Pleasant Situation and Com- fortable Circumstances Receives a Royal Medal Doctorate of Civil Law at Oxford Laughable Demonstration Irving and his new Title ..Page 191 CHAPTER XXVI. " Voyages of the Companions of Columbus " Secretaryship Burdensome Released after Two YCI.TS* Service Various Visits Publishes " Alhambra" Embarks for New York Greeted with great cordiality Public Dinners Visits and Excursions Full of Animation and Delight Accompanies a Government Commission to the Far West Winters at Wash- ington Resumes Literary Labors Extract from "Compan- ions of Columbus " 196 CHAPTER XXVII. Cordial Reception of the "Alhambra" Everett Prescott Extracts: Journey to Granada Spain Aspect of the Country Birds Traveling Dangers Muleteers Robbers Author's Lodgings at the Alhambra First Night. . . . 205 CHAPTER XXVIII. "Miscellanies" "Tour on the Prairies" North Ameri- can Extracts : The Prairie Indian ; Wild Horses of the Prai- rie ; One Captured ; His Subjugation ; Reflections of Irving; Buffalo Hunt ; Success ; Prairie Dogs ; Their Villages and Associates Succeeding Volumes of the " Miscellanies " 217 CHAPTER XXIX. "Astoria** History of the Work Various approving No- tices Extracts: Climate of the Far West Desperate Cir- cumstances" Adventures of Captain Bonneville" The Trap- Contents. 1 3 pcrs of the Far West The Trapper's Indian Wife Curious Use of the Lasso Hear and Dull Fight Page 229 ,* CHAPTER XXX, . Purchase of " Sunnyside " Original Property Erection of the New Cottage Irving's Plans Letter to Peter Peter arrives at New York Sunny Picture of Irving at Fifty-three Years of Age 243 CHAPTER XXXI. Tammany Nomination for Mayor of New York Declined- Invitation to a Seat in President Van Buren's Cabinet Also declined Death of Judge Irving Death of Peter The latter specially afflictive Affecting Letter of Irving to his Sister Commences a new work, " Conquest of Mexico " Forestalled by Mr. Prescott -Abandons the Enterprise. . 250 CHAPTER XXXII. Engagement with the Knickerbocker Magazine Continues Two Years His Articles of the Magazine collected into a Volume 41 Wolfert's Roost " Unprecedented Amount of Commendations Extracts : Chronicle I. of the " Roost ; " " Wolfert Acker ;" English and French Character 256 CHAPTER XXXIII. Biography of Goldsmith Of Margaret Davidson Picture of the Sunnyside Neighborhood 265 CHAPTER XXXIV. Irving appointed Minister to Spain Appointment highly approved by the Public Proceeds to Spain via England and France Pleasant Quarters Presentation at Court Bright Anticipations Disappointment Return of III Health Writ- ing prohibited Visit to France Longing for Home Visits France and England Gayety of the Spanish Court The young Queen Isabella 269 14 Contents. "CHAPTER XXXV. Restored HealthPen resumed Resignation and Return- Great Joy Enlarges the Cottage Pleasant Picture At work on " Life of Washington "Uniform Edition of his Works " Life of Mahomet and his Successors "Return of III Health Visits Saratoga and Washington Receives great attention Returns to "Sunnyside" Page 278 CHAPTER XXXVI. Declining Health Cheerful Spirits First Volume of "Washington" Misgivings Note from Bancroft Second and Third Volumes issued Notes of Approval from Prescott, Bancroft, Tuckerman, and others "Life of Washington*' finished Edward Everett's general view of Irving's Writ- ings. 285 CHAPTER XXXVII. Financial Exhibit Avails of English Copyrights Avails of American Leases Avails of the Uniform Edition Entire Amount in the Author's Life-time Entire Amount to 1864 Inference. 295 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mr. Irving*s Religious Character Remarks concerning his Brother Ebenezer Connection with the Episcopal Church State of Mind in his last Illness Rapid Decline Decease BuriaL 297 MEMOIR OF WASHINGTON IRVING. CHAPTER I. IT was a deeply interesting point in our history when Washington Irving was born* The war of the Revolution was just closing, peace was dawning upon the land, the independ- ence for which "the fathers" had struggled so long and so manfully was about to be recognized by the mother country, and the United States of America was now to commence as a nation its great and eventful career. Washington was born in April, 1783, and grew to be very much such a boy as might be supposed from a contemplation of his developed manhood. He was a sprightly, buoyant, witty, somewhat mischievous, yet not a vicious child, deeply affectionate toward his parents, especially his mother, who, as is natural, felt a mother's 1 6 Memoir of Washington Irving. pride in her soil. " But it grieved her that he did not take more kindly to religion ; and at times, in the midst of one of his effusions of wit and drollery, she would look at him with a half- mournful admiration, and exclaim, ' O Wash- ington, if you were only good !'" The meaning of this wish doubtless was that her beloved child were religiously good that, amid all his sprightliness and all his promising traits, he were cherishing in his heart the fear of God, and a joyful trust in his mercy through Christ the Saviour. And as with a thoughtful and Christian eye we trace the career of this child along his youth and riper years, we cannot forbear the earnest regret that his mother's pious wish for her child had not been realized. Happy had it been, as well for the world as for himself, it God's Holy Spirit had been invited to enkindle right early that eminent genius, and inspire for the highest good of the race that brilliant pen ! Born, as Irving was, just as the war ended, it was eminently fit that a child so beau- tiful and promising should receive a name that had become so celebrated. " Washington's work is ended," said the mother, " and the child shall Memoir of Washington Irving. 17 be named after him." And very pleasant and noteworthy is the incident that, when the great Washington returned to New York as President of the United States, a Scotch maid, servant of the Irving family, accosted him one morning, and pointing to the lad scarcely yet emerged from his virgin trowsers, exclaimed, "Please your honor, here's a bairn was named for you." And Washington placed his hand on the head of the little boy and gave him his blessing. All this cc^i hardly fail to remind us of a similar transaction when One infinitely greater than Washington took little children up in his arms and blessed them. The anecdotes told us of Irving's early boy- hood are highly characteristic, and indicate to a considerable extent the genius and character of the forthcoming man. At eleven years old we find him becoming much interested in certain kinds of reading, among which books of voyages and travels held a conspicuous place. By con- stant perusal of works of this character he be- came inflamed with a passion for going abroad to see the world for himself. " How wistfully," said he, " would I wander about the pier heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships 2 1 8 Memoir of Washington Irving. bound to distant climes; with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth!" A more damaging tendency and passion soon affected this ardent and talented boy. Having, on one occasion, attended a theater, he is repre- sented as being so delighted with the acting that henceforward he felt and cherished a special fondness for theatrical entertainments. Hence, as we trace him through all his youthful years, and in maturer life, and amid his sojourn- ings in one and another city, at home or abroad, we cannot help discerning that the theater was one of the very prominent amusements in which he indulged. It is painful, too, to notice that his early indulgence and pleasure in this species of amusement was the " sweetness of stolen waters." His attendance at the theater being under parental interdict, it is represented as his habit that he would go early and see the play, then hurry home to prayers at the hour of nine, retire afterward to his room as if for the night, pass slyly out of his window, and steal back to the theater to witness the afterpiece ; after which he would return by the same way to his room. Memoir of Washington Irving. 19 Let all boys remember that examples like this should never be imitated ; and that while the amusement itself, with the asual accompani- ments, is more than doubtful, his means of securing it, and the disobedience prompting those means, were a positive wrong, and could never be reviewed with an approving conscience. A very important lesson for parents is also here. It is likely that for young and imagina- tive people few amusements present a stronger or more dangerous fascination than the theater. Such youth, having once tasted this pleasure, long for its repetition, while the dangerous appe- tite " grows by what it feeds on " until many a strong tie, not . excepting that of integrity itself, often yields to the. fatal fascination of the siren. That young Irving was ever so sadly drawn into this vortex does not appear, save in the instance specified. But that the theater formed one of the capital charms of his youth- ful years is painfully evident. How far this kind of indulgence and recreation operated to prevent him from early following his parents in the way of piety cannot be estimated ; but that an important influence was thus exerted in the direction alluded to seems morally certain. 2O Memoir of Washington Irving. Young Irving was not liberally educated ; and we trace him as a school-boy, and in one and another school, until he reached the age of fifteen. At the last school which he attended, where he remained about eighteen months, he studied the Latin language, which seems to have been his nearest approach to a classical education. Mathematical studies appear not to have been pursued beyond common arithmetic ; while this was, with him, one of the most irk- some of his studies. In composition, as may well be supposed, he was far more interested and successful ; a circumstance which seems to have often led him to " exchange work " with one and another of his mates they working out his sums, and he writing out their compo- sitions. Thus, before attaining his sixteenth year, was the school education of Washington Irving finished. It is certainly an interesting fact in the history of American literature that he who is recognized as one of its chief pioneers and fathers was himself but. a self-educated man. For half a century have the thousands of un- dergraduates in our colleges seized eagerly upon the works of this man as their favorite author Memoir of Washington Irving. 21 in the department of belles let t res ; and he who, among the numerous college and public libraries, would light upon the books the most handled and worn of all others, must not over- look the fascinating volumes of Irving. Nor is the charm attendant upon his pen that which affects merely the tyro in literature. The ripe and mature scholar roams with equal and even superior pleasure amid these gardens of beauty ; and the " Great Wizard of the North," with as much enthusiasm as the ardent youth amid his varied classic exercises, was wont to discuss, with no ordinary relish, the pleasant viands supplied by this extraordinary caterer of literary delights. How is all this ? We may pause only to respond that it is not in colleges or college training ; it is not in education ; not in surroundings ; not in smiles or sorrows, riches or poverty * f not in travel, observation, or all learning and knowledge. It is in the man himself; and in something thefe which, like the century plant, blooms not every year nor every generation. 22 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER II. AT sixteen years of age, therefore, his school studies being finished, young Irving com- menced the study of the law, or, rather, he entered a law office, sojourning there during two years, in which the study of belles-lettres seems to have been far more diligently and successfully pursued than that of law. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a youth less adapted to the studies and practice of law than he. Vastly more congenial with his temperament and tastes was it to be reveling amid the wild and beautiful scenery which stretched away in various directions from the city of his birth. Hence we see him gladly escaping from the law office, with its arid studies and rough and thorny associations, to commit himself, with a friend or two, to a long excursion up the Hud- son, and among the then wild regions beyond. Far away above Albany, where at the begin- ing of the century was the frontier of civiliza- tion, dwelt an elder sister, who, at a tender age, Memoir of Washington Irving. 23 had gone, with her youthful husband, to dwell amid those northern outskirts. Thither Irving was bound. It was the year 1800, when steam- boats and railroads were unknown ; and this was his first voyage up that noble stream whose shores were in after time to be made classic by the witchery of his pen, and on whose banks would one day repose the lovely villa where, after long and weary sojournings in foreign lands, he would make his earthly resting-place. Long afterward he wrote of this early voy- age and its pleasant experience. There was the boy-like eagerness to embark, the final floating away of the sloop from the wharf into the broad stream, the exchange of adieus with friends ashore, the grand scenery of the Palisades, the " intense delight " of that first sail through the Highlands, the overhanging forests, the "witch- ing effect" of the Kaatskill Mountains- now seeming to approach the shore, then receding and melting away into the hazy distance. It was his lot in subsequent years to traverse ,* some of the rivers of the old world, and such as are renowned in history and song; yet these, he remarks, ^rcre never able to efface or dim 24 Memoir of Washington Irving. the pictures of his native stream, so early stamped upon his memory. He would always revert to them with a filial feeling, and with a recurrence of the joyous associations of his boyhood. A year or two afterward we find him, in com- pany with a friend, on another excursion up the Hudson at the Springs, and elsewhere. At this time he is an invalid, with consumptive symptoms and tendencies, and he returns home with health still drooping and uncertain. Now it is when, at nineteen years of age, we trace the first movements of Irving' s pen with a view to publication. They consist in a series of humorous contributions under the signature of " Jonathan Olclstyle," and were published in the " Morning Chronicle." Even these earliest attempts of his pen were popular, and were ex- tensively copied in the prints of the time ; and twenty years afterward, when their author was abroad in Europe and had now became famous, they were, without his consent or approbation, collected and republished. In the following summer Irving was one of a very interesting party made up for an excursion to Ogdcnsburg, Montreal, and Quebec. This Memoir of Washington Irving. 2$ company comprised, besides the subject of this sketch, two highly respectable families, consist- ing each of husband, wife, and daughter, and the expedition must have promised, of course, no small amount of pleasure to the several par- ties, and not the least to the young gentleman himself. It proved a scene of much and varied adventure. As usual, their voyage up the river was by sloop. Arriving at Albany, we soon track them to Saratoga and Ballston, whence they make a flying visit to Utica, then in the wilderness. Then we see them, in wagons, strug- gling through thick woods, and muddy roads, and blackened stumps, and fallen trees. Matters wax worse and worse. The travelers are now out walking in the mud ; then, launched in a scow on Beach River, they are overwhelmed with torrents of rain ; then, going ashore, they lodge in a log-hut on beds spread upon the floor. In the morning they are off again upon the muddy stream ; anon, in wagons, once more blunder- ing amid stumps and roots ; again stuck fast, and the whole party taking to their feet, the rain meanwhile descending in torrents, young Irving frequently up to his "middle in mud and water." Amid the woods and mud and 26 Memoir of Washington Irving. rain they seek to shelter the ladies in a little bark shed of capacity sufficient to hold three ; but half of it falls dpwn as they attempt to creep under it, and the rain falls in floods, falls as they never have seen it fall before ; the wind blows a hurricane ; the trees shake, and bend, and crack, and threaten every moment to fall and crush the frightened company. They flee as from destruction, dragging themselves along with painful difficulty, until they again reach a hut, their only lodging-place. Suffice it to add, that after other similar and hideous mishaps, to their great joy they came in sight of Oswc- gatchic, whose present name is Ogdcnsburg. Fifty years afterward, and when Irving was seventy years of age, he went and looked again upon this interesting locality. There for a long time he sat, his thoughts running back through the long vista of departed years, and lighting upon the happy beings who, fifty years before, were with him there. Every one of them was now passed away, and himself was the sole sur- vivor of all that joyous company. Quietly and safely at home they had lived at home they had died while he still lived, though amid these intervening years he had traversed seas, and Memoir of Washington Irving. 27 wandered over distant lands, and encountered so many dangers and hardships. It seemed wonderful to him as he sat there pensive and lonely, and doubtless he wept amid those inter- esting and somber memories. And why, in such a connection, must there be no recogni- tion of that kind and favoring Providence that had accompanied him, and watched him, and shielded him at every step of his long and various wanderings ? There sat that man of seventy years. A long and prosperous life had been his. His name had become world-re- nowned, his fame world-wide. Few mortals had been so extensively honored, loved, and caressed as he. Every circumstance was adapted to point him to the divine hand. How graceful would have been an ascription of praise ! and how graceful, too, as well as taste- ful, would have been its public record ! 28 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER III. AT twenty-one years of age Washington Irving was a young gentleman of more than ordinary interest. His portrait of about this period of his life, while a slightly boyish as- pect seems still to linger with him, presents a countenance singularly well-formed and comely. His forehead was full, high, expansive, and par- tially and gracefully shaded by flowing locks of hair carelessly curling around it ; his calm and expressive eyes were overarched by eyebrows of perfect regularity ; his nose nearly straight, and formed with classic and faultless graceful- ness ; his mouth rather small, with lips full, and slightly elevated at their extremities, and thus hinting at that rich vein of humor for which he was so remarkable ; chin long, yet finely turned ; the head lofty, and clothed with abundant hair carelessly worn ; the entire tout ensemble con- veying to us the impression that this must have been a youth of rare personal beauty and at- trqctiveness. Memoir of Washington Irving. 29 Harmonious with his fine personal appear- ance were his mental accomplishments, and the kindly and genial elements of his social char- acter. His talents as a writer had already be- gan to be apparent, while his conversational powers were similar to what he ascribed to one of his brothers, being characterized by "rich, mellow humor, range of anecdote, quick sensi- bility, and fine colloquial flow." No wonder that such a youth was the idol of the family circle, or that he began to attract the attention and interest of a constantly widen- ing circle of friends. But, alas ! this beautiful youth came up to his majority smitten with disease. His consumptive tendencies have al- ready been alluded to, and evident alarm on his account was now beginning to be felt by his numerous friends, and especially those of his own father's family. How could such a son and brother as this be given up to disease, de- cline, and death ! Must such a star of beauty set so soon ? and shall a luminary rising so brilliantly be quenched in quick and cold eclipse ? It must not be. This child of prom- ise must be rescued from the destroyer, and for a boon so precious as his health and life he 3O Memoir of Washington Irving. 5 must be given up for a season and sent abroad to a foreign land. " It is with delight," wrote his eldest brother to him after his departure for Europe, " that we share the world with you ; and one of our greatest sources of happiness is that fortune is daily putting it in our power thus to add to the comfort and enjoyment of one so very near to us all." No wonder that he was " heavy-hearted " as he sailed away, and as he saw the spires of the city sink from his- view. That day was melancholy and lonesome, and as at night he turned into his berth he was sick at heart. Such is sometimes the " low estate " befalling frail and helpless man abroad upon the dark and heaving ocean, reclining that night in his lowly berth, an invalid youth his life hanging as if by a thread wafted each moment farther from the friends and home he loves, bound to a land of strangers, unknown, unheeded, sick, faint, and sad. Will he ever rally ? and will brighter and more prosperous days ever rise on his vision to gladden his sinking, sorrowing heart ? But Irving's characteristic elasticity pre- vailed, and, giving thanks to the " fountain of Memoir of Washington Irving. 3 1 health and good spirits," he presently revived from his state of dullness and discouragement arose above his homesickness. While antici- pating the classic and pleasant scenes he was about to enjoy in a foreign land, he went on his way with cheerful and joyful steps. After a pleasant voyage, with mild and gen- tle weather, and but a few hours of seasickness, our traveler arrived at Bordeaux; and as he contemplated the buildings, ancient churches, and the manners of the people, he seemed to himself to have come to another world. 32 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER IV. IRVING remained several weck at Bor- deaux, improving himself in the French language. Here also he commenced a copious journal, noting down in pencil marks whatever interested him, designing to expand and perfect them in his intervals of leisure. His journey from Bordeaux to Paris was quite circuitous, and somewhat eventful. He starts off in the old, cumbersome French " dili- gence," and the route is up along the banks of the Garonne. Among his fellow-travelers is a " little doctor," an American, brimful of anima- tion, and overflowing with good nature and talk, knowing every thing, and with whom embassa- dors, consuls, etc., were intimate acquaintances. This new acquaintance, being an experienced traveler, proved to be frequently useful to Irv- ing, as well as " a continual fund of amusement," and on parting with him at Meze, he at once began to realize the loss thus sustained. With much pleasure, however, he encounters the Memoir of, Washington Irving. 33 "little doctor" again at Montpelier, and re- marks : " I shall travel in company with him, and by that means be protected from extortion. I find he is a more important character than I at first supposed." From Marseilles the two travelers journeyed on together to Nice, where, after a miserable " red-tape " detention of five weeks, Irving sailed to Genoa. Here he saluted with great delight an old acquaintance and friend from New York. " You," he writes to a friend at home, " who have never been from home in a . land of strangers and for some time without friends, cannot conceive the joy, the rapture of meeting with a favorite companion in a distant part of the world." Genoa proved to Irving a sunny and delight- ful haven, and especially after. so many difficul- ties and detentions in reaching it. Here he seems to have gained access to the most ele- vated and refined society, contracted many valuable friendships, and, as may be reasonably supposed, was a special favorite among the more gay and fashionable circles of that re- nowned city. Weeks and months he lingered amid these pleasant associations, and expresses 3 34 Memoir of Washington Irving. himself as so far from being weary, that he every day became more and more delighted with his sojourn there. Meantime " health," he writes, "has new-strung my limbs, and en- dowed me with an elasticity of spirits that gilds every scene with sunshine, and heightens every enjoyment." * Irving now embarked for Sicily, leaving " sweet Genoa and all its friendly inhabitants behind" him. Arriving, he visited several of the principal cities of that famous island. Touching at Messina, he sailed to Syracuse, and having, among other curious objects, visited the famous " Ear of Dionysius the Tyrant/' he journeyed north to Catania, and ascended Mount Etna as far as his guide would accom- pany him. Thence, by a dismal journey across the island, he visited Palermo, and then em- barked for Naples. Arriving there, he found, * A singular faculty this young gentleman must certainly have possessed of introducing himself into the higher circles of society wherever he travels. That this should have been altogether facile and natural after he had become famous in authorship is easy to perceive ; but how, as an unknown and untitled young stranger, he secured such an advantage is more mysterious. He seems from the very outset to have walked up among the nobles of every land he visits as if he were one of them and "to the manor born.'* Memoir of Washington Irving. 35 to his great delight, an abundance of letters from home. Some interesting friends also greeted him here, with a party of whom he made a night visit to Vesuvius, at that time in a state of eruption, and came near being over- whelmed with " dense torrents of the most nox- ious smoke. The crowd and bustle of Naples was not to the taste of our traveler, and he gladly bade it adieu that he might "repose himself in the silent retreats of Rome." Here, also, he found several of his countrymen, among whom was Washington Allston, the artist, Allston was a native of South Carolina, born in 1779. He was a slender child, and his parents were advised to send him North to enjoy its more bracing airs. He was, accordingly sent to Newport, R. I., at seven years of age, and placed at school, where he continued for ten years. He early evinced a genius for painting, receiving some aid and encouragement from a Mr. King, who had enjoyed a partial artistic education. A more important acquaintance formed by young Allston was Edward Malbone, a native of New- port, who evinced much promise as a miniature painter. These two youths seemed to have formed a mutual friendship ; and Malbone after- 36 Meirioir of Washington Irving. ward residing in Boston while Allston was in college at Harvard, their intimacy was con- tinued through a series of years. From Mai- bone Allston derived much advantage in his earlier efforts as an artist. His leisure was occupied with sketches, copying, and drawing ; and, though having but few helps, he soon at- tained a wonderful degree of knowledge in the higher elements of the painting art. On his graduation he returned to his home in the South, where he found his friend Malbone occupied with the practice of his art ; and, shortly afterward, the two friends embarked for London with a view of improving themselves in art studies. Allston at once entered the Royal Academy as a student, and became intimate with the artist, Benjamin West. Here he de- voted himself for several years, and with great diligence and success, to artistic studies. It was here that Irving and Allston first met, and became attached to each other in warm and life-long friendship. Allston was three or four years the senior of Irving, and the latter de- scribes his friend as being peculiarly agreeable having a form light and graceful, large blue eyes, black silken hair, "waving and curling Memoir of Washington Irving. 37 around a pale, expressive countenance." He adds that every thing about him bespoke the man of intellect and refinement. His conversa- tion was copious, animated, and highly graphic, warmed by a genial sensibility and benevolence, and enlivened by a chaste and gentle humor.* It is a curious fact that Irving's intimate asso- ciation with Allston, joined with the beautiful Italian scenery, pictures, statuary, fountains, and gardens, had at this time well-nigh influenced him to turn his attention to painting, and, like his friend, devote himself to it as a life pursuit But a wise Providence seems to have overruled this arrangement that he might become a mas- ter in a different department of the world of art. " My lot in life," said he, " was differently cast. Doubts and fears gradually clouded over my prospect ; the rainbow tints faded away ; I began to apprehend a sterile reality ; so I gave up the i * Allston subsequently spent several years in Italy returned home in 1809, married a sister of Dr. Channing, and returned to London, where he resided for a term of years and executed many paintings of distinguished excellence. Returning to the United States in i Si 8, he passed the remainder of his life in Boston and Cambridge in slender health, yet exercising as he was able his cherished art. His principal work, however, " Belshazzar'a Feast," he left unfinished, and died in 1848 at the age of f ixty-four. 38 Memoir of Washington Truing. transient but delightful prospect of remaining in Rome with Allston and turning painter." Before leaving Rome Irving made the ac- quaintance of Madame de Stael, whom he de- scribes as a woman of great strength of mind and understanding, and was " astounded at the amazing flow of her conversation." This dis- tinguished lady was a native of Paris, born in 1766, and was, consequently, not quite forty years old when Irving became acquainted with her at Rome. Her father, Baron de Necker, was a wealthy Swiss banker, whom she loved almost to idolatry. She was well educated, and, being early thrown into the society of distin- guished persons, she soon acquired the art of brilliant conversation which was so impressive and surprising to Irving, and for which she was excelled by no lady of her time. She early became an authoress, and when twenty-two years of age appeared her first work, " Letters on the Works and Character of Rousseau ;" which was highly eulogistic of that celebrated person. It was not till a year or two after Irv- ing's interview with her that she published the work on which her literary reputation mainly rests. This was her " Corinne," a work having Memoir of Washington Irving. 39 some marked faults, yet full of elegant descrip- tions of the scenery, manners, and art of the classic land of Italy. This work was at once immensely popular, and was soon translated into all the European languages, and won for the fair authoress a wide-spread reputation.* Mr. Irving now left Rome on his route to Paris, and reached that city after a journey occupying about six weeks. Here he continued four months ; and from a few entries in his journal we may infer that while he professed to his brother a desire to profit by the literary and scientific advantages presented to him there, he was fully as earnest after lighter pur- * Many other works came from the graceful and facile pen of Madame de Stacl, and her fame and influence became very extensive. For a time she favored the French Revolution ; but as it progressed, and more and more developed its cruel and bloody character, her womanly nature revolted against it. She was horror-struck at the murder of the King and Queen. As Napoleon arose -into power she was his inveterate opposcr. He attempted to gain her over to his cause ; but failing, and dreading her influence, he banished her from France. During her exile she traveled over many of the countries of Europe, and her pen, meanwhile, was active. On the fall of Bona- parte she returned to Paris, and died there in 1817. She was twice married ; first, to Baron de Stael Holstein, Swedish Minister to the French Court ; and afterward, secretly, to M. de Rocca, a French officer. She was the mother of four children. 