LIFE AND LETTERS OF WASHIJ^GTOlSr IKYING. Digitized by the Internet Archive ih'.2Q10" with funding from The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant http://www.archive.org/details/lifelettersofwasOOinirvi /<y sd ^i //*- t/^ /S - /</ I -1 ' THE LIFE AND LETTEKS WASHINGTON IRVING. BY HIS NEPHEW PIERRE M. IRVING. VOLUME IV. NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM, 441 BROADWAY, 1864. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by PIERRE M. IRVING, In the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. JOHN F. TBOTT, ,^ q J^Q Printer and Stereotype*, y^ / / / \J f 50 Greene Street. *ft\ The copious Index to these volumes has been kindly prepared, as a labor of love, by S. Austin Allibone, LL. D., of Philadelphia. The value of this service will be readily appreciated by many readers. It has been tendered in the midst of laborious appli- cation on his own great work, the " Dictionary of Authors." The article in the first volume of that work on the Life and Works of Irving, was remark- able for its comprehensive collection of facts and opinions. Among the many letters of Mr. Irving to authors, which the editor has been unable to quote in the limits of these volumes, is one to Dr. Allibone, expressing a warm appreciation of the important contribution to literary history which Dr. Allibone is now engaged in completing. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A literary freak— Tho old Moorish chronicles— Delight in the old Morlsco Spanish subjects— The saddle horse — First trial — Disappointment— A favorable change— Finale of the injured animal — Completion of his improvements — Removal into the new tower— Has got his place in complete order — New York as it was and is — His last job — Hard at work on the Life of Washington— Letters to a child — Letter to Charles Luiman— Letter to Miss Catherine Irving, ... .13 CHAPTER II. Dinner at John Jacob Astor'a— Conversation about ghosts— Engaged on his Life of Washington— Annoyed at the want of feature in parts of tho war — The opera house one of the great charms of New York— The projected railroad along the banks of the Hudson — Impending desecration of Sunnyside — Testimonial of the Land Committee— Adjustment of damages— Letter to Hackett— Arrangement with Mr. Putnam for the republication of his works— Knickerbocker— Author'a remarks about the revised edition — Notice of Henry T. Tuckerman — A German eomtnentator citing Knickerbocker— Schaefer's Christus Consolator— Notice* of the republication of the Sketch Book — Liberal reception of the revised series, 33 CHAPTER III. Unprecedented sale of revised edition of the Sketch Book — Engaged upon a Life of Goldsmith — Its publication — Ripley's notice— Critique of Goorge W. Greene— Appearance of Mahomet and hie Successors— The revised Alhambra and Conquest of Granada— Anxiety to begin anew on Life of Washington, . 50 CHAPTER IV. Letters to Gouverneur Kemble— Durand's Picture— The horrors of the steam whistle— Letter to George Ticknor— The Embozado— Letter to Mrs. Storrow— g CONTENTS. Death of President Taylor— Visit to James K. Paulding— Jenny land— Letter to Miss Hamilton— The Author's hegira, ........ 66 CHAPTER V. Application for an original thought— Boring letters— Letter to Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichahod Crane— His last portrait— Letter to Mr*. Storrow— The Reveries of a Bachelor— The Scarlet Letter— Letter to M. H. Grinnell— Bohn'a infringement of copyright— Letter to Bentley— Letter of John Murray— Letter to John Barney— Letter to H. T. Tuckcrman, alluding to Rogers and to article in Homes of American Authors— Letter to Wm. C. Bryant on the subject of the dif- ferent portraits of Columbus W CHAPTER VI. Letter to Mrs. Storrow— Coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon— Kossuth— Letter to Gouvcrneur Kemblc— The Cooper commemoration— Bryant's allusion to the cool- ness between Cooper and Irving— "What the latter said about it— A prospectus for a course of lectures sent to him— Letter thereupon— Letters from Saratoga— Anec- dotes of Charles Augustus Davis— The Irving Literary Union— A breakfast -with Sontag— Letter to Miss Hamilton— Letter to George P ^utnam, ... 99 CHAPTER VII. At New Terk, on his way to Baltimore— Letter from Baltimore— Meets Thack- eray in the cars— Hospitable reception at Baltimore— -Departure for "Washington- Letters from "Washington — At work among the archives of the State Department — A miniature anchor presented to him — Its history— Table tipping— Reminis- cences of the family of the Empress of France— Letter to Mrs. Kennedy, after his return to Sunnyside, 122 CHAPTER VIII. Letter to Mrs. Storrow — Louis Napoleon and Eugenie Montijo — His seventieth birthday— Letter to Hon. Robert C. Winthrop— Wilkic's sketch—Letter to Mr. Gray— To Mrs. Kennedy — Second letter to Mr. Winthrop— Letter to Miss Mary E. Kennedy — Leaves Sunnyside on an excursion— Letters during his absence — Letter on his return, , ..... - . 138 CHAPTER IX, Excursion to the Springs— Niagara, etc.— Extract of letter to Miss Mary E. Kennedy— Ogdensburgh revisited— Letter to John P. Kennedy— Extract of letter to Mrs. Storrow— His final resting-place marked out — Sets off on an exoursion— CONTENTS. 9 Letter to Miss Sarah Irving— The Irving House— Travelling on his capital— The Bt. Nicholas hotel— Extract from letter to Hiss Catherine Irving— Expedition to "Winchester and Greenway Court— Return to Sunnyside— Letter to Mrs. Ken- nedy, 1M CHAPTER X. Extract from letter to Mrs. Kennedy— No desire to travel with political noto- rities— Extract from letter to Mrs. Sanders Irving— His old dancing-school days— A breakfast at John Duer's— The name of Dearman changed to Irvington— Con- tributions to the Knickerbocker Gallery— To Mrs. Kirkland— Letter to John P. Kennedy — Visit to Idlewild — The Homo Journal's account of conversation about Moore— Letters to John P. Kennedy— Letter to Mrs. Storrow— European Remi- niscences, 169 CHAPTER XL A New Year salutation— Publication of Wolfert's Roost— Extracts from some of the notices — Anecdoto respecting Mountjoy— Publication of Vol. I of the Life of Washington— An equestrian overthrow— Letter to John P. Kennedv— Letter from Bancroft on receipt of Vol. I of Life of Washington— Determines to complete the work— Passage from letter to Mrs. Storrow — Impatient to get Vol. II ready for the press— Reply to invitation from Moses Thomas — Letter to James K. Paulding, 185 CHAPTER Xn. Publication of Vol. II of Life of Washington— Letter from Prescott— Letter to Henry T. Tuckerman— Letter of Charles L. Brace on Vol. II— Letter to Bancroft —Letter to John P. Kennedy— Letter to Gouverneur Kemble— Publication of Vol. Ill, 203 CHAPTER Xni. A recurrence to the Dresden episode— Interpolation of the English edition of the third volume of the Life and Letters— Letter from Mrs. Emily Fuller to Washington Irving— Reply— Letter from Dickens— Letter to Mrs. Storrow, 213 CHAPTER XIV. Letters to Charles Lanman— Fourth volume of Life of Washington going through the press— Letter to Henry T. Tuckerman— Publication of Vol. IV— Let- ter from George Bancroft— Reply— Letter to Frederick S. Cozzens— Letter from Vol. IV.— 1* 10 CONTENTS. William H. Prescott— Letter from J. Lothrop Motley— Letter from S. Auf./n Allibone, and reply, .225 CHAPTER XV. A literary harvest— Engaged on his fifth volume— Letter to Mrs. Storrow— The crisis of 1857— Conversations— Kemble— Cooke— Cooper— Darley and Diedrich Knickerbocker— "Washington Allston— Letter to Bancroft — Letter to Professor Lieber— Letter to Miss J. I. Grinnell— The Atlantic Cable— Indisposition— Letter to a juvenile correspondent, . 237 CHAPTER XVI. Continuing indisposition— Sir Walter Scott— Bull fights— Dread of the night- Spasmodic affection— Letter from Prescott— Vol. Vof Life of Washington going to press — Wilkie — Holmes— Prescott's death — Restless nights— Anxiety to sleep— His last birthday, 260 CHAPTER XVII. Temporary improvement— Letter from Bancroft on Vol. V— Letter to John P. Kennedy— Letter from William C. Preston— Reply— The Heart of the Andes- Medical consultation — Cogswell's anecdote — Relapse— Visit of Kemble— Discour- agement— Letter to H. T. Tuckerman on his notice of Vol. V, . . . 280 CHAPTER XVm. Last days— A formidable visit threatened— The Charleston Mercury— A strange visitor — Longfellow and the acrostic— Burr— The travel to Albany in former days — Poe— Clay— The camp meeting— George Sumner— The Irishwoman's sixpence- Visit of N. P. Willis— Of Theodore Tilton— Last interview with a 6tranger— Death and funeral, . . . . . . . ...•■. .... 294 APPENDIX. (A.) CHAPTER XXIII. Washington Irving — His introduction to the family of Foster, and its history— The letter— Second attachment, and " Emily "—Her Majesty the Queen of Saxony and the half crown— Washington Irving and the Methodists on the Hudson — Royal visitors and General Canicof— The Poles, Italians, and the 6py— Mr. Irving CONTENTS. 11 relates anecdotes, and recalls events and feelings of his early life — English eccen- tricities and Irving's anger— Cannon balls, and the hero's leg— History of his first love brought to us and returned — Irving's second attachment — The little picture and the confidante — Departure— Leipzig and Poniatowski— The Hartz and the Ahnfrau— Die Ahnfrau— Washington Irving, his ramble and his robbers— Hano- ver and Hesse Cassel, 337 CHAPTER XXIV. Letters, etc., of "Washington Irving — Journal between Dresden and Rotterdam, July, 1823, 378 (B.) Provisions of the Will 408 (C) Literary Statistics, Ha LIFE AND LETTERS WASHINGTON IKYING, CHAPTER I. A. LITERARY FREAK — THE OLD MOORISH CHRONICLES— DELIGHT IN THE OLD MO- R1SCO SPANISH SUBJECTS — THE SADDLE HORSE — FIRST TRIAL — DISAPPOINT- MENT— A FAVORABLE CHANGE — FINALE OF THE INJURED ANIMAL — COMPLE- TION OF HIS IMPROVEMENTS — REMOVAL INTO THE NEW TOWER— HAS GOT HIS PLACE IN COMPLETE ORDER — NEW YORK AS IT WAS AND IS — HIS LAST JOB — HARD AT WORK ON THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON — LETTERS TO A CHILD — IETTER TO CHARLES LANMAN — LETTER TO MISS CATHERINE IRVING. "IV /TK. IRVING had for some time had it in con- -*-»-*- templation to publish a revised and uniform edition of his works, to which he had been strongly urged. He was apt to be dilatory, however, in the execution of his literary purposes ; and the intimation thrown out to me in his late letter, quoted in the last chapter, of the " rubbish " he had been working up to pay for his new building, had awakened some concern lest he should be losing sight of this object. I replied to it therefore, that, though glad to learn he had been 14 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. at work with his pen in any way, I was chiefly anxious at present to have him commence with the uniform edition of his works, for which there was .an expecta- tion and demand. " You lost the Conquest of Mex- ico," I remark in the letter now before me, " by not acting upon the motto of Carjpe diem', and I am a little afraid you may let slip the present opportunity for a favorable sale of a uniform edition of your works, by suffering your pen to be diverted in a new direc- tion. A literary harvest is before you from this source, on which you could reckon with confidence now, hut which might turn to barrenness under a future pressure in the money market, of which many are not without misgivings at this moment. Therefore ' Now's the day and now's the hour.' " He writes, in reply, April 14 : Don't snub me about my late literary freak. I am not let* ting my pen be diverted in a new direction. I am, by a little agreeable exertion, turning to account a mass of matter that has been lying like lumber in my trunks for years. "When I was in Madrid, in 1826-27, just after I had finished Columbus, I commenced a series of Chronicles illustrative of the wari between the Spaniards and the Moors ; to be given as the pro- ductions of a monk, Fray Antonio Agapida. The Conquest of Granada was the only one I finished, though I roughly sketched out parts of some others. Your uncle Peter was always anxious for me to carry out my plan, but, somehow or other, I let it grow cool. The Chronicle of the Conquest of ^Et. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. J5 Granada was not so immediately successful as I had antici- pated, though it has held its way better than many other of my works which were more taking at first. I am apt to get out of conceit of anything I do ; and I suffered the manuscript of these Chronicles to lie in my trunks like waste paper. About four or five weeks since, I was tired, one day, of muddling over my printed works, and yet wanted occupation. I don't know how the idea of one of these Chronicles came into my head. It was the Chronicle of Count Fernan Gonzalez, one of the early Counts of Castile. It makes about sixty or eighty pages of my writing. I took it up, was amused with it, and found I had hit the right vein in my management of it. I went to work and rewrote it, and got so in the spirit of the thing, that I went to work, con amore, at two or three frag- mentary Chronicles, filling up the chasms, rewriting parts. In a word, I have now complete, though not thoroughly finished off, The Chronicle of Pelayo ; The Chronicle of Count Fernan Gonzalez ; the Chronicle of the Dynasty of the Ommiades in Spain, giving the succession of those brilliant sovereigns, from the time that the Moslem empire in Spain was united under the first, and fell to pieces at the death of the last of them ; also the Chronicle of Fernando the Saint, with the reconquest of Seville. I may add others to the series ; but if I do not, these, with additions, illustrations, &c, will make a couple of volumes ; and I feel confident that I can make the work a taking one — giving a picture of Spain at various periods of the Moorish domination, and giving illustrations of the places of noted events, from what I myself have seen in my rambles about Spain. Some parts of these Chronicles run into a quiet, drolling vein, especially in treating of miracles and miraculous events ; on which occasion Fray Antonio Agapida comes to IQ LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. my assistance, with his zeal for the faith, and his pious hatred of the infidels. You see, all this has cost me but a very few weeks of amusing occupation, and has put me quite in heart again, as well as in literary vein. The poring over my pub- lished works was rather muddling me, and making me feel as if the true literary vein was extinct. I think, therefore, you will agree with me that my time for the last five weeks has been well employed. I have secured the frame and part of the finish of an entire new work, and can now put it by to be dressed off at leisure. Before I received this letter, having heard from a relative who was staying with him that he had been busy with some of his old Moorish Chronicles, I wrote him that I had a very agreeable through indistinct recollec- tion of the manuscripts, and had no doubt of his work- ing them up with effect, but still suggested a suspen- sion of the publication, adding that the reading world might not be content with these literary " skimmings," while waiting with impatience the appearance of a uni- form edition of his works now out of print. I added : " Make all despatch with the preparation of your uni- form edition, and then to work to complete your Life of Washington, and take your ease forever after." In reading the reply which I give below, the reader will bear in mind that my ill-starred epistle was des- patched in advance of the receipt of the author's inter- esting letter of the 14th, giving me an insight into the character of his new labors, dwelling with such evident At. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 17 satisfaction on his " literary freak," and showing tho attraction he felt in the theme. [To Pierre M. Irving .] Scnntside, April 15, 1847. My dear Pierre : I am glad I did not receive your note of this morning be- fore my new work was beyond the danger of being chilled by a damper. You can know nothing of the work, excepting what you may recollect of an extract of one of the Chronicles which I once published in the Knickerbocker.* The whole may be mere " skimmings," but they pleased me in the prepa- ration ; they were written when I was in the vein, and that is the only guide I go by in my writings, or which has led me to success. Besides, I write for pleasure as well as profit ; and the pleasure I have recently enjoyed in the recurrence, after so long an interval, of my old literary vein, has been so great, that I am content to forego any loss of profit it may occasion me by a slight postponement of the republication of my old works. These old Morisco Spanish subjects have a charm that makes me content to write about them at half price. They have so much that is highminded and chivalrous and quaint and picturesque and adventurous, and at times half comic about them. However, I'll say no more on the subject, but another time will ride my hobby privately, without saying a word about it to anybody. I have generally found that the best way. I am too easily dismounted, if any one jostles against me. * Pelayo and the Merchant's Daughter. Vol. TV— (2) 18 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. The letter of the 14th, which, had it been received earlier, would have prevented my second unlucky epis- tle, like a thing " born out of due time," came strag- gling in on the 17th, two days after the letter just cited had been received by me. I was sufficiently an- noyed at the consequences of the untimely potion I had so unwittingly administered, especially with the insight now afforded of the character of the work ; and I wrote him immediately, explaining and recanting as far as I could, but in vain. He had been disconcerted, and would not resume the theme. In the following letter, however, written a fortnight later, he returns to the subject in his characteristically playful vein, his annoyance having passed off almost with the letter that gave expression to it. [To Mrs. Pierre M. Irving.] Sunnyside, April 30, 1847. * * * The girls say you can come up to Sunnyside as soon as you please. * * * To-day my " women kind " of the kitchen remove bag and baggage into the new tower, which is getting its outside coat of white ; so that, when you come up, you will find it, like the trees, in full blossom. The coun- try is beginning to look lovely ; the buds and blossoms are just putting forth ; the birds are in full song ; so that, unless you come up soon, you will miss the overture of the season — the first sweet notes of the year. You tell me Pierre was quite distressed lest any " thought- less word of his should have marred my happy literary mood." Mi. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 19 Tell him not to be uneasy. Authors are not so easily put out of conceit of their offspring. Like the good archbishop of Granada, 'that model and mirror of authorship, I knew " the homily in question to be the very best I had ever composed ; " so, like my great prototype, I remained fixed in my self-com- placency, wishing Pierre " toda felicidad con un poco de mas gusto." When I once get you up to Sunnyside, I shall feel sure of an occasional Sunday visit from Pierre. I long extremely to have a sight of him ; and as there seems to be no likelihood of my getting to New York much before next autumn, I do not know how a meeting is to be brought about unless he comes up here. I shall see him with the more ease and con- fidence now, as, my improvements being pretty nigh completed, he cannot check me, nor cut off the supplies. Tell him I promise not to bore him about literary matters when he comes up. I have as great a contempt for these things as anybody, though I have to stoop to them occasionally for the sake of a livelihood ; but I want to have a little talk with him about stocks, and railroads, and some mode of screw- ing and jewing the world out of more interest than one's money is entitled to. God bless you and him, prays your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. Late in the winter, Mr. Irving had commissioned his brother-in-law, Mr. Henry Yan Wart, then on a visit to this country, to purchase a saddle horse for him. He had not mounted a horse since he went to Spain, but began to feel the necessity of this sort of 20 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. exercise. March 5th, Mr. Yan "Wart writes him : " I have at last succeeded in finding a horse which I think will suit yon, and purchased him for $110. He is handsome, and the best-tempered, gentle creature I ever saw ; and I think you will take much pleasure in riding him." The horse, after being kept in a stable in New York for several weeks, and used and trained by Mr. Yan "Wart and his son Irving, was brought to Sunnyside toward the close of April. Here is the first report of his qualifications by the long-dismounted equestrian : Scnnyside, April 26, 1847. My dear Pierre : * * * The horse purchased by Mr. Van "Wart is a very fine animal, and very gentle, but he does not suit me. I have ridden him once, and find him, as I apprehended, awk- ward and uncomfortable on the trot, which is the gait I most like. He is rather skittish also, and has laid my coachman in the dust by one of his pirouettes. This, however, might be the effect of being shut up in the stable of late, and without sufficient exercise ; but he is quite a different horse from the easy, steady, quiet " parson's " nag that I wanted. I shall give him one more good trial, but rather apprehend I shall have to send him to town, to be sold for what he will fetch. April 28th, he writes me : In my letter, the other day, I spoke rather disparagingly of my new horse. Justice to an injured animal induces me to leave the enclosed letter open for your perusal, after which you will hand it to I. Y. "W. &t. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 21 Here follows the letter enclosed : Sonnybide, April 28, 1847. My dear Irving : In a letter to Pierre M. Irving, the other day, I gave an unfavorable opinion of the horse, as it regarded my peculiar notions and wishes. That opinion was founded on a slight trial. I yesterday took a long ride on him among the hills, and put him through all his paces, and found him fully answer- ing the accounts given of him by your father and yourself. His trot is not what I could wish ; but that will improve, or will be less disagreeable as we become accustomed to each other, and get into each other's ways. He shies a little now and then, but that is probably the result of having him kept in the stable of late, without use. Daily exercise will in a great measure cure him of it. He canters well, and walks splen- didly. His temper appears to be perfect. He is lively and cheerful, without the least heat or fidgetiness, and is as docile as a lamb. I tried him also in harness in a light wagon, and found him just as gentle and tractable as under the saddle. He looks well and moves well in single harness, and a child might drive him. However, I mean to keep him entirely for the saddle. To conclude : when you write to your father, tell him I consider the hoise a prize ; and if he only continues to be- have as well as he did yesterday, I hardly know the sum of money would tempt me to part with him. I now look forward to a great deal of pleasant and healthy exercise on horseback — a recreation I have not enjoyed for years for want of a good saddle horse. It is like having a new sense. 22 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. And he did enjoy his first rides wonderfully. " In- stead," he says, " of being pinned down to one place, or forced to be trundled about on wheels, I went lounging and cantering about the country, in all holes and comers, and over the roughest roads." In less than a month, however, the same horse was conducted to the city by the nephew to whom the pre- ceding letter was addressed, and sold at Tattersall's ; and here is the closing chapter of his equestrian expe- rience with the animal whom he had hoped to find such a prize : You are pleased to hear (he writes to his niece in Paris, Mrs. Storrow, June 6) that I have a saddle horse. Unfortu- nately, I have him no longer. Your uncle Van "Wart pur- chased one for me, which appeared to be all that I could wish — handsome, young, gentle, and of excellent movement. I rode him two or three times, and was delighted with him, when, one day, the lurking fault came out. As I was taking a sauntering ride over the Sawmill River, and had gone a couple of miles, he ail at once stopped, and declined to go any farther. I tried all manner of means, but in vain ; he would do nothing but return home. On my way homeward, I tried him by dif- ferent roads, but all to no purpose ; home he would go. He was not restive, but calmly stubborn, and, when I endeavored to force him round, would quietly back against the fence, or get on two legs. So, as I did not care to waste time or temper on a sullen beast, home I did go — got off his back, and never mounted him again. He balked twice in like manner, but not so bad, with my coachman ; so I gave him over to I. V. "W., JEr. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 23 to be sold at auction, and was glad to get rid of him with the loss of twenty or thirty dollars. I shall not indulge in another saddle horse at present. The new building being finished and inhabited, and the alterations and additions having turned out beyond his hopes, both as to appearance and convenience, Mr. Irving, in felicitating himself upon his internal im- provements, writes to the same correspondent, June C : The nortli end of my study has been shelved like the other parts ; the books which so long were exiled to the garret, have been brought down and arranged, and my library now makes a very respectable appearance. Then passing from the internal to the external im- provements : As to my grounds, I have cut down and transplanted enough trees to furnish two ordinary places, and still there are, if anything, too many ; but I have opened beautiful views, and have given room for the air to circulate. The season is now in all its beauty ; the trees in full leaf, but the leaves fresh and tender ; the honeysuckles are in flower, and I think I never saw the place look so well. August 13, 1847, he writes to Mrs. Charlotte I. Grinnell, a niece recently severed from his household by marriage, in her new home on Cayuga Lake : * * * For a month past I have been busy and both- ered in an unexampled manner, in the improvement of my 24 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. farmyard, building of outhouses, &c., which has been altogether the most fatiguing and irksome job I have had in the whole course of my additions and improvements. I have now nearly got through, but it has almost made me fit to lie by again on the sofa. However, this job finished, I shall have my place in tolerable order, and will have little more to do than to see that my men keep it so. Ten days later, he writes to Mrs. Storrow, at Paris : * * * This has been a toilful year to me ; for, after I had completed the additions to my house, I proceeded to bring my place into complete order, to enclose a kitchen yard, to enclose the stable, and make a large farmyard, poultry yard, outhouses, &c. ; and working as much as possible with my own people, and planning and superintending everything my- self, it has kept me continually on my legs in the heat of the summer, fagged me excessively, and kept up and increased the inflammation of my unlucky ankles. I have now got through with all the essential improvements, and shall be able to give myself repose. * * * I have the satisfaction to have brought my place into order, and to have put it in a condition to be comfortably and conveniently managed hereafter. It is a snug establishment both within doors and without. Four days later, he writes, after alluding to the im- proved beauty of the country in that neighborhood : 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 ^Et. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 25 Tappan Zee and the hills beyond, all set, as it were, in verdant frames ; and I am never tired of sitting there in my old Vol- taire chair, of a long summer morning, with a book in my hand, sometimes reading, sometimes musing, and sometimes dozing, and mixing all up in a pleasant dream. To his sister, at Birmingham, Mrs. Van Wart, who had not seen her native city in forty years, he writes, August 29, 1847 : I often think what a strange world you would find yourself in, if you could revisit your native place, and mingle among your relatives. New York, as you knew it, was a mere corner of the present huge city ; and that corner is all changed, pulled to pieces, burnt down and rebuilt — all but our little native nest in William street, which still retains some of its old features, though those are daily altering.* I can hardly realize that, within my term of life, this great crowded metropolis, so full of life, bustle, noise, show, and splendor, was a quiet little city of some fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants. It is really now one of the most racketing cities in the world, and reminds me of one of the great European cities (Frankfort, for instance) in the time of an annual fair. Here it is a fair almost all the year round. For my part, I dread the noise and turmoil of it, and visit it but now and then, preferring the quiet of my coun- try retreat ; which shows that the bustling time of life is over with me, and that I am settling down into a sober, quiet, good- for-nothing old gentleman. * * * * This dwelling — No. 128 William street — the first home of which Washington or the sister to whom he was writing had any recollection, was pulled down in May, 1849, and a large edifice built on its site. Vol. IV.— 2 26 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847. I am scribbling tbis letter while the family are all at church. I hear the carriage at a distance, and shall soon have all hands at home. Oh ! my dear sister, what would I give if you and yours could this day be with us, and join the family gathering round my board. Every day I regret more and more this severance of the different branches of the family which casts us so widely asunder, with an ocean between us. Eleven days later (September 9), he writes to Mrs. Paris : I have just finished my last job, making a new ice pond in a colder and deeper place, in the glen just opposite our entrance gate ; and now I would not undertake another job, even so much as to build a wren coop, for the slightest job seems to swell into a toilsome and expensive operation. The following letter is addressed to a favorite little grandnieee at Paris, daughter of Mrs. Storrow, who had sent him an offering of one of her first efforts at sewing — the same of whom he says, in another letter : " Kate, who was my idol when I was in Paris, and used to take such possession of me, and oblige me to put away my spectacles, and give up my book, and en- tertain her for the hundredth time with the story of little Miss Muss and Hempen House." [To Miss Kate Storrow .] Sunntside, August 27, 1847. My dear Kate : I thank you very much for the beautiful handkerchief which you have sent me. I am very proud of it, and show it JBt.64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 27 to everybody, to let them see how capitally my clear little Kate can sew. I hope you will teach Tutu to handle her needle as well as you do, and then you and she will be able to do all your mamma's sewing, which will be a great saving to her, and a great help to Henriette. I am happy to hear that you have a nice little new sister. I trust, as you are a big girl now, you will take great care of her ; and, above all things, set ber a good example, by being a very good girl yourself, and very obedient to your mamma. As soon as she is old enough, you must take her with you and Tutu to the garden of the Tuileries, and show her to the little fish that used to give good little Betsey Posy a silver dish, and tell him that this is the new little sister of Betsey Posy and Jenny Posy, and that her name is Julie Posy, and then per- haps he will give her a silver dish also. Gi\*e my love to Tutu, and remember me kindly to Nanna and Aya. Your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. Though not in the order of time, I give in this place two other letters to the same little favorite, as specimens of the happy playfulness with which he adapted himself to the minds of children : [To the same.] Scnntsidk, July 15, 1852. My dear Kate : I thank you for your charming little letter. It is very well expressed and very nicely written, and, what pleases me most of all, it is written to me. You must have had a pleasant time at Compeigne with such an agreeable party. I recollect the 28 LIFE AND LETTERS 11847. place well, and the beautiful palace, with the pretty boudoir which you all liked so much because there was a glass there in which you saw yourselves four times. I did not notice that glass, and therefore was not so much struck with the boudoir. I recollect Pierrefond also, and was all over the ruins and the surrounding forest, which put me in mind of what I had read about old castles in fairy tales. If I could only have seen you driving through the forest in your open carriage with four white horses, I should have thought you one of the enchanted princesses. You should take care how you venture out of your carriage in such a place to gather lilies of the valley and other wild flowers. Don't you know what happened once to a young lady (I think her name was Proserpine), who was carried off by a wicked king in sight of her mamma, as she was gathering flowers in the same way you were ? Your mamma will tell you the story, if you have not heard it. You say you would like to live at Compeigne always, it is so pretty, and you passed your time so pleasantly in the park, " sitting on the grass, making beautiful wreaths of buttercups and daisies." I think one might pass one's life very pleasantly and profitably in that manner. I recollect trying my hand at buttercups and daisies once, and finding it very agreeable, though I have got out of the way of it of late years, except- ing that Dick, my horse, now and then cuts daisies with me when I am on his back ; but that's to please himself, not me. To-morrow I am going to set out on a journey with a large party, including your cousins Julia, Fanny, and Irving Grin- nell. "We shall see no castles, but will voyage on great lakes and rivers, and through wild forests. I wish you were going with us, but I suppose I must wish in vain ; that must be for some future day. And now, my dear Kate, give my love to ASr. 04.