4O Memoir of Washington Irving. suits. The theater, opera, and the dance were amusements to which he was evidently much devoted. His journalistic pencilings grew increasingly meager and unsatisfactory, and finally ceased entirely; while the im- pressions of Paris upon his youthful and ardent mind seem to have been as vivid as they were fascinating and beautiful. For " pleasure and amusements " it was a place the most favorable and attractive in the world. Climate, theaters, operas, walks, " people, per- fect liberty of private conduct," all were ad- mirably adapted to pleasure and gayety. Ay, and admirably adapted too, we fear, to beguile young men away from correct principles, and from lives of respectability and virtue. Memoir of Washington Irving. 41 CHAPTER V. A FTER four months' residence in Paris, *\ where he had improved himself very con- siderably in his knowledge of the French lan- guage, and had become partially satiated with the endless round of amusements so bountifully afforded by that dissipated metropolis, Irving, in company with two American friends, de- parted, for London. Their route lay through Brussels and Maastricht to Rotterdam, they pausing a day or two at each of these cities, and contemplating with deep interest the pro- digious contrast between the Frenchman and the Hollander in appearance, houses, manners, language, and tastes. From Rotterdam they came by packet to the mouth of the Thames, whence, by post-chaise, they passed up to London. Our traveler at once adapted his dress to his new situation, secured eligible and comfortably furnished lodgings partially retired from the bustle and confusion of the city, yet near many desirable 42 Memoir of Washington r rving. places of resort, among which the theaters are carefully included. Thus the theater is still prominent in the affections and plans of this youth, and his lexers to one and another give full evidence of his absorbing interest in this class of amusements. He became deeply in- terested in the performers, their appearance, action, and general manners, entering into somewhat minute descriptions of them, and presenting various criticisms, and such as be- tray his devotion to theatrical amusements. It was now that Irving saw and heard for the first time the famous Mrs. Siddons, one of the most distinguished actresses of that day. Here he is full and overflowing with enthusi- asm. He fears to give expression to all his emotions. She is a wonderful woman. Her looks, voice, gestures, all go directly to his heart, which is frozen and melted by turns, and his frame is thrilled through and through, even with a single glance or gesture. He admires . her the more the more he sees her ; he hardly breathes when she is upon the stage, and she overwhelms him till he is a mere child.* * Mrs. Siddons was of a distinguished family of actors. She was daughter of Roger Kemble, was born in Wales in 1755, Memoir of Washington Irving. 43 Mr. Irving seems to have made compara- tively few acquaintances in London ; and, hav- ing made a brief excursion to Oxford, Bath, and Bristol, he, after a sojourn of three months in the land of his forefathers, embarked at Graves- end for New York, where he arrived after an absence of twenty-two months. He returned home with restored health and in excellent spirits, and resumed, after his manner, the study of law. From the picture c>f Washington Irving's life and habits about this time, as drawn by him- self, he seems to have been a somewhat " fast young man," and, in association with several and was bred to the stage. She was at eighteen years of age married to a young actor, Mr. Siddons, and for thirty years was quton of the stage. Irving's description of her power accords with all reports of her wonderful acting. " She ap- peared," says Ho/utt, " to belong to a superior order of beings to be surrounded with a personal awe like some prophetess of old." " It was in bursts of indignation or grief, in sudden exclamations, in apostrophes and inarticulate sounds, that she raised the soul of passion to its height or sunk it in despair." It is said that so complete was her stage abstraction that the very actors performing with her have been known to shrink with terror from her fierce disdain or withering scorn. She was greatly esteemed in all the relations of life. She died in London in 1831, at the age of seventy-six, the same age of Irving's decease. 44 Memoir of Washington Irving. other cheerful and jovial spirits, indulged him- self now and then in gayeties and convivialities hardly consistent with a genuine circumspec- tion and sobriety of conduct. In November following his return from Europe, and at twen- ty-three years of age, he was admitted to the bar, though sadly deficient in legal lore." But he seems never to have entered on the practice of the profession, and, within a month or two after his admission to the bar, he, in connection with his brother William and James K. Pauld- ing, projected a periodical publication, to be entitled Salmagundi. This paper seems to have been issued once in two or three weeks, comprised twenty numbers, and continued to be issued through one year. Irving and Pauld- ing appear to have shared about equally in the making up of the paper, the part of William Irving in the enterprise being somewhat sub- ordinate. The writers appeared under fictitious names, and the compositions were characterized by wit, drollery, and satire, while the sensation among New York circles, produced by the sev- eral issues, was said to be intense, and its suc- cess was decided. Why it was so soon and suddenly discontinued, and the enterprise Memoir of Washington Irving. 4$ abandoned, is not very apparent, while its early death seems not to have been in accordance with the wishes and plans of Irving. The work has, by able critics, been pronounced a produc- tion of more than ordinary merit, and one writer represents it as the literary parent not only of the Sketch Book and the Alhambra, but of all the intermediate and subsequent pro- ductions of Irving. Mr. Irving himself, how- ever, failed to acquiesce in these and similar sentiments touching this literary effort of his youth, and in his maturer years valued himself but slightly for his share in it. " The work/' he writes to a friend, " was pardonable as a ju- venile production ; but it is full of errors, puer- ilities, and imperfections, and I was in hopes it would gradually have gone down to oblivion." Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER VI. BUT a specimen or two of Salmagundi we must endeavor to rescue from immediate " oblivion/' if only to present a slight picture of Irving when his pen was wielded by him in the freshness of his youth. "Anthony Green, Gent.," is one of Irving's assumed names in these compositions, and An- thony thus dresses up Will Wizard for attend- ance *,t a ball : " On calling for Will in the evening I found him full dressed, waiting for me. I contem- plated him with absolute dismay. As he still retained a spark of regard for the lady who once reigned in his affections, he had been at unusual pains in decorating his person, and broke upon my sight arrayed in the true style that prevailed among our beaux some years ago. His hair was turned up and tufted at the top, frizzled out at the ears, a profusion of pow- der puffed over the whole, and a long plaited club swung gracefully from shoulder to shoul- Memoir of Washington Irving. 47 dor, describing a pleasing semicircle of powder and pomatum. His claret-colored coat was decorated with a profusion of gilt buttons, and reached to his calves. His white kerseymere small-clothes were so tight that he seemed to have grown up in them ; and his ponderous legs, which are the thickest part of his body, were beautifully clothed in sky-blue silk stock- ings, once considered so becoming ; but, above ail, he prided himself upon his waistcoat of China silk, which might almost have served a good housewife for a short gown ; and he boasted that the roses and tulips upon it were the work of Hang-Fou, daughter of the great Chin-Chin-Fou, who had fallen in love with the graces of his person, and sent it to him as a parting present/' " Will Wizard's " dancing is pictured thus : "The music struck up from an adjoining apart- ment, and summoned the company to the dance. The sound seemed to have an inspiring effect on honest Will, and he procured the hand of an old acquaintance for a country dance. It happened to be the fashionable one of " The Devil among the Tailors/' which is so vocifer- ously demanded at every ball and assembly ; 48 Memoir of Washington Irving. and many a torn garment and many an unfor- tunate toe did rue the dancing of that night, for Will thundered down the dance like a coach and six, sometimes right, sometimes wrong; now running over half a score of little French- men, and now making sad inroads into the ladies' cobweb muslins and spangled tails. As every part of Will's body partook of the exer- tion, he shook from his capacious head such volumes of powder that, like pious yEneas on the first interview of Queen Dido, he might be said to have been enveloped in a cloud. Nor was Will's partner an insignificant figure in the scene ; she was a young lady of most volumin- ous proportions that quivered at every skip, and, being braced up in the fashionable style with whalebone, stay-tape, and buckram, looked like an apple-pudding tied in the middle ; or, taking her flaming dress into consideration, like a bed and bolsters rolled up in a suit of red curtains." We add one or two extracts from the descrip- tion of " Charity Cockloft :^' " My Aunt Charity departed this life in the fifty-ninth year of her age, though she never grew older after twenty-five. In her teens she Memoir of Washington Irving. 49 i was, according to her own account, a celebrated beauty, though I never could meet with any body that remembered when she was handsome. On the contrary, Evergreen's father, who used to gallant her in his youth, says she was as knotty a little piece of humanity as he ever saw ; and that, if she had been possessed of the least sensibility, she would, like poor old Acco, have most certainly run mad at her own figure and face the first time she contemplated herself in a looking-glass. " It is rather singular that my aunt, though a great beauty, and an heiress withal, never got married. . The reason she alleged was that she never met with a lover who resembled Sir Charles Grandison, the hero of her nightly dreams and waking fancy ; but I am privately of opinion that it was owing to her never having had an offer. This much is certain, that for many years previous to her decease she declined all attentions from the gentlemen, and contented herself with watching over the welfare of her fellow-creatures. She was, indeed, observed to take a considerable leaning toward Methodism, was frequent in her attendance at love-feasts, read Whitefield and Wesley, and even went so 5O Memoir of Washington Irving. far as once to travel the distance of five- and-twenty miles to be present at a camp- meeting. This gave great offense to my Cousin Christopher and his good lady, who, as I have already mentioned, are rigidly orthodox ; and, had not my Aunt Charity been of a most pacific disposition, her religious whim-wham would have occasioned many a family alter- cation. " But the truth must be told ; with all her good qualities my Aunt Charity was afflicted with one fault, extremely rare among her gentle sex it was curiosity. How she came by it I am at a loss to imagine ; but it played the very vengeance with her, and destroyed the comfort of her life. Having an invincible desire to know everybody's character, business, and mode of living, she was forever prying into the affairs of her neighbors, and got a great deal of ill- will from people toward whom she had the kindest disposition possible. If any family on the opposite side of the street gave a dinner, my aunt would mount her spectacles and sit at the window until the company were all housed, merely that she might know who they were. If she heard a story about any of her Memoir of Washington Irving. 5 1 acquaintance she would forthwith set off full sail, and never rest until, to use her usual expression, she had got " to the bottom of it," which meant nothing more than telling it to every body she knew. 52 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER Vir. SHORTLY after the Salmagundi papers ceased to be issued, a literary work of greater pretensions, and destined to a far greater fame, began to employ the pen of Irv- ing. The conception was that of a burlesque and humorous history of New York, and in the commencement of the composition his brother Peter was associated with him in the enterprise. Circumstances, however, rendering it inconvenient for his brother to continue his assistance, the entire preparation of the work devolved upon Washington, who brought it to a conclusion, and gave it to the publisher in the fall of 1809, and when its author was twenty- six years of age. This remarkable book, like all the subse- quent works of Irving, is too well known to need a word of remark or criticism here. A contem- poraneous and able notice of the work pro- nounced it the wittiest that had ever been issued from the American press. Of course it was a Memoir of Washington Irving. 53 positive success, and its author at once became famous. The " History " purported to be the work of a little dried up, quaint, and mysterious old gen- tleman Diedrich Knickerbocker by name. He was dressed in an old shabby black coat and cocked hat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, with silver shoe-buckles, and was set down by his landlady as a country school-master. He had been a lodger, as it was further purported, at the " Columbian Hotel, Mulberry-street, New York," and, suddenly disappearing, had left behind him in his room, however, the manu- script of the famous " History," which was represented as being published to defray the expense of his hotel lodgings. The work abounds in humor and drollery from beginning to end, and in this respect is excelled by few if any works of a similar character and aim that were ever published. Blackwood's Magazine, noticing the book several years after its first appearance, affirmed that the matter of the work would preserve its character of value long after the lapse of time had blunted the edge of the personal allusions, and that its author was " by far the greatest genius which had ap- 54 Memoir of Washington Irving. , peared upon the literary horizon of the New World ! " Edward Everett, in the North Ameri- can Review, pronounced it " a book of unweary- ing pleasantry, which, instead of flashing out, as English and American humor is wont, from time to time, with long and dull intervals, is kept up with a true French vivacity from beginning to end." Sir Walter Scott, receiving a copy of the " History" from a friend of Irving, in acknowl- edging the present adds, among other things, " I have been employed these few evenings in reading it aloud to Mrs. Scott, and two other ladies who are guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing." The style of the work is entirely characteristic, and differs little from that of the author's subse- quent works. It is easy, simple, flowery, spark- ling with vivacity, brilliant with imagery, and not sparing in classical and historical allusions, some of which are of a character that sets us wondering where and when this youth of twenty- six years, and partially " uneducated," could have acquired the learning with which he seems to have been so familiar. The various portraits of men and mariners are, of course, of a burlesque and exaggerated character ; while yet they are Memoir of Washington Irving. 55 valuable as affording us a glimpse, at least, of the social scenery of the good old times of the " Dutch Dynasty." It is a curious and laughable fact that some of the old families of Dutch descent seem for a time to have taken this book in high dudgeon, being deeply incensed at the caricatures which it appeared to comprise of one and another of their venerated ancestors. So profound, in one instance, was this feeling, that Mr. Irving being at Albany soon after its publication, and receiv- ing many attentions and civilities there, one lady, however, was of a very different bearing toward him and declared that if she were a man she would horsewhip him ! Irving on hearing of this was greatly amused, and forth- with sought an introduction to the lady. She received him with great coldness ; but before the interview ended she became en- tirely mollified, and the two were excellent friends. Irving seems to have realized, subsequently, the delicate character of the ground he was traversing in this famous "History," and re- marked to a friend that *< it was a confounded impudent thing in such a youngster as I wa& to 56 Memoir of Washington Irving. be meddling in this way with old family names ; but I did not dream of offense." The truth seems to have been that in con- structing his work the author rallied together indiscriminately all the old Dutch names that he had ever read or heard of, and invented a host of others besides that were new to every one, and wove them into his work without the slightest personal allusion in a single instance. He doubtless supposed that an antiquity of two centuries, equivalent to thrice that amount of time in old countries, would avail to place his several characters at a distance too remote for any criticism or blame connected with such a work as his, arising from any family pride of ancestry. Memoir of Washington Irving. 57 CHAPTER VIII. WE devote a brief chapter to one or two extracts from the " History of New York." The following is a description of one of the Dutch Governors : RACEBRIDGE HALL" may be con- *-' sidered a sort of continuation of the Sketch Book, and comprises various descrip- tions, essays, and tales relating to English char- acter and habits, and especially as applicable to the olden time. The position of the author is that of a resident, for the time, at the " Hall ;" and many of the incidents and scenes of one and another sketch or tale seem to have arisen to his observation during his agreeable sojourn there. Lady Lillycraft, for example, a visitor to the Hall, has brought with her two pet dogs which are pictured thus : " One is a fat spaniel called Zephyr, though heaven defend me from such a Zephyr ! He is fed out of all shape and com- fort ; his eyes are nearly strained out of his head ; he wheezes with corpulency, and cannot walk without great difficulty. The other is a little, old, gray, muzzled curmudgeon, with an un- happy eye that kindles like - a coal if you only Memoir of Washington Irving. 1 1 3 look at him ; his nose turns up, his mouth is drawn into wrinkles so as to show his teeth ; in short, he has altogether the look of a dog far gone in misanthropy, and totally sick of the world. When he walks he has his tail curled up so tight that it seems to lift his feet from the ground ; and he seldom makes use of more than three legs at a time, keeping the other drawn up as a reserve. This last wretch is called Beauty. " These dogs are full of elegant ailments un- known to vulgar dogs, and are petted and nursed by Lady Lillycraft with the tenderest kindness. They have cushions for their express use on which they lie before the fire, and yet are apt to shiver and moan if there is the least draught of air. When any one enters the room they make a most tyrannical barking that is absolutely deafening. They are insolent to all the other dogs of the establishment. There is a noble stag-hound, a great favorite of the squires, who is a privileged visitor to the parlor ; but the mo- ment he makes his appearance these intruders fly at him with furious rage, and I have admired the sovereign indifference and contempt with which he seems to look down upon his puny 8 1 14 Memoir of Washington Irving. assailants. When her ladyship drives out, these dogs are generally carried with her to take the air, when they look out of each window of the carriage, and bark at all vulgar pedestrian dogs." The following extracts from the chapter on "Family Reliques" is interesting as well for the moral involved as for its beauty. The writer alludes, among other things, to the picture gal- lery of the Hall as abounding most with me- mentoes of past times : 11 There is something strangely pleasing, though melancholy, in considering the long rows of portraits which compose the greater part of the collection. They furnish a kind of narrative of the lives of family worthies, which I am enabled to read with the assistance of the venerable housekeeper, who is the family chroni- cler, prompted occasionally by Master Simon. There is the progress of a fine lady, for instance, through a variety of portraits. One represents her as a little girl with a long waist and hoop, holding a kitten in her arms, and ogling the spectator out of the corners of her eyes, as if she could not turn her head. In another we find her in the freshness of youthful beauty, when she was a celebrated belle, and so hard-hearted Memoir of Washington Irving. \ 1 5 as to cause several unfortunate gentlemen to run desperate and write bad poetry. In another she is depicted as a stately dame in the ma- turity of her charms ; next to the portrait of her husband is a gallant colonel, in full-bottomed wig and gold-laced hat, who was killed abroad ; and, finally, her monument is in the church, the spire of which may be seen from the window, where her effigy is carved in marble, and repre- sents her as a venerable dame of seventy-six, " There is one group that particularly inter- ested me. It consisted of four sisters of nearly the same age, who flourished about a century since ; and, if I may judge from their portraits, were extremely beautiful. I can imagine what a scene of gayety and romance this old mansion must have been when they were in the heyday of their charms ; when they passed like beauti- ful visions through its halls, or stepped daintily to music in the revels and dances of the cedar gallery, or printed with delicate feet the velvet verdure of these lawns. " When I look at these faint records of gal- lantry and tenderness ; when I contemplate the faded portraits of these beautiful girls, and think, too, that they have long since bloomed, reigned, Ii6 Memoir of Washington Irving. grown old, died, and passed away, and with.them all their graces, their triumphs, their rivalries, their admirers ; the whole empire of love and pleasure in which they ruled 'all dead, all buried, all forgotten* I find a cloud of melan- choly stealing over the present gayeties around me. I was gazing in a musing mood this very morning at the portrait of the lady whose hus- band was killed abroad, when the fair Julia en- tered the gallery leaning on the arm of the captain. The sun shone through the row of windows on her as she passed along, and she seemed to beam out each time into brightness, and relapse into shade, until the door at the bottom of the gallery closed after her. I felt a sadness of heart at the idea that this was an emblem of her lot ; a few more years of sunshine and shade, and all this life and loveliness and enjoyment will have ceased, and nothing be left to commemorate this beautiful being but one more perishable portrait, to awaken, perhaps, the trite speculations of some future loiterer like myself, when I and my scribblings shall have lived through our brief existence and been forgotten." In the "Stout Gentleman" is a picture of Memoir of Washington Irving. 117 things with a feverish man confined during a wet Sunday at a country inn : " A wet Sunday in a country inn ! Who- ever has had the luck to experience one can alone judge of my situation. The rain pattered against the casements, the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the win- dows in quest of something to amuse the eye, but it seemed as if I had been placed out of the reach of all amusement. The windows of my bedroom looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting- room commanded a full view of the stable-yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than a stable-yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw that had been kicked about by travelers and stable boys. In one corner was a stagnant pool of water surrounding an island of muck. There were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, among which was a mis- erable crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life and spirit, his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a single feather, along which the water trickled from his back. Near the cart was a half-dozing cow, chewing the cud and standing y 1 1 8 Memoir of Washington Irving. patiently to be rained on, with wreaths of vapor rising from her reeking hide. A wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with the rain dropping on it from the eaves. An unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered something every now and then between a bark and a yelp. A drab of a kitchen wench tramped backward and forward through the yard in pattens, looking as sulky as the weather itself. Every thing, in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hard-drinking ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over their liquor." The " Edinburgh Review " thus glances at a few other pieces of the "Bracebridge Hall" miscellany : " ' Ready Money Jack ' is admirable through- out, and the old general very good. The lovers are, as usual, the most insipid. " The ' Gypsies ' are sketched with infinite elegance as well as spirit, and Master Simon is quite delightful in all the varieties of his ever- versatile character. " Of the tales which serve to fill up the vol- Mefnoir of Washington Irving. 1 19 umes, that of * Dolph Heyliger ' is incomparably the best, and is more characteristic, perhaps, both of the author's turn of imagination and cast of humor than any thing else in the work. " ' The Student of Salamanca ' is too long, and deals rather largely in the common-places of romantic adventure." 120 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XVII. " T)RACEBRIDGE HALL" being off his -LJ hands, Mr. Irving gave himself a season of relaxation, and, receiving numerous invita- tions from fashionable people in London and vicinity, he passed the succeeding summer as gayly as the imperfect condition of his health would permit. Early in autumn he embarked for Holland. Spending several days at Rotter- dam, the Hague, Amsterdam, and one or two other places, he ascended the Rhine to Aix-la- Chapelle to enjoy the use of the baths. He also spent a short time at Mayence, Frankfort, and Heidelberg. He was greatly delighted with the scenery of the Rhine, and the fruitful- ness and beauty of the country generally ; while the atmosphere, as he inhaled it, seemed to exert an invigorating and balmy influence upon his physical system. He afterward journeys farther up the Rhine, enjoys the baths of Ba- den, and is charmed with the delightful scenery every-where presented to view. He then sets Memoir of Washington Irving. 1 2 1 his face eastwarcj toward Vienna. Passing the Black Forest, and crossing Wirtemberg to Saltz- burg, he for a few days refreshed himself with various little excursions, visited the famous salt works, looked with pleasure upon the Tyrolese mountains stretching along the south, and al- ready (Oct. i) capped with snow, and pro- nounced Saltzburg one of the most romantic spots which he had ever beheld. Thence, after a few days, he resumed his journey, and, travel- ing all night, he was the next day at Vienna. This great and opulent capital was not to his taste. He found it a city given to luxury and dissipation rather than devoted to more ele- vated pursuits, and after a brief stay, with one or two excursions abroad, he took leave for Dresden on the i8th of November. The tedi- ous complaint which had so long afflicted him was now almost entirely healed, and brighter prospects than before seemed opening before him. On the fifth day, after traversing a rude and gloomy country, he reached Prague, whence two and a half days more brought him to Dres- den. The whole aspect of things suddenly changes as he passes from Bohemia and de- scends the mountains into Saxony, and excel- 122 Memoir of Washington Irving. lent roads, pleasant farm-houses, rosy gleams on the still waters of the Elbe, the fishing boats, the balmy skies, joined with a view of the distant city, with its cluster of spires and domes, all combine to throw an air of enchant- ment around the closing hours of his journey. Dresden was his home for six months, and seems to have proved a delightful residence. His literary fame had preceded him, and he was at once introduced to the first society of the place. Irving was at this time in his fortieth year, and we have the following description of him as he now appeared by one of his Dresden friends, an English lady sojourning there : 41 He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely externally in manners and look, but to the inner- most fibers and core of his heart. Sweet tem- pered, 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 of sun- shine, bright, easy, and abundant." Memoir of Washington Irving. 123 . Mr. Irving was soon presented by the British Minister to the royal family, comprising the King and Queen, two brothers, two daughters, and two grandsons with their wives. With all these, together with foreign dignitaries resident at Court, Irving seems to have associated as an equal ; and he participates in royal visits, re- ceptions, dinings, balls, soirees, huntings, etc., as fully and freely as if himself were of regular royal descent. " I have been," he writes to his brother Peter, " most hospitably received, and even caressed, in this little capital, and have experienced nothing but the most marked kind- ness from the King downward. My reception, indeed, at Court has been peculiarly flat- tering, and every branch of the royal family has taken occasion to show me particular attention whenever I made my appearance." Among his most select and pleasant associates at Dresden were the Fosters, an English family of rank, comprising mother and two daughters, the latter being educated there. In this delight- ful little circle Irving early became an intimate, and their house was to him a sunny and attract- ive home. With their assistance he diligently improved himself in the French and Italian 124 Memoir of Washington Irving. languages, while among his pleasant amuse- ments were" the private theatricals gotten up and performed at the Fosters', and in which Irving and a few English residents participated. It may well be supposed that with all the flattering attentions which Mr. Irving received at Dresden, and the frequent amusements in which he mingled, his pen would be likely to make but little progress. His own confession corroborates such an inference. " I wish," he writes to a sister, " I could give you a good account of my literary labors ; but I have noth- ing to report. I am merely seeing and hearing, and my mind seems in too crowded and con- fused a condition to produce any thing." Thus, aside from his progress in the French, Italian, and German languages, his winter's work seems to have amounted to but little. We have from him another confession, and one of great impor- tance, as he is about to leave Dresden. In a letter to Mrs. Foster, after reviewing the pleas- ant evenings he had enjoyed at her home, he adds that he would not give one such evening for all the. routs and assemblies of the fashion- able world ; that he was weary and sick of fash- ionable life and fashionable parties ; that he Memoir of Washington Irving. 125 had never submitted himself to this current for a time but he had ultimately been cast ex- hausted and spiritless upon the shore. He remarks with pain upon the sacrifice of the nobler and better feelings in this kind of inter- course. " We crowd together in cities," says he, "and bring down our minds to the routine of visits and formalities, and associate ourselves with littleness and insipidity, and ' say unto the worm, Thou art my brother and my sister/ We subject ourselves to the claims and importunities of people we dislike, and the censorship of people whom we despise. The whole swarm of insects that buzz around us cannot administer to our pleasure ; but one by his paltry sting may torment us." It may not be necessary to moralize exten- sively upon a confession like this, uttered by one like Irving a man already famous, in the prime of manhood, moving in the very highest circles, flattered and caressed as extensively as he was known. But we can scarcely refrain from reverting to another confession following a course of prosperity the most magnificent possible, of which confession we have the for* mula following : 126 Memoir of Washington Irving. " Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do : and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Memoir of Washington Irving. 127 CHAPTER XVIII. HAVING passed about eight months at Dresden, -Mr. Irving departed for Paris about the middle of July. The Fosters left at the same time on their return to England, and Irving accompanied them, as a sort of escort and protector, as far as Rotterdam. Having seen these, his dear friends, safely embarked for London, he immediately pursued his journey, and reached Paris early in August. His miscellaneous mode of life for so long a time had its effect upon him, and it was with some difficulty that he could settle his mind to any weighty and steady literary pursuit. He passed the autumn in some dramatic efforts, which at the instance of Mr. Payne he was induced, in company with the latter, to under- take. These consisted of the translation and recasting of certain French plays, to be modified and fitted to the English stage. It was stipulated that living's name should not appear in connection with these productions, 128 Memoir of Washington Irving. which were afterward acted with success in London. The ensuing winter seems to have passed without much literary labor. His journal pre- sents him as reading various authors, dining with various friends, and giving less attention to theaters than formerly. We find him engaged in some revision of " Salmagundi " for a French publisher. The same publisher, Galignani, pro- poses to him the getting up of an edition of English authors, accompanied with biographical sketches. Irving accepts the proposition, stipu- lating for two hundred and fifty francs per volume, and at once commenced on this new enterprise, beginning with a life of Goldsmith. In the spring he arranges, by correspond- ence with his London publisher, for the pur- chase of his forthcoming " Tales of a Traveler," for four thousand five hundred dollars. The manuscript was partly prepared, and after the arrangement with his publisher he seems to have proceeded more diligently than before with the work at the same time giving encourage- ment to his publisher that it would excel any of his former works. At the end of spring he leaves Paris for Memoir of Washington Irving. 1 29 London, where he was invited by the poet Spencer * to take lodgings with him. He also enjoys pleasant relations with the poet Rogers,f with whom he had frequent interesting conver- sations. In June he spends some days at the manor-house of Mr. Compton, "a complete specimen of a complete country gentleman." Here he is greatly delighted with the scenery, residence, and its occupants. Thence he goes to Bath, where he again meets his friend Moore, and accompanies him to his beautiful cottage a few miles away. After a brief visit with his tf William Robert Spencer was the grandson of the Duke of Marlborough, born in 1769, was a wit and man of fashion. His poems were principally ballads and occasional pieces, some of which are of special elegance. He died in Paris in 1834, and in the following year his poems, with a memoir, were collected and published. t Samuel Rogers was born in 1763. His "Pleasures of Memory" first gave him a place among English poets. Besides this, his " Voyage of Columbus" " Jacqueline," " Human Life,*' and " Italy," were his principal poetic pro- ductions. He was offered the laureateship on the death of Wordsworth, which, by reason of his advanced age, he declined. . Rogers was a gentleman of fortune and ample hospitalities and for half a century his house was a favorite resort of literary men. He seems to have written slowly, the " Pleasures of Memory " occupying him nine years, (about eighty lines a year. ) " Human Life " about the same time, and " Italy " sixteen years. He retained his faculties to near the close of life, dying in 1855, at the age of ninety-two. e 130 Memoir of Washington Irving. sister and family at Birmingham, he spends several days with his Dresden friends, the Fos- ters, at their residence near Bedford, where of course he is received with the most cordial wel- come. He subsequently makes a hasty excur- sion to Yorkshire. Amid these various summer visits and move- ments Irving was giving the finishing touches to his new work and passing it through the press. Having corrected the last proof-sheet, and completed the financial arrangements with his publisher, he immediately left London, and two days afterward he was at his lodgings, a few miles out from Paris. The " Tales of a Traveler " was published in London, August 25. Its publication at New York was in four numbers, ranging from Au- gust 24 to October 9, at which date the Ameri- can edition was completed. In a very prompt letter from Moore is the following : " Your book is delightful. I never can answer for what the public will like, but if they do not devour this with their best appetite then is good writing, good fun, good sense, and all other goods of authorship thrown away upon them." Memoir of Washington Irving. 131 But men, alas ! and even friends, do not al- ways tell an author their inmost thoughts touching the efforts of his pen. This same Moore about the same time thus enters in his diary : " Irving read me some parts of his new work, ' Tales of a Traveler/ Rather tremble for its fate." In fact, as a general thing, this work was received by the English public with less favor than its two predecessors, and it was severely criticised in several of the British Re- views. The " London Quarterly " finds little to commend save Buchthorne's autobiography, which is pronounced to be excellent, while most of the remaining pieces are little else than " the sweepings of the Sketch Book." Buckthorne's visit in his mature years to his native village will call up meetings and memo- ries similar to his in more minds than one. "As I ws rambling pensively through a neighboring meadow, in which I had many a time gathered primroses, I met the very peda- gogue who had been the tyrant and dread of my boyhood. I had sometimes vowed to my- self, when suffering under his rod, that I would have my revenge if I ever met him when I had grown to be a man. The time had come, but I 132 Memoir of Washington Irving. had no disposition to keep my vow. The few years which had matured me into a vigorous man had shrunk him into decrepitude. He ap- peared to have had a paralytic stroke. I looked at him, and wondered that this poor, helpless mortal could have been an object of terror to me ; that I should have watched with anxiety the glance of that failing eye, or dreaded the power of that trembling hand. He tottered feebly along the path, and had some difficulty in get- ting over a stile. I ran and assisted him. He looked at me with surprise, but did not recog- nize me, and made a low bow of humility and thanks. I had no disposition to make myself known, for I felt that I had nothing to boast of. The pains he had taken and the pains he had inflicted had been equally useless. His re- peated predictions had been fully verified, and I felt that little Jack Buckthorne, the idle boy, had grown to be a very good-for-nothing man." Farther on are portrayed Buckthorne's visit to his mother's grave, and his experiences there. "I sought my mother's grave. The weeds were already matted over it, and the tombstone was half hid among nettles. I cleared them away, and they stung my hands ; but I was Memoir of Washington Irving. 133 heedless of the pain, for my heart ached too severely. I sat down on the grave and read over and over again the epitaph on the stone. " It was simple, but it was true. I had writ- ten it myself. I had tried to write a poetical epitaph, but in vain. My feelings refused to utter themselves in rhyme. My heart had gradually been filling during my lonely wander- ings ; it was now charged to the brim and over- flowed. I sank upon the grave, and buried my face in the tall grass, and wept like a child. Yes, I wept in manhood upon the grave as I had in infancy upon the bosom of my mother. Alas ! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while living ! How heedless are we in youth of all her anxieties and kindness ! But when she is dead and gone, when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts, when we find how hard it is to find true sympathy how few love us for ourselves, how few will befriend us in our misfortunes then it is that we think of the mother we have lost. It is true I had always loved my mother, even in my most heedless days ; but I felt how inconsiderate and ineffectual had been my love. My heart melted as I retraced the days of in- 134 Memoir of Washington Irving. fancy, when I was led by a mother's hand, and rocked to sleep in a mother's arms, and was without care or sorrow. ' O my mother ! ' ex- claimed I, burying my face again in the grass of the grave ; ' O that I were once more by your side, sleeping never to wake again on the cares and troubles of this world !'" Menwir of Washington Irving. 135 CHAPTER XIX. " T}LACKWOOD" for January, 1825, in- -U dulges in a sort of sweeping and amus- ing resume of Irving and so many of his works as have thus far been alluded to, and compris- ing a curious intermingling of the sweet and bitter. It considers that the author had been abused by overmuch praise, and then by being treacherously neglected by his friends, and af- fects to come to the rescue and generously place him upon his true position. "Yes, it is time," says 'Blackwood/ (John Neal,) "for us to interpose. We throw our shield over him, therefore. We undertake, once for all, to see fair play. Open the field, withdraw the rabble, drive back the dogs, give him fair play, and we will answer for his acquit- ting himself like a man. If he do not, why let him be torn to pieces and be "In the day of his popularity we showed him no favor ; in this, the day of his tribulation, we shall show him none. He does not require 136 Memoir of Wasttington Irving. any. We saw his faults when there was no- body else to see them. We put our finger upon the sore places about him ; drove our weapon home, up to the hilt, wherever we found a hole in his beautiful armor a joint visible in his golden harness ; treated him, in short, as he deserves to be treated, like a man ; but we have never done, we never will do him wrong. . . . " One word of his life and personal appear- ance (both of which are laughably misrepre- sented) before we take up his works. He was born, we believe, in the city of New York ; began to write for a newspaper at an early age ; read law, but gave it up in despair, feeling, as Cow- per did before him, a disqualifying constitutional timidity which would not permit him to go out into public life ; engaged in mercantile adven- ture ; appeared first in ' Salmagundi ;' wrote some articles for the American magazines ; was unsuccessful in business ; embarked for En- gland, where, since he came to be popular, any- body may trace him. " He is now in his fortieth year * about five feet seven, agreeable countenance, black hair, Mistake ; in his forty-third year. Memoir of Washington Irving. 137 manly complexion ; fine hazel eyes when lighted up, heavy in general ; talks better than he writes when worthily excited, but falls asleep, literally asleep, in his chair at a formal dinner party in high life ; half the time in a revery ; a little im- pediment, a sort of uneasy, anxious, catching inspiration of the voice when talking zealously ; writes a small neat hand like Montgomery, Allan Cunningham or Shea, (it is like that of each ;) indolent, nervous, irritable, easily depressed, easily disheartened, very amiable, no appear- ance of special refinement, nothing remarkable, nothing uncommon about him ; precisely such a man, to say all in a word, as people would con- tinually overlook, pass by without notice or forget after dining with him, unless, peradventure, his name were mentioned, in which case, odds-bobs ! they are all able to recall something remarkable in his way of sitting, eating, or looking, though, like Oliver Goldsmith himself, he had never opened his mouth while they were near, or sat in a high chair, as far into it as he could get, with his toes just reaching the floor. " We come now to the works of Geoffrey : " I. The Newspaper Essays. Boyish, theatrical criticisms, nothing more ; foolishly and wickedly 138 Memoir of Washington Irving. reproduced by some base, mercenary country- man of his, from the rubbish of old printing-offi- ces, put forth as ' by the Author of the Sketch- Book! How could such things be ' by the Au- thor of the Sketch-Book/ written, as they were, twenty years before the Sketch-Book was thought of? By whom were they written ? By a boy. Was he the author of what we call f The Sketch- Book ? ' No. The Sketch-Book was written by a man, a full-grown man. Ergo, the American publisher told a . Nevertheless, there is a touch of Irving's quality in these pages, paltry as they are ; a little of that happy, sly humor, that grave pleasantry, (wherein he resembles Goldsmith so much,) that quiet, shrewd, good- humored sense of the ridiculous, which alto- gether, in our opinion, go to make up the chief excellence of Geoffrey, that which will outlive the fashion of this day, and set him, apart, after all, from every writer in our language. " Salamagundi ; or Whim-Whams. It is a work in two volumes duodecimo ; essays after the manner of Goldsmith a downright, secret, labored, continual imitation of him, abounding too in plagiarisms. The title is from our English Flim-Flams ; Oriental Papers, The Little Man Memoir of Washington Irving. 139 in Black, etc., from the ' Citizen of the World ;' Parts are capital ; as a whole, the work is quite superior to any thing of the kind which this age has produced. . . . " Knickerbocker. A droll, humorous history of New York, while the Dutch who settled it were in power, conceived, matured, and brought forth in a bold original temper, unaided and alone, by Irving ; more entirely the natural thought, language, humor, and feeling of the man himself, without imitation or plagiarism far more than either of his late works. It is written too in the fervor and flush of his popularity at home, after he had got a name such as no other man had among his countrymen ; after Salma- gundi had been read with pleasure all over North America. In it, however, there is a world of rich allusion, a vein of sober caricature, the merit of which is little understood here. Take an example: 'Von Poffenburg' is a portrait outrageously distorted on some accounts, but, nevertheless, a portrait of General Wilkinson, a 'bellipotent' officer who sent in a bill to Con- gress for sugar-plums, or cigars, or both, after 'throwing up' in disgust, we dare say, as 'he could not stomach it' his military command 140 Memoir of Washington Irving. upon the Florida frontier. So, too, in the three Dutch governors we could point out a multitude of laughable secret allusions to three of the American chief magistrates Adams, Jefferson, Madison which have not always been well un- derstood anywhere by any body, save those who are familiar with American history. " By nine readers out of ten, perhaps, Knick- erbocker is read as a piece of generous drollery, nothing more. Be it so* It will wear the better ; the design of Irving himself is not always clear, nor was he always undeviating in his course. Truth or fable, fact or falsehood, it was all the same to him if a bit of material came in his way. " In a word, we look upon this volume of Knickerbocker though it is tiresome, though there are some wretched failures in it, a little overdoing of the humorous, and a little confusion of purpose throughout as a work honorable to English literature; manly, bold, and so alto- gether original, without being extravagant, as to stand alone among the labors of men. ''Naval Biography. Some of these papers are bravely done. In general they are eloquent, simple, clear, and beautiful. Among the ' Lives/ Memoir of Washington Irving. 141 that of poor Perry, the young fresh-water Nelson, who swept Lake Erie of our fleet in such a gal- lant, seaman-like style, is quite remarkable, as containing within itself proof that Irving has the heart of a poet. ... It is not when he tries that Irving is poetical. It is only where he is transported suddenly by some beautiful thought carried away, without knowing why, by inward music, his heart beating, his respiration hurried. He is never the man to call up the anointed before him at will, to imagine spectacles, or people the air, earth, and sea, like a wizard, by the waving of his hand. He has only the heart of a poet. He has not, he never will have, the power of one. It is too late now. Power comes of perpetual warfare, trial, hardship ; he has grown up in perpetual quiet, sunshine, a sort of genteel repose. He may continue, therefore, to feel poetry, to think poetry, to utter poetry, by chance ; but he will never be able to do poetry now as he might have done it before this, if he had been worthily tempered, year after year, by wind or fire, rain or storm. " Sketch-Book. Irving had now come to be regarded as a professional author ; to think of his pen for a livelihood. His mercantile specu- 142 Memoir of Washington Irving. lations were disastrous. We are glad of it. It is all the better for him, his country, our litera- ture, us. But for that lucky misfortune he would never have been half what he now is. But for his present humiliation he would nevei be half what he will now be, if we rightly under- stand his character. " Strange, but so it was. The accidental association, the fortuitous conjunction of two or three young men for the purpose of amusing the town with a few pages a month in Salma- gundi, led straightway to a total change of all their views in life. Two of them, certainly, per- haps all three, became professional authors in a country where only one (poor Brown) had ever appeared before. Two of them have become greatly distinguished as writers ; the third (Ver- planck) somewhat so by the little that he has written. . . . '' The Sketch-Book is a timid, beautiful work, with some childish pathos in it, some rich, pure, bold poetry, a little squeamish, puling, lady-like sentimentality, some courageous writing, some wit, and a world of humor so happy, so natural, so altogether unlike that of any other men, dead or alive, that we would rather have been the Memoir of Washington Irving. 143 writer of it fifty times over than of any thing else that he has ever written. " The touches of poetry are every-where ; but never where one would look for them. Irving has no passion ; he fails utterly in true pathos cannot speak as if he were carried away by any thing. He is always thoughtful ; and, save where he tries to be fine or sentimental, always at home,, always natural. The ' dusty splendor ' of Westminster Abbey the ship 'staggering' over the precipices of the ocean the shark ' darting like a specter through the blue waters ;' all these things are poetry such poetry as never was, never will be surpassed. We could mention fifty more passages, epithets, words of power, which no mere prose writer would have dared under any circumstances to use. They are like the 'invincible looks' of Mil- ton, revealing the god in spite of every dis- guise. . . . " The bravest article that Irving ever wrote is that about our ' English Writers on America.' There is more manhood, more sincerity, more straight-forward, generous plain dealing in that one paper than, perhaps, in all his other works. He felt what he said, every word of it, 144 Memoir of Washington Irving. had nothing to lose, and, of course, wrote in- trepidly. Did we like him the worse for it? No, indeed. It was that very paper which made him respectable in this country. " Rip Van Winkle is well done ; but we have no patience with such a man as Washington Irving. We cannot keep our temper when we catch him pilfering the materials of other men working up old stories. We had as lief see him before the public for some Bow-street offense. " The Wife is ridiculous, with some beau- tiful description ; but Irving, as we said before, has no idea of true passion, suffering, or deep, desolating power. " The Mutability of Literature. The Art of Book-making, etc., are only parts of the same essay ; it has no superior in our lan- guage. . . . " Traits of Indian Character. Very good, very ; so far as they go, historically true. Irving has been instrumental, however, by twice taking the field in favor of the North American savages. He has made it fashionable. " Bracebridge HalL Stout Gentlemen, very good, and a pretty fair account of real occur- Memoir of Washington Irving. 14$ rencc.* Student of Salamanca, beneath con- tempt. Irving has no idea of genuine romance, or love, or any thing else, we believe, that ever seriously troubles the blood of men. " Rookery. Struck off in a few hours, con- trary to what has been said. Irving does not labor as people suppose ; he is too indolent ; given too much, we know, to reverie. " Dolph Hcyliger, 77tc Haunted House, Storm- Ship. All in the fashion of his early time. Perhaps we are greatly inclined so to believe perhaps the remains of what was meant for Salmagundi or Knickerbocker ; the rest of the two volumes quite unworthy of Irving's reputation. " Tales of a Traveler. We hardly know how to speak of this sad afifair, when we think of what Irving might have done, without losing our temper. It is bad enough, base enough, to steal that which would make us wealthy forever ; but, like the plundering Arab, to steal rubbish any thing, from any body, every body would in- dicate a helpless moral temperament, a standard of self-estimation beneath every thing. No wonder that people have begun to question his * A hint of plagiarism. 10 146 Memoir of Washington Irving. originality when they find him receiving the paltry material of newspapers, letters, romances. In the early part of these two volumes we shall never see any merit, knowing as we do the sources of what he is serving up, how- ever admirable were his new arrangement of the dishes, however great his improvement A part of the book, a few scenes, a few pages, are quite equal to any thing that he ever wrote." The reviewer thus concludes : " One word of advice to him before we part, probably, forever. No man gets credit by re- peating the story of another ; it is like dram- atizing a poet. If you succeed, he gets all the praise ; if you ti\\ y you get all the disgrace. You, Geoffrey Crayon, have great power original power. We rejoice in your failure now because \vq believe it will drive you into a style of origi- nal composition far more worthy of yourself. Go to work. Lose no time. Your foundations will be the stronger for this reform. You can- not write a novel, a poem, a love-tale, or a tragedy. But you can write another Sketch- Book worth all that you have ever written if you will draw only from yourself. You have Menioir of Washington Irving. 147 some qualities that no other living writer has, a bold, quiet humor, a rich, beautiful mode of painting without caricature, a delightful, free, happy spirit make use of them. We Ibok to see you all the better for this trouncing. God bless you ! Farewell." 148 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XX. IRVING, as we have seen, returned to Paris simultaneously with the publication of " Tales of a Traveler," and from the summer of 1824 he resided there an entire year. During the autumn he occupied lodgings a short dis- tance out of the city, in order that he might be free from the various annoying interruptions to which he was subjected in town. He had be- come famous in literature, and this led to sundry calls, and many invitations to fashionable visits, parties, balls, etc. ; amusements which had now obviously lost, in some degree, their charm for him, while they proved a sad interference with his intellectual and literary pursuits. At the same time, however, it is quite notice- able that, during the autumn of 1824, and throughout the year 1825, Irving accomplished comparatively little with his pen. His new work had encountered, as we have seen, some severe strictures from the critics both in En- gland and America, and his sensitive nature Memoir of Washington Irving. 149 quailed under the influence, and his spirits were often much depressed. Some of his letters betray decided regrets that he had not adopted a different path of life, devoting himself in his youth to some substantial and regular employ- ment, and not have ventured upon the uncertain career of literature. To a promising nephew who had recently graduated, and who seemed somewhat inclined to a literary life, he addressed about this time a deeply interesting letter, in which he expressed a hope that none of his near and special friends would be led to imitate his example in wandering into what he terms " the seducive and treacherous paths of litera- ture." He assured his nephew that such a life was precarious both sis to profits and enjoy- ment that though he had himself been some- what prosperous in authorship, he would dissuade all whom he could influence from hazarding their fortunes to the pen, and that he was anticipating with pleasure the time when he should be above the necessity of writing. " If," he adds, " you think my path has been a flowery one you are greatly mistaken. It has too often lain among thorns and brambles, and been darkened by care and despondency. Many 150 Memoir of Washington Irving. and many a time have I regretted that at my early outset in life I had not been imperiously bound down to some regular and useful mode of life, and been thoroughly inured to habits of business ; and I have a thousand times regretted with bitterness that ever I was led away by my imagination." We are not yet disposed to quarrel with ad- monitions and reflections like these. They may be appropriate to pens that are employed mainly for bread ; but the view, on the whole, seems too much tinctured with what is morbid and worldly. The pen may have and perform a mission as sacred and noble as the Christian ministry itself, and hence ditty, as truly as a mere expediency, may point to a diligent and conscientious career of authorship. With the views alluded to by Irving in this letter to his nephew a man may write or do otherwise, as may be his preference. But a more elevated and purer vision may lead one to decide and act on a very different principle. If it be in an author's mind to write for the mere amusement of his readers, we may conceive it optional with himself whether he will write or engage in one of sundry other occupations ; but if, on the other Memoir of Washington Irving. 151 hand, there seem "a necessity upon him" to write for the edification of the multitude, then the optional feature is by no means so ap- parent. As winter came on Irving removed into town and established his quarters with his brother Peter, who was also living a bachelor life at Paris. Previously, however, and in the early days of October, the two brothers made an ex- cursion into the country, that they might enjoy an opportunity to see more of the beautiful realm of France than they had yet observed. The weather proved to be all they could wish, being serene and delightful, while the golden autumn imparted its peculiar tints to the pleas- ant and sprightly scenery thrxt opened up before them on every hand. Their path lay along the banks of the Loire, and towns and castles fa- mous in story, and richly wooded hills over- looking far-reaching vales, were spread out be- fore them in enchanting loveliness. After a nine days' ramble they returned to their winter quarters in Rue Richelieu, No. 89. Their establishment here seems to have been very complete and comfortable, except that it had to be reached by mounting several flights 152 Memoir of Washington Irving. of stairs. Their rooms opened into each other, and were excellently well fitted up and fur- nished. A French servant-woman acted as cook, chamber-maid, butler, and footman, " who," says Irving, " keeps every thing in the neatest order, and chatters even faster than she works." The brothers had their separate rooms, and each could follow his own business without interfering with the other, one of the very best libraries in the world was within five minutes' walk of their lodgings, and to which they enjoyed full and free access. Is not here a picture for a student or an author ? Surely much might be expected from comforts and advantages like these. Yet, as we have already noticed, but little was accomplished under circumstances so pro- pitious. The autumn, winter, and the succeed- ing spring and summer passed away, leaving but slight fruits of that facile and beautiful pen. There were attempts at plottings and plan- nings. One and another theme arose before the mind's eye. Some essays were projected and written with a view of being grouped into a volume, but they seem to have never seen the light. For months there are hints of "sleep- less nights," " uncomfortable thoughts," " a Memoir of Washington Irving. 153 heavy heart," " deep depression," and the like. Nor while his pen was thus palsied is there much evidence of any systematic or extensive reading, though he was dwelling under the shadow of an immense library. His principal study seems to have been the Spanish language, which, it is presumed, he cultivated with com- mendable diligence, having in view even then, without doubt, a sojourn in Spain, and an in- troduction to its literature. Toward the last of September of this year the two brothers left Paris for Bordeaux, where they remained about four months. Here Irving represents himself as visiting, rambling, and writing some, and closes up the year with say- ing, " A year very little of which I would will- ingly live over again, though some parts have been tolerably pleasant." 154 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXI. / IN the beginning of the year 1826, and while still at Bordeaux, Mr. Irving writes to Mr. Alexander H. Everett, then United States Min- ister at the Court of Spain, inquiring whether it would be possible for him to be attached to the embassy, as he would then, in his contem- plated travels in Spain, be under its protection. Mr. Everett at once responded favorably, at- tached Irving as desired, and forwarded him a passport. The Minister further suggested to him the idea of a translation of the " Voyages of Columbus," just from the press by Navarette, and which would probably bring him a liberal compensation. Under these pleasant auspices and prospects the two brothers started immediately from Bor- deaux for Madrid, arriving February 15. An examination of Navarette's "Voyages" im- pressed him that from the character of the work it was better fitted as materials of history than as history itself, and the idea of an original Memoir of Washington Irving. 