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 29 Susie and Julie, and my kind remembrances to Henriette [the nurse]. Your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. Two years later, he writes to the same little corre- spondent as follows : Sonntside, Feb. 21, 1854. My dear Kate : I have just received the slippers which you have been so very good as to work for me, and which have been a long time in the shoemaker's hands. Having put them on, I sit down to tell you how well they fit me ; how much I admire the colors you have chosen ; how much I am astonished and delighted with the needlework ; and how very sensibly I feel this proof of affectionate remembrance. I assure you I take great pride in exhibiting this specimen of the taste and skill of my Parisian niece, and, if I were in Paris, should be very much tempted to go to Court in them, even at the risk of causing a question of costume. I dined, a few days since, in company with your father's partner, Mr. B. * * * He told me that it was very pos- sible you might all pay a visit to America this year. That, however, I put about as much faith in as in the return of the fairies. I hope, however, you still keep up a recollection of your home on this side of the water, and of your young cousins who were your playmates. They and their intimates make a very happy circle, and it grieves me much that you and your sisters are not with them, all growing up together in delightful companionship. If you remain much longer separated, you will all forget each other. * * * Farewell, my dear Kate. Give my love to my dear little 30 WFE AND LETTERS [1847. nieces Tutu and Gaga (who I fancy have completely forgotten rne), and to your mother, to whom I wrote recently. Tell your father we should all give him a hearty welcome if he should really come out this summer ; and a still heartier one should he bring you all with him. Your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. The following is in reply to a youthful author, who sends him his " Summer in the Wilderness," of which he remarks : " It is an unpretending affair ; but, though published only about three months ago, it has already passed through an edition of fifteen hundred. * * * If, after you have glanced over the pages of my little book, you will send me a brief letter of ad- vice, I should consider myself your most grateful friend. Such a letter would be particularly acceptable at the present time, as I am preparing for the press no less than three new books — one upon American Art, one upon the Fishes of America, and another to be en- titled ' Adventures of an Angler.' " \To Charles Lanman, New York.] Sunntside, Oct. 15, 1847. My dear Sir : I would not reply to your very obliging letter of Septem- ber 10th, until I had time to read the volumes which accompa- nied it. This, from the pressure of various engagements, I have but just been able to do ; and I now return you thanks for the delightful entertainment Avhich your summer rambles have afforded me. I do not see that I have any literary advice jEt. G4.J OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 31 to give you, excepting to keep on as you have begun. You seem to have the happy, enjoyable humor of old Izaak Wal- ton. I anticipate great success, therefore, in your works on our American Fishes, and on Angling, which I trust will give us still further scenes and adventures on our great internal waters, depicted with the freshness and graphic skill of your present volumes. In fact, the adventurous life of the angler amidst our wild scenery on our vast lakes and rivers, must furnish a striking contrast to the quiet loiterings of the English angler along the Trent or Dove, with country milkmaids to sing mad- rigals to him, and a snug, decent country inn at night, where he may sleep in sheets that have been laid in lavender. "With best wishes for your success, I am, my dear sir, very truly your obliged, Washington Irving. Meanwhile, overtures were multiplying from the booksellers for a republication of his works, but he still delayed to make any definite arrangement. Trans- mitting to me some proposals he had received from dif- ferent publishers toward the close of September, he writes : " I am so much occupied, mind and pen, just now, on the History of Washington, that I have not time to turn these matters over in my mind." He was now, and for several months hereafter, hard at work on this biography, making it a daily task. At the date of the following letter, he is on a visit to the city, to be within reach of the libraries, but in- tending, as will be seen, to be at home to hold his Christmas gathering : 32 LIFE AND LETTERS [1847 [To Miss Catherine Irving.] New Yobk, Dec. 20, 1847. My deak Kate : I had expected to return home before this, but am so en- tangled in engagements, that I shall not be able before Christ- mas eve (Friday next). I trust you will have the rooms deco- rated with greens, as usual. I have been very busy and very dissipated during my so- journ in town — at work all the mornings in the libraries, and frolicking in the evenings. I have attended every opera. The house is beautiful, the troupe very fair, and the audience very fashionable. Such beautiful young ladies ! — but the town is full of them ; almost as beautiful as the young lady I saw in my dream at the cottage. iET. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 33 CHAPTEK II DINNER AT JOHN JACOB ASTOE's — CONVERSATION ABOUT GHOSTS — ENGAGED ON HIS LIFE OP WASHINGTON — ANNOYED AT THE WANT OF FEATURE IN PARTS OF THE WAR — THE OPERA HOUSE, ONE OF THE GREAT CHARMS OF NEW YORK THE PROJECTED RAILROAD ALONG THE BANKS OF THE HUDSON — IMPEND- ING DESECRATION OF SUNNYSIDE — TESTIMONIAL OF THE LAND COMMITTEE — ADJUSTMENT OF DAMAGES— LETTER TO HACKETT — ARRANGEMENT WITH MR. PUTNAM FOR THE REPUBLICATION OF HIS WORKS — KNICKERBOCKER — AU- THOR'S REMARKS ABOUT THE REVISED EDITION — NOTICE OF HENRY T. TUCK- ERMAN — A GERMAN COMMENTATOR CITING KNICKERBOCKER — SCHAEFFER'S CHRISTCS CONSOLATOR — NOTICES OF THE REPUBLICATION OF THE SKETCH BOOK — LIBERAL RECEPTION OF THE REVISED SERIES. t I THE opening of this year finds Mr. Irving on a -*- prolonged visit to New York. The following letter is addressed to Mrs. Storrow from the residence of his nephew, John T. Irving, where he was fixed for the present : New York, Feb. 27. * * * After eleven months' seclusion in the country, during which I made but three or four visits of business to town, going down and returning the same day in the boat, I came down on a visit early in the winter, having recovered sufficiently from my old malady to go again into society. The cordial, and I may say affectionate reception I met with every- where, and the delight I felt on mingling once more among old Vol. IV.— 2* (3) 34 LIFE AND LETTERS [1S48. friends, had such an enlivening effect upon me, that I soon re- peated my visit, and have ended by passing almost the whole of the winter in town. I think it has had a good effect upon me in every way. It has rejuvenated me, and given such a healthful tone to my mind and spirits, that I have worked with greater alacrity and success. I have my books and papers with me, and generally confine myself to the house and to my pen all the long morning, and then give up the evening to soci- ety and amusement. One great charm of New York, at present, is a beautiful opera house, and a very good troupe. We have a prima donna, named Truffi, who delights me as much as Grisi did, and in the same line of characters, though I will not say she is equal to her excepting in occasional scenes. She is an admi- rable actress and an excellent singer. "We have an excellent tenor also — a young man who, when he gets more cultivation and training, will be worthy of the Pans stage. The theatre is well arranged, and so fashionable in every part that there is no jealousy about places, as in the old opera house here. La- dies are seated everywhere, and, with their gay dresses, make what is the parquette in other theatres look like a bed of flow- ers. It is filled every night. Everybody is well dressed, and it is altogether one of the gayest, prettiest, and most polite- looking theatres I have ever seen. * * * I have not missed a single performance since I have been in town. ****** One meets all one's acquaintances at the opera, and there is much visiting from box to box, and pleasant conversation, be- tween the acts. The opera house is in fact the great feature in polite society in New York, and I believe is the great attrac- tion that keeps me in town. Music is to me the great sweet- ^Et. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 35 encr of existence, and I never enjoyed it more abundantly than at present. March 8, Mr. Irving refers to "a fancy ball re- cently given at the opera house, of which," he says, " I, sorely against my will, was made one of the man- agers." It was a distasteful position, but he had not the faculty of resisting well-intended importunity in trifles. A portion of this period of his lengthened sojourn in New York he was the guest of John Jacob Astor, then eighty-four years of age, whom he had often urged, he tells us, to commence his noble enterprise of the Astor Library, and enjoy the reputation of it while living. It was left, however, to be carried out under the provisions of his will. Calling on Mr. Irving one morning before break- fast at Mr. Astor's, I found him engaged on his Life of Washington, but somewhat out of patience at the want of feature in parts of the war. It was so barren of interest — such a cursed sand flat ; the two enemies, like two drunken men, impotently striking at each other without hurting. Sometimes, he said, he dragged along ; at other times got a little breeze, and went for- ward briskly ; then adverting to the changes of mood in his task, sometimes felt as if he could remove moun- tains ; at other times, the molehill was a mountain. I was dining with him, at another time, at Mr. Astor's, during this period, when, the conversation 36 LIFE AND LETTERS [1548. turning upon ghosts, I mentioned the story of Wesley, and the sanction given to it by Southey in his life of that eminent divine. , who was also dining there, instanced the story of Major Blomberg, and ex- pressed his surprise that neither Scott in his Demon- ology, nor Dendie in his Philosophy of Mystery, had included this most remarkable ghost story. Two offi- cers were sitting up with a corpse in the West Indies ; one was in the room with the body, the other in an adjoining room which communicated. The corpse rose ; came to the person in same room ; told him he had a secret to communicate, to prevent a great wrong ; had been permitted to return to life to reveal it ; bade him summon (which he did) his companion in the ad- joining room, to hear his disclosure ; told of a secret marriage to a girl in Ireland now with child ; stated the name of the clergyman who married them, and how they could get the evidence. had seen the depositions. Mr. Irving suggested the solution that the man was not dead, and that this secret lay so heavily on his mind as to rouse him from his state of apparent death. He then proceeded to say that he had been hardly treated by the ghosts ; that he had invoked the presence of the dead more than once, but in vain ; and brought up especially the singular com- pact with Hall, and its barren result, narrated in a pre- vious volume. Mr. Irving had been much disturbed by a project which had been started, of running a railroad along Mx. 64.] OF WASHINGTON IRTING. 37 the eastern bank of the Hudson. Besides the utter desecration which he considered it of that beautiful shore, it threatened to make his little cottage almost untenable, inasmuch as its situation on the immediate margin of the river would bring the nuisance, with all its noise and unsightliness, to his very door, and mar forever, as he feared, the peculiar charms for which he had chosen the spot — its quiet and retirement. For a time he hoped the plan would not be earned out, and, when it was actually decided, was quite in despair. It was hopeless, however, to rebel ; and, once settled, he began, in his accustomed way, to try to make the best of it. As it was carried a short distance out in the river, he was spared the trial of having it cross his very grounds ; and the trees along the bank formed a screen that he hoped, with a little care, would soon shut it out from view. Though in the first paroxysm of annoyance, therefore, he wished " he had been born when the world was finished/' and declared he be- lieved, " if the garden of Eden were now on earth, they would not hesitate to ran a railroad through it," yet, when the committee came whose duty it was to call on the owners of property, and arrange for the terms of compensation, Mr. Irving submitted at once, giving them permission to commence the work when they chose ; and, as the damage to him was such as could not be paid by money, left it entirely with them- selves to determine the amount of their award. " The liberal and courteous spirit," say the commit- 38 LIFE AND LETTERS [184& tee, in a letter of April 4, 1848, from which I quote, " in which you, last summer, gave permission to enter on your lands to commence the construction of the road, and in which the committee have uniformly been met by you in the discharge of their unpleasant duties, has been quite a solace to them amidst the many cases of a contrary character which have occurred. It is the more worthy of remark, as, in their view, you are more seriously invaded by this necessary work, in re- spect to derangement of rural taste and retirement, than is any other proprietor on the whole line of the road below the Highlands." In adjustment of these land damages, the railroad company paid him thirty -five hundred dollars. On the receipt of the first payment, he remarked wittily : " Why, I am harder on them than the wagoner was on Giles Gingerbread ; for he let him walk all the way to London alongside of his wagon without charging him anything, while I make them pay for only passing my door." The Mr. Putnam mentioned in this further extract from the same letter of April 10, is the well-known publisher, George P. Putnam, who had dissolved with his partner, John Wiley, at the close of the preceding year. John Jacob Astor, to whose vast estate Mr. Irving was named in his will as one of the executors, had died on the 29th of March. I am now negotiating an arrangement with Mr. Putnam for Mt. 65.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 39 the republication of my works, which promises to be a very- satisfactory one ; and I am attending preliminary meetings of the board of executors of Mr. Astor's estate. All these things detain me in town, and may oblige me hereafter to visit town frequently. ****** I trust the men are widening and cleaning out the side- walks. I shall send or bring up some seed or young plants of running vines for the porch by the front of the house — yearly plants, to serve while the roses are growing. The following letter, addressed to James H. Hack- ett, the popular comedian, and one of the best Falstaffs known to the stage, was written on returning to him a portion of his manuscript Notes and Criticisms on Shakspeare and Actors of Shakspeare, published entire many years afterward : New York, April 17, 1848. My dear Sir : I have detained your manuscript notes an unconscionable time, but I could not help it. I wished to read them atten- tively, for they are remarkably suggestive, and not to be read in a hurry ; but for the last two or three months, spent among my friends and relatives in my native city after an absence of several years, I have been kept in such a round of engage- ments, and such constant excitement, that I have only now and then been able to command a little leisure and quiet for reading and reflection. At such moments I have perused your manu- scripts by piecemeal, and now return you my many thanks for the great pleasure they have afforded me. I will not pretend 40 LIFE AND LETTERS [1848. to enter at present into any discussion of the topics they em- brace, for I have not sufficient faith in my critical acumen to commit my thoughts to paper ; but when I have the pleasure of meeting with you personally, we will talk over these mat- ters as largely as you please. I have seen all the leading characters of Shakspeare played by the best actors in America and England during the present century ; some of them, too, admirably performed in Germany. I have heard some of them chanted in the Italian opera, and I have seen the ballet of " Hamlet " gravely danced at Vienna. Yet, with all this ex- perience, I feel that I am an amateur rather than a connoisseur ; prone to receive great pleasure without nicely analyzing the source, and sometimes apt to clap my hands when grave critics shake their heads. Excuse this scrawl, written in a hurried moment, and be- lieve me, with great respect and regard, your obliged friend and servant, "Washington Irving. The agreement with Mr. George P. Putnam, by which Mr. Irving was to prepare revised copies of all his works for publication, bears date July 26, 1848. By this arrangement, which was to continue for five years, Mr. Putnam was to have the exclusive right of publishing his already published works and writings in uniform duodecimo volumes, until the whole series was completed, at such intervals as the publisher might find most for the mutual interest of the parties. He had the right also to publish one or more of the works in a larger size, and illustrated. Mr. Putnam was to be at JEr. 65.