155 Life of Columbus was at once suggested to his mind. He immediately commenced such a work, and prosecuted it with untiring diligence, sometimes writing all day and far into the night during five or six months. At the end of this time he conceived the idea of writing a history of the Conquest of Grena- da, and leaving for a time his " Columbus " he plunged into this new undertaking, and in three months the rough draft of the work was com- pleted, and he resumed his former manuscript. Hence his closing record of this year is far more satisfactory than that of the preceding, and is eminently worth quoting. " And so ends the year 1826, which has been a year of the hardest application and toil of the pen I have ever passed. I feel more satisfied, how- ever, with the manner in which I have passed it than I have been with that of many gayer years, and close this year of my life in better humor with myself than I have often done." A suggestive lesson 1 The retrospect of "gayer years" is one ; that of years of close and useful application is another ; and which will be the pleasanter of the two henceforth and always admits of no doubt or question. 156 Memoir of Washington Irving. Irving' s bow continued to "abide in strength/' As the winter and spring advanced he still con- tinued diligently at his manuscript of Columbus. Various difficulties arose as he advanced. New light would spring up on one and another point which he deemed already settled, so that nu- merous passages must be rewritten which he had thought to be finished and nearly off of his hands. By the end of July, however, and about eighteen months from the date of its com- mencement, the work was completed and ready for the press. As was usual with him, it was published simultaneously in London and New York. For the copy-right of this work Mr, Irving re- ceived from his London publisher about sixteen thousand dollars. From so liberal a compensa- tion it may be inferred that this publisher esteemed the work the best that the author had yet written. Southey to whom the manuscript was first shown, praised it unqualifiedly " both as to matter and manner." A reviewer in the London Times, bating some alleged faults, ad- mits it to be elegantly and agreeably written a most delightful production. Sir James Mack- intosh gave the work flattering commendations, Memoir of Washington Irving. 157 and it was reviewed with special favor in the North American Review by Alexander H. Ev- erett, than whom few in the whole literary world were more competent to criticise fairly and justly such a work. " This/' says Mr. Everett, " is one of those works which are at the same time the delight of readers and the despair of critics. It is as nearly perfect as any work well can be ; and there is, therefore, little or nothing left for the reviewer but to write at the bottom of every page, as Voltaire said he should be obliged to do if he published a commentary on Racine, Putchrc! bend optime ! He has at length filled up the void that before existed in this respect in the literature of the world, and pro- duced a work which will fully satisfy the public, and supersede the necessity of any future labors in the same field. , . . For the particular kind of historical writing in which Mr. Irving is fitted to labor and excel, the Life of Columbus is un- doubtedly one of the very best, perhaps we might say without the fear of mistake the very best, subject afforded by the annals of the world. In treating this happy and splendid subject, Mr. Irving has brought out the full force of his 158 Memoir of Washington Irving. genius as far as a just regard for the principles of historical writing would admit." Doubtless this testimony is conclusive touch- ing the merit of this work, although numerous others might be easily adduced, and from the most respectable sources, such as Prescott, Story, Kent, etc. We must indulge in an extract or two : i. The Man. " He was, at that time, in the full vigor of manhood, and of an engaging pres- ence. Minute descriptions are given of his person by his son Fernando, by Las Casas, and others of his contemporaries. According to these accounts, he was tall, well-formed, muscular, and of an elevated and dignified demeanor. His visage was long, and neither full nor meager ; his complexion fair and freckled, and inclined to ruddy ; his nose aquiline ; his cheek-bones were rather high, his eyes light gray and apt to en- kindle ; his whole countenance had an air of authority. His hair in his youthful days was of a light color, but care and trouble, according to Las Casas, soon turned it to gray, and at thirty years of age it was quite white. He was moderate and simple in diet and apparel, elo- quent in discourse, engaging and affable with Memoir of Washington Irving. 159 strangers, and of an amiableness and suavity in domestic life that strongly attached his house- hold to his person. His temper was naturally irritable, but he subdued it by the magnanimity of his spirit, comporting himself with a courteous and gentle gravity, and never indulging in any intemperance of language. Throughout his life he was noted for a strict attention to the offices of religion, observing rigorously the fasts and ceremonies of the Church ; nor did his piety consist in mere forms, but partook of that lofty and solemn enthusiasm with which his whole character was strongly marked." 2. The Ships. " After the great difficulties made by various courts in furnishing this expe- dition, it is surprising how inconsiderable an armament was required. It is evident that Co- lumbus had reduced his requisitions to the nar- rowest limits, lest any great expense should cause impediment. Three small vessels were apparently all that he had requested. Two of them were light barks, called caravels, not superior to river and coasting craft of more modern days. Representations of this class of vessels exist in old prints and paintings. They are delineated as open and without deck in the 160 Memoir of Washington Irving. center, but built up high at the prow and stern, with forecastles and cabins for the accommoda- tion of the crew. Peter Martyr, the learned contemporary of Columbus, says that only one of the three vessels was decked. The smallness of the vessels was a nsidered an advantage by Columbus in a voyage of discovery, enabling him to run close to the shores and to enter shallow rivers and harbors. In his third voyage, when coasting the gulf of Paria, he complained of the size of his ship, being nearly a hundred tons burden. But that such long and perilous expeditions into unknown seas should be under- taken in vessels without decks, and that they should live through violent tempests, by which they were frequently assailed, remain among the singular circumstances of these daring voyages." 3. The Approach. " For three days they stood in this direction, and the further they went the more frequent and encouraging were the signs of land. Flights of small birds of various colors, some of them such as sing in the fields, came fly- ing about the ships, and then continued toward the south-west, and others were heard also flying by in the night. Funny-fish played about the smooth sea, and a heron, a pelican, and a duck Memoir of Washington Irving. 161 were seen, all bound in the same direction. The herbage which floated by the ships was fresh and green, as if recently from land ; and the air, Columbus observes, was sweet and fragrant as April breezes in Seville. " All these, however, were regarded by the crews as so many delusions beguiling them on to destruction ; and when, on the evening of the third day, they beheld the sun go down upon a shoreless horizon, they broke forth into clamorous turbulence. Fortunately, however, the manifestations of neighboring land were such on the following day as no longer to admit a donbt. Besides a quantity of fresh weeds such as grow in rivers, they saw a green fish of a kind which keeps about rocks ; then a branch of thorn with berries on it, and recently sep- arated from the tree, floated by them. Then they picked up a reed, a small board, and above all, a staff* artificially carved. All gloom and mutiny now gave way to sanguine expectation, and throughout the day each one was eagerly on the watch in hopes of being the first to dis- cover the Iong-sought-f6r land." 4. The Discovery. " The greatest animation prevailed throughout the ships ; not an eye was 11 162 Memoir of Washington Irving. closed that night. As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on "the top of the castle cabin on the high poop of his vessel. However he might carry a cheerful and confi- dent countenance during the day, it was to him a time of the most painful anxiety; and now when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon in search of the most vague indi- cations of land. . . . They continued their course until two in the morning, when a gun from the Pinta gave the joyful signal of land. . . . The land was now clearly seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took in sail and lay to, waiting impatiently for the dawn. " The thoughts and feelings of Columbus in this little space of time must have been tumultu- ous and intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed ; his theory which had been the scoff of sages was triumphantly established ; he had secured to himself a glory which must be as durable as the world itself." 5. The Landing. " As they approached the Meiuoir of Washington Irving. 163 shores they were refreshed by the sight of the ample forests, which in those climates have extraordinary vegetation. They beheld fruits of tempting hue, but unknown kind, growing among the trees which overhung the shores. The purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the seas which bathe these islands, give them a wonderful beauty, and must have had their effect upon the suscep- tible feelings of Columbus. No sooner did he land than he threw himself upon his knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by the rest, whose hearts, indeed, overflowed with the same feelings of gratitude," 6. The Natives. " The natives of the island, when at the dawn of day they had beheld the ships, with their sails set, hovering on their coast, had supposed them some monsters which had issued from the deep during the night. They had crowded to the beach and watched their movements with awful anxiety. Their veering about apparently without effort ; the shifting and furling of their sails, resembling huge wings, filled them with astonishment. When they beheld their boats approach the 164 Memoir of Washington Irving. shore, and a number of strange beings clad in glittering steel, or raiment of various colors, landing upon the beach, they fled in affright to their woods. Finding, however, that there was no attempt to pursue nor molest them, they gradually recovered from their terror, and ap- proached the Spaniards with great awe, fre- quently prostrating themselves on the earth and making signs of adoration. During the ceremonies of taking possession, they remained in timid admiration at the complexion, the beards, the shining armor, arid splendid dress of the Spaniards, The Admiral particularly attracted their attention from his commanding height, his air of authority, his dress of scarlet, and the deference which was paid him by his companions all of which pointed him out to be the commander. When they had still further recovered from their fears, they approached the Spaniards, touched their beards, and examined their hands and faces, admiring their whiteness. Columbus, pleased with their simplicity, their gentleness, and the confidence they reposed in beings who must have appeared to them so strange and formidable, suffered their scrutiny with perfect acquiescence. The wondering Memoir of Washington Irving. 165 savages were won by this benignity ; they now supposed that the ships had sailed out of the crystal firmament which bounded their horizon, or that they had descended from above on their ample wings, and that these marvelous beings were inhabitants of the skies." 166 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXII. MR. IRVING now indulged himself in an- other considerable vacation ; and, for a year or so after dismissing his " Columbus " to the publisher, we discern but little activity of his pen except the completion of his " Conquest of Grenada," some revision of his " Columbus " for a second edition, and various interesting letters to his friends. We find him also again in motion. Ever since coming to Madrid he had been hard at work, and had enjoyed but slight opportunities for excursions and sight-seeing in so interesting a country as Spain. He had, indeed, tran- siently visited Segovia, the Escurial, and Toledo, cities somewhat in the neighborhood of the capital ; but he now contemplated more exten- sive travels, and determined to visit a few other and more distant localities, and such as were of historic interest. Accordingly, in the early spring of 1828, in company with two friends, he started on a south- Memoir of Washington Irving. 167 era tour, designing to visit some of the more interesting cities of Andalusia. His brother Peter, who had been with him at M?drid, was expecting to join the excursion, but increasing ill-health prevented the plan, and the brothers parted company Peter leaving Madrid for Paris on the same day that Washington and his party left for the south. Their journey toward the Mediterranean was safe as well as deeply interest- ing. Crossing the Sierra Morena Mountains, they were delighted with the wild and romantic scenery through which they passed. Descend- ing, they were charmed with the balmy air and beautiful scenery of Andalusia. During their transient stay at Cordova they regaled them- selves with brief excursions among the neighbor- ing mountains, clothed with arometic shrubbery and glorious flowers. They saw the shining Guadalquivir winding through green and fertile plains, while in the far south rose the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevadas, the intervening landscape presenting a scene of loveliness that might vie with the enchanting vale of Cashmere itself. Thence, a few leagues bring them to Granada, so full of historical recollections, wherein, from his recent studies, he was so deeply 1 68 Memoir of Washington Irving. interested, and which he was so well prepared to appreciate. With a sort of ecstasy, Irving, as he approached the city, caught his first glimpse of the Alhambra bathed in the purple radiance of the evening sun. Here, with his traveling companions, he lingered for several days surveying the city and its envirous. But with Irving the ancient palace of the Alhambra was the special point of interest. He seemed . never weary of lingering amid the charming scenery here presented to view, and he writes enthusiastically of the "delicately ornamented walls, the aromatic groves mingling with the freshness and the enlivening sound of fount- ains and the runs 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." And he adds that it is "im- possible to contemplate this delicious abode and not feel an admiration of this genius and the poet- ical spirit of those who first devised this earthly paradise." He delights to escape from the noise and turmoil of the city, and roam amid these groves and gardens of beauty, and along Memoir of Washington Irving. 169 the magnificent colonnades, and marble halls, and mouldering towers his mind, the while, crowded with the historical associations that cnwrcathe themselves with every object that meets his eye. Yet he cannot at present linger ; and in a few days he is off for Malaga. The route is deeply interesting, yet laborious and fatiguing, lying sometimes amid savage scenes and a deso- late country, now passing over stern mountain regions, and then again traversing little fertile and lovely vales locked up in mountain embraces, while at times the glorious Mediterranean would rise on the delighted vision like as when the retreating Greeks shouted, " The Sea, the Sea ! " as the dark and heaving Euxine burst upon their view. Far away on the deep frequent sails were in sight, brilliant amid the sunshine, and sometimes away below them upon the sandy beach fishermen were drawing their nets with shouts and songs. "Our road at times," he writes, " wound along the face of vast promon- tories, where we rode along a path formed like a cornice, whence we looked down upon the surf beating upon the rocks at an immense distance below us;" and here and there a 170 Memoir of Washington Irving. cross would be erected at the road-side, desig- nating the spot where some hapless traveler had been waylaid and murdered by prowling banditti. No disaster, however, occurred to our travel- ers, and nine days of journeying brought them to Malaga. Here, also, they passed several days, receiving great attention and hospitality from the American Consul. Then, by way of the mountains of Ronda, they visited Gibraltar, where they were again overwhelmed with kind- ness and hospitality. Cadiz Irving pronounces one of the most beautiful of cities, whence, after a sojourn of two days, and taking leave of his traveling companions, he embarks by steam for Seville, distant sixty miles up the Guadalquivir. After a fine sail of twelve hours he reached the city, April 14, and thus concluded what he es- teemed one of the most intensely interesting tours he had ever made. He deemed the Andalusians an admirable people, and was delighted with the country as well as its inhabitants. " They are further removed," he says, " from the rest of Europeans in their characteristics than any of the people of Spain that I have seen. They belong more to Africa in many of their traits Memoir of Washington Irving. 1 7 1 and habitudes ; and when I am mingling among them in some of their old country towns, I can scarcely persuade myself that the expulsion of the Moors has been any thing more than nominal." 172 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXIII. MR. IRVING had planned to remain sev- eral weeks at Seville for the purpose of finishing and preparing for the press his " Con- quest of Granada." He lingered here, however, more than a year, spending six weeks of the summer months without the walls of the city. He had here as a companion a young English- man in delicate health, Mr. John N. Hall, who had been his fellow-lodger also in the city. His sketches of his little suburban home are especially attractive. It was a lonely spot, about two miles from town, and the cottage was inclosed within a high wall, and the keeper locked them in at sunset for the night. In the rear of the cottage was a little garden full of orange and citron trees, with a porch overhung with grape- vines and jessamines. " The place," he writes, " suits me from its uninterrupted quiet. I pass my time here completely undisturbed, having no visits to pay or receive. It is a long time since I have been so tranquil, so completely in- Memoir of Washington Irving. 173 sulatcd, so free from the noises and distractions of the town, and I cannot tell you how much I relish it." Further on we find similar contented mus- ings and rational moralizings : " We are great cheats to ourselves, and defraud ourselves out of a great portion of this our petty term of ex- istence, filling it up with idle ceremonies and irksome occupations and unnecessary cares. By dint of passing our time in the distractions of a continual succession of society we lose all intimacy with what ought to be our best and most cherished society ourselves; and by fixing our attention on the vapid amusements and pal- try splendors of a town, we lose all perceptions of the serene and elevating pleasures and the magnificent spectacles presented us by Nature. What soiree in Madrid could repay me for a calm, delicious evening passed here among the old trees of the garden, in untroubled thought or unbroken reverie ? or what splendor of ball- room or court itself can equal the glory of sun- set or the serene magnificence of the moon and stars shining so clearly above me ? " During Mr. Irving's stay in this retirement he pens a letter to a young friend, whose ac- Memoir of Washington Irving. quaintance he had made at Madrid Prince Dolgorouki, Secretary of Legation to the Rus- sian embassy there. So excellent are some sentiments of this letter, and so appropriate to multitudes of youth, that we cannot forbear presenting a single extract. "You repine at times," he writes, " at the futility of the gay and great world about you. The world is pretty much what we make it, and it will be filled up with nullities and trifles if we suffer them to occupy our attention. . . . Fix your attention 6n noble objects and noble purposes, and sacrifice all temporary and trivial things to their attain- ment. Consider every thing not as to its pres- ent importance and effect, but with relation to what it is to produce some time hence. ... In society let what is merely amusing occupy but the waste moments of your leisure and the mere surface of your thoughts ; cultivate such inti- macies only as may ripen into lasting friend- ship or furnish your memory with valuable recollections. Above all, mark one line in which to excel, and bend all your thoughts and exertions to rise to eminence, or rather to ad- vance toward perfection, in that line. In this way you will find your views gradually con- Memoir of Washington Irving. 175 verging toward one point instead of being dis- tracted by a thousand objects." About the middle of August Mr. Irving made a brief visit to Palos, the port from which Columbus sailed on his voyage of discovery to the western world. Here he viewed every spot memorable in connection with the great expe- ditk>n, and inquired diligently into every thing relating to Columbus and his history. A fort- night after returning from this excursion him- self and his companion sought a cooler residence on the shores of the bay of Cadiz, and about eight miles from the city. Here they occupied a little country-seat, bearing the pleasant name of Ccrillo, crowning the summit of a hill, and commanding an extensive and charming pros- pect Cadiz and its beautiful bay before them, and the mountains of Ronda towering aloft far away in the eastern horizon. The "Conquest of Granada" was now fin- ished, and the portion which was copied about half the first volume was immediately dispatched to London and New York for pub- lication, and the remainder was to follow as fast as copied. The author also dispatched to En- gland and this country his revised edition of \ ' 176 Memoir of Washington Irving. "Columbus." The copy-right of the "Con- quest" for five years brought him $4,750 in New York, and 2,000 guineas at London for the permanent copy-right. From the opening chapter of the "Conquest" we quote the description of the kingdom and city of Granada previous to the conquest, to- gether with its people, military character and political position. "This renowned kingdom, situated in the southern part of Spain, and washed on one side by the Mediterranean Sea, was trav- ersed in every direction by sierras or chains of lofty and rugged mountains, naked, rocky, and precipitous, rendering it almost impreg- nable, but locking up within their sterile em- braces deep, rich, and verdant valleys of prodi- gal fertility. " In the center of the kingdom lay its capital, the beautiful city of Granada, sheltered, as it were, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountains. Its houses, seventy thousand in number, covered two lofty hills with their de- clivities, and a deep valley between them, through which flowed the Duero. The streets were narrow, as is usual in Moorish and Arab Memoir of Washington Irving. 1 77 cities, but there were occasionally small squares and open places. The houses had gardens and interior courts set out with orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, and refreshed by fountains, so that as the edifices ranged above each other up the sides of the hills, they presented a de- lightful appearance of mingled grove and city. One of the hills was surmounted by the Alcaz- aba, a strong fortress commanding all that part of the city ; the other by the Alhambra, a royal palace and warrior castle, capable of con- taining within its alcazar and towers a garrison of forty thousand men, but possessing also its harem, the voluptuous abode of the Moorish monarchs, laid out with courts and gardens, fountains, and baths, and stately halls deco- rated in the most costly style of oriental luxury. According to the Moorish tradition, the king who built this mighty and magnificent pile was skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished himself with the necessary funds by means of alchemy. Such was its lavish splendor that even at the present day the stranger, wandering through its silent courts and deserted halls, gazes with astonishment at gilded ceilings and fretted domes, the brilliancy and beauty of 12 178 Memoir of Washington Irving. which have survived the vicissitudes of war and the silent dilapidations of ages. "The city was surrounded by high walls three leagues in circuit, furnished with twelve gates and a thousand and thirty towers. Its elevation above the sea, and the neighborhood of the Sierra Nevada crowned with perpetual snows, tempered the fervid rays of summer, so that while other cities were panting with the sultry and stifling heat of the dog-days, the most salubrious breezes played through the marble halls of Granada. " The glory of the city, however, was its vega or plain, which spread out to a circumference of thirty-seven leagues, surrounded by lofty mount- ains, and was proudly compared to the famous plain of Damascus. It was- a vast garden of de- light, refreshed by numerous fountains, and by the silver windings of the Xenil. The labor and ingenuity of the Moors had diverted the waters of this river into thousands of rills and streams, and diffused them over the whole sur- face of the plain. Indeed they had wrought up this happy region to a wonderful degree of pros- perity, and took a pride in decorating it as if it had been a favorite mistress. The hills were Memoir of Washington Irving. 179 clothed with orchards and vineyards, the valleys embroidered with gardens, and the wide plains covered with waving grain. Here were seen in profusion the orange, the citron, the fig, and pomegranate, with great plantations of mulberry- trees, from which was produced the finest silk. The vine clambered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in rich clusters about the peasant's cottage, and the groves were rejoiced by the perpetual song of the nightingale. In a word so beautiful was the earth, so pure the air, and so serene the sky of this delicious region, that the Moors im- agined the paradise of their prophet to be situa- ted in that part of the heaven which overhung the kingdom of Granada. " Within this favored realm, so prodigally en- dowed, and so strongly fortified by nature, the Moslem wealth, valor, and intelligence which had once shed such luster over Spain, had gradually retired, and here they made their final stand. Granada had risen to splendor on the ruin of other Moslem kingdoms, but in so doing had become the sole object of Christian hostility, and had to maintain its very existence by the sword. The Moorish capital accordingly pre- sented a singular scene of Asiatic luxury and i8o Memoir of Washington Truing. refinement, mingled with the glitter and the din of arms. Letters were still cultivated, philoso- phy and poetry had their schools and disciples, and the language spoken was said to be the most elegant Arabic. A passion for dress and ornament pervaded all ranks. That of the prin- cesses and ladies of high rank, says Al Kattib, one of their own writers, was carried to a height of luxury and magnificence that bordered on de- lirium. They wore girdles and bracelets, and anklets of gold and silver wrought with exquisite art and delicacy, and studded with jacinths, chrysolites, emeralds, and other precious stones. They were fond of braiding and decorating their beautiful long tresses, or confining them in knots sparkling with jewels. They were finely formed, excessively fair, graceful in their manners, and fascinating in their conversation. ' When they smiled/ says Al Kattib, ' they displayed teeth of dazzling whiteness, and their breath was as the perfume of flowers/ " The Moorish cavaliers, when not in armor, delight in dressing themselves in Persian style, in garments of wool, of silk, or cotton, of the finest texture, beautifully wrought with stripes of various colors. In winter they wore, as an Memoir of Washington Irving. 181 outer garment, the African cloak of Tunisian albornoz ; but in the heat of summer they ar- rayed themselves in linen of spotless whiteness. The same luxury prevailed in their military equipments. Their armor was inlaid and chased with gold and silver. The sheaths of their cimeters were richly labored and enameled ; the blades were of Damascus, bearing texts from the Koran, or martial and amorous mot- toes ; the belts were of golden filigree, studded with gems ; their poniards of Fez, were wrought in the arabesque fashion ; their lances bore gay banderoles ; their horses were sumptuously caparisoned with housings of green and crimson velvet, wrought with silk, and enameled with gold and silver. All this warlike luxury of the youthful chivalry was encouraged by the Moor- ish kings, who ordained that no tax should be imposed on the gold and silver employed in these embellishments, and the same exception was extended to the bracelets and other orna- ments worn by the fair dames of Granada. " War was the normal state of Granada and its inhabitants. The common people were sub- ject at any moment to be summoned to the field, and all the upper class was a brilliant 1 82 Memoir of Washington Irving. chivalry. The Christian princes, so successful in regaining the rest of the peninsula, found their triumphs checked at the mountain barriers of this kingdom. Every peak had its atalaya or watch-tower, ready to make its fire by night, or to send up its column of smoke by day, a signal of invasion at which the whole country was on the alert. To penetrate the defiles of this perilous country ; to surprise a frontier fortress ; or to make a foray into the vega and a hasty ravage within sight of the very capital, were among the most favorite and daring exploits of the Castilian chivalry. But they never pre- tended to hold the region thus ravaged ; it was sack, burn, plunder, and away ! and these deso- lating inroads were retaliated in kind by the Moorish cavaliers, whose greatest delight was a tala, or predatory excursion into the Christian territories beyond the mountains." Memoir of Washington Irving. 183 CHAPTER XXIV. ABOUT this time Mr. Irving' s London pub- lisher, Mr. Murray, proposed to him the editorship of a new monthly magazine which he was intending to publish, and offered him a salary of five thousand dollars, besides a liberal compensation for any original articles of his own which he might be inclined to furnish. Mr. Murray also offered him one hundred guineas per article for any contributions to the Quarterly Review. Both of these offers were declined, the former for the reason that he was unwilling to enter into any permanent engagements that would prevent him from returning to his native country, which he was now longing to do ; and he declined the ofler for the Review articles, owing to its hostility to the United States. About the first of November, Irving returned to Seville, where he shortly received a letter from his brother Peter at London, notifying him that some one in the^ United States was prepar- ing an abridgment qf his " History of Columbus/' 1 84 Memoir of Washington Irving.. and urging him to forestall this undertaking, and himself to provide immediately such an abridgment. Realizing the importance of this matter, he at once entered upon the work, and completed it in nineteen days, making a book of about four hundred pages. A number of hands were employed in copying the manuscript, and in a little more than a month from the day of commencing it the work was on its way to America. He also forwarded a manuscript copy to his London publisher as a gratuity, who at once disposed of an entire edition often thousand copies as one of the volumes of his Family Li- brary. At New York the abridgment was dis- posed of to the purchasers of the first una- bridged edition, and the right of printing a second edition of the latter, together with the abridgment for five years, was sold to the same purchaser for six thousand dollars. Shortly after Irving's return to Seville, he received news of the death of Mr. Hall, who had had been his fellow-lodger for the six months past, and to whom he had become very much attached, and whose death he very sincerely mourned. " It is a long while," he writes to a friend, "since I h^ve lived in such domestic Memoir of Washington Iming* 185 intimacy with any one but my brother. I could not have thought that a mere stranger in so short a space of time could have taken such a hold upon my feelings." In reviewing at its close the year 1828, Mr. Irving speaks of it as a year of much literary application, and one of the most tranquil of his lite. The success of his " Columbus " had been greater than anticipated, and had given him hopes of executing something of greater perma- nence than what he could reasonably expect for his works of mere imagination ; and he looked toward the future with a cheerful heart, es- pecially as he now was anticipating a speedy return to his native country. At the commencement of the year 1829 Mr. Irving was honored with a Diploma as Corre- sponding Member of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid. During the winter and beyond, he seems to be again resting upon his laurels. There is not much moving of his pen and no important undertaking is on hand. His correspondence indicates a longing for home, while yet he feels that the time to return has not yet arrived. He anticipates that a season of dissipation will inevitably follow his return, i 86 Memoir of Washington Irving. when he would not for some time, be able to resume any important literary labor. Hence he is anxious to have some such enterprise in progress so far that it can be carried for- ward in spite of any slight diversions or inter- ruptions. Nor does he seem in readiness to leave Spain, a country which, together with its people, had for Irving a special attraction.' Thus, in a letter to his friend, Prince Dolgorouki, he writes, " I feel so attached to Spain that the thoughts of soon leaving it are extremely painful to me ; and it will be gratifying to me to take a fare- well view of some of its finest scenes in com- pany with one who knows how to appreciate this noble country and noble people." As may be inferred from the above extract, the two gentlemen had planned an excursion together to some of the more interesting cities of Spain, and about the middle of April, 1829, the Prince arrives at Seville from Madrid. On May-day the two travelers set off together, on horseback for Granada, when, after a pleasant journey of five days, they arrive safely. After a twelve days' sojourn at a hotel, they change their quarters for the Governor's vacant apart- Memoir of Washington Irving. \ 87 mcnts in the palace of the Alhambra. Here, as may well be^supposcd, Mr. Irving was in his element, and was accommodated in accordance with his heart's best wishes. It appears that they had obtained permission from the Govern- or to occupy one or two of his own apart- ments ; " and you may easily imagine," he writes to his brother Peter, "how delightfully we arc lodged, with the whole pile at our com- mand, to ramble over its halls and courts at all hours of day and night without control. The part we inhabit is intended for the Governor's quarters ; but he prefers at present residing clown in the city. We have an excellent old dame, and her good humored, bright-eyed niece, who have charge of the Alhambra, who arrange our rooms, meals, etc., with the assistance of a tall servant-boy ; and thus we live, quietly, snugly, and without any restraint, elevated above the world and its troubles." In a few days Prince Dolgorouki sets off to pursue his travels through Andalusia ; and Irv- ing seems to have been left in sole possession of the palace. He writes of feeling at first somewhat "lonely and doleful." For a time the weather was wet and cold, and there was a 1 88 Memoir of Washington Irving. cheerless aspect around those marble and lofty halls". But pleasant weather and balmy sun- shine came at length, and restored all the charms of the Alhambra. Soon, also, he is again at work among his books and manuscripts, and becomes busy and cheerful. " I breakfast," says he, " in the saloons of the embassadors, or among the flowers and fountains in the Court of the Lions ; and when I am not occupied with my pen I lounge with my book about these oriental apart- ments, or stroll about the courts and gardens and arcades, by day or night, with no one to interrupt me. It absolutely appears to me like a dream, or as if I am spell-bound in some fairy palace." On the loth of June Irving finished his work entitled " Legends of the Conquest of Spain," a production which was not published till several years afterward. About the same time he received notice of his appointment as " Secretary of Legation to London " a piece of intelligence which seems to have given him but little pleasure, as such an office would proba- bly interfere very seriously with all his literary plans. " I confess," he writes to a friend, " I feel extremely reluctant to give up my quiet Memoir of Washington Irving. 1 89 and independent mode of life, and am exces- sively perplexed. There are many private reasons that urge me on, independent of the wishes of my friends, while my antipathy to the bustle there, and business of the world, incline ' me to hold back. I only regret that I have not been left entirely alone, and to dream away life in my own way." This appointment, as may well be guessed, was brought about through the agency of cer- tain friends at home, and on his part was neither sought for nor desired. He was now entirely absorbed in literary plans and enterprises, and in this line of effort he had settled down as to his life-work, and deprecated every interference with it for any extraneous purpose. After de- ciding to accept the appointment, he determined, however, that should he find the office irksome in any respect, or detrimental to his literary plans, he would at once throw it up, being happily independent of it, " both as to circum- stances and as to ambition." Sentiments en- tirely similar he expresses to Mr. Everett, alleging that the office was unsought whether by himself or his relatives ; that he had no incli- nation for office, and was doubtful that he had I go Memoir of Washington Irving. any turn for it ; that his recluse literary life had well-nigh unfitted him for worldly business and bustle, and he had no political ambition to be gratified. He seems to have accepted the office more to please his friends than himself, deter- mined, however, that as the place was unsought and undesired by him, so, in accepting it, he would commit himself to no set of men or measures, but, as heretofore, keep himself as clear as possible of all party politics, and con- tinue to devote all his spare time to general literature. Memoir of Washington Irving. 191 CHAPTER XXV. AFTER nearly three months of delightful residence at the Alhambra, Mr. Irving, about the last of July, commenced his journey toward England. His departure was to him like leaving a safe and tranquil port to embark upon a stormy and treacherous sea. Time with him had passed there as in a kind of ori- ental dream. " Never shall I meet on earth with an abode so much to my taste, or -so suited to my habits and pursuits. The sole fault was that the softness of the climate, the silence and serenity of the place, the odor of flowers and the murmur of fountains, had a soothing and voluptuous effect that at times almost incapacitated me for work, and made me feel like the Knight of Industry when so pleasingly inthralled in the Castle of Indo- lence." He was accompanied by a young English- man, an educated gentleman, who was on his way homeward. They traveled as far as to 192 Memoir of Washington Irving. Valencia in a sort of horse-cart, in which they could sit or recline at pleasure ; and, where the roads were pleasant, they walked extensively. Their progress toward Valencia averaged about thirty miles a day, the route lying through Murcia, Orchuela, and Alicante. He describes the country embracing these localities as highly romantic and delightful, level as a table, and a vast garden land, covered for many leagues with groves of oranges, citrons, pomegranates, palms, and dates, bordered in the distance by towering mountains, picturesque in outline, and sublime from their very nakedness and sterility. A part of their route was infested by robbers, but the travelers escaped disturbance or harm, and came in eleven or twelve days to Valencia. After a day or two the travelers took the dili- gence for Barcelona. Here Mr. Irving was detained several days by the sickness of Mr. Snead, his fellow-traveler, after which they set out for France, Mr. S. being still feeble ; yet such was his anxiety to reach home that they traveled nine days and nights incessantly until they reached Paris. All this was too much for the unfortunate young gentleman, and he died shortly after reaching home. It seemed a spe- Memoir of Washington Irving. 193 daily melancholy death, as he was a young man of fortune and brilliant prospects, and was about to be married. " The scenes," says Irving, " I had with his afflicted parents are too painful to be repeated." After remaining a fortnight at Paris with his brother Peter he proceeded to London, from which he had been absent between five and six years. He soon became established in his sec- retaryship, and the following note to his brother Peter at Paris seems to indicate that he had begun to be considerably reconciled to his new position : " I feel disposed, now that I am in diplomatic life, to give it some little trial The . labors are not great, especially in my present situation. It introduces me to scenes and af- fairs of high interest, and in that way, perhaps, prepares me for higher intellectual labors. The very kind and flattering manner, also, in which I am treated in all circles is highly gratifying." His lodgings were immediately opposite the Legation, the office of which was very comfort- able and entirely at his command. His duties were comparatively light, while his social posi- tion and relations were, of course, all he could desire. Meanwhile the avails of his works 13 194 Memoir of Washington Irving. published in London and New York had al- ready secured to him a competence, so that he was no longer under any necessity of writing for bread. Under these pleasant circumstances he pens the following sunny note to Peter : " My idea is not to drudge at literary labor, but to use it as an agreeable employment. We have now sufficient funds to insure us a decent support should we choose to retire upon them. We may, therefore, indulge in the passing pleasures of life, and mingle amusement with our labors." Mr. Irving was at this early period contem- plating as his great work and crowning labor, a life of Washington, an enterprise, however, which was destined to be deferred for many years. Two other literary honors were now awaiting him : the first, one of the two medals of the Royal Society of Literature adjudged annually to the authors of literary works of eminent merit or of important literary discoveries ; the other honor was that of the degree of LL.D., conferred on him by the University of Oxford. On this occasion, advancing in the presence of the great audience to receive his diploma, he Memoir of Washington Irving. 195 was assailed with prolonged and laughable greetings from the students, shouting Diedrich Knickerbocker, Ichabod Crane, Rip Van Win- kle, Geoffrey Crayon, Columbus, Sketch-Book, Bracebridge Hall, etc. He was quite overcome by such a volley of salutations, and" was labor- ing meanwhile with suppressed laughter at the unexpected and vociferous applause. The modesty of Irving is said to have pre- vented him from ever making use of his honor- able title, and from so honorable a source. He was accustomed to view it as a learned dignity urged upon him against his own judgment 196 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXVI. HAVING been a year in his secretaryship, we find Mr. Irving putting to press his "Voyages of the Companions of Columbus."* At the same time he was employed upon his Alhambra tales, several of which he had already finished. He begins, however, to feel sensibly the trammels connected with his official posi- tion, and complains that he has no time for any thing. " I feel my situation," he says, " a ter- rible sacrifice of pleasure, profit, and literary reputation without furnishing any recompense." It is not strange that with such feelings as these Irving should be inclined to seize the first opportunity to retire from his office. Accord- ingly in September, 1831, he was released, after having served two years at the Legation. The remainder of the year he seems to have devoted to visiting his Birmingham relation.*, * This work of Irving seems to have been designed as a sort of appendage to his Columbus, It comprised an account of voyages undertaken by several distinguished navigators after the first discovery by Columbus. Memoir of Washington Irving. 197 and excursions to various other interesting places. Among these last was Newstead Ab- bey,* once the possession and seat of Lord Byron. Meanwhile he was busy in finishing and correcting some manuscripts, complaining, however, of restlessness and uncertainty of mind and feelings tending to interference with imaginative writing. The " Alhambra," which had been for some time on hand, was put to press in the ensuing spring, and, as usual, at New York and London. The London publisher paid about $5,000 for the manuscript, and at New York he received $3,000 for the privilege of printing 5,500 copies. Also for his " Voyages " above mentioned he received at London $2,600, and at New York $1,500 for 3,000 copies. Mr. Irving now made diligent preparation for * The former seat of Lord Byron, who, by stress of circum- stances, was obliged to part with it, to his very great regret. It was purchased by a devoted friend of the bard, who expended large sums to put the old abbey in complete repair. Irving writes in 1831, about the time he visited it, that "It is a most ancient, curious, and beautiful pile, of great extent and intric- acy, and, when restored, will be one of the finest specimens of the mingled conventual and baronial buildings in England. Every thing relative to Lord Byron is preserved with the most scrupulous care. The bedroom he occupied, with all Us fur- niture as it stood, many of his books, his boxing gloves, etc." 198 Memoir of Washington Irving. returning to the United States, and, embarking at Havre April u, he arrived at New York after a passage of forty days. As might be supposed, he met a most cordial reception, and rejoiced greatly as, after an ab- sence of seventeen years, he touched again the soil of his native city. In a letter to his brother Peter, whom he left behind him in Europe, he writes, "I have been absolutely overwhelmed with the welcomes and felicitations of my friends. It seems as if all the old slanders of the city had called on me ; and I am continually in the midst of old associates who, thank God ! have borne the wearand tear of seventeen years sur- prisingly, and are all in good health, good looks, and good circumstances. ... I have been in a tumult of enjoyment ever since my arrival, am pleased with every thing and every body, and as happy as mortal being can be." A public dinner was accorded to him in New York, attended by the elite of the city, which was presided over by Chancellor Kent, and was a most deeply interesting occasion. Public dinners were also proffered him at Philadel- phia and Baltimore, both of which, however, he declined. Memoir of Washington Irving. 199 After his arrival home Mr. Irving devoted several weeks to various visits and excursions. He takes an early opportunity to visit Washing- ton, to pay his respects to the Government he had, for a brief period, been serving abroad. Mr. M'Lean, with whom he was associated at London, was now Secretary of the Treasury, with whom and his family, Irving spent some delightful days, and was received most cordially by all the family, great and small. He also called on the President, (Jackson,) with whom he seems to have been " much pleased as well as amused," and who hinted to his visitor that he might want him for another place under the Government. But Irving gave him to under- stand clearly that he desired no further public responsibilities ; and he seems at this time to be entirely settled in his mind to an exclusively literary life. In the course of the summer we track him up the Hudson at West Point, the Highlands, Tarrytown, Saratoga, Trenton Falls, and the White Mountains. Every-where he is full of animation and delight, and tells his brother Peter, over the sea, of the pleasant times he is having. " In fact, I return to all the simple enjoy- 2OO Memoir of Washington Irving. ments of old times with the renovated feelings of a school-boy, and have had more hearty, home-bred delights of the kind since my return to the United States than I have ever had in the same space of time in the whole course of my life." The autumn he devoted to a tour to the Far West, in company with commissioners appointed by Government to treat with deputations of different tribes of Indians. This tour took him into the territory lying west of Arkansas, and appropriated to the Indian tribes. The journey westward from St. Louis was mainly on horse- back, and beyond the frontiers they encamped out at night, while their subsistence was by the wild game of the forest and prairie. He describes his tour as very rough, but interesting and pleas- ing, the travelers leading, as they went, a hunt- er's life, camping by streams and sleeping on skins or blankets in the open air, enjoying high health and exuberant spirits. His return was by way of steamboat down the Arkansas and Mississippi to New Orleans, and thence, by stage, through the States to Washington, where he passed the winter very pleasantly with his friends the M'Leans. Here he became intensely inter- Memoir of Washington Irving. 201 ested in the great Nullification debates then going forward. " I became," he says, " so deeply interested in the debates of Congress that I almost lived at the Capitol. The grand debate in the Senate occupied my mind for three weeks as did ever a dramatic representation. I heard about every speech, good and bad, and did not lose a word of any of the best." He afterward adds, " I think my close attendance on the leg- islative halls has given me an acquaintance with the nature and operation of our institutions, and the character and concerns of the various parts of the Union, that I could not have learned from books for years." Leaving Washington for New York, we find him detained three weeks at Baltimore, en- thralled in the abundant hospitality of the city, " going the round of dinners," he says, "'until as jaded as I was in London. Time and mind are cut up with me like chopped hay, and I am good for nothing, and shall be good for nothing for some time to come, so much am I harassed by the claims of society." Thus, amid his various travels, excursions, and visitings, more than a year seems to have passed, after his arrival from abroad, before Mr. 2O2 Memoir of Washington Irving, Irving could seriously set himself to work with his pen. In the meantime he again incurred some serious pecuniary reverse, which, however, disturbed him but slightly, as he had an abun- dance remaining. During the second winter after his return from abroad, he was again dili- gently at his literary labors and progressing therein satisfactorily. He was domiciled in the family of his brother Ebenezer, and managed to keep himself clear of evening engagements and dinner parties, and thus was enabled to improve the winter to the utmost. We subjoin here a single extract from the "Companions of Columbus." It relates to the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Nunez. " ' Why/ said the young cacique, ' should you quarrel for such a trifle ? If this gold is indeed so precious in your eyes that for it alone you abandon your homes, invade the peaceful lands of others, and expose yourselves to such suffer- ings and perils, I will tell you of a region where you may gratify your wishes to the utmost. Behold these lofty mountains ; beyond these lies a mighty sea which may be discerned from their summit. It is navigated by people who have vessels almost as large as yours, and Memoir of Washington Irving. 203 furnished like them with sails and oars. All the streams which flow down from the southern side of these mountains into that sea abound in gold, and the Kings who reign upon its borders eat and drink out of golden vessels. Gold, in fact, is as plentiful and common among these people of the South as iron is among Span- iards/ . . . "The day had scarce dawned when Vasco Nunez and his followers set forth from the Indian village and began to climb the height. It was a severe and rugged toil for one so way-worn ; but they were filled with new ardor at the idea of the triumphant scene that was so soon to re- pay them for all hardships. About ten o'clock in the morning they emerged from the thick forests through which they had hitherto strug- gled, and arrived at a lofty and airy region of the mountain. The bold summit alone remained to be ascended, and their guides pointed to a moderate eminence from which the southern sea was visible. " Upon this Vasco Nunez commanded his fol- lowers to halt, and that no man should stir from his place. Then, with a palpitating heart, he ascended alone the bare mountain-top. On 204 Memoir of Washington Irving. reaching the summit the long-desired prospect burst upon his view. It was as if a new world were unfolded to him, separated from all hitherto known by this mighty barrier of mountains. Below him extended a vast chaos of . rock and forest, and green savannas and wandering streams ; while at a distance the waters of the promised ocean glittered in the morning sun. " At this glorious prospect Vasco Nunez sank upon his knees, and poured out thanks to God for being the first European to whom it was given to make that great discovery. He then called his people to ascend. ' Behold, my friends,* said he, ' that glorious sight which we have so much desired. Let us give thanks to God that he has granted us this great honor and advan- tage/ Memoir of Washington Irving* 205 CHAPTER XXVII. HHHE "Alhambra" met a most cordial re- -! ccption from every quarter, and received much praise at home and abroad. Edward Everett, in the " North American Review," considered the work as being equal in literary value to any of the author's other works, except the " Sketch Book ;" while Mr. Prescott, in his " Ferdinand and Isabella," pronounces it the " beautiful Spanish Sketch Book." The author's sketch of his journey from Se- ville to Granada is highly instructive as well as interesting, presenting to us, as it does, so pic- turesque a view of Spanish scenery, mode of traveling, etc. "Many," he writes, "are apt to picture Spain to their imaginations as a soft southern region, decked out with all the lux- urious charms of voluptuous Italy. On the contrary, though there are exceptions in some of the maritime provinces, yet for the greater part it is a stern, melancholy country, with rug- ged mountains and long, naked, sweeping plains 206 Memoir of Washington Irving. destitute of trees, and invariably silent and lone- some, partaking of the savage and solitary char- acter of Africa. What adds to this silence and loneliness is the absence of singing birds, a natural consequence of the want of groves and hedges. The vulture and the eagle are seen wheeling about the mountain cliffs, and soaring over the plains, and groups of shy bustards stalk about the heaths ; but the myriads of smaller birds which animate the whole face of other countries are met with in but few prov- inces of Spain, and in them chiefly among the orchards and gardens which surround the hab- itations of man. " In the exterior provinces the traveler occa- sionally traverses great tracts cultivated with grain as far as the eye can reach, waving at times with verdure, at other times naked and sunburnt ; but he looks round in vain for the hand that has tilled the soil. At length he perceives some village perched on a steep hill or rugged crag, with moldering battlements and ruined watch-tower, a stronghold in old times against civil war or Moorish inroad ; for the custom among the peasantry of congregat- ing together for mutual protection is still kept Memoir of Washington Irving. 207 up in most parts of Spain in consequence of the maraudings of roving freebooters. " But a great part of Spain is deficient in the garniture of groves and forests, and the softer charms of ornamental cultivation, yet its scen- ery has something of a high and lofty character to compensate the want. It partakes some- thing of the attributes of its people, and I think that I better understand the proud, hardy, fru- gal, and abstemious Spaniard, his manly defi- ance of hardships and contempt of effeminate indulgence, since I have seen the country he inhabits. " There is something, too, in the stern and simple features of the Spanish landscape that impresses on the soul a feeling of sublimity. The immense plains of the Castiles and La Mancha, extending as far as the eye can reach, derive an interest from their very nakedness and immensity, and have something of the sol- emn grandeur of the ocean. In ranging over these boundless wastes the eye catches sight here and there of a straggling herd of cattle attended by a lonely herdsman, motionless as a statue, with his long, slender pike tapering up like a lance into the air; or beholds a long 208 Memoir of Washington Irving. train of mules slowly moving along the waste like "a train of camels in a desert ; or a single herdsman, armed with blunderbuss and stiletto, prowling over the plain. Thus the country, the habits, the very looks of the people, have something of the Arabian character. The gen- eral insecurity of the country is evinced in the universal use of weapons. The herdsman in the field, the shepherd in the plain, has his musket and his knife. The wealthy villager rarely ventures to the market-town without his trabucho, and, perhaps, a servant on foot with a blunderbuss on his shoulder ; and the most petty journey is undertaken with the preparations of a warlike enterprise. " The dangers of the road produce also a mode of traveling resembling, on a diminutive scale, the caravans of the East. The arrieros, or car- riers, congregate in troops, and set off in large and well-armed trains on appointed days, while individual travelers swell their number and contribute to their strength. In this primitive way is the commerce of the country carried on. The muleteer is the general medium of traffic and the legitimate wanderer of the land, trav- ersing the Peninsula from the Pyrenees and the Memoir of Washington Irving. 209 Asturias to the Alpuxarras, the Serrania de Ronda, and even to the gates of Gibraltar. He lives frugally and hardily. His alforjas (or sad- dle-bags) of coarse cloth hold his scanty stock of provisions, a leathern bottle hanging at his saddle-bow contains wine or water for a supply across barren mountains and thirsty plains, a mule-cloth spread upon the ground is his bed at night, and his pack-saddle is his pillow. His low but clear-limbed and sinewy form beto- kens strength ; his complexion is dark and sun- burnt, his eye resolute, but quiet in its ex- pression, except when kindled by sudden emo- tion ; his demeanor is frank, manly, and cour- teous, and he never passes you without a grave salutation : ' God guard you ! God be with you, cavalier ! ' " As these men have often their whole for- tune at stake upon the burden of their mules, they have their weapons at hand, slung to their saddles, and ready to be snatched down for desperate defense. But their united numbers render them secure against petty bands of ma- rauders, and the solitary bandalero, (robber,) armed to the teeth, and mounted on his Anda- lusian steed, hovers about them like a pirate 14 2io Memoir of Washington Irving. about a merchant convoy, without daring to make an assault. . . . " It has a most picturesque effect, also, to meet a train of muleteers in some mountain pass. First you hear the bells of the leading mules breaking with their simple melody the stillness of the airy height, or perhaps the voice of the muleteer admonishing some tardy or wandering animal, or chanting at the full stretch of his lungs some traditionary ballad. At length you see the mules slowly winding along the craggy defile, sometimes descending precipitous cliffs, so as to present themselves in full relief against the sky, sometimes toiling up the deep arid chasms below you. As they ap- proach you descry their gay decorations of worsted tufts, tassels, and saddle-cloths ; while, as they pass by, the ever-ready trabucho, slung behind their packs and saddles, gives a hint of the insecurity of the road. " The ancient kingdom of Granada, into which we are about to penetrate, is one of the most mountainous regions of Spain. Vast sierras, or chains of mountains, destitute of shrub or tree and mottled with variegated marbles and granites, elevate their sun-burnt Memoir of Washington Irving. 2 1 1 summits against a deep blue sky, yet in their rugged bosoms lie engulfed the most verdant and fertile valleys, where the desert and the garden strive for mastery, and the very rock, as it were, is compelled to yield the fig, the orange, and the citron, and to blossom with the myrtle and the rose. In the wild passes of these mountains the sight of walled towns and vil- lages, built like eagles' nests among the cliffs, and surrounded by Moorish battlements, or of ruined watch-towers perched on lofty peaks, carry the mind back to the chivalrous days of Christian and Moslem warfare, and to the ro- mantic struggle for the conquest of Granada. In traversing these lofty sierras the traveler is often obliged to alight and lead his horse up and down the steep and jagged ascents and descents, resembling the broken steps of a staircase. Sometimes the road winds along dizzy precipices, without parapet to guard him from the gulfs below, and then will plunge down steep and dark and dangerous declivities. Sometimes it struggles through rugged baran- cos, or ravines, worn by water-torrents, the obscure paths of the contrabandista, (smug- glers ;) while ever and anon the ominous cross, 212 Memoir of Washington Irving. the memento of robbery and murder, erected on a mound of stones at some lonely part of the road, admonishes the traveler that he is among the haunts of banditti, perhaps at that very moment under the eye of some lurking banda- lero. Sometimes in winding through the nar- row valleys he is startled by a hoarse bellowing, and beholds above him on some green fold of the mountain side a herd of fierce Andalusian bulls destined for the combat of the arena. There is something awful in the contemplation of these terrific animals, clothed with tremen- dous strength, and ranging their native pastures in untamed wilclness, strangers almost to the face of man. They know no one but the 'soli- tary herdsman who attends upon them, and even he at times dares not venture to approach them. The low bellowings of these bulls, and their menacing aspect as they look down from their rocky height, give additional wildness to the savage scenery around." On reaching Granada and entering the palace of the Alhambra, and walking meditatively amid its ancient halls, he feels himself to be treading upon haunted ground, while romantic associa- tions cluster thickly around him. Memoir of Washington Irving. 