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 41 the whole charge of publication, " including all the expenses thereto incident," and was to pay Mr. Irving twelve and a half per cent, on the retail price of all the copies sold. The accounts of sales were to be bal- anced at the end of every year, commencing with July, 1849 ; and the author was to receive, in notes at four months, the amount accruing to him at the above rate ; but, in anticipation of such general adjustment, Mr. Putnam agreed to pay him, in quarterly payments, one thousand dollars for the first year, fifteen hundred for the second, and two thousand for the third, fourth, and fifth years ; all of which payments were to be made on account of the percentage above specified, in the con- fident expectation of the publisher that the year's re- ceipts would overrun the amount advanced, and that the author would have a surplus to receive at the stated period of settlement. In case of a disappointment in this particular, and that the percentage within the year should not amount to the sum or sums advanced, the author was not to be called upon to refund any part of the advance. In other words, by this agreement, Mr. Putnam was answerable for the payment of eight thou- sand five hundred dollars — the sum provided for in the several annual advances — whatever be the amount of the percentage ; but whenever this guarantee of eight thousand five hundred dollars should be covered by the gross amount of profits received by Mr. Irving, the ad- vances were to cease ; or, if continued at the stipulated rate, and at the annual settlement it should appear that 4-2 LIFE AND LETTERS [1843. they had overrun the percentage, the author was to refund the difference. The arrangement redounded to the advantage of both. On the 18th of August, during a holiday visit I was making at Sunnyside, Mr. Irving brought to the cot- tage, from the city, a copy of the revised edition of Knickerbocker's History of New York, printed, and to be published on the 1st of September. I turned over the pages, and observed to him that there appeared to be considerable additions besides the Author's Apol- ogy, which he had written expressly for this new edi- tion. He replied that he had made some changes, and, he hoped, improvements ; thought that he had mel- lowed and softened a good deal that was overcharged ; had chastened the exaggerated humor of some portions — the effect of age and improved taste combined ; and tempered the rawness of other parts without losing any of the raciness. If he had the work to write anew, he thought he could have brought out many things in a finer and higher vein of humor ; but some of the jokes had got so implanted, he was afraid to disturb them. The undertaking of Mr. Putnam was greeted with a cordial welcome by many of our literary luminaries. " A new edition of Washington Irving's works," writes the polished essayist, H. T. Tuckerman, on the first putting forth of Knickerbocker, " has long been in con- templation ; but perhaps it is not so generally known, that the writings of this elegant pioneer of American JEt. 65.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 43 literature have long been out of print in his own coun- try. A stray volume or two of the cheap Philadelphia edition, wholly unfit to grace a library shelf, or the bulky octavo published in Paris, may occasionally be encountered ; but, strange as it may seem, a complete, readable, and authorized edition of ' Geoffrey Crayon' has long been a desideratum. Since the dawn of his popularity, thousands of a new. generation have sprang up in the far "West, and along the Atlantic, who know this ornament to their country's genius only by frag- ments, and from the voice of renown. Accordingly, the enterprise of Mr. Putnam was not only required as a convenience, but almost as a necessity. * * * The series is very appropriately commenced with ' Knickerbocker's New York ' — one of the most origi- nal and elaborate pieces of humor to which our lan- guage has given birth." Another unknown but evidently practised pen, after descanting on the beauty of the volume in its type and finish, remarks : If any works of our language are worthy of such choice embalming, and such an honored place in all libraries as these volumes are destined to fill, it is those of "Washington Irving. Their quaint and exhaustless humor, rich, graceful, and exuber- ant fancy, and the pure and natural vein of feeling, deepening into pathos, which runs through them, make them, in an emi- nent sense, household works — works to be read by the winter fireside, or in the calm of summer twilight, always cheering and soothing in their influence, and conveying strengthening 44 LIFE AND LETTERS [1848. and instructive lessons in a form which the mind is always ready to receive. To the writings of Diedrich Knickerbocker, especially, may be applied the words of Sir Philip Sidney : " He cometh to you with a tale that holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner." The volume before us has been thoroughly revised, and now wears the final form in which posterity will receive it. Its in- terest is increased by a curious history of the manner in which the work was first published. The adroitness with which the public was prepared for the appearance of the book, is very amusing, and we wonder not that foreigners should have been puzzled in what manner to understand it. It is an amusing fact in connection with this allu- sion to the difficulty of foreigners in what manner to understand Knickerbocker, that a learned German commentator, in some notes to a German edition of Thucydides, has a grave reference to Knickerbocker's History of the old factions of the Long Pipes and Short Pipes, as an illustration of the profound remarks of Thucydides on the evils arising from the prevalence of factions throughout Greece. " Laughable as this undoubtedly is," writes Tuckerman, in noticing the fact, " it is probable that a more flattering testimony was never borne to the inimitable skill displayed in every page of Knickerbocker's Historij of New York. It is highly amusing, however, to think of the utter mystification and bewilderment in which Goeller must have been, while laboriously perusing the soi-disant history, and endeavoring to treasure up in his memory Mt. 65.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 45 the well-authenticated and instructive facts with which it abounds." * On the same day that Mr. Irving brought to the cottage this first volume of the revised edition of his works, his most humorous composition, he brought home also a picture which had strongly touched his religious sensibilities. This was Dupont's engraving of Ary Schaeffer's Christus Consolator, which he had recently bought, and left to be mounted and framed. The engraving first caught his eye, as he told me, in the window of a German shop in Broadway, and he then gazed at it until the tears gathered in his eyes, without knowing whose it was. Finding it was from Schaeffer, he went in at once and bought it, and ordered it to be framed. After tea he took mallet and chisel, and proceeded to unbox it. It was indeed an exquisite thing, full of the deepest sentiment ; and as Mr. Irving continued to look at it, the tears started again to his eyes. He thought he had never seen any- thing so affecting — " there was nothing superior to it in the world of art;" then he burst out into an ex- pression of regret at not having seen more of Schaeffer. He had met him at Paris on his last visit to Europe, at a house where he used to meet Lamennais and others, and had been urged to go to his studio, but never went. " It was one of the negligences of my life." * The instance occurs in Goeller's Thucydides, in a note on the 82d chapter of the 3d book, and the reference is to Washington Irving's His- tory of New York, lib. vii, cap. 5. 4G LIFE AND LETTERS [1848. It was in the autumn of this year that he united himself to the Episcopal Church, of which he had never before been a member ; and he was no doubt particularly susceptible at this period to the emotions such an engraving was calculated to excite. I give a few specimens from the literary notices of the day, to show the unbroken charm of the Sketch Book, and the cordial welcome it received. It was the second volume of the new series, and was published about the 1st of October. I should add, that the inter- est of the volume was enhanced by a preface, which contained a narrative of the circumstances of the first publication of the work. The second volume of Putnam's elegant edition of Irving is before us. The Sketch Book, purely classic and beautiful as is its language, seems to read even more refreshingly in the present choice getting up. It is needless to refer to the work itself; for who that reads at all has failed to make acquaint- ance with its pages? The exquisite sketches of "The "Wife," the " Broken Heart," and " Rural Funerals," have been an utterance and a consolation to many a heart, and they will not soon cease their mission. " Rip Van Winkle " and the " Le- gend of Sleepy Hollow " have taken root in the soil which produced them ; and the graphic papers on the Christmas Festivities of England have been adopted as part of the records of her homes. Few single works have attained a wider reach of influence, or a more enduring fame. I find in Bryant's Evening Post of October 13, the following notice of its republication : JEt. 65.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 47 Washington Trving's name is uppermost in our thoughts when speaking the claims or recounting the successes of Ameri- can authorship. He has had the homage of critics on both sides of the Atlantic ; the cordial praise of men of letters, his contemporaries and colaborers ; some share of those executive favors which are rarely accorded as tributes to literary emi- nence ; and he enjoys a reputation dignified by the union of high personal character, and unmarred by any of those personal jealousies that so often discredit established reputations, or that latter-day mediocrity that threatens them with final bankruptcy. We are glad to find him devoting part of the leisure of Sunny- side to the revision of his works for their uniform publication. * * * The first purchasers of this volume will be, if we mistake not, those who have read it oftenest. Its familiar papers come to most readers with the charm of long acquaint- ance ; they are amongst the old wine in their stores of pleasant book recollections. Kip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane are universal heroes ; the Widow and her Son have made their appeal to everybody's sympathies ; and every American travel- ler in England divides the enjoyment and the reminiscences of his pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon between Shakspeare and Irving. * * * Late in October I called on Mr. Irving, then in New York, and found him engaged on his Life of Ma- homet, evidently somewhat fagged. I told him I saw Putnam had advertised its appearance for the 1st of January. Yes, he said ; he was afraid it would hurry him to get ready ; he gave him a negligent answer, and he fixed a day. Was a good deal bothered in his 48 LIFE AND LETTERS [1848. anxiety to finish this and the Life of Washington. Hoped he would not drop in harness. I told him the uniform edition was doing so well, he could afford to take his ease, and not to drudge. " Yes," said he ; " but I know my nature. I must get through with the work I have cut out for myself. I must weave my web, and then die." A few days afterward, the third of the series of the new edition of his works, being the first volume of " The Life and Voyages of Columbus," made its ap- pearance ; and in the preface the author took occasion to notice the accusation that he had not given suflicient credit to Don Martin Fernandez de Xavarrete for the aid he had derived from his collection of documents ; quoting, in refutation, a letter of Navarrete himself, and that author's own words also, in the third volume of his Collection of Spanish Voyages. The next volume of the revised series — Bracebridge Hall — was published on the 1st of December. " When we consider," says the Evening Post, in a notice of its appearance, " that in Bracebridge Hall are to be found Beady-Money Jack and the Stout Gentleman, as ex- amples of Irving's comic power, and Annette Delarbre as an instance of his command over the gentler emo- tions, we are tempted to ask whether he has done any- thing better than his Bracebridge Hall." Four volumes of the revised series were now pub- lished, and the sale, for books that were not new, was unprecedented. By many, the enterprise had been Mi. Co.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 49 pronounced a rash one ; but the reception given to these volumes by the public, proved, in the language of another, " the solidity of the author's reputation, and seemed like a recognition of his works as an abid- ing part of his ' land's language.' " Forty years had gone by since Knickerbocker was first introduced to the public ; and thirty years had wellnigh passed away since, in his original preface to the first number of the Sketch Book, he wrote : The following writings are published on experiment. Should they please, they may be followed by others. * * * Should his exertions be well received, the author cannot con- ceal that it would be a source of the purest gratification ; for, though he does not aspire to those high honors which are the rewards of loftier intellects, yet it is the dearest wish of his heart to have a secure and cherished, though humble corner, in the good opinions and kind feelings of his countrymen. " Little did he then anticipate," says an anonymous contemporary, in quoting this passage, " that the Gospel annunciation, * He that humbleth himself shall be ex- alted,' would be so fully verified in his case ; that the ' high honors ' to which he did not aspire, would be ac- corded to him of right ; and that the l humble corner ' he coveted in the affections of his countrymen, should prove to be the most favored spot." Vol. IV.— 3 (4) 50 LIFE AND LETTERS [1848. CHAPTEE III. TTNPRECEDENTED SALE OP REVISED EDITION OF THE SKETCH BOOK — ENGAGED UPON A LIFE OF GOLDSMITH — ITS PUBLICATION — RIPLEY'S NOTICE — CRITIQUE OF GEORGE W. GREENE — APPEARANCE OF MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS — THE REVISED ALHAMBRA AND CONQUEST OF GRANADA — ANXIETY TO BEGIN ANEW ON LIFE OF WASHINGTON. T 1 iHIS year opened most encouragingly. The issue -*- of the seventh thousand of the Sketch. Book was advertised on or about the 1st of February, less than four months after its republication, and Putnam gave the most flattering reports of the manner in which the illustrated edition had gone off during the holidays. The profits of this last named edition were mainly the publisher's, Mr. Irving being at no expense for the embellishments, receiving merely the twelve and a half per cent, on the retail price of so many ordinary copies. All the illustrated editions of his works were got up exclusively by his publisher. Bracebridge Hall, the author's last monthly publi- cation, was followed in January by the second volume of the Life and Voyages of Columbus, and in Febru- ary by volume third, including the Companions of Co- lumbus. The Tales of a Traveller were brought out in JB.T. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 51 March, Astoria in April, and the Crayon Miscellany in May. In noticing the appearance of this last, which com- prised the Tour on the Prairies, Abbotsford, and New- stead Abbey, the editor of the Literary World re- marks : The author's " Astoria," the last monthly publication of the series, has, from its timely issue, when men's eyes are directed to the " California Trail," met with the most distinguished suc- cess. It is appropriately followed by the Tour to the Prairies, included in the present volume. The next, we understand, will be a republication of Captain Bonneville's Adventures, which will complete the volumes through which Irving has so happily connected his name with the History of the Great "West. The charm of the Tour to the Prairies is its unique, finished charac- ter. It is a little episode of the author's life, in which he has condensed the sentiment and fresh spirit of adventure conse- quent on his return to American life, after long familiarity with the over-cultivation of Europe. It will probably be read as long as any of his writings. The Sketch of Abbotsford and its Master is one of the most gra«eful and truthful of the many reminiscences of Scott. How admirably the character of Sir Walter's conversation is conveyed in a line — " The conversa- tion of Scott was frank, hearty, picturesque, and dramatic." The anecdotes and traits of the great Master, charmingly told in this narrative, are all to the point. The paper which con- cludes this volume of the Miscellany on Newstead Abbey, re- minds us of the best of the Sketch Book or Bracebridge Hall. 52 LIFE AND LETTERS [.1849. Of The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, the next in the series of Mr. Irving's collected works, a cotemporary remarks : This book loses none of its freshness or interest with the lapse of years. The contrast between the polished, luxuriant style of its composition, and the wild, daring adventures of forest life which it describes, gives it a peculiar charm, and leads many to prefer it to the more universally admired productions of its popular author. On the 5th of Jnly, soon after a return from a short visit to his niece on Cayuga Lake, Mr. Irving writes to Mrs. Storrow as follows : For upward of a year past I have been very much from home, obliged to be for the most of the time in the city, super- intending the publication of a new and revised edition of my works, making researches for other works on which I am em- ployed, and attending to the settlement of Mr. Astor's estate, and the organization of the Astor Library. Altogether, I have had more toil of head and fagging of the pen for the last eighteen months, than in any other period of my life, and have been once or twice fearful my health might become deranged, but it has held out marvellously ; and now I hope to be able to ease off in my toils, and to pass my time at home as usual. In the succeeding month, he received from the Astor estate, here mentioned, his share of the commis- sions devolving upon the executors, amounting to ten thousand five hundred and ninety-two dollars and J*r. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 53 sixty-six cents. It was shortly before this that he called at my office, and, speaking of his fagging at the Life of Goldsmith, two or three chapters of which he had still to write, said it had taken more time than he could afford — had plucked the heart out of his sum- mer ; and after all he could only play with the subject. He had no time to finish it off as he wished. He had now published all but two of the revised edition of his works — The Chronicles of Granada and The Alhambra — and had intermitted the continuation of the series and his Life of Washington, to take up the Life of Goldsmith. It was a sudden literary freak, similar to that which had induced him, when first in Spain, to break off from Columbus to begin the Chronicles of Granada, and had subsequently drawn him aside to his Moorish Chronicles. His publisher, Mr. Putnam, in his Recollections of Irving, communicated to the Atlantic Magazine in November, 1860, has the following glimpse at its origin : Sitting at my desk, one day, he was looking at Forster's clever work, which I proposed to reprint. He remarked that it was a favorite theme of his, and he had half a mind to pur- sue it, and extend into a volume a sketch he had once made for an edition of Goldsmith's Works. I expressed a hope that he would do so ; and within sixty days the first sheets of Irving's " Goldsmith " were in the printer's hands. The press (as he says) was M dogging at his heels," for in two or three weeks the volume was published. £4. LIFE AND LETTERS [1849. I was on a visit to the cottage when it came out, and, reading it at once, expressed to him my satisfac- tion with the work. He replied that he had been afraid to look at it since it was brought up, for lie had never written anything in such a hurry. He wanted more time for it, and did not know but that his talents might be nagging. " Are you sure it does not smell of the apoplexy ? " he inquired, in playful allusion to Gil Bias and the Archbishop of Granada. A few days after, Mr. Irving received a note from Mr. George Bipley, at the head of the literary depart- ment of the New York Tribune, and more widely known of late years as one of the editors of the New American Cyclopaedia, enclosing the following cordial and animated notice : Everything combines to make this one of the most fasci- nating pieces of biography in the English language. Enough is known of the personal history and character of Goldsmith, to tempt us to recur to the subject with fresh interest ; but he has not been so bandied about by life-writers and reviewers as to satiate curiosity. The simplicity, and even the weaknesses of his nature, call forth a feeling of affection ; and the charm of his writings, so unaffected, so naive, so transparent in their crystal purity of expression, attracts us to a more intimate ac- quaintance with the author. Mr. Irving was in possession of abundant materials to do justice to the subject. He had only to insert his exquisite magnetic needle into the mass, to give a choice and shapely form to all that was valuable in the labors of previous biographers. He has done this in a manner which JSa. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 55 leaves nothing to be desired. With a genial admiration of Goldsmith, with a cordial appreciation of the spirit of his writings, and with many similar intellectual tendencies, he has portrayed the varied picture of his life with a grace and ele- gance that make his narrative as charming a piece of composi- tion as can be found in the whole range of his former works. He has added a new enchantment to the potent spell with which he always binds the hearts of his readers. * * * He has performed this task with a facile excellence peculiar to himself; and henceforth the two names of Irving and Gold- smith will be united in the recollection of the delightful hours which each has given to such a host of " happy human beings." There could not be a more admirable description of the influence of his own writings, than Mr. Irving has given in his opening paragraph on Goldsmith. "We will not forego the pleasure of quoting it entire. " There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so eminently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with their writings. We read his character in every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams through- out his works ; the whimsical, yet amiable views of human life and human nature ; the unforced humor, blending so .happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed, at times, with a pleasing melancholy ; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly-tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time that we admire the author. While the productions of writers of loftier pretension and more sound- ing names are suffered to moulder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cherished, and laid in our bosoms. We do not 56 LIFE AND LETTERS [1849. quote them with ostentation, but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers, and harmonize our thoughts ; they put us in good humor with ourselves and with the world, and, in so doing they make us happier and better men." In an elaborate critique of some of Mr. Irvirjg's works, contributed to the Christian Review in April, 1850, a skilful writer and ripe scholar, Prof. George "W. Greene, holds this language about the Life of Gold- smith : If there is anybody of whom it could be said that it was his duty to write a Life of Goldsmith, it is "Washington Irving ; and, often as we have had occasion to thank him for happy hours, we do not know that we ever felt so grateful to him for anything as for this. We have always loved Goldsmith, his poetry and his prose, and everything about him. There is not a poem in the language that we can go back to with the same zest with which we open the Traveller or the Deserted Village for the five hundredth time ; and we can never get through a ten minutes' speech without quoting the Vicar of Wakefield. And yet we must say frankly, that we never understood Gold- smith's character until now. We have been vexed at his weakness, and have blushed at his blunders. We had always wished he could have thrown off his brogue, and had never put on his bloom-colored coat. That he should not have known how to keep his money, was not very wonderful — it is a pro- fessional weakness ; but he might at any rate have thrown it away in better company. We have been more than once sorely troubled, too, by sundry little slips that savored some- what of moral obliquity, and never been able to reconcile the -<Et. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 57 elevation of his intellect with acts that far less rigorous judges than we have characterized as mean and degrading. In short, with all our contempt for Boswell, we have been fairly Bos- wellized, and, much as we loved Goldsmith, loved him some- what in despite of what we thought our better judgment. Thanks to Mr. Irving, our doubts have all been solved, and we can love the kind, simple-hearted, genial man with as much confidence as we admire his writings. This overflowing of the heart, this true philosophy, so interwoven with his whole na- ture, that, whether he acts or speaks, you find it as strongly marked in his actions as in his language ; that quick sensibility, which makes him so keenly alive to all the petty annoyances of his dependent position, and that buoyancy of spirit which raises him above them, and bears him up on the wave while many a stouter heart is sinking around him ; those ready sym- pathies, that self-forgetfulness, that innate, unprompted, sponta- neous philanthropy, which, in the days of his prosperity as well as in his days of trial, was never belied by word or by deed — all these we understand as we never understood them before, and feel how rare and beautiful they are. He was not wise in his own concerns, and yet what treasures of wisdom has he not bequeathed to the world ! Artless as an infant, yet how deeply read in human nature ; with all his feelings upon the surface, ruffled by every breeze and glowing in every sun- beam, and yet how skilled in all the secret windings of the heart. None but a man of genial nature should ever attempt to write the Life of Goldsmith : one who knows how much wisdom can be extracted from folly ; how much better for the heart it is to trust than to doubt ; how much nobler is a gener- ous impulse than a cautious reserve ; how much truer a wis- Vol. IV.— 3* 58 LIFE AND LETTERS [1849. dom there is in benevolence, than in all the shrewd devices of worldly craft. Now Mr. Irving is just the man to feel all this, and to make you feel it too. He sees how weak Goldsmith is in many things, how wise in others, and he sees how closely his wisdom and his weakness are allied. There is no condescen- sion in his pity, none of that parade which often makes pity tenfold more bitter than the sufferings which call it forth. He tells you the story of his hero's errors as freely as he does that of his virtues, and in a way to make you feel that a man may have many a human weakness lie heavy at his door, and yef be worthy of our love and admiration still. He has no desire to conceal, makes no attempt to palliate. He understands his hero's character thoroughly, and feels that if he can only make you understand it, you will love him as much as he does. Therefore he draws him just as he is, lights and shadows, vir- tues and foibles — vices you cannot call them, be you never so unkind. At his blunders he laughs, just as Goldsmith himself used to laugh in recounting them ; and he feels the secret of his virtues too justly to attempt to gild them over with useless embellishment. Speaking to Mr. Irving of this biography of Gold- smith, soon after its appearance, I asked him if he had introduced any anecdotes not in Prior's or Forster's Life of him. " ISTo," playfully ; " I could not invent any new ones ; but I have altered the setting, and have introduced — not in their biography — Madame Darblay's anecdote about Boswell and Johnson, which is capital. I have also made more of the Jessamy JE.T. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 59 Bride, by adverting to the dates in the tailor's bill, and fixing thereby the dates of certain visits to her." Mr. Irving, it will be remembered, before either Prior or Forster entered the field, had sketched a Life of Goldsmith, to accompany a Paris edition of that author's works. This sketch was subsequently ampli- fied from the materials brought to light by Prior, and prefixed to some American selections of Goldsmith for Harpers' Family Library. It was now expanded into its present form from the additions of Forster. Of this biography, while giving full credit to the previous labors of Prior and Forster, the Literary World re- marks : " You may have read the story a hundred 'times, but you will read it again as a new thing in this Biography of Irving." On the 19th of September, I stopped in at Put- nam's, who told me he had already disposed of the first edition of Goldsmith of 2,500, and was now busy on a second of 2,000. I wrote to Mi*. Irving to that effect, and added that it had increased his publisher's impa- tience for the appearance of Mahomet. In his reply of the 21st, he says : I am getting on very -well, but am not yet in a mood to take up my pen ; so Mr. Putnam must stay his stomach with Goldsmith a little longer. I suppose, because I knocked off that work in such an offhand manner, he thinks it a very easy matter with me " to blow up a dog." If the reader should not see the point of this quo- g0 LIFE AND LETTERS [1849. tation, lie is referred to the preface of the second part of Don Quixote. It was some months after this that I mentioned to him an article I had been reading in a weekly periodi- cal, in which the writer, evidently alluding to his pref- ace in his biography of Goldsmith, styles him, in an invidious spirit, " a self-acknowledged imitator of that author." At the close of that preface, the reader may remember he addresses Goldsmith in the language of Dante's apostrophe to Yirgil : " Tu se' lo mio maestro, e'l mio autore ; Tu se' solo colui da cui io tolsi Lo bello stile che m'a fatto onore." Translated, Thou art my master, and my teacher thou ; It was from thee, and thee alone, I took That noble style for which men honor me. He smiled ; said he meant only to express his affec- tionate admiration of Goldsmith, but it would never do for an author to acknowledge anything. Was never conscious of an attempt to write after any model. !N"o man of genius ever did. From his earliest attempts, everything fell naturally from him. His style, he be- lieved, was as much his own as though Goldsmith had never written — as much his own as his voice. This was not the language of self-eulogy, but of quiet self-vindication. He had never meant to warrant Mt. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. (JJ. such j>erversion of his quotation, any more than Dante meant to confess himself an imitator of Virgil. There were undoubtedly qualities of style as well as mental and moral characteristics in which he resembled both Goldsmith and Addison, the two with whom he is most frequently compared, while in others it would be im- possible to confound them. The first volume of Mahomet and his Successors, which had been prematurely advertised for the begin- ning of the year, appeared at its close, December 15, with the following preface, which gives a succinct his- tory of the origin and scope of the work, and its grad- ual and intermitted composition : Some apology may seem necessary for presenting a Life of Mahomet at the present day, when no new fact can be added to those already known concerning him. Many years since, during a residence in Madrid, the author projected a series of writings illustrative of the domination of the Arabs in Spain. These were to be introduced by a sketch of the life of the founder of the Islam faith, and the first mover of Arabian con- quest. Most of the particulars for this were drawn from Span- ish sources, and from Gagnier's translation of the Arabian his- torian Abulfelda, a copy of which the author found in the Jesuits' Library of the Convent of St. Isidro, at Madrid. Not having followed out, in its extent, the literary plan devised, the manuscript Life lay neglected among the author's papers until the year 1831, when he revised and enlarged it for the Family Library of Mr. John Murray. Circumstances pre- vented its publication at the time, and it again was thrown aside for years. 62 I^E AND LETTERS [1849. During his last residence in Spain, the author beguiled the tediousness of a lingering indisposition by again revising the manuscript, profiting, in so doing, by recent lights thrown on the subject by different writers, and particularly by Dr. Gustav Weil, the very intelligent and learned librarian of the Univer- sity, of Heidelberg, to whose industrious researches and able disquisitions he acknowledges himself greatly indebted.* Such is the origin of the work now given to the public ; in which the author lays no claim to novelty of fact, nor pro- fundity of research. It still bears the type of a work intended for a Family Library ; in constructing which, the whole aim of the writer has been to digest into an easy, perspicuous, and flowing narrative, the admitted facts concerning Mahomet, to- gether with such legends and traditions as have been wrought into the whole system of oriental literature ; and at the same time to give such a summary of his faith as might be sufficient for the more general reader. In April, 1850, Mr. Irving gave to the world the second volume of Mahomet and his Successors, which was greeted with the following notice from the same pen which heralded the appearance of his Life of Goldsmith : The progress of the Moslem dominion, from the death of Mahomet in the year 622, to the invasion of Spain in 710, forms the subject of the present elegant volume. During this period of less than a century, the Moslems extended their do- minion over the wide regions of Asia and Africa, carried their * Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lebre. Stuttgart, 1843. Mr. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 63 conquests in one direction to the walls of Constantinople, and in another to the farthest limits of Mauritania, and trampled down the dynasties which once held universal sway in the East. "The whole," says Mr. Irving, "presents a striking instance of the triumph of fanatic enthusiasm over disciplined valor, at a period when the invention of firearms had not re- duced war to a matter of almost arithmetical calculation. There is also an air of wild romance about many of the events recorded in this narrative, owing to the character of the Arabs, and their fondness for stratagems, daring exploits, and individ- ual achievements of an extravagant nature." Mr. Irving has not felt himself bound to follow the example of the most cau- tious historians in suppressing or softening down these romantic adventures, but has interwoven them with consummate skill into his narrative, and has thus given it a fresh and vigorous vitality, in unison with the exciting and triumphant career of the people whom he describes. In deciding on the plan of his work, Mr. Irving disclaims all pretensions to being consulted as an authority, and has attempted only to present a digest of current knowledge adapted to popular use. He has accordingly adopted a form between biography and chronicle, admitting of personal anec- dotes and a more familiar style of narrative than is compatible with the severe dignity of historical composition. "We scarcely need say, that, in a department of literary effort so congenial to the studies and tastes of the admirable author, we find the same flowing beauty of expression and felicitous grouping of individuals and events, which give such a magic charm to every production of his honey-dropping pen. The only sen- tence which we regret in the volume, is the concluding one, which expresses a doubt of the continuation of the fascinating 64- EIFE AND LETTERS [1849. narrative to its natural and legitimate close. " "Whether it will ever be our lot to resume this theme, to cross with the Moslem hosts the Straits of Hercules, and narrate their memorable con- quest of Gothic Spain, is one of those uncertainties of mortal life and aspirations of literary zeal which beguile us with agree- able dreams, but too often end in disappointment." The Biography of Goldsmith, and the two volumes of Mahomet and his Successors, were added to the list of Mr. Irving's collected works while the publication of the revised edition was yet incomplete. The Al- hambra followed the last volume of Mahomet and his Successors, in May ; and the Conquest of Granada, which closed the series, and of which he had written some new chapters from new lights, appeared in the succeeding summer. The publication of this work in a revised form, seemed to revive his anxiety to com- plete the two manuscript volumes of Moorish Chroni- cles, mentioned in a previous chapter ; while at the same time he expressed the most earnest desire to begin anew upon his Life of Washington, which had been made to give place to the Life of Goldsmith, and the preparation of the two volumes of Mahomet and his Successors. " All I fear," was once his language to me, " is to fail in health, and fail in completing this work at the same time. If I can only live to finish it, I would be willing to die the next moment. I think I can make it a most interesting book — can give interest and strength to many points, without any prostration Mt. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 65 of historic dignity. If I had only ten years more of* life ! " he exclaimed. " I never felt more able to write. I might not conceive as I did in earlier days, -when I had more romance of feeling, but I could execute with more rapidity and freedom." Vol. IV.— (5) (J6 LIFE AND LETTERS [1850. CHAPTEK IY. LETTERS TO GOUVERNEUR KEMBLE — DURAND'S PICTURE — THE HORRORS OF THE STEAM WHISTLE — LETTER TO GEORGE TICKNOR THE EMBOZADO LETTER TO MRS. STORROW — DEATH OF PRESIDENT TATLOR — VISIT TO JAMES K. PAULDING — JENNY LIND — LETTER TO MISS HAMILTON — THE AUTHOR'S HEGIRA. rpHE following is a reply of Mr. Irving to his -*- friend Kemble, who had requested him, when in town, to call at Durand's, the artist, and tell him what he thought of a landscape he had some idea of pur- chasing when it was finished : New York, Feb. 7, 1850. My dear Kemble : I have called with to see Durand's picture, and we were both delighted with it. It is beautiful — beautiful. Such truth of detail with such breadth ; such atmosphere, such har- mony, such repose, such coloring. The group of trees in the foreground is admirable ; the characters of the trees so diversi- fied and accurate ; the texture and coloring of their barks ; the peculiarities of their foliage. The whole picture had the effect upon me of a delightful piece of music. I think it would be a charming addition to the Jxemble gallery. ****** I shall avail myself of the railroad, one of these days, to uEt. 66.J OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 67 pay you the visit you suggest ; but I must first get out of the clutches of the printers. His friend had informed him that he could now at any time take the railroad at New York at four p. m., and dine with him at Cold Spring at six ; from which it would appear that the cars were passing his door. We hear no complaint from him, however, until he became for the first subjected to the annoyance of the steam whistle, during a severe fit of illness from which he was just recovering, when he breaks forth as fol- lows, in a letter to Gouverneur Kemble, one of the directors of the company : Sunntside, Aug. 7, 1850. My dear Kemble : Excuse my not answering sooner your kind letter. It found me in a terrible state of shattered nerves ; having been startled out of my first sleep at midnight, on Saturday night last, by the infernal alarum of your railroad steam trumpet. It left me in a deplorable state of nervous agitation for upward of an hour. I remained sleepless until daybreak, and miser- able all the following day. It seemed to me almost as if done on purpose, for the trains had ceased for several days to make their diabolical blasts opposite my bouse. They have not mo- lested me in this way since, and have clearly shown, by the cautious and tempered management of their whistle, that these unearthly yells and howls and screams, indulged in for a mile on a stretcb, and destructive to the quiet of whole neighbor- hoods, are carried to an unnecessary and unwarrantable excess. They form one of the greatest nuisances attending railroads, 68 LIFE AND LETTERS [1850. and I am surprised that, in the present state of mechanical art, some signal less coarse and brutal could not be devised. You will laugh at all this ; but to have one's family dis- turbed all day, and startled from sleep at night by such horrific sounds, amounts to a constant calamity. I feel obliged to the company for the attention that has been paid to the complaints made in this instance, and I trust to their continuing to protect my homestead from the recurrence of such an evil. It would give me great pleasure, my dear Kemble, to come at once to you ; but I am advised, as soon as I have sufficient strength to leave home, to go where I may have the benefit of a complete change of air. I intend, therefore, to pay a visit to my niece, Mrs. Gabriel Irving, at her place at Oyster Bay, where I shall have the benefit of salt air and sea breezes. My visit to you I shall defer until I feel in more companionable trim. Ever, my dear Kemble, yours, affectionately, "Washington Irving. The following letter is addressed to the eminent scholar, George Ticknor, who had sent him, a consider- able time previous to its date, his History of Spanish Literature, a work in three octavo volumes, which he had early meditated, and upon which he had been long engaged. Mr. Ticknor, in the autumn of 1818, had come, from a residence of some months in Spain, to London, and here he formed the acquaintance of Mr. Irving, Leslie, and Newton, all of whom made the excursion together from London to Windsor, " which resulted," says Mr. Ticknor, in a letter to myself, " in Mi. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 69 the beautiful paper in the Sketch Book." " He read to me," he continues in the same letter, " some of the other papers, and I brought out for him the first num- ber for publication, and delivered it to Mr. Brevoort." [To George Ticknor.] Sttnnybide, Feb. 15, 1860. My dear Ticknor : I ought long since to have thanked you for the copy of your work which you had the kindness to send me, but I thought it best to read it first. This the pressure of various affairs has permitted me to do only at intervals, so that I have not yet got farther than the threshold of the third volume ; but I will delay an acknowledgment no longer. I have read enough to enable me to praise it heartily and honestly. It is capital — capital ! It takes me back into dear old Spain ; into its libraries, its theatres ; among its chronicles, its plays ; among all those scenes and characters and customs that for years were my study and delight. No one that has not been in Spain can feel half the merit of your work ; but to those who have, it is a perpetual banquet. I am glad you have brought it out during my lifetime, for it will be a vade mecum for the rest of my days. "When I have once read it through, I shall keep it by me, like a Stilton cheese, to give a dig into whenever I want a relishing morsel. I began to fear it would never see the light in my day, or that it might fare with you as with that good lady who went thirteen years with child, and then brought forth a little old man, who died in the course of a month of extreme old age. But you have produced three strapping volumes, full of life and freshness and vigor, and that will live forever. You have laid the foundations of your work 70 LIFE AND LETTERS |18§B so deep that nothing can shake it ; you have built it up with a care that renders it reliable in all its parts ; and you have fin- ished it off with a grace and beauty that leave nothing to be desired. It is well worth a lifetime to achieve such a work. By the way, as you appear to have an extensive collection of the old Spanish plays, there is one which Captain Medwin mentioned to me, the story of which had made a great impres- sion on Lord Byron. It was called El Embozado de Cordova (or perhaps Encapotado). I have sought for it in vain in all the libraries and collections in Spain. If you should have a copy of it, let me know ; though I apprehend Captain Medwin has given me a wrong name, as I could find none of the dra- matic antiquaries that knew anything about it. I regret that you did not fall into the hands of my worthy publisher, Mr. Putnam, who is altogether the most satisfactory man in his line that I have ever had dealings with. But I trust you have made a good arrangement with the Harpers, who command a vast circulation. When you see Prescott, give him my cordial remembrances. You two are shelved together for immortality. Ever, my dear Ticknor, yours very faithfully, "Washington Irving. The " old Spanish play " here alluded to as having been mentioned to him by CaptaiD Medwin, and which had eluded his researches in Spain, has been spoken of in a quotation from his diary, heretofore given, as a play by Calderon. In the following extract of a letter to his brother Peter, written from Paris in March, 1825, 1 furnish a glimpse of the curious plot, and all Mr. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 7J the light I can throw upon the subject of this mysteri- ous drama, here, too, spoken of as a production of Cal- deron : Medwin is in Paris, but returns almost immediately to his nest. * * * I find he is well acquainted with Calderon in the original, and has talked to me of a play of Calderon's which is rarely to be found in the edition of his works, but of which he once obtained a copy. It is called sometimes El Embozado, and sometimes El Capitado (». e., The man muffled or disguised). The story is of a young man who has been dogged through life by a mysterious masked man ; who thwarts all his plans, and continually crosses his path, and blasts his hopes at the moment of fruition. At length he is in love with a lady, and on the point of entering her house to be made happy. The Embozado issues out of it. They fight. The mask of the unknown falls off, and he discovers the very counterpart of himself ! He dies with horror at the sight. Such is Medwin's mere recollection of the plot. Lord Byron was so much struck with it, that lie intended to make some- thing of it, and repeatedly mentioned the way he thought of treating it. Medwin wrote a sketch of the subject and Lord Byron's ideas about it, which he had intended to append to a new edition of his Memoirs, but he has promised to hand it to me. It is certainly very striking, and something fine might be struck out from the mere idea. The Embozado is supposed to be a personification of the young man's passions. I mean to search for the play. On the 4th of April, 1825, he writes again to Peter : 72 LIFE AND LETTERS [1850. I have just purchased an edition of Calderon, the same with that in the King's Library. It is in seventeen volumes. I had to give one hundred and eighty francs for it. I do not find the Enibozado in it. I mean to get my Spanish master to write to Spain for that and any other plays of Calderon that may not be in this edition. la less than a year after this, Mr. Irving went to Spain, where, it seems, by his letter to Mr Ticknor, he sought in vain for The Embozado in all the libraries and collections of the country. It is singular that a play of Calderon, of which Medwin had once obtained a copy, the story of which came near engaging the pen of Byron, should have eluded research. It could hardly have been a production of Calderon, and Med- win probably erred in characterizing it as such. The niece to whom the following is addressed, had returned to Paris in May, 1850, from a visit of some months in New York : [To Mrs. S farrow.] Sunntside, July 18, 1850. My dear Sarah : Your letter could not have arrived at a more welcome mo- ment, for it has found me in a state of languor and debility, and somewhat depressed in spirits, the effects of an intermittent fever, from which I am but imperfectly recovered. I find I do not rally from any attack of the kind so speedily as I used to do ; and this one has pulled me down so much, that I think I shall make an excursion for change of air. ****** Just as I had got out of the clutches of my fever, we had JEt. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 73 a visit from Mr. James, the novelist, and his family. He had arrived in New York several days previous, but I had been too unwell to go down to visit him. As soon as I could crawl out, I went to New York, and called upon him. I found he had intended seeking me out the next day. I kept him to his intention. * * * The next morning, by one of the early trains, he came up with his wife, his daughter, a very pretty and intelligent girl about sixteen years of age, and his two sons, one of seventeen, the other of fourteen years of age. They passed the day with us. The weather was delightful and the visit went off charmingly. James is a worthy, ami- able fellow, full of conversation, and most liberal in his feelings. ****** "We have all been shocked and distressed by the death of our good old President, General Taylor, after a very brief ill- ness. It is a great loss to the country, especially in our pres- ent perplexed state of affairs. He has left a name behind him that will remain one of the most popular ones in American history. He was really a good and an honest man. uniting the bravery of the soldier with the simplicity and benevolence of the quiet citizen. He had not been long enough in political life to have straightforward honesty and frankness falsified, nor his quick sense of right and wrong rendered obtuse. I deeply regret not to have seen him. I had always looked forward with confidence to taking him by the hand either in New York or "Washington. Report speaks well of his successor, Mr. Fill- more ; but I am entirely unacquainted with him, and of course feel nothing of the personal interest that I felt for the good old General. And now I must break off, my dear Sarah. I have writ- Vol. IV.— 4 74 LIFE AND LETTERS [1850. ten a longer letter than I thought I should be able to write when I undertook it. I wish it were a more amusing or inter- esting one ; but you must take the will for the deed. I'll write a better one when I feel better. Two days after the date of this letter, he was seized with chills in the cars on his way to ]STew York which proved the advance of a serious indisposition. Alarmed at the progress of the fever, Dr. Delafield, an eminent physician from New York, who chanced to be on the opposite side of the river, was called in, and the same day Mr. Irving made his will, to be prepared for the worst. The skilful treatment of his physician, how- ever, soon produced a favorable change ; and in a few days he dismissed his patient as out of danger, though still feeble. It was during this period of languid convalescence that he lifted up his protest against the diabolic blasts of the steam trumpet. In the following extract we have a passing allusion to the home of his early literary associate, James K. Paulding, at Hyde Park on the Hudson, and also to some of the compensating advantages of the railroad. The visit to Kemble was made early in September. During my visit to Kemble (he writes to Mrs. Storrow), I set off with him, one day, by railroad, for James Paulding's country residence, where I had never been. "We went by rail- road to Poughkeepsie, and then took a carriage to Paulding's. He has a lovely situation, commanding one of the most beauti- JEt. 66.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 75 ful prospects of Hudson scenery, with the Kaatskill Mountains in the distance. * * * "W"e had a very pleasant dinner there, and got back to Cold Spring in the evening. This rail- road makes every place accessible on the easiest terms. The letter, which is dated October 31, continues : You will see, by the papers, that the world has all been music-mad here at the arrival of Jenny Lind. With all my love of music, I have not yet heard nor seen her, but expect to do so next week. I do not like any more to cope with crowds, and have become a little distrustful of these public paroxysms. Besides, I am not over-fond of concerts, and would prefer some- what inferior talent, when aided by the action and scenic effect of the theatre. I anticipate more pleasure, therefore, from Parodi as prima donna of the opera, than from the passionless performances of Jenny Lind as a singer at a concert. In the following letter we have a further allusion to the renowned songstress : [ To Miss Mary M. Hamilton.'] Sunnyside, Nov. 12, 1850. My dear Miss Hamilton : • * * You wish to know what I think of the " Priest- ess of Nature." I have seen and heard her but once, but have at once enrolled myself among her admirers. I cannot say, however, how much of my admiration goes to her singing, how much to herself. As a singer, she appears to me of the very first order ; as a specimen of womankind, a little more. She is enough of herself to counterbalance all the evil that the 76 LIFE AND LETTERS [1850. world is threatened with by the great convention of women. So God save Jenny Lind 1 Parodi's Norma is the best I have seen, except Grisi's ; but Grisi's in some respects is much superior. Parodi has much dramatic talent, a good voice, a commanding person, and a countenance very expressive, in spite of her teeth, which are a little on the " Carker " order. I doubt, however, with all her tragic fire, I shall like her as much in Lucretia Borgia as the fair Truffi, for whom I still cherish a certain degree of tendresse. But I do not pretend to be critical, having had all conceit of that kind killed by Ford, the Gatherer in Spain, who, in one of his papers in the Quarterly Review, denominated me " the easily pleased Washington Irving." I presume our social rides are all over for the season, and that you and A will abandon the rocks and woodlands and other scrambles on horseback, for Broadway and the opera. I took a ride on Dick this morning, but he seemed to miss his companions, Ned and Dandy, and to have lost all spirit. As we have a kind of intermittent Indian summer, which incessantly returns after very brief intervals, I still hope to have some more rides among the hills before winter sets in, and should be rejoiced to take them with the female chivalry of Tillietudlem. Yours very truly, "Washington Irving. The day after the date of this letter, Mr. Irving came to town to attend Jenny Lind's morning concert of that day, expecting seats to have been taken. Find- ing that none had been procured, he returned home to make the attempt another day. Meanwhile, a party Mr. 67.