2 1 3 " From earliest boyhood, when, on the banks of the Hudson, I first pored over the pages of an old Spanish story about the wars of Granada, that city has ever been a subject of my waking dreams, and often have I trod in fancy the ro- mantic halls of the Alhambra. Behold, for once, a day-dream reali/ed ! yet I can scarcely credit my senses, or believe that I do indeed inhabit the palace of Boabdil, and look down from its balconies upon chivalric Granada. As I loiter through the oriental chambers, and hear the murmuring of fountains and the song of the nightingales, as I inhale the odor of the rose and feel the influence of the balmy climate, I am almost tempted to fancy myself in the para- dise of Mahomet, and that the plump little Dolores* is one of the bright-eyed houris, des- tined to administer to the happiness of true believers." The author's selection of his chamber at the palace is curious as well as characteristic : 44 On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one end of a suite of empty chambers of modern architecture, intended for the residence of the governor, was fitted up for my reception. It A little maul -servant of the palace. 214 Memoir of Washington Irving. was in front of the palace, looking forth upon the esplanade. The farther end communicated with a cluster of little chambers, partly Moorish, partly modern, inhabited by Fia Antonia* and her family. ... I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern and frontier apartment of the palace, and longed to ensconce myself in the very heart of the building. " As I was rambling one day about the Moor- ish halls, I found, in a remote gallery, a door which I had not before noticed, communicating apparently with an extensive apartment locked up from the public. Here, then, was a mystery. Here was the haunted wing of the castle. I procured the key, however, without difficulty. The door opened to a range of vacant chambers of European architecture, though built over a Moorish arcade along the little garden of Lind- araxa. There were two lofty rooms, the ceilings of which were of deep panel work of cedar, richly and skillfully carved with fruits and flowers in- termingled with grotesque masks or faces, but broken in many places. The walls had evidently in ancient times been hung with damask, but were now naked, and scrawled over with the * The mistress or housekeeper at the palace. Memoir of Washington Irving. 2 1 5 insignificant names of aspiring travelers. The windows, which were dismantled and open to wind and weather, looked into the garden of Lindaraxa, and the orange and citron trees flung their branches into the chambers. . . . There was something in the very decay that enhanced the interest of the scene, speaking, as it did, of that mutability which is the irrevocable lot of man and all his works. ... I determined at once to take up my abode in this apartment. " My determination excited great surprise in the family,* who could not imagine any rational inducement for the choice of so solitary, remote, and forlorn an apartment. The good Fia An- tonia considered it highly dangerous. The neighborhood, she said, was infested by vagrants ; the caverns of the adjacent hills swarmed with gipsies ; the palace was ruinous, and easy to be entered in many parts ; and the rumor of a stranger quartered alone in one of the ruined apartments, out of the hearing of the rest of the inhabitants, might tempt unwelcome visitors in the night, especially as foreigners are always supposed to be well stocked with money. Do- lores represented the frightful loneliness of the * The housekeeper's family. 2i6 Memoir of Washington Irving. place, nothing but bats and owls flitting about ; then there were a fox and a wild cat that kept about the vaults, and roamed about at night. " I was not to be diverted from my humor ; so, calling in the assistance of a carpenter, the doors and windows were soon placed in a state of tolerable security. " With all these precautions, I must confess the first night I passed in these quarters was inexpressibly dreary. I was escorted by the whole family to my chamber, and their taking leave of me and retiring along the waste ante- chamber and echoing galleries reminded me of those hobgoblin stories where the hero is left to accomplish the adventure of a haunted house.'* Memoir of Washington Irving, 217 CHAPTER XXVIII. AT the beginning of the year 1835 Mr. Irv- ing commenced the plan of publishing a series of volumes under the general title of " Miscellanies," comprising various manuscripts which he already had on hand, and others yet to be prepared. The first of these was his " Tour on the Prairies ; " an account of the expe- dition, already noticed, to the Indian country. This work was published in the following spring in this country and England. Edward Everett, noticing this book in the North American Re- view, remarks that he was hardly able to say to what class of compositions it properly belonged. "It can scarcely," he says, " be called a book of travels, for there is too much painting of man- ners and scenery, and too little statistics ; It is not a novel, for there is no story ; and it is not a romance, for it is all true. It is a sort of sentimental journey, a romantic excursion, in which nearly all the elements of several different kinds of writing are beautifully and gayly blended 218 Memoir of Washington Irving* into a production almost sui generis" The re- viewer adds in his conclusion : " The American father who can afford it, and does not buy a copy of Mr. Irving's book, does not deserve that his sons should prefer his fireside to the bar- room, the pure and chaste pleasures of a culti- vated taste, to the gross indulgences of sense ; he does not deserve that his daughters should prefer to pass their leisure hours in maidenly seclusion and the improvement of their minds, rather than to flaunt on the side-walks by day, and pursue by night an eternal round of taste- less dissipation." Writing of the prairie Indians and their horses, Mr. Irving says : " The habits of the Arabs seem to have come with the steed. The introduction of the horse on the boundless prai- ries of the Far West changed the whole mode of living of their (Indian) inhabitants. It gave them that facility of rapid motion, and of sudden and distant change of place, so dear to the rov- ing propensities of man. Instead of lurking in the depths of gloomy forests, and patiently threading the mazes of a tangled wilderness on foot, like his brethren of the North, the Indian of the West is a rover of the plain ; he leads a Memoir of Washington Irving. 219 brighter and more sunshiny life, almost always on horseback on vast flowery prairies and under cloudless skies." As they journey, one of their attendants, a half-breed Indian, Beatte by name, pursues, catches, and subdues one of the wild horses of the prairie. " As he was returning to the camp he came upon a gang of six horses, which immediately made for the river. He pursued them across the stream, left his rifle on the river bank, and, putting his horse to full speed, soon came up with the fugitives. He attempted to noose one of them, but the lariat hitched on one of his ears and he shook it off. The horses dashed up a hill, he followed hard at their heels, when, of a sudden, he saw their tails whisking in the air, and they plunging down a precipice. It was too late to stop. He shut his eyes, held in his breath, and went over with them neck or nothing. The descent was between twenty and thirty feet, but they all came down safe upon a sandy bottom. " He now succeeded in throwing his noose round a fine young horse. As he galloped along side of him the two horses passed each 22O Memoir of Washington Irving. side of a sapling, and the end of the lariat was jerked out of his hand. He regained it, but an intervening tree obliged him again to let it go. Having once more caught it, and coming to a more open country, he was enabled to play the young horse with the line until he gradually checked and subdued him, so as to lead him to the place where he had left his * rifle. " He had another formidable difficulty in get- ting him across the river, where both horses stuck for a time in the mire, and Beatte was nearly unseated from his saddle by the force of the current and the struggles of his captive. After much toil and trouble, however, he got across the stream, and brought his prize safe into the camp. . . . "Beatte, just as we were about to march, strapped a light pack upon his back, by way of giving him the first lesson in servitude. The native pride and independence of the animal took fire at this indignity. He reared, and plunged, and kicked, and tried in every way to get rid of the degrading burden. The Indian was too potent for him. At every paroxysm he renewed the discipline of the halter, until the Memoir of Washington Irving. 221 poor animal, driven to despair, threw himself prostrate on the ground and lay motionless, as if acknowledging himself vanquished. A stage hero, representing the despair of a captive prince, could not have played his part more dramatically. There was absolutely a moral grandeur in it. " The imperturbable Ikatte folded his arms, and stood for a time looking down in silence upon his captive, until, seeing him perfectly subdued, he nodded his head slowly, screwed his mouth into a sardonic smile of triumph, and with a jerk of the halter ordered him to rise. He obeyed, and from that time forward offered no resistance. During that day he bore his pack patiently, and was led by the halter ; but in two days he followed voluntarily at large among the supernumerary horses of the troop. " I could not but look with compassion upon this fine young animal, whose whole course of existence had been so suddenly reversed. From being a denizen of these vast pastures, ranging at will from plain to plain and mead to mead, cropping of every herb and flower, and drink- ing of every stream, he was suddenly reduced to perpetual and painful servitude, to pass his life 222 Memoir of Washington Irving. under the harness and the curb, amid, perhaps, the din and dust and drudgery of cities. The transition in his lot was such as sometimes take place in human affairs and in the fortunes of towering individuals ; one day a prince of the prairies, the next day a pack-horse ! " Mr. Irving and one of his companions had made an unsuccessful attempt at buffalo-hunt- ing but were not entirely discouraged. " We determined not to seek the camp until we had made one more effort. . Casting our eyes about the surrounding waste, we descried a herd of buffalo about two miles distant, scat- tered apart, and quietly grazing near a small strip of trees and bushes. It required but little stretch of fancy to picture them, so many cattle grazing on the edge of a common, and that the grove might shelter some lowly farm-house. " We how formed our plan to circumvent the herd, and by getting on the other side of them, to hunt them in the direction where we knew our camp to be situated, otherwise the pursuit might take us to such a distance as to render it impossible for us to find our way back before night-fall. Taking a wide circuit, therefore, we moved slowly and cautiously, pausing occasion- Memoir of Washington Irving. 223 ally when we saw any of the herd desist from grazing. The wind fortunately set from them, otherwise they might have scented us and have taken the alarm. In this way we succeeded in getting round the herd without disturbing it. It consisted of about forty head, bulls, cows, and calves. Separating to some distance from each other, we now approached slowly in a parallel line, hoping by degrees to steal near without exciting attention. They be*?an, however, to move off quietly, stopping at every step to graze ; when suddenly a bull that, unobserved by us, had been taking his siesta under a clump of trees to our left, roused himself from his lair and hastened to join his companions. We were still at a considerable distance, but the game had taken the alarm. We quickened our pace, they broke into a gallop, and now commenced a full chase. " As the ground was level they shouldered along with great speed, following each otfier in a line, two or three bulls bringing up the rear, the last of whom, from his enormous size and venerable frontlet, and beard of sun-burnt hair, looked like the patriarch of the herd, and as if he might long have reigned the monarch of the prairie. \ 224 Memoir of Washington Irving. "There is a mixture of the awful and the coTnic in the look of these huge animals as they bear their great bulk forward, with an up and down motion of unwieldy head and shoulders ; their tail cocked up like the queue of Pantaloon in a pantomime, the end whisking about in a fierce yet whimsical style, and their eyes glaring venomously with an expression of fright and fury. " For some time I kept parallel with the line, without being able to force my horse within pistol shot, so much had he been alarmed by the assault of the buffalo in the preceding chase. At length I succeeded, but was again balked by my pistols missing fire. My companions, whose horses were less fleet and more way-worn, could not overtake the herd ; at length Mr. L., who was in the rear of the line and losing ground, leveled his double-barreled gun, and fired a long raking shot. It struck a buffalo just above the loins, broke its backbone, and brought it to the ground. He stopped", and alighted to dispatch his prey, when, borrowing his gun, which had yet a charge remaining in it, I put my horse to his speed, again overtook the herd which was thundering along, pursued by the Count. With my present weapon there was no need of urging my horse Memoir of Washington Irving. 22$ to such close quarters ; galloping along parallel, therefore, I singled out a buffalo, and by a for- tunate shot brought it down on the spot The ball had struck a vital part ; it would not move from the place where it fell, but lay there strug- gling in mortal agony, while the rest of the herd kept on their headlong career across the prairie. "Dismounting, I now fettered my horse to prevent his straying, and advanced to contem. plate my victim. I am nothing of a sportsman ; I had been tempted to this unwonted exploit by the magnitude of the game, and the excitement of an adventurous chase. Now that the excitement was over I could not but look with commisera- tion upon the poor animal that lay struggling and bleeding at my feet. His very size and importance, which had before inspired me with eagerness, now increased my compunction. It seemed as if I had inflicted pain in proportion to the bulk of my victim, and as if there were a hundredfold greater waste of life than would have been in the destruction of an animal of an inferior size." Mr. Irving presents us a sketch of the " Prairie dogs," and one of their villages : 15 226 Memoir of Washington Irving. . "The prairie dog is an animal of the coney "kind, and about the size of the rabbit. He is of a sprightly, mercurial nature ; quick, sensi- tive, and somewhat petulant. He is very gre- < garious, living in large communities;, some- times of several acres in extent, where innumer- able little heaps of earth show the entrance to the subterranean cells of the inhabitants ; and the well-beaten tracks, like lanes and streets, show their mobility and restlessness. Accord- ing to the accounts given of them they would seem to be continually full of sport, business, and public affairs, whisking about hither and thitner, as if on gossiping visits to each other's houses, or congregating in the cool of the even- ing, or after a shower, and gamboling together in the open air. Sometimes, especially when the moon shines, they pass half the night in revelry, barking, or yelping with short, quick, yet weak tones, like those of very young pup- pies. While in the height of their playfulness and clamor, however, should there be the least alarm they all vanish into their cells in an instant, and the village remains blank and silent. In case they are hard pressed by their pursuers, without any hope of escape, they will Memoir of Washington Irving. 227 assume a pugnacious air, and a most whimsical look of impotent wrath and defiance. " The prairie dogs are not .permitted to remain sole and indisputable inhabitants of their own homes. Owls and rattlesnakes are said to take up their abodes with them, but whether as in- vited guests or unwelcome intruders is a matter of controversy. The owls are of a peculiar kind, and would seem to partake of the charac- ter of the hawk, for they are taller and more erect on their legs, more alert in their looks and rapid in their flight than ordinary owls, and do not confine their excursions to the night, but sally forth in broad day. " Some say that they only inhabit cells which the prairie dogs have deserted, and suffered to go to ruin, in consequence of the death in them of some relative ; for they would make out this little animal to be endowed with keen sensibili- ties, that will not permit it to remain in the dwelling when it has witnessed the death of a friend. Other fanciful speculators represent the owl as a kind of housekeeper to the prairie dog ; and, from having a note very similar, insinuate that it acts in a manner as family preceptor, and teaches the young litter to bark. 228 Memoir of Washington Irving. " As to the rattlesnake, nothing satisfactory has been ascertained of the part he plays in this most interesting household ; though he is con- sidered as little better than a sycophant and sharper, that winds himself into the concerns of the honest, credulous little dog, and takes him in most sadly. Certain it is, if he acts as toad-eater, he occasionally solaces himself with more than the usual perquisites of his order, as he is now and then detected with one of the younger members of the family in his maw." The second volume of the Miscellanies, comprising " Abbotsford " and " Newstead Ab- bey," immediately followed the first volume. These are briefer compositions, and are delightful sketches, drawn from the author's personal recollections of those two literary shrines. These two volumes of miscellanies were received with great favor on both sides of the Atlantic, and the author was much encouraged to proceed with the series. The third volume appeared in the following autumn with the title of " Legends of the Conquest of Spain." Memoir of Washington Irving. 229 CHAPTER XXIX. IN October, 1836, Mr. Irving put to press his volume, "Astoria," a work which he had been induced to undertake at the solicitation of the millionaire, John Jacob Astor.* This book relates to Mr. Astor's settlement of a colony which he had established at the mouth of the Columbia River ; and the plan of the great capitalist was to secure to himself by this Mr. Astor was a native of Germany, born in 1763, and when twenty years old emigrated to this country and engaged in the fur trade, establishing himself in New York. He dis- played great skill in business, and prospered to such an extent that he was soon able to export furs abroad in his own ships, bringing back foreign produce for the New York market.. While engaged extensively in the fur trade, he also made large purchases of real estate in New York, which advanced greatly on his hands. At his death he was worth twenty million dollars. In his life-time, and at his death, Mr. Astor made many liberal donations for benevolent objects; but his principal beneficence was the establishment of the Library which bears his name. This Library is already one of the largest in the country, and its accommodations and volumes have been largely increased since his death by the liberality of his son, W. B. Astor, Esq. The library buildings are sufficiently ample to contain two hundred thousand volumes, and will soon be full* 230 Memoir of Washington Irving. volume the reputation of having originated the enterprise, and founded the colony which was "likely to have such important results in the history of commerce and colonization." Irving, from the press of other literary engagements, was reluctant to undertake the work ; but having enlisted the co-operation of his nephew, Mr. Pierre M. Irving, who was to arrange the principal materials, to be afterward finished and embellished by his uncle, the work was duly prosecuted and executed to the entire satisfaction of Mr. Astor, as well as to the gratification and warm approval of the public. Of " Astoria " the "North American Review" remarks, that " the whole work bears the im- press of Mr. Irving's taste. A -great variety of somewhat discordant materials is brought into a consistent whole, of which the parts have a due reference to each other ; and some sketches of life and traits of humor come fresh from the pen of Geoffrey Crayon." "I have," says Sidney Smith, "read ' Astoria' with great pleasure. It is a book to put in your library as an entertaining, well-written vciy well-written-account of savage life on a most extensive scale." Memoir of Washington Irving. 231 "The most finished narrative," says the " London Spectator," " that ever was written, whether with regard to plan or execution. The arrangement has all the art of fiction, yet with- out any sacrifice of truth or exactness. The composition we are inclined to rate as the chef d'ccuvrc of Washington Irving." The climate of* the country west of the Rocky Mountains is described as follows : " A remarkable fact characteristic of the country west of the Rocky Mountains is the mildness and equability of the climate. That great mountain barrier seems to divide the con- tinent into different climates, even in the same degrees of latitude. The rigorous winters and sultry summers, and all the capricious irregu- larities of temperature prevalent on the Atlantic side of the mountains, are but little felt on their western declivities. The countries between them and the Pacific are blessed with milder and steadier temperature, resembling the cli- mates of parallel latitudes in Europe. In the plains and valleys but little snow falls through- out the winter, and usually melts while falling. It rarely lies on the ground more than two days at a time, except on the summits of the mount* 232 Memoir of Washington Irving. ains. The winters are rainy rather than cold. The rains for five months from the middle of October to the middle of March are almost incessant, and often accompanied by tremendous thunder and lightning. The winds prevalent at this season are from the south and south-east, which usually bring rain. Those irom the north to the south-west are the harbingers of fair weather and a clear sky. The residue of the year from the middle of March to the middle of October an interval of seven months, is serene and delightful. There is scarcely any rain throughout this time, yet the face of the country is kept fresh and verdant by nightly dews, and occasionally by humid togs in the mornings. These are not considered prejudi- cial to health, since both the natives and the whites sleep in the open air with perfect im- punity. , " While this equable and bland temperature prevails throughout the lower country, the peaks and ridges of the vast mountains by which it is dominated are covered with perpetual snow. This renders them discernible at a great dis- tance, shining at times like bright summer clouds, at other times assuming the most aerial tints, Memoir of Washington Irving. 233 and always forming brilliant and striking features in the vast landscape. The mild temperature prevalent throughout the country is attributed by some to the succession of winds from the Pacific Ocean, extending from latitude twenty degrees to at least fifty degrees, north. These temper the heat of summer, so that in the shade no one is incommoded by perspiration ; they also soften the rigors of winter, and produce such a moderation in the climate that the in- habitants can wear the same dress throughout the year." A party traversing the wilderness found themselves reduced to such desperate circum- stances as are here depicted : " In this way they proceeded for seventeen miles over a level plain of sand until, seeing a few antelopes in the distance, they encamped on the margin of a small stream. All now that were capable of exertion turned out to hunt for a meal. Their efforts were fruitless, and after dark they returned to their camp famished al- most to desperation. As they were preparing for the third time to lie down to sleep without a mouthful to eat, Le Clerc, one of the Cana- dians, gaunt and wild with hunger, approached 234 Memoir of Washington Irving. Mr. Stuart with his gun in his hand. * It was all in vain/ he said, ' to attempt to proceed any further without food. They had a barren plain before them, three or four days' journey in ex- tent, on which nothing was to be procured. They must all perish before they could get to the end of it. It was better, therefore, that one should die to save the rest.' He proposed, therefore, that they should cast lots, adding, as an inducement for Mr. Stuart to assent to the proposition, that he, as leader of the party, should be exempted. " Mr. Stuart shuddered at the horrible propo- sition, and endeavored to reason with the man, but his words were unavailing. At length, snatching up his rifle, he threatened to shoot him on the spot if he persisted. The famished wretch dropped on his knees, begged pardon in the most abject terms, and promised never again to offend him with such a suggestion. " Quiet being restored to the forlorn encamp- ment, each one sought repose. Mr. Stuart, however, was so exhausted by the agitation of the past scene acting upon his emaciated frame that he could scarce crawl to his miserable couch, where, notwithstanding his fatigues, he Memoir of Washington Irving. 235 passed a sleepless night, revolving upon their dreary situation, and the desperate prospect before them. " Before daylight the next morning they were up and on their way. They had nothing to detain them, no breakfast to prepare, and to linger was to perish. They proceeded, how- ever, but slowly, for all were faint and weak. Here and there they passed the skulls and bones of buffaloes, which showed that these animals must have been hunted here during the past season. The sight of these bones served only to mock their misery. After traveling about nine miles along the plain they ascended a range of hills, and had scarcely gone two miles further when, to their great joy, they discovered an 4 old run- down buffalo bull/ the laggard, probably, of some herd that had been hunted and harassed through the mountains. They now all stretched themselves out to encompass and make sure of this solitary animal, for their lives depended upon their success. After considerable trouble and infinite anxiety they at length succeeded in killing him. He was instantly flayed and cut up, and so ravenous was their hunger that they devoured some of the flesh raw. The resi- 236 Memoir of Washington Irving. due they carried to a brook near by, where they encamped, lit a fire, and began to cook. 11 Mr. Stuart was fearful that in their fam- ished state they would eat to excess and injure themselves. He caused a soup to be made of some of the meat, and that each should take a quantity of it as a prelude to his supper. This may have had a beneficial effect, for though they sat up the greater part of the night cook- ing and cramming, no one suffered any incon- venience. " The next morning the feasting was re- sumed, and about midday, feeling somewhat recruited and refreshed, they set out on their journey with renovated spirits, shaping their course toward a mountain, the summit of which they saw towering in the east, and near to which they expected to find the head-waters of the Missouri." The next work brought out by Mr. Irving was his "Adventures of Captain Bonnevillc, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains of the Far West." This work was digested from the jour- nal of Captain Bonneville, which Irving pur- chased of him, and which, with illustrations from various other sources, he shaped into this Memoir of Washington Irving. 237 deeply interesting book. " It is," says Chan- cellor Kent, "full of exciting incident, and by reason of Mr. Irving's fine taste and attractive style possesses the power and the charms of romance." We have a description of the trapper of the Far West as he flourished forty years ago : " Accustomed to live in tents or to bivouac in the open air, he despises the comforts and is impatient of the confinement of the log- house. If his meal is not ready in season he takes his rifle, hies to the forest or prairie, shoots his own 'game, lights his fire, and cooks his repast. With his horse and his rifle he is independent of the world, and spurns at all restraints. " There is, perhaps, no class of men on the face of the earth who lead a life of more con- tinued exertion, peril, and excitement, and who are more enamored of their occupation than the free trappers of the West. No toil, no danger, no privation can turn the trapper from his pursuit. His passionate excitement at times resembles a mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages beset his path, in vain may rocks and precipices and wintry 238 Memoir of Washington Irving. torrents oppose his progress, let but a single track of a beaver meet his eye and he forgets all danger and defies all difficulties. At times he may be seen, with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams, amid floating blocks of ice ; at other times he is to be found with his traps swung on his back, clambering the most rugged mountains, scaling or descending the most frightful precipices, searching, by routes inaccessible to the horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, and where he may meet with his favorite game. Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapper of the West ; and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the wild Robin Hood kind of life, with all its strange and motley populace, now existing in full vigor among the Rocky Mountains. . . . " The American trapper stands by himself, and is peerless for the service of the wilder- ness. Drop him in the midst of a prairie or in the heart of the mountains and he is never at a loss. He notices every landmark, can retrace his route through the most monotonous plains or the most perplexed labyrinths of the mount- ains ; no danger nor difficulty can appal him, Memoir of Washington Irving. 239 and he scorns to complain under any priva- tion. ... In fact, no one can cope with him as a stark tramper of the wilderness." The trapper's Indian wife is also pictured for us : E " The free trapper, while a bachelor, has no greater pet than his horse ; but the moment he takes a wife, he discovers that he has a still more fanciful and capricious animal on which to lavish his expenses. No sooner does an Indian belle experience this promotion than all her notions at once rise and expand to the dignity of her situation ; and the purse of her lover, and his credit into the bargain, are tasked to the utmost to fit her out in becoming style. The wife of a free trapper to be equipped and arrayed like any ordinary and undistinguished squaw! Perish the groveling thought ! In the first place, she must have a horse for her own riding ; but no jaded, sorry, earth-spirited hack, such as is sometimes assigned by an Indian husband for the transportation of his squaw and her papooses. The wife of a free trapper must have the most beautiful animal she can lay her eyes on. And then as to his decoration : head-stall, breast- bands, saddle, crupper, are lavishly embroidered 240 Memoir of Washington Irving. with beads, and hung "with thimbles, hawks' bells, and bunches of ribbons. From each sids of the saddle hangs an esquimoot, a sort of pocket, in which she bestows the residue of her trinkets and knickknacks which cannot be crowded on the decoration of her horse or her- self. Over this she folds, with great care, a drapery of scarlet and bright-colored calicoes, and now considers the caparison of her steed complete. " As to her own person she is even still more extravagant. Her hair, esteemed beautiful in proportion to its length, is carefully plaited, and made to fall with seeming negligence over either breast. Her riding-hat is stuck full of party- colored feathers ; her robe, fashioned somewhat after that of the whites, is of red, green, and sometimes of gray cloth, but always of the finest texture that can be procured. Her leggins and moccasins are of the most beautiful and expen- sive workmanship, and fitted neatly to the foot and ankle, which, with the Indian women, are general- ly well-formed and delicate. Then as to jewelry, in the way of finger-rings, ear-rings, necklaces, and other female glories, nothing within reach of the trapper's means is omitted that can tend Memoir of Washington Irving. 241 to impress the beholder with an idea of the lady's high estate. To finish the whole, she selects from among her blankets one of glowing colors, and, throwing it over her shoulders with native grace, vaults into the saddle of her gay, prancing steed, and is ready to follow her mountaineer 'to the last gasp with love and loyalty/ " We have a curious use of the lasso in the hands of a Californian horseman : " The lasso is also of great use in furnishing the public with a favorite, though barbarous sport : the combat between a bear and a wild bull. For this purpose three or four horsemen sally forth to some wood frequented by bears, and, depositing the carcass of a bullock, hide themselves in the vicinity. The bears are soon attracted by the bait. As soon as one fit for their purpose makes his appearance they run out and dexterously noose him by either leg. After dragging him at full speed until he is fa- tigued they secure him more effectually, and, tying him on the carcass of the bullock, draw him in triumph to the scene of action. By this time he is exasperated to such frenzy that they are sometimes obliged to throw cold water on \ 10 242 Memoir of Washington Irving. him to moderate his fury ; and dangerous would it be for horse and rider were he, while in this paroxysm, to break his bonds. " A wild bull of the fiercest kind, which has been caught and exasperated in the same man- ner, is now produced, and both animals are turned loose in the arena of a small amphithea- ter. The mortal fight begins instantly, and always at first to the disadvantage of Bruin, fatigued as he is by his previous rough riding. Roused at length by the repeated goring of the bull, he seizes his muzzle with his sharp claws, and, clinging to this most sensitive part, causes him to bellow with rage and agony. In his heat and fury the bull lolls out his tongue ; this is easily clutched by the bear ; with a desperate effort he overturns his huge antagonist, and then dispatches him without difficulty." Memoir of Washington Irving. 243 CHAPTER XXX. IT was in the midst of this season of busy authorship and publishing that Mr. Irving purchased his famous seat of " Sunnyside." The place which he selected was a beautiful spot on the banks of the Hudson near Tarrytown, and comprised ten acres of ground, with a small Dutch cottage upon it built of stone. He thuu describes the locality and his plan : " It is a beautiful spot, capable of being made a little paradise. There is a small stone Dutch cottage on it, built about a century since, and inhabited by one of the Van Tassels. I have had an architect up there, and shall build upon the old mansion this summer. My idea is to make a little nookcry somewhat in the Dutch style, quaint, but unpretending. It will be of stone. The cost will not be much. I do not intend to set up any establishment there, but to put some simple furniture in it and keep it as a nest, to which I can resort when in the mood." Soon afterward he writes again : " The workmen 244 Memoir of Washington Irving. are busy upon my cottage, which I think will be a snug little Dutch nookery when finished. It will be of stone, so as to be cool in summer and warm in winter. The expense will be but moderate, as I have it built in the simplest manner, depending upon its quaintness rather than its costliness." Subsequently, on visiting the spot and inspecting the erection of the cot- tage, he tells his brother that he intends to write a legend or two about it and its vicinity by way of making it pay for itself. Another letter to his brother Peter, who had now been abroad more than a quarter of a century, and who was contemplating a return home, pre- sents at once a charming picture of the new cottage home and of the warm fraternal affec- tion glowing in the bosom of its proprietor. "My cottage," he writes, "is not yet finished, but I shall drive at it as soon as the opening of spring will permit, and I trust by the time of your arrival to have a delightful little nest for you on the banks of the Hudson. It will be fitted to defy both hot weather and cold. There is a lovely prospect from its windows, and a sweet green bank in front, shaded by locust trees, up which the summer breeze creeps de- Memoir of Washington Irving. 245 lightfully. It is one of the most delicious banks in the world for reading, and dozing, and dream- ing during the heats of summer ; and there are no mosquitoes in the neighborhood. Here you shall have a room to yourself that shall be a sanctum sanctorum* You may have your meals in it if you please, and be as much alone as you desire. You shall also have a room prepared for you in town, where you will be equally master of your time and yourself, and free from all intrusion ; while at both places you will have those at hand who love and honor you, and who will be ready to do any thing that may con- tribute to your comfort." Thus how pure and beautiful is true affection ; and that, too, whether fraternal, filial, or parental! And how is it intensified and elevated when its objects are frail and feeble, as was this absent brother, and when dark fears come in that they may not be long with us ! What would our love not prompt us to do for such dear ones ! And how eager we arc to spend and be spent in their behalf! And then if the grave must close over them, how unutterable is the love that mingles itself with our great sorrow, impelling us almost to the wish that we might lie down with the 246 Memoir of Washington Irving. loved and lost, and sleep the long sleep with them ! And yet Christianity reproves all this, and whispers to bereaved mourners touching their departed treasures, " Not lost, but gone before!" The long-absent brother whom Irving, as above, addressed so pleasantly and affectionately, and who on his return home was to receive so wel- come a reception, reached New York in the fol- lowing summer, and the promised home at "Sunnyside" was ready for him in the early autumn. The closing months of this same year of 1836 found Washington, at fifty-three years of age, pleasantly and happily domiciled in his new and beautiful home on the banks of the Hudson. It is, indeed, a sunny scene to contemplate. The author's literary fame is wide-spread, ac- knowledged, and sure. Personally he is greatly and universally respected and beloved. His health is perfect, and his spirits buoyant and sprightly as in the days of his youth. His pe- cuniary circumstances are entirely comfortable and increasingly prosperous. His pen has been, for the most part, greatly industrious, and was never more so than now. His audience has Memoir of Washington Irving. 247 grown to millions, and he has only to write, and a hundred publishers are ready and earnest to print, and the world is eager to read. The very high- est and sclectest society welcome him to its brilliant circles. Brothers and sisters are proud of him, and an interesting circle of nephews and nieces look up to him with admiration, love, and veneration. The " Roost" is the significant epithet by which he has labeled his new and pleasant home. His beloved brother is with him, cheerful and happy after his long exile and repeated misfortunes. Two trusty and compe- tent servants, a man and woman, attend to all their domestic wants ; and thus there opens to us at this " Sunny side" home about as attract- ive a picture of bachelor life as can, be well con- ceived. One evening the proprietor returns to the " Roost" from the great city, and he sits down and pens a letter to an absent niece, and tells her, or rather writes that he cannot tell her, of his happiness in getting back again to his " own dear bright little home, and leave behind him the hurry and worry and flurry of the city." He found all things going on well, his brother pass- ing his time comfortably with better health and 248 Memoir of Washington Irving. spirits, and still improving, enjoying the cosy comforts of the cottage, regular in his meals, cheerful, social, and busy. He adds that the geese and ducks are at peace ; that a fancy pig has arrived at the cottage, which, being of the fair sex, and of" peculiar beaitty," he calls Fanny; that " Imp," that is, the cat, has taken to him lovingly, and that he expects to have great com- fort in that cat " if it should be spared," etc. A few days later he writes to Ebenezer that " all goes on well at the Roost. Brother Peter is getting quite in good feather again, and begins to crow ! You must contrive to come up soon if it is only to see my new pig, which is a darling." So the " Roost " and its keeper have the seeming of perfect correspondence and harmony. " The place for the man, and the man for the place," was never more happily exemplified. Every thing was complete, tasteful, home-like, com- fortable, and comely. The decorous and excel- lent arrangements had been created by the author's own genius and under his constant supervision, and, being now completely prepared and finished, he was as completely ready and qualified to enjoy every thing appertaining to his Memoir of Washington Irving. 249 fine establishment as is possible to imagine ; and the entire picture is, in a very high degree, pleasant and beautiful Would that so attractive a scene might continue through many, many years 1 But shadows must soon pass over even " Sunnyside ;" yet we will not anticipate. 250 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXXI. IN 1838 Mr. Irving received the Tammany nomination for Mayor of New York City, which he very promptly declined. Immediately afterward he was invited by President Van Buren to a seat in his cabinet as Secretary of the Navy, which he also declined. In his reply to this flattering invitation he said that it was not so much the duties of the post that he feared, as the concerns of the Navy Department would be peculiarly interesting to him ; " but I shrink," he adds, " from the harsh cares and turmoils of public and political life at Washington, and feel that I am too sensitive to endure the bitter personal hostility and the slanders and mis- representations of the press which beset high station in this country. This argues, I confess, a weakness of spirit, and a want of true philoso- phy ; but I speak of myself as I am, not as I ought to be. ... I really believe it would take but a short career of public life at Washington to render me mentally and physically a perfect Memoir of Washington Irving. 251 wreck, and to hurry me prematurely into old age." Amid the flattering honors thus proffered to Mr. Irving scenes of mourning and affliction were intermingled. In March of this year died his brother John, four years his senior, and who had for a score of years been first Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the city and county of New York, and who was eminent for his moral and social qualities. In the following June came a much deeper affliction in the death of Peter. This was Irving's most cherished and dearest brother. They had both remained unmarried, had been much together in their long residence abroad, had encountered common misfortunes, were similar in many of their tastes, and were accus- tomed to confer together upon literary and other plans and enterprises. Indeed, history presents few instances of a purer, more elevated, unselfish and refined fraternal relationship than what long existed between these two brothers. All this is, specially manifest in Washington, who seemed to identify his own interests with those of his brother, with whom he was ever ready to share his last cent if it were necessary for the comfort 252 Memoir of Washington Irving. of one he loved so much. When Peter, after so long an absence, was, in his feeble health, con- templating a return from Europe, Washington seemed to count it a mere pastime to cross the ocean for the purpose of conveying his invalid brother homeward. And there are few moral pictures more beautiful than that of Irving ar- ranging and furnishing, as we have before seen, in the new cottage of Sunnyside, the room that was to be the special resting-place and home of his cherished brother. And it is mournful to observe how few were the brief months which the invalid would be permitted to linger within that peaceful paradise. Yet such is this world, and here we have no continuing city. Happy they who seek one to come ! A letter of Irving to one of his sisters, penned three months after his brother's decease, par- tially reveals the depths of his affliction and the greatness of his bereavement. " Every day/' he writes, " every hour, I feel how completely Peter and myself were intertwined' together in the whole course of our existence. Indeed, the very circumstance of our both having never been married bound us more closely together. The rest of the family were married and had families Memoir of Washington Innng. 253 of their own to engross or divide their sympa- thies, and to weaken the fraternal tie ; but we stood in the original, unimpaired relation to each other, and in proportion as others were weaned away by circumstances we grew more and more together. I was not conscious how much this was the case while he was living, but now that he is gone I feel how all-important he was to me. A dreary feeling of loneliness comes on me at $imes that I reason against in vain ; for, though surrounded by affectionate relatives, I feel that none can be what he was to me ; none can take so thorough an interest in my concerns ; to none can I so confidingly lay open my every thought and feeling, and expose my every fault and foible, certain of such per- fect toleration and indulgence. Since our dear mother's death I have had no one who could so patiently and tenderly bear with all my weak- nesses and infirmities, and throw over every error the mantle of affection. I have been try- ing, of late, to resume my pen, and, by engaging my mind in some intellectual task, to keep it from brooding over these melancholy themes, but I find it almost impossible. My literary pursuits have been so often carried on by his Memoir of Washington Irving. ' side and under his eye, I have been so accus- tomed to talk over every plan with him, and, as it were, to think aloud when in his presence, that I cannot open a book, or take up a paper, or recall a past vein of thought, without having him instantly before me, and finding myself completely overcome." It was at this time, and partly to soothe his sorrow for his lost brother, that Mr. Irving com- menced a literary work which he counted upon as one of his most important efforts, and from which he anticipated an ample pecuniary com- pensation. The title of this new work, was to be "The Conquest of Mexico." On this under- taking he had wrought diligently for some months, when he visited New York for the pur- pose of consulting some works relating to his theme in the "City Library." While thus 'engaged he was accosted by Mr. Cogswell, afterward connected with the Astor Library, who inquired of Irving concerning the subject upon which he was now employing himself. As the result of this interview he learned from Mr. Cogswell that Prescott, the historian, was engaged upon the same theme with himself. He was of course greatly surprised, and doubt- Memoir of Washington Irving. 255 less much disappointed also, as it was a subject in which he had long been deeply interested, and on which he had already expended much labor. He, however, promptly requested Mr. Cogswell to notify Mr. Prescott that he should abandon the subject to him, and that he was happy of the opportunity of testifying his great esteem for the talents of the historian. After reading over what he had written, in a fit of vexation for having lost so magnificent a theme he destroyed the manuscript. 256 Mctnoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXXIII. IN the spring of 1839 Mr. Irving entered into an engagement with the " Knickerbocker Magazine," by which he was to furnish monthly contributions for a compensation of two thou- sand dollars a year. This arrangement con- tinued during two years ; and the articles were afterward collected into a volume which he enti- tled " Wolfert's Roost/' and which realized an extraordinary sale. The book comprises stories, sketches, legends, etc., the leading article having the same title as the book itself, and is a sort of history of his own Sunnyside comprised in three " Chron- icles." The work, as a whole, is in the author's accustomed style, and, while it had so remark- able a sale, enjoyed an equally remarkable recommendation to the public. For so abun- dant were the flattering notices of this little work that the publishers collected and published them by themselves in a pamphlet of twenty- four pages. Besides these notices, the " West- Memoir of Washington Irving. 257 minster Review " remarks : " We envy those who will now read these tales and sketches of character for the first time. Washington Irv- ing is here, as he always is, equal to himself. He has the finish of our best writers ; he has the equality and gentle humor of Addison and Goldsmith." The " London New Monthly Magazine," noticing " Wolfert's Roost," pleasantly remarks : " The warm-heart and the fine brain went into partnership, and wrote in good-fellowship together in the days of the ' Sketch-Book ' and * Salmagundi ;' and they found it answer, and continue each the other's true yoke-fellow to this hour. . . . ' Geoffrey Crayon, Gent/ is re- vived here." Chronicle I of "Wolfert's Roost" thus com- menceth : 4t About five and twenty miles from the ancient anc renowned city of Manhattan, formerly called New Amsterdam, and vulgarly called New York, on the eastern bank of that expansion of the Hudson known among Dutch mariners of yore as the Tappan Zee, being in fact the great Medi- terranean Sea of the New Netherlands, stands a little old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up 17 2$ 8 Memoir of Washington Irving. of gable-ends, and as full of angles and corners -as an old cocked hat. It is said, in fact, to have been modeled after the cocked hat of Peter the Headstrong, as the Escurial was modeled after the gridiron of the blessed St. Lawrence. Though but of small dimensions, yet, like many small people, it is of mighty spirit, and values itself greatly on its antiquity, being one of the oldest edifices for its size in the whole country. It claims to be an ancient seat of empire, I may rather say an empire of itself, and, like all empires great and small, has had its grand his- torical epochs. In speaking of this doughty and valorous little pile I shall call it by its usual appellation of ' The Roost/ though that is a name given to it in modern days, since it became the abode of the white man." Wolfert Acker was one of the ancient deni- zens of " The Roost." He is represented as a worthy but ill-starred personage, whose aim through life had been to live in peace and quiet, and who yet had managed to keep in a.perpetual stew, and was accustomed to share in every broil and ribwasting in all the country round. At length he retired in high dudgeon to seek peace and quiet at this fastness of the wilderness Memoir of Washington Irving. 259 called ' The Roost/ but he was still doomed to disappointment " Wolfcrt's luck followed him into retirement, He had shut himself up from the world, but he had brought with him a wife, and it soon passed into a proverb throughout the neighborhood that the cock of ' The Roost ' was the most hen- pecked bird in the country. His house, too, was reputed to be harassed by Yankee witch- craft. When the weather was quiet every-where else, the wind, it was said, would howl and whistle about the gables ; witches and warlocks would whirl about upon the weather-cocks and scream down the chimneys ; nay, it was even hinted that Wolfert's wife was in league with the enemy, and used to ride on a broomstick to a witch's Sabbath in Sleepy Hollow. This, however, was all mere scandal, founded, per- haps, on her occasionally flourishing a broom- stick in the course of a curtain lecture, or rais- ing a storm within doors, as termagant wives are apt to do, and against which sorcery horse- shoes are of no avail. "Wolfert Acker died and was buried, but found no quiet even in the grave ; for, if popular gossip be true, his ghost has occasionally been 2(5o Memoir of Washington Irving. seen walking by moonlight among the old gray moss-grown trees of his apple orchard." One of the sketches presents us, in language equally admirable and truthful, the English and French character antithetically delineated : " No greater contrast is exhibited than that of the French and English. The peace has deluged this gay city (Paris) with English visit- ors of all ranks and conditions. They throng every place of curiosity and amusement, fill the public gardens, the galleries, the cafes, saloons, theaters ; always herding together, never asso- ciating with the French. The two nations are like two threads of different colors, tangled to- gether, but never blended. " In fact, they present a continual antithe- sis, and seem to value themselves upon being unlike each other; yet each have their peculiar merits, which should entitle them to each other's esteem. The French intellect is quick and active. It flashes its way into a subject with the rapidity of lightning, seizes upon remote conclusions with a sudden bound, and its de- ductions are almost intuitive. The English in- tellect is less rapid, but more persevering ; less sudden, but more sure in its deductions. The Memoir of Washington Irving. 261 quickness and mobility of the French enable them to .find enpyment in the multiplicity of sensations. They speak and act more from immediate impressions than from reflection and meditation. They are, therefore, more social and communicative ; more fond of society, and of places of public resort and amusement. An Englishman is more reflective in his habits. He lives in the world of his own thoughts, and seems more self-existent and self-depend- ent. He loves the quiet of his own apartment ; even when abroad, he makes in a manner a little solitude around him by his silence and reserve ; he moves about shy and solitary, and, ' as it were, buttoned up, body and soul " The French are great optimists ; they seize upon every good as it flies, and revel in the passing pleasure. The Englishman is too apt to neglect the present good in preparing against the possible evil. However adversities may lower, let the sun shine but for a moment and forth sallies the mercurial Frenchman, in holiday dress and holiday spirits, gay as a butterfly, as though his sunshine were perpetual ; but let the sun beam never so brightly, so there be but a cloud in the horizon, the wary Englishman 262 Memoir of Washington Irving. ventures forth distrustfully, with his umbrella in his hand. " The Frenchman has a wonderful facility of turning small things to advantage. No one can be gay and luxurious on smaller means ; no one requires less expense to be happy. He practices a kind of gilding in his style of living, and hammers out every guinea into gold leaf. The Englishman, on the contrary, is expensive in his habits, and expensive in his enjoyments. He values every thing, whether useful or orna- mental, by what it costs. He has no satisfac- tion in show, unless it be solid and complete. Every thing goes with him by the square foot. Whatever display he makes, the depth is sure- to equal the surface. "The Frenchman's habitation, like himself, is open, cheerful, bustling, and noisy. He lives in a part of a great hotel, with wide portal, paved court, a spacious, dirty stone staircase, and a family on every floor. All is clatter and chatter. He is good-humored and talkative with his servants, sociable with his neigh- bors, and complaisant to all the world ; any body has access to himself and his apartments ; his very bed-room is open to visitors, whatever be Memoir of Washington Irving. 263 its state of confusion ; and all this not from any peculiarly hospitable feeling, but from that com- municative habit which predominates over his character. " The Englishman, on the contrary, ensconses himself in a snug brick mansion, which he has all to himself; locks the frontdoor, puts broken bottles along his walls and spring-guns and man-traps in his gardens ; shrouds himself with trees and window curtains ; exults in his quiet and privacy, and seems disposed to keep out noise, daylight, and company. His house, like himself, has a reserved, inhospitable exterior ; yet whoever gains admittance is apt to find a warm heart and a warm fireside within. " The French excel in wit, the English in humor ; the French have gayer fancy, the English richer imaginations. The former are full of sensibility, easily moved, and prone to sud- den and great excitement ; but the excitement is not durable. The English are more phleg- matic, not so readily affected, but capable of being aroused to greater enthusiasm. The faults of these opposite temperaments are that the vivacity of the French is apt to sparkle up and be frothy, the gravity of the English 264 Memoir of Washington Irving. to settle down and grow muddy. When the two characters can be fixed in a medium, the French kept from effervescence, and the English from stagnation, both will be found excellent." ! Memoir of Washington Irving* 26$ CHAPTER XXXIV. TT was about this time (1840) that Mr. Irv- -*- ing prepared his biography of " Goldsmith/' forming one of the volumes of Harpers' Family Library.* His deeply interesting biography of " Mar- garet Davidson " f was published in 1841, the *In his preface to "Goldsmith" Irving remarks of his writings that they were " the delight of his childhood, and had been a source of enjoyment to him throughout life." Mrs. Hall pronounces him " one of the most various and pleasing of English writers." His writings were voluminous, and occupied with a great variety of topics, in prose and poetry. Numerous biographies of *' Goldsmith " have appeared at different times, among which those of Irving and Forster and "Prior are perhaps the most valuable. t This wa3 the younger of two most remarkable sisters- the elder, Lucretia Maria, born in 1808, and the younger, Margaret Miller, in 1823. Lucretia began to write verses at four years old, having secretly taught herself writing by copying letters from printed books. At sixteen she was placed at school at Troy, New York, where her health was soon under- mined by hard study. Being unrestrained from severe appli- cation she speedily fell into consumption, and died at seven- teen. She destroyed much of her poetry, but two hundred and seventy-eight pieces were preserved. . Margaret, the younger sister, whose biography was prepared by Irving, was born in 1823, and was between two and three 266 Memoir of Washington Irving. copyright of which he transferred to the mother of the youthful poetess. In a letter to a sister we have the following vivid and pleasant picture of his country neigh- borhood as it was at this time, and about four years after the completion of Sunnyside. 4< You would," he writes, "scarcely recognize the place, it has undergone such changes. These have in a great degree taken place since I have pitched my tent in the neighborhood. My residence here has attracted others ; cottages and country seats have sprung up along the banks of the Tappan Sea, and Tarrytown has become the metropolis of quite a fashionable vicinity. When you knew the village it was little better than a mere hamlet crouched down at the foot of a hill, with its dock for the accom- years old at the death of Lucretia. She began to write poems at six ; at ten she wrote and acted a drama ; her mental activity led her in the same way with her sister, and she, too, died of consumption when about fourteen years and & half old. The characters of these two sisters seemed nearly angelical, while their poems are marked by exceeding sweet- ness and beauty. The works of both sisters are published together. Of Margaret, Mr. Irving says: "I saw her when she was about eleven years old, and again when about fourteen. She was a beautiful little being, a*: bright and as fragile as a flower, and like a flower she has passed away. Her poetical effusions are surprising, and the spirit they breathe is heavenly." Memoir of Washington Irving. 267 modation of the weekly market sloop. Now it has mounted the hill ; boasts of its hotels, and churches of various denominations ; has its little Episcopalian Church with an organ the gates of which on Sundays are thronged with equipages belonging to families resident within ten or a dozen miles along the river banks. We have, in fact, one of the most agreeable neigh- borhoods I ever resided in. Some of our neigh- bors are here only for the summer, having their winter establishments in town ; others remain in the country all the year. We have frequent gatherings at each other's houses without parade or expense, and I do not know when I have seen more delightful little parties, or more elegant little groups of females. We have occasionally excellent music, for several of the neighborhood have been well taught, have good voices, and acquit themselves well both with harp and piano ; and our parties always end with a dance. We have picnic parties also, sometimes in some inland valley or piece of wood, sometimes on the banks of the Hudson, where some repair by land, others by water. You would be delighted with these picturesque assemblages on some wild woodland point jutting into the Tappan 268 Memoir of Washington Irving. Sea, with gay groups on the green under the trees ; carriages glistening through the woods ; a yacht, with flapping sails and fluttering stream- ers, anchored about half a mile from shore, and row-boats plying to and from it filled with lady passengers." Memoir of Washington Irving. 269 CHAPTER XXXV. ANEW and distinguished honor was now awaiting Washington Irving. He was contemplating anew a Life of his great and illustrious namesake, and had actually com- menced the work, when news came suddenly to him that he had received the appointment of Minister to Spain. Nothing seemed to have been further from his thoughts than such an ap- pointment. Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, who had recommended Irving for this Embassy, remarked, when sufficient time had elapsed for the message to reach him, " Wash- ington is now the most astonished man in the city of New York!" Every way honorable to Irving was this ap- pointment, and the circumstances attending it. As noticed, it was utterly unexpected and un- thought of ; of course it was entirely unsought. Nor was it due to any political opinions or preferences, for he seems to have been the least of all a political partisan. His acquaint- 270 Memoir of Washington Irving. ance with Spain and the Spanish language doubtless had its weight in the appointment, while it seemed to be mainly due to his general merit and popularity. A note from New York to his brother, then at Sunnyside, tells briefly the story : " Nothing could be more gratifying than the manner in which this appointment has been made. It was suggested by Mr. Webster to the President, immediately adopted by him, heartily concurred in by all the Cabinet, and confirmed in the Senate almost by acclamation. When it was mentioned, Mr. Clay, who has opposed almost all the other nominations, exclaimed, * Ah, this is a nomination every body will concur in ! If the President would send us such names as this we should never have any difficulty/ What has still more enhanced the gratification of this signal honor is the unanimous applause with which it is greeted by the public. The only drawback upon all this is the hard trial of tear- ing myself away from dear little Sunnyside. This has harassed me more than I can express ; but I begin to reconcile myself to it, as it will be but a temporary absence." Of course, Mr. Irving accepted the appoint- Memoir of Washington Irving. 