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 77 was arranged for Friday evening, to include Mr. Irving and all bis household, who were to come down for the occasion. On arriving in the city, however, finding that another lady had been added to the party, which would make up the number without him, and being withal a little out of mood, he suddenly decamped for home, to the great surprise and regret of his nieces, who had locked up the silver preparatory to leaving, and were fearful that he would not be able to make himself comfortable. The next morning one of the party wrote, expressing her regret and uneasiness at his sudden and unexpected departure, informing him of " a nice arrangement " she had made for lodging; him for the night, and " fancying him sitting alone and desolate, and, worse than all, without teaspoon or fork." This is his characteristic reply : Scnnyside, Xov. 17, 1850. My dear Helen : I am sorry to find my hegira from town caused you so much regret and uneasiness. It was a sudden move, on find- ing that the party for the concert would be complete without me, and that, if I stayed, I should have to look about for quar- ters, and put others to inconvenience. Besides, I find myself growing more and more indisposed to cope with the bustle and confusion of the town, and more and more in love with the quiet of the country. While tossing about, therefore, on the troubled sea of the city, without a port at hand, I bethought myself of the snug, quiet little port I had left, and determined to " 'bout ship " and run back to it. You seem to have pictured my move as a desperate one, 78 LIFE AND LETTERS [1850. and my evening as solitary and forlorn ; but you are mistaken. I took a snug dinner at Frederick's, where I met A H . He was bound to Staatsburg, to rejoin his wife. We went up in the four o'clock train together. I endeavored to persuade him to stop and pass the night at the cottage, when we would break open the storeroom and cellar, rummage out everything that the girls had locked up, and have " high jinks" together. He was strongly inclined to yield to my temptation, but the thought of his wife overawed him. He is evidently under petticoat government, like other married men, and dare not indulge in a spree, like we free and independent bachelders. "When I arrived at the cottage, all was dark. Toby barked at me as if I were a housebreaker. I rang at the front door. There was a stir and commotion within. A light gleamed through the fanlight. The door was cautiously opened by Ber- nard ; behind him was Sophia, and behind her Hannah, while Peter and the cook stood ready as a corps de reserve in the kitchen passage. I believe, for a moment, they doubted whether it was myself or my ghost. My arrival caused no little perplexity, everything being- locked up. However, by furbishing up the kitchen plate and china, the tea table was set out after a fashion by Sophia, and I made a very cosy though somewhat queer repast. My evening passed very serenely, dozing over a book, and dreaming that the girls, as usual, were all silently sewing around me. I passed a comfortable night ; had a cosy bachelor break- fast the next morning, took a ride on gentleman Dick, and, in fact, led a life of single blessedness, until my womankind re- turned, about two o'clock, to put an end to my dream of sov- ereignty. Mi. 67.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 79 CHAPTEE V. APPLICATION' FOR AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT — BORING LETTERS — LETTER TO JESSE MERWIN, THB ORIGINAL OF ICHABOD CRANE — HIS LAST PORTRAIT — LETTER TO MRS. STORROW — THE REVERIES OF A BACHELOR — THE SCARLET LETTER — LETTER TO M. H. GRINNELL — BOHN's INFRINGEMENT OF COPTRIGHT — LETTER TO BENTLEY — LETTER OF JOHN MURRAY — LETTER TO JOHN BARNEY — LETTER TO H. T. TUCKERMAN, ALLUDING TO ROGERS, AND TO ARTICLE IN HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS — LETTER TO WM, C. BRYANT ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PIFFERENT PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. T I THE following letter was written to a young lady, -*- who proposed to come to him and ask his counsel about the publication of some poems of a brother who had graduated with distinction, and been cut off in the bloom of his youth : Sunntside, Feb. 8, 1851. Dear Madam : "While I sincerely sympathize -with you in the affliction caused by your great bereavement, and have no doubt your brother was worthy of the praise bestowed on his memory, I mnst most respectfully excuse myself from the vory delicate and responsible task of giving an opinion of his poems. I have no confidence in the coolness and correctness of my own judgment in matters of the kind, and have repeatedly found the exercise of it, in compliance with solicitations like the pres- ent, so productive of dissatisfaction to others, and poignant 30 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. regret to myself, that I have long since been driven to the ne- cessity of declining it altogether. Trusting you will receive this apology in the frank and friendly spirit in which it is made, I remain, with great respect, your obedient servant, "Washington Irving. Here is a reply to a modest application from an unknown admirer to " pen (him) just one original thought " : Dear Sir : I would be happy to furnish you with the " original thought " you require ; but it is a coinage of the brain not always at my command, and certainly not at present. So I hope you will be content with my sincere thanks in return for the kind and complimentary expressions of your letter. No man could be more bored than Mr. Irving, by, as lie once expressed it, " all sorts of letters from all sorts of persons." I remember his once showing me a letter asking him to subscribe to some particular book. "Now," he said, turning to me, "this must be an- swered. Every letter to be answered is a trifle ; but your life in this way is exhausted in trifles. You are entangled in a network of cobwebs. Each letter is a cobweb across your nose. The bores of this world are endless." The following letter is addressed to Jesse Merwin, a schoolmaster whom he had met long years before at Ml. 67.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 81 Judge Yan Ness's, at Kinderhook. Merwin had called on him at New York, but, not finding, him, had after- ward written to him, and, among various allusions to the olden time, had mentioned the death of Dominie Yan Nest, a clergyman whom they had both known at that period. To Mr. Irving's surprise, the letter ap- peared in print a few days after. Jesse Merwin's let- ter is indorsed in Mr. Irving's own handwriting : " From Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichabod Crane." Sitnntside, Feb. 12, 1851. You must excuse me, my good friend Merwin, for suffering your letter to remain so long unanswered. You can have no idea how many letters I have to answer, besides fagging with my pen at my own literary tasks, so that it is impossible for me to avoid being behindhand in my correspondence. Your letter was indeed most welcome — calling up, as it did, the recollection of pleasant scenes and pleasant days passed together in times long since at Judge Van Ness's, in Kinderhook. Your men- tion of the death of good old Dominie Yan Nest, recalls the apostolic zeal with which he took our little sinful community in hand, when he put up for a day or two at the Judge's ; and the wholesome castigation he gave us all, one Sunday, begin- ning with the two country belles who came fluttering into the schoolhouse during the sermon, decked out in their city finery, and ending with the Judge himself, in the stronghold of his own mansion. How soundly he gave it to us ! How he peeled off every rag of self-righteousness with which we tried to cover ourselves, and laid the rod on the bare backs of our con- sciences ! The good, plain-spoken, honest old man ! How I Vol. IV— i* (6) 82 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. honored him for his simple, straightforward earnestness, his homely sincerity ! He certainly handled us without mittens ; hut I trust we are all the better for it. How different he was from the brisk, dapper, self-sufficient little apostle who cantered up to the Judge's door a day or two after ; who was so full of himself that he had no thought to bestow on our religious de- linquencies ; who did nothing but boast of his public trials of skill in argument with rival preachers of other denominations, and how he had driven them off the field, and crowed over them. You must remember the bustling, self-confident little man, with a tin trumpet in the handle of his riding whip, with which I presume he blew the trumpet in Zion ! Do you remember our fishing expedition, in company with Congressman Van Alen, to the little lake a few miles from Kmderhook ; and John Moore, the vagabond admiral of the lake, who sat crouched in a heap in the middle of his canoe in the centre of the lake, with fishing rods stretching out in every direction like the long legs of a spider ? And do you remem- ber our piratical prank, when we made up for our bad luck in fishing, by plundering his canoe of its fish when we found it adrift ? And do you remember how John Moore came splash- ing along the marsh on the opposite border of the lake, roaring at us ; and how we finished our frolic by driving off and leav- ing the Congressman to John Moore's mercy, tickling ourselves with the idea of his being scalped at least ? Ah, well-a-day, friend Merwin, those were the days of our youth and folly. I trust we have grown wiser and better since then ; we certainly have grown older. I don't think we could rob John Moore's fishing canoe now. By the way, that same John Moore, and the anecdotes you told of him, gave me the idea of a vagabond -<Et. 67.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 83 character, Dirck Schuyler, in my Knickerbocker History of New York, which I was then writing. You tell me the old schoolhouse is torn down, and a new one built in its place. I am sorry for it. I should have liked to see the old schoolhouse once more, where, after my morn- ing's literary task was over, I used to come and wait for you occasionally until school was dismissed, and you used to prom- ise to keep back the punishment of some little, tough, broad- bottomed Dutch boy until I should come, for my amusement — but never kept your promise. I don't think I should look with a friendly eye on the new schoolhouse, however nice it might be. Since I saw you in New York, I have had severe attacks of bilious intermittent fever, which shook me terribly ; but they cleared out my system, and I have ever since been in my usual excellent health, able to mount my horse and gallop about the country almost as briskly as when I was a youngster. Wishing you the enjoyment of the same inestimable blessing, and begging you to remember me to your daughter, who penned your letter, and to your son, whom, out of old kindness and companionship, you have named after me, I remain ever, my old friend, yours very truly and cordially, "Washington Irving. About this time, Mr. Irving was induced to sit to Martin, an English artist, for the last portrait ever taken of him. Though somewhat idealized, and too youthful for his age at that time, it had much of his character and expression about it, and received the fol- lowing notice from the pen of the poet, N. P. Willis, in the Home Journal : 84 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. We spoke, the other day, of Geoffrey Crayon's having once more consented to sit for his picture. Mr. Martin has just finished it, and we fancy there has seldom been a more felicitous piece of work. It is not only like Irving, but like his books ; and, though he looks as his books read (which is true of few authors), and looks like the name of his cottage — Sunnyside — and looks like what the world thinks of him, yet a painter might have missed this look, and still have made what many would consider a likeness. He sits leaning his head on his hand, with the genial, unconscious, courtly compo- sure of expression that he habitually wears ; and still there is visible the couchant humor and philosophic inevitableness of perception, which form the strong undercurrent of his genius. The happy temper and the strong intellect of Irving ; the joy- ously indolent man and the arousably brilliant author, are both there. As a picture, it is a fine specimen of art. The flesh is most skilfully crayoned, the pose excellent, the drawing ap- parently effortless and yet nicely true, and the air altogether Irving-y and gentlemanlike. If well engraved, we have him — delightful and famous Geoffrey — as he lives, as he is thought to live, as he writes, as he talks, and as he ought to be remem- bered. The letter which follows, was written soon after his return from a visit to Mr. William Swain, at New Bedford : [3b Mrs. Storroiv.~] Sunnyside, May 6, 1851. My dear Sarah : Your most delightful letter of March 5th has remained too long unanswered ; but it found me crowded with occupation, JEt. 68.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 85 getting out a revised edition of the Alhambra, in which I was making many alterations and additions, with the press close at my heels. ****** I have been very little in town this winter. Indeed, I may say that I have lived almost exclusively in the country since your departure. My time has been very much occupied with my pen, preparing and printing my revised editions, &c. ; and it will continue to be so occupied until I finish the Life of "Washington, on which I am now busy. I am always happiest when I have a considerable part of my time thus employed, and feel reason to be thankful that my intellectual powers con- tinue capable of being so tasked. I shall endeavor, however, not to overtask myself; shall mount my horse often, and break off occasionally to make an excursion like that to New Bedford. ****** You speak, in one of your letters to the family, of the pleasure you have had in reading the " Reveries of a Bach- elor." It is indeed a very beautiful work. The author Avas kind enough to send me a copy, and to call on me. I am much pleased with him. He is quiet and gentlemanlike in manners and appearance, and I shall be very glad to cultivate his acquaintance. I understand he is engaged to be married ; I hope to one worthy of being the subject of one of his rev- eries. There are two very clever works which have made their appearance within a year or so, one quite recently — The Scar- let Letter and The House with the Seven Gables. They are by Hawthorne, and two of the best works of fiction that have issued from the American press. gg LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. Remember me affectionately to your husband, and kiss the dear little women for me. Ever, my dear Sarah, your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. Of one of the works here mentioned — The Scarlet Letter — I inquired his opinion just after he had fin- ished reading it, and the impression was fresh. " Mas- terly ! masterly ! ! masterly ! ! ! " was his emphatic reply. The following amusing letter is addressed to M. H. Grinnell, the husband of his niece, who had invited him to dine with him in the city, and who had just completed a house in the neighborhood of Sunnyside, which he expected soon to occupy : Sunnyside, May 20, 1651. My dear Grinnell : I must beg you to excuse me from dining with you to- morrow. Sunnyside is possessed by seven devils, and I have to be continually on the watch to keep all from going to ruin. First, we have a legion of womenkind, cleaning and scouring the house from top to bottom ; so that we are all reduced to eat and drink and have our being in my little library. In the midst of this, our water is cut off. An Irishman from your establishment undertook to shut up my spring, as he had yours, within brick walls ; the spring showed proper spirit, and broke bounds, and all the water pipes ran dry in consequence. In the dearth of painters, I have employed a couple of country carpenters to paint my roofs, and it requires all my vigilance to keep them from painting them like Joseph's coat of divers Mr. 63.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 87 colors. Your little man "Westerfield is to plaster my chimneys to-morrow, and your plumbers and bellhangers to attack the vitals of the house. I have a new coachman, to be inducted into all the mysteries of the stable and coach house ; so all that part of the establishment is in what is called a halla baloo. In a word, I never knew of such a tempest in a teapot as is just now going on in little Sunnyside. I trust, therefore, you will excuse me for staying at home to sink or swim with the concern. Yours, affectionately, "Washington Irving. P. S. — Lee has not yet commenced the long-promised fill- ing up, which was certainly to be begun yesterday. I begin more fully to understand what is meant by Lee-way. This was the filling up of a space between the bank and the railroad, in "which the water was apt to rest, and generate, as he believed, unwholesome miasma. Lee was an agent of the railroad, and Mr. G-. a director. The following is in reply to an application of Mr. Richard Bentley, the London publisher, who was meditating a suit against Mr. Bohn for an infringe- ment of the copyrights of three of the author's works purchased by him. Murray had already gone to great expense to defend his copyrights, the sale, on the re- publication of the works, being greater than ever in both countries. For fifteen years some of the volumes had not been reprinted by him or his father. 