271 ment ; and after visiting Washington to receive his instructions, and declining a public dinner proffered to him, without distinction of party, at New York, he embarked for Spain April 10, 1842. A rapid and prosperous voyage brought him to Bristol, Eng., whence he took cars for London. Here and at Birmingham, with his sister, Mrs. Van Wart, he spent three or four delightful weeks, and then crossed the channel to Havre, and after a few days proceeded thence by steam- boat and cars to Paris. In a letter to his sister at Birmingham is an affecting allusion to this passage up to the metropolis : " My visit to my excellent friend Beasly," he writes, " and my voyage up the Seine, however gratifying in other respects, were full of melancholy associations ; for at every step I was reminded of my dear, dear brother Peter, who had so often been my companion in these scenes. In fact he is con- tinually present to my mind since my return to Europe, where we passed so many years to- gether; and I think this circumstance con- tributes greatly to the mixture of melancholy with which of late I regard all those scenes and objects which once occasioned such joyous ex- citement." Visiting one little quiet and favorite 272 Memoir of Washington Irving. spot of his brother's resort at Rouen, he was entirely unmanned. " I was, for a time, a com- plete child. My dear, dear brother ! As I write the tears are gushing from my eyes." At Paris also, as at London, Mr. Irving lingered a few weeks, making his home with his niece, Mrs. Storrow, who, not long before, had been one of the little circle at the " Roost." Here he paid his respects, of course, to the American Minister, Mr. Cass. and was introduced by him to the royal family and other distin- guished persons. Early in July, in company with his Secretary and the two young gentlemen attached to the Embassy, he set forward for Madrid. The party traveled by easy stages, stopping at several old historical localities, and reached Madrid on the 25th of the month. He had arranged to occupy the quarters of his predecessor, assum- ing his apartments, furniture, servants, and, in general, the entire establishment. Thus, with the least possible trouble or delay, he found himself, with his companions, pleasantly situated, and ready at once for the customary presenta- tions at court. In a day or two he is formally and officially introduced by his predecessor to Memoir of Washington Irving. 273 the Regent, Espartero ; afterward he is pre- sented in his official capacity to the young Queen Isabella. " She received me," he writes, " 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 has a somewhat fair complexion, quite pale, with bluish or light gray eyes, a grave de- meanor, 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." Upon these closing words the pres- ent exiled condition of this same Queen Isabella is an impressive commentary. Here, after being well settled with his books, Mr. Irving had anticipated abundant leisure and opportunity for literary occupation, and proposed to engage at once upon his Life of Washington. This pleasant anticipation, how- ever, was not destined to be fulfilled. He did, indeed, compose several chapters of his new work, but he was soon compelled to experience a return of the tedious disease which had troubled him twenty years before. This attack 18 274 Memoir of Washington Irving. of illness was long and wearisome, rendering it impossible for him to write, while even reading was disapproved by his physician. By the ad- vice of the latter, he, about a year after his arrival at Madrid, committed the care of the Embassy to his Secretary and made a visit to Paris, taking lodgings at Versailles with his niece and her husband. Here his time passed delightfully, although he was able to walk but little without aggravating his malady. He returned, after an absence of three months, just in time to witness the rejoicings on account of the young Queen's accession to the throne. " All the houses," he writes, " were decorated, the balconies hung with tapestry ; there were triumphal arches, fountains running with milk and wine, games, dances, processions and parades by day, illuminations and spectacles at night, and the streets were constantly thronged by the populace in their holiday garb." Mr Irving was now sixty years of age, and during the year and a half which he had spent abroad, part of which time he experienced ill health, he often looked with longing eyes toward his " dear Sunnyside home." " My heart yearns for home, and as I have now probably Memoir of Washington Irving. 275 turned the last corner in life, and my remain- ing years are growing scanty in number, I begrudge every one that I am obliged to pass separated from my cottage and my kindred." In the summer of 1844, while at Barcelona, whither he had come from Madrid with dis- patches from our Government to the Spanish Queen, Mr. Irving received also a dispatch granting him temporary leave of absence for the benefit of his health. Accordingly, in a week's time he was off for Paris, by way of Marseilles, Avignon, and Lyons. Passing a few delightful days with his niece and her family at Versailles, he set off for Havre to visit a friend there, and thence took passage direct to London. Passing through the city incognito^ he immediately took cars for his sister's at Birmingham, whence, after a three weeks' visit, he set his face again toward France. At Paris he tarried some time to avail himself of the baths, visited the royal family at St. Cloud, and then proceeded to Madrid, which he reached near the middle of November, to the great joy of his household." Mr.Irving's private letters of this period of his Embassy represent the Spanish court as being remarkably gay. The present exiled Queen 276 Memoir of Washington Irving. he pictures as being then in her bright and early youth, handsome, gay, and full of life. At a court ball at the hotel of General Narvaez " she was in high glee. Indeed, I never saw a school- girl at a school ball enjoy herself more com- pletely. At some blunders and queer and old- fashioned dancing of one of the foreign ministers she was convulsed with laughter. " I have never seen her in such a joyous mood, having chiefly seen her on ceremonious occasions, and had no idea that she had so much real///;/ in her disposition. She danced with various mem- bers of the diplomatic corps ; and about four o'clock in the morning, when she was asked if she could venture upon another dance, ' O yes ! ' she replied, ' I could dance eight more if nec- essary.' " Mr. Irving's own mental position at this period of his life, and amid the gayeties of the Spanish court, is not without interest. In a letter to his niece, Mrs. Storrow, he repre- sents himself as often being, in the midst of the brilliant throngs, the very dullest of the dull, as inclined to gaze on the crowd around him with perfect apathy, and finds it next to impossible to reciprocate the common-place speeches so common in fashionable society. " I have grown Memoir of Washington Irving. , 277 too old or too wise for all that. I hope those who observe my delinquency attribute it to the latter cause." Whether they did so " attribute it " or not, a multitude of others, equally wise and good, will unfailingly contemplate the matter in ac- cordance with his wishes ; and the pity is that such beautiful wisdom too often comes so late ; that it should not come even amid the dew of youth. " My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee ; so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding ; yea, if thou cryest after knowledge, and liftcst up thy voice for under- standing; if thou seckest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand." 278 Memoir of Washington Irving. CHAPTER XXXV. HT* HE spring of 1845 found Mr. Irving again * restored to perfect health, and anticipat- ing the gratification of returning to the use of his pen, now for a long time laid aside save for the purpose of correspondence. In the follow- ing autumn he sent home his resignation of the Spanish Embassy ; but his successor did not arrive until July of the next year, when he at once set out for England, and early in Septem- ber embarked for Boston, where he arrived safely on the 1 8th, having been absent about four and a half years. The day after he reached Boston he was in New York, and that afternoon he took passage for Sunnyside. What was his joy on reaching his home so greatly " beloved and longed for," and what was the joy of his friends to greet him after so long an absence, must be left to the imagination of the reader. He very soon undertook an ample enlarge- ment of the cottage, so as to render it entirely Memoir of Washington Irving. 279 eligible for the accommodation of himself and his brother's family. The improvement thus made seems, when finished, to have surpassed his expectation. But he did not stop with the dwelling, for, writing to his niece at Paris, he in- forms her that he had proceeded to bring his place into complete order, providing all the necessary offices for accommodating horses, poultry, and for other purposes ; and that the constant superintendence of his improvements had much fatigued him, and had revived, to some extent, his old disease. But he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his place brought into perfect order " both within doors and without." A few days afterward issues from his pencil the following picture : " My own place has never been so beautiful as at present. I have made more openings by pruning and cutting down trees, so that from the piazza I have several charming views of the Tappan Sea and the hills beyond, all set, as it were, in a verdant frame ; and I am never tired of sitting there in my old Voltaire chair of a sum- mer morning, with a book in my hand, sometimes reading, sometimes musing, and sometimes doz- ing, an4 nu*ing all up in a pleasant dream." 280 Memoir of Washington Irving. Irving seems now to be favorably situated for resuming his pen, and we accordingly find him fully at work upon his " Life of Washington." The winter of 1847 he spent among his friends in New York. His practice here was to work with his pen during the morning hours, and de- vote the remainder of the day and evening to visiting and attending the opera. In the following summer he entered into an arrangement with Mr. George P. Putnam for the publication of a new and uniform edition of his works. By this arrangement Mr. Putnam was to publish the works entirely at his own expense, and allow the author twelve and a half percent, on the retail price of each volume sold. The arrangement proved advantageous to both par- ties. The new editions as they successively appeared met with full success ; a success which proved conclusively that the fame of the author, instead of being empty and transient, was of that kind which is solid and enduring. This new publication by Putnam of Irving's writings included not only the works heretofore published, but several new volumes additional. He prepared, for example, by request of Mr. Putnam, a new ancj enlarged Biography of Gold- Memoir of Washington Irving. 281 smith. He wrote this work with great dispatch, intermitting, for the purpose, his labor on his Life of Washington. He further prolonged that intermission to write his two volumes, " Mahomet and his Successors." These were both added to the list of the collected works, while the " Alhambra" and " Conquest of Granada" closed the revised series. This important plan being fulfilled, Mr. Irving once more resumed his " Washington, " which he designed to be his great and last work, and which he was anxious to complete so as to enjoy a little season of leisure and rest previous to his death. In the beginning of the year 1852, in a letter to his niece at Paris, penned when sixty-nine years of age, we have a picture as affecting as it is interesting. " It is now half past twelve t night, and I am sitting here scribbling in my study long after all the family are abed and asleep, a habit I have fallen much into of late. Indeed, I never fagged more steadily with my pen than I do at present. I have a long task in hand which I am anxious to finish, that I may have a little leisure in the brief remnant of life that is left to me. How* ever, I have a strong presentiment that I shall 282 Memoir of Washington Irving. die in harness, and I am content to do so, pro- vided I have the cheerful exercise of intellect to the last" Yet as the spring comes on he complains that his work in hand lags and drags heavily, being interrupted by repeated turns of ill-health, which seem to have been common with him for the two or three preceding years. " This spring," he writes, 4< I have been almost entirely idle, from my mind's absolutely refusing to be put in harness. I no longer dare task it as I used to do. When a man is in his seventieth year it is time to be cautious. I thought I should have been through this special undertaking by this time, but an unexpected turn of bilious fever in midwinter put me all aback, and now I have renounced all further pressing myself in the matter." This state of things determined him to spend a part of the ensuing summer at Saratoga, where he entered with zest into the social life of that celebrated resort ; and the pleasant recreation in which he indulged, together with a free use of the waters, proved decidedly bene- ficial. " I take the waters every morning," he writes, " and think they have a great effect on Memoir of Washington Irving. 283 my system. I have entirely got rid of all bil- ious symptoms, and find my mental faculties refreshed, invigorated, and brightened up. I have no doubt I derive some benefit from gos- sipinf away part of the day in very agreeable female society, in which I experience such favor- able treatment as inclines me to think old gen- tlemen are coming into fashion." Returning from Saratoga about the first of August, so much was his delightful company missed there that many of those still remaining joined in an invitation to him to return, that the pleasure of his society might for a few days be renewed. He, however, declined the invita- tion. Of course, while at the Springs he was an object of universal attention, for his fame had long since become national. At the same time, as a friend who was with him there writes, " No one seemed more unconscious of the celebrity to which he had attained. In this there was not a particle of affectation. Nothing he shrank from with greater earnestness and sincerity than any attempt to lionize him. . . . He much preferred sauntering out alone, or with some familiar friend trusting to any accidental event that might occur to indulge his own whim 284 Memoir of Washington Irving. or fancy, or crack a joke, as occasion might call." The next winter Mr. Irving visited Washing- ton, and was the guest for nearly two months of Secretary Kennedy. The main purpose of this visit was to consult the State archives in aid of his " Life of Washington." He seems, however, to have accomplished his purpose with much difficulty, owing to the perpetual lionizing to which he was subjected there, as in the sum- mer before at Saratoga. He writes to his nieces at home that he had a world of documents to examine, but was much interrupted. He was managing, however, to keep clear of the evening parties, but the long dinners and return of visits were inevitable, and " cut up his time deplorably." He tarried till after the inaugu- ration of President Pierce, and then returned to Sunnvside. Memoir of Washington Irving. 285 CHAPTER XXXVI. FROM the period of his return from Wash- ington for two years onward, Mr. Irving seems to have prosecuted, with considerable in- tervals of sickness, excursions, and visits, his new work. His health after reaching seventy was capricious and uncertain. His spirits, however, were almost always cheery, and he retained fully all those genial and kindly traits for which he had throughout life been so greatly distinguished. He was seventy-two when he issued the first volume of his "Washington." This volume carried forward the history of its subject to his arrival at the camp before Boston as Com- mander-in-Chief of the American Army. He appears to have had serious misgivings in re- spect to the reception and success of this vol- ume, entertaining some fears that it " might be the death of him." Amid such misgivings and fears, however, he received the following note from Mr. Bancroft, the historian : 286 Memoir of Washington Irving. " Your volume, of which I gained a copy last night, (and this morning have received one made still more precious by your own hand,) short- ened my sleep last night at both ends. I was up late and early, and could not rest until I had finished the last page. Candor, good judgment that knows no bias, the felicity of selection, these are yours in common with the best histo- rians. But, in addition, you have the peculiarity of writing from the heart, enchaining sympathy as well as commanding confidence the happy magic that makes scenes, events, and personal anecdotes present themselves to you at your bidding, and fall into their natural places, and take color and warmth from your own nature. The style, too, is masterly, clear, easy, and graceful ; picturesque without mannerism, and ornamented without losing simplicity. Among men of let- ters who do well, you must above all take the name of Felix, which so few of the great Roman generals could claim. You do every thing rightly, as if by grace ; and I am in no fear of offending your modesty, for I think you were elected and fore-ordained to excel your contem- poraries/' Such a letter as this, and from such a source, Memoir of Washington Irving. 287 joined with other flattering notices of the new work, encouraged him to proceed, and to accomplish the entire undertaking at whatever expense of labor. Hence, within six months following the first volume appeared the second, bringing the nar- rative down to the victories of Trenton and Princeton. On the reception of this volume Prescott, the historian, thus addresses the author : " You have done with Washington just as I thought you would ; and, instead of a cold marble statue of a demi-god, you have made him a being of flesh and 1 , blood like ourselves one with whom we can have sympathy. The gen- eral sentiment of the country has been too decidedly expressed for you to doubt for a moment that this is the portrait of him which is to hold a permanent place in the national gallery." Other letters of approval from different sources, Bancroft, Tuckerman, and others, poured in upon him as this second volume appeared. In two months more the third volume was already passing through the press, and was published in the following July, (1856,) extending the nar- 288 Memoir of Washington Irving. rative to Washington's return to winter-quarters in 1779. In May of the following year the fourth volume was published, on occasion of which a letter from Bancroft pronounced his picture of Washington " the most vivid and truest that had ever been written ;" and Pres- cott writes, " I have never before fully compre- hended the character of Washington, nor did I know what capabilities it would afford to his biographer. Hitherto we have only seen him as a sort of marble Colossus, full of moral great- ness, but without the touch of humanity that would give him interest. You have known how to give the marble flesh color, that brings it to the resemblance of life." On the gth of March, 1859, he put the finish- ing touch to the fifth and last volume of his " Life of Washington." The printers were nearly up with him when the final sheet was completed, and the volume appeared forthwith. And the pen of Washington Irving dropped from his hand never to be resumed. We subjoin here a general view, from the pen of Edward Everett, of Mr. Irving as a writer : " We regard Washington Irving as tiie best Memoir of Washington Irving. 289 living writer of English prose. Let those who doubt the correctness of this opinion name his superior. Let our brethren in England name the writer whom they place before Washington Irving. He unites the various qualities of a perfect manner of writing ; and so happily adjusted and balanced are they, that their separate marked existence disappears in their harmonious blending. His style is sprightly, pointed, easy, correct, and expressive, without being too studiously guarded against the oppo- site faults. It is without affectation, parade, or labor. If we were to characterize a manner which owes much of its merit to the absence of any glaring characteristic, we should perhaps say that it is, above the style of all other writers of the day, marked with an expressive elegance. Washington Irving never buries up the clearness and force of the meaning under a heap of fine words ; nor, on the other hand, does he think it necessary to be coarse, sloven- ly, or uncouth, in order to be emphatic. , . . " In bestowing upon Mr. Irving the praise of a perfect style of writing it must not be under- stood that we commend him in a point of mere manner. To write as Mr. Irving writes is not 19 290 Memoir of Washington Irving. an affair which rests in a dexterous use of words alone ; at least not if we admit the popu- lar but unphilosophical distinction between words and ideas. Mr. Irving writes well be- cause he thinks well ; because his ideas are just, clear, and definite. He knows what he wants to say, and expresses it distinctly and intelligibly because he so apprehends it. There is also no affectation of the writer, because there is none in the man. There is no pomp in his sentences, because there is no arro- gance in his temper. There is no over- loading with ornament, because, with the eye of an artist, he sees when he has got enough ; and he is sprightly and animated because he catches his tints from nature, and dips his pencil in truth, which is always fresh and racy. . . . "Washington Irving has been much and justly commended in England and America, but full justice has not yet been done him. Compare him with any of the distinguished writers of his class of lais generation, except- ing Sir Walter Scott, and with almost any of what are called the English classics of any age. Compare him with Goldsmith, one of the canon- Memoir of Washington Irving. 291 ized names of the British pantheon of letters, who touched every kind of writing, and adorned every thing he touched. In one or two depart- ments, it is true that of poetry, and the one or two departments which Mr. Irving has not attempted, and in drama departments, which Mr. Irving has not attempted, and in which much of Goldsmith's merit lies the comparison partly fails ; but place their pretensions in every other respect side by side, who would think of giving the miscellaneous writings of Gold- smith a preference over those of l!rving ? and who would name his historical compositions with the " Life of Columbus ? " If in the drama and in poetry Goldsmith should seem to have ex- tended his province greatly beyond that of Irving, the " Life of Columbus " is zchefd'&uvre in a department which Goldsmith can scarcely be said to have touched; for the trifles on Grecian and Roman history which his poverty extorted from him deserve to enter into com- parison with Mr. living's great work about as much as Eutropius deserves to be compared with Livy. Then how much wider Irving's range in that department common to both, the painting of manners and character ! From Mr. 292 Memoir of Washington Irving. Irving we have the humors of contemporary politics and every-day life in America: the traditionary peculiarities of the Dutch founders of New York ; the nicest shades of the s chooi of English manners of the last century ; the chivalry of the Middle Ages in Spain; the glittering visions of Moorish romance a large cycle of sentimental creations founded on the invariable experience, the pathetic sameness, .of the human heart, and, lastly, the whole un- hackneyed freshness of the West : life beyond the border, a camp outside the frontier, a hunt on buffalo ground, beyond which neither white nor Pawnee, man nor muse can go. This is Mr. Irving' s range, and in every part of it he is equally at home.\ When he writes the " History of Columbus " you see him weighing doubtful facts in the scales of a golden criticism. You behold him laden with the manuscript treasures of well-searched archives, and dispos- ing the heterogeneous materials into a well- digested and instructive narration. Take down another of his volumes, and you find him in the parlor of an English country inn of a rainy . day, and you look out of the window with him upon the dripping, dreary desolation of the Memoir of Washington Irving. 293 back-yard. Anon, he takes you into the ances- tral hall of a Baronet of the old school and instructs you in the family traditions, of which the memorials adorn the walls and de- pend from the rafters. Before you are wearied with the curious lore you are on the pursuit of Kidd, the pirate, in the recesses of Long Island ; and, by the next touch of the enchant- er's wand, you are rapt into an enthusiastic reverie of the mystic East within the crum- bling walls of the Alhambra. You sigh to think you were not born six hundred years ago, that you could not have beheld those now deserted halls as they once blazed in triumph, and rang with the mingled voices of Oriental chivalry and song, when you find yourself once more borne across the Atlantic, whirled into the Western wilderness, with a prairie wide as the ocean before you, and a dusky herd of buffaloes, like a crowded convoy of fleeing merchantmen, looming in the horizon and inviting you to the chase. This is literally " nullum fere genus scribendi non tigit nullum quod tetiget non ornovit.* Whether any thing " There was almost no kind of writing which he did not touch, or which, touching, he did not adorn." 294 Memoir of Washington Irving. like an equal range is to be found in the works of him on whom the splendid compli- ment was first bestowed it is not difficult to say." Memoir of Washington Irving. 295 CHAPTER XXXVII. MR. IRVING was one of the not very nu- merous class of writers who become rich by authorship ; and, whatever may be thought of his lack of business capacity otherwise, certain it is that his transactions with his several publishers indicate no such deficiency. From most of his works he shrewdly managed to reap a double harvest, English and American ; selling at once his copyrights to his English publishers, and leasing them to his publishers at home. Thus we have the following exhibit, nearly as presented by his biographer : AMOUNTS REALIZED FROM THE SALE OF COPYRIGHTS IN ENGLAND : Sketch-Book, 467 los., or about $2,338 oo Bracebridge Hall 5*250 oo Tales of a Traveler * . . 7,875 oo Life of Columbus 15,75000 Companions of Columbus , 2,625 oo Conquest of Granada. ._ 10,500 oo Tour on the Prairies ......,..' 2,000 oo Abbotsford and Ncwstead. 2,00000 Legends of Spain 50000 Alhambra 5*250 oo Astoria. 2,500 oo Bonneville's Adventures 4,500 oo Amount $61,088 oo 296 Memoir of Washington Irving. AMOUNTS REALIZED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR LEASES OF COPYRIGHTS : Columbus. $3,ooo oo Abridgment of Columbus. 6,000 oo Conquest of Granada 475<> oo Companions of Columbus. i5oo oo A lhambra. 3, ooo oo Tour on the Prairies. 2,400 oo Abbotsford and Newstead 2,100 oo Legends of the Conquest of Spain i5OO oo Astoria 4,000 oo Bonneville's Adventures SfOOO oo Knickerbocker, Sketch-Book, Bracebridge Hall, and Tales. 4,200 oo Receipts for the lasc four works previous to 1828 19,500 oo Further lease of these four and other works 8,050 oo Amount for leases of copyright $63,000 oo After the arrangement with Mr s Putnam for the uniform edi- tion of his works, Mr. Irving, up to the time of his decease, received from his publisher, (besides the stereotype and steel plates, valued at $17,000) $88,143 Add the foregoing amount from leases. 63,000 oo Add also the foregoing amount from English copyrights 61,088 oo Amount received in his life-time. . . . $212,231 oo Add the amount received in four years after his death. , 34*237 oo Whole amount from his writings up to 1864. . . $256,468 oo Hence it is certain that Irving's picture of " Poor Devil Author" was but very slightly ap- plicable to himself. Memoir of Washington Irving. 297 CHAPTER XXXVIII. OF the religious character of Washington Irving there seems to be but slight and not very satisfactory notices. That he was, throughout, a believer in Christianity there is no reason to doubt ; while yet we cannot but regret that the religious element, as with too many accomplished writers, is so much wanting in all the varied and extensive range of his numerous works. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" and the pen writeth ; and we have a right to infer that if the religious sentiment had been of much promi- nence in the mind and heart of the illustrious author there would have been a fuller revelation of it in his voluminous compositions. As he grew old we detect a wish for religious confidence and peace. In a letter written when fifty-seven years of age to his sister, Mrs. Van Wart, alluding to their brother Ebenezer, he writes : " I think him one of the most perfect examples of the Christian character that I have 1298 Memoir of Washington Irving. ever known. He has all father's devotion and zeal, without his strictness. Indeed, his piety is of the most genial and cheerful kind, inter- fering with no rational pleasure or elegant taste, and obtruding itself upon no one's habits, opin- ions, or pursuits. I wish to God I could feel like him. I envy him that indwelling source of consolation and enjoyment which appears to have a happier effect than all the maxims of philosophy or the lessons of worldly wisdom." At the age of sixty-five, and ten or eleven years previous to his death, Mr. Irving connected himself with the Episcopal Church in his neigh- borhood, and we may hope that his latter days were days of devotion and prayer. At the same time we are pained that amid the protracted illness from which he never recovered there is but little expression of religious confidence and hope, and that the Divine consolations were so little alluded to, and apparently so scantily enjoyed. By the time the last volume of his " Wash- ington" was undertaken Mr. Irving's health had begun seriously to decline, and it grew worse and worse as the work proceeded. Asth- ma, accompanied with cough, nervousness, and Mefnoir of Washington Irving. 299 consequent interruption of sleep, were his promi- nent symptoms. With some brief intervals of reviving and more hopeful prospects, he con- tinued, on the whole, to decline, until on the evening of November 28, 1859, as he was pre- paring to retire for the night, he fell and in- stantly expired. On the third day following, a beautiful Indian summer day, and as the sun was sinking to his " golden rest," was laid in his chosen resting- place, by the side of her that bore him, the remains of WASHINGTON IRVING. THE END. - 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. DECEIVED APR 8*67 -11 AM LOAN DEFT. FE B 1196&& 1 r~r~ n iir~f^\ \ > . i FEB 3 68 -12 M General Library "-89