88 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. [ To Richard Bentley.~\ Sunntsidb, July 1, 1851. Dear Sir: I have received your two letters, dated June 3d and 4th, informing me of your intention to proceed against certain book- sellers for an infringement of the copyrights of the Alhambra, Astoria, and Bonneville ; and, inasmuch as you had no formal deed of assignment from me, requesting me to authorize your solicitor, Frederick Nicholls Devey, Esq., to institute proceed- ings in my name. As the whole proceeding is for your account and benefit, and at your expense, I cannot refuse to delegate this authority to the gentleman named ; but I confess I give my consent most reluctantly to a measure by which I am made to appear as a litigant, and, though only nominally so, yet at the great hazard of misconception. If your solicitor could prepare an assignment, or other in- strument which might have a retroactive operation, and enable you to sue in your own name, I would greatly prefer it. If this be impracticable, then you may take this letter as a war- rant to your solicitor to appear for me, with full power and au- thority to represent me in any suit you may deem necessary in regard to the beforementioned works, and before any court. I wish it to be publicly understood, however, in this contingency, that you have recourse to my name on your own behalf, and only from a technical necessity, and that I have no personal interest in the event of the proceeding. Yours very truly, Washington Irving. JEt. 68.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 89 I presume no proceedings were ever instituted by- Mr. Bentley, as it will be seen, by the following letter of Mr. Murray to Mr. Irving, that he Lad compro- mised his suit witli Bohn in September, only two months after the date of the preceding letter : Albemarle Street, Sept. 19. My peak Sir : Having troubled you so often, and, I fear, seriously, on the subject of my lawsuit with Bohn, it is with peculiar satisfaction that I now write to tell you that it is at an end. Mr. Bohn has offered me terms which are satisfactory to me and not humiliating to him. He has destroyed for me all value in your works, and I make over to him the copyright. I regret to part with them, but it seemed to me the only way to get out of the squabble, which was becoming very seri- ous, my law expenses alone having run up to £850. One good, at least, has been elicited out of the contest — it has settled the right of foreigners to hold copyright in this country ; for I am assured by my counsel, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, one of the soundest heads at our bar, that the recent decision of our judges on that head is not likely to be reversed by the House of Lords, or any other tribunal. Sir F. K. has studied the subject minutely, and made an admirable speech in the Queen's Bench on my side. I hope, therefore, that the Life of "Washington, and other works to come from your pen, may yet bring advantage to their author from this country ; but priority of publication in England is an indispensable condi- tion, and must in all cases be guaranteed and carefully attested at the time of appearance. No one can desire more than I do an international copy- 90 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. right arrangement with the Americans. In my desire I am not surpassed by Mr. Bohn, nor Sir E. L. Bulwer ; but I differ from them in the strong conviction which I feel that it is not by pirating American books that the object is to be attained. I remain, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, John Murray. The following letter is addressed to John Barney, better known to the world as " Beau Barney," one of the patriarchs of the fashionable circles of Washington City for many years, and is in reply to one from him recalling their first meeting at Burr's trial at Rich- mond, forty-three years before, and mentioning the kind recollections of his sister, whom he met at that time : Scnntbide, Oct. 30, 1851. My dear Mr. Barney : Your letter of the 25th has acted upon me like a charm, calling up such pleasant scenes in times long past, when we were both gay young fellows, that I cannot go to bed before answering it. What you mention of kind recollections of me that were cherished by your sister, flatters my old bachelor heart even now ; for she was one of my early admirations, and her image dwells in my memory as she appeared to me at the time, so amiable, graceful, and ladylike. I well remember see- ing her also at Baltimore, after her marriage, with her first child, a fine boy, and, though a mere infant, remarkably sensi- ble to music; being easily moved by it either to tears or trans- ports. I believe I have since met him a man grown. You talk of children and grandchildren. I have nothing but literary bantlings to boast of. I trust your progeny will JEn. 63.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 91 outlive mine, and increase and multiply, and continue your name from generation to generation ; which is more than can be expected from the progeny of the Muse, however prolific she may be. Wishing you many pleasant and prosperous days, I will now bid you " good night," and will endeavor to continue in my sleep the agreeable dreams you have awakened. Yours ever, very truly, "Washington Irving. The letter which follows, from Mr. Henry T. Tuekerman, and Mr. Irving's reply, I introduce with the single remark, that the former had lately con- tributed to a publication of Mr. Putnam, entitled " Homes of American Authors," a graceful notice of Sunnyside and its proprietor : \To J]'ashinjton Irving.] New Yokk, Dec. 6, 1852. My dear Sir : I expect to sail for England in the Baltic on Saturday next ; and, although my stay will probably be cpiite brief, I am desirous of seeing Mr. Rogers. "Will you give me a line to him, and any other friend in England whom it would be pleasant for me to see ? and oblige, Yours ever, truly and respectfully, Henry T. Tuckerman. 92 I^E AND LETTERS [1852. [To Mr. II. T. Tucket-man.] Susntside, Dec. 8,1852. My dear Sir : I send you three letters of introduction, which I hope may be of service to you. My poor friend Rogers, I fear, is grow- ing too infirm to render those attentions he was formerly so prompt to show to Americans of worth. Sir Robert Harry Inglis is a man of the most genial character, full of intelli- gence, and in communion with the most intellectual society of England. He is a man I love and honor. John Murray has succeeded to his father in the literary realm of Albemarle street, which I used to find a favorite haunt of notorieties. Permit me to make my acknowledgments for the very kind and flattering notice you have taken of me and my little rural nest, in Putnam's late publication. I wish I could feel myself worthy of half that you have said of me. Yours ever, very truly, "Washington Irving. The following letter to Mr. Bryant, respecting the different portraits of Columbus, embraces the result of Mr. Irving's researches on that subject, and will be found to contain many particulars of interest. Joseph E. Bloomfield, the gentleman alluded to in the first paragraph, had been for some years a resident of the south of Spain, and, having become familiar with the portraits purporting to be the likenesses of the great discoverer, a correspondence on the subject had taken place between him and Mr. Irving. In the letter to JEt. 68.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 93 Mr. Bryant, who had applied to Mr. Irving for leave to publish his hasty notes to Mr. Bloomfield, he has recast his replies to that- gentleman, with some addi- tions. I transfer the letter from the columns of the Evening Post, the journal edited by Mr. Bryant, in which it first appeared : [To William C. Bryant, Esq] My dear Sir : In consequence of the interest expressed by you as to a recent correspondence with Mr. Joseph E. Bloomfield, of Mexico, New York, on some points relative to Columbus, I have thrown the purport of my replies to that gentleman into something of a connected form. Mr. Bloomfield was desirous of my opinion of a portrait of Columbus existing in the Lonja, or Royal Exchange, at Seville, and which he says was the only one acknowledged in Spain as a true likeness. In reply, I have stated, that I know of no portrait extant which is posi- tively known to be authentic. The one in question, according to his account of it, is full length, and that of a person from thirty to thirty-five years of age, armed in mail, and wearing a full white ruff. Now Columbus, by the time his discoveries had made him a subject for such a painting, was quite ad- vanced in years. The ruff, too, was not an article of dress in Spain until after his death. It was a Flemish fashion, brought, I believe, from Flanders to Spain in the time of Charles V, who did not arrive in the Peninsula until 1516, ten years after the death of Columbus. The portrait may have been one of Diego Columbus, the heir and successor of the discoverer, and who, like him, was denominated " the Admiral." 94 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. Various portraits of Columbus have appeared from time to time in Italy, not one resembling the others, and all differing essentially from the description given by Fernando of his father. Theodore de Bry, in his "America," published in the sixteenth century, gave an engraving of one in his possession, which he pretended had been stolen from a saloon of the Coun- cil of the Indias, and sold in the Netherlands, where it fell into his hands. The same has been copied in an eulogium of Columbus by the Marquis of Durazzo, printed by Bodoni, and in a life of the discoverer published in Milan by the Chevalier Bossi. This pretended portrait also differs entirely from the graphic description given by Fernando Columbus of his father. According to this, his visage was long, and neither full nor meagre ; the cheek bones rather high, his nose aquiline, his eyes light gray, his complexion fair and high colored {acceso di vivo colore). In his youth, his hair was blonde ; but by the time he was thirty years of age it was quite white. This minute description I consider the touchstone by -which all the pretended portraits of him should be tried. It agrees with accounts given of him by Las Casas and other contemporaries. Peschiera, a sculptor, employed in Genoa to make a bust of him for a monument erected to his memory in that city in 1821, discarded all existing portraits as either spurious or doubtful, and guided himself by the descriptions I have cited. "While I was in Madrid, in 1826, Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, President of the Eoyal Academy of History, published a lithographed copy of an engraved portrait of Co- lumbus, which he found in an old Italian work containing like- nesses of distinguished persons. He and the Duke of Vera- guas (the descendant of Columbus) placed confidence in it, because other portraits in the same work were known to be jEt. 68.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 95 correct. I doubted its authenticity. It did not agree suffi- ciently with the description before mentioned ; and the hair especially, in the notice which accompanied it in the Italian work, was said to be black. Still, I published a copy of the engraving, some years since, in an abridged edition of my Life of the discoverer. "While I was in Paris, in 1845, Mons. Jomard, the learned principal of the Royal (now National) Library, had the kind- ness to send me a lithographic copy of a portrait in oil, re- cently discovered. The original bore, in one corner of the canvas, the inscription, Chkistoforus Columbus. The coun- tenance was venerable and dignified, and agreed, more than any I had seen, with the description given by Fernando Co- lumbus. Around the neck, however, was the Flemish ruff, which I pointed out as an anachronism. M. Jomard endeav- ored to account for it by supposing the portrait to have been made up toward the year* 1580 by some scholar of Titian, from some design or sketch taken during the lifetime of Columbus, and that the artist may have decked it out in the costume in vogue at the time he painted it. This is very possible. Such a custom of vamping up new portraits from old ones seems to have been adopted in the time of Charles V, when there were painters of merit about the court. In 1519, Juan de Borgona, a Spanish artist, executed a whole series of portraits of the primates of Spain for the chap- ter room of the Cathedral of Toledo ; some of them from the life, some from rude originals, and some purely imaginary. Some degree of license of the kind may have been indulged in producing this alleged portrait of Columbus. As it is evi- dently a work of merit, and bears the stamp of his character, 96 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. I . have published an engraving of it in one of the editions of his biography. Painting had not attained much eminence in Spain during the lifetime of Columbus, though it was improving under the auspices of Ferdinand and Isabella. There were, as yet, no Italian painters in the peninsula ; and tbe only Spanish painter of note was Antonio Rincon, who is said to have been the first who " left the stiff Gothic style, and attempted to give to his figures something of the graces and proportions of nature." He executed portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, who made him their painter-in-ordinary. The originals have disappeared in the war of the French intrusion ; but copies of two of his full-length portraits of the sovereigns exist in one of the lower corridors of the Royal Gallery of Madrid. It is very probable that he painted a por- trait of Columbus at the time when he was at the court, the object of universal attention on account of his discoveries ; but if so, it likewise has disappeared, or may exist anonymously in some corner of Spain, or in the collection of some picture hunter. So much for the portraits of Columbus. Another subject of inquiry with Mr. Bloomfield was the name of the discov- erer. He asks why he should not call him by the name he signed to all his letters now in the Royal Exchange of Seville, Christoval Colon ; and he wishes to know u how did or could Colon be changed to Columbus ? " In regard to the name there is some petty mystery. That of the family in Genoa was Colombo, and his original Italian designation was Cristoforo Colombo. When he first came into Spain from Portugal, he seems to have retained his Italian fam- Mt. 63.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 97 ily name, with a slight variation ; for, in the records of Fran- cisco Gonzalez, of Seville, the royal treasurer, there are still extant three several entries of money paid, in 1487 and 1488, by order of the Catholic sovereigns, to him, by the name of Cristobal Colomo. So also, in a royal cedula of May 12th, 1480, signed by the sovereigns, the public functionaries throughout the king- dom are ordered to furnish accommodations and facilities to Cristoval Colomo. And the Duke of Medina Celi, his first patron in Spain, in a letter to the Grand Cardinal, dated 19th March, 1493, says : " I do not know whether your lordship knows that I had for much time in my house Cristobal Colomo, who came from Por- tugal," &c. In the capitulations entered into between him and the sov- ereigns, 17th April, 1492, by which he was constituted admi- ral, viceroy, and governor of any lands he might discover, we find him for the first time recorded as Don Cristobal Colon. In adopting this appellation, he may have recurred to what his son Fernando intimates was the original patrician name of the family in old times, at Rome— Colonics — and may have abbre- viated it to Colon, to adapt it to the Spanish tongue. Columbus was a later version of his family name, adopted occasionally by himself and his brother Bartholomew, accord- ing to the pedantic usage of the day. His son Fernando says (chap, xi), that his father, before he was declared admiral, used to sign himself " Columbus de Terrarubra ; " that is to say, Columbus of Terrarossa, a village or hamlet near Genoa. So also his brother Bartholomew, on a map of the world, which he presented to Henry VII, dated London, 13th February, Vol. IV— 5 (7) 93 LIFE AND LETTERS [1851. 1488, inscribed on it some Latin verses, of which the following gave the name and country of the author : " Janua cui patria est ; no-men cui Bartoloinseus Columbus de Terrarubra opus adidit istud." By this Latin version of his family name, he has always been known in English literature. If we change it, we ought to go back to the original Italian, Cristoforo Colombo. Long usage, however, like long occupancy, constitutes a kind of right, that cannot be disturbed without great inconvenience. Yours, my dear sir, very truly, Washington Irving. ^Et. 68.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 99 CHAPTER VI. LETTER TO MRS. STORROW — COUP d'eTAT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON — KOSSUTH — LET- TER TO COUVERXEUR KEMBLE — THE COOPER COMMEMORATION — BRYANT'S ALLUSION TO THE COOLNESS BETWEEN COOPER AND IRVING — WHAT THE LAT- TER SAID ABOUT IT — A PROSPECTUS FOR A COURSE OF LECTURES SENT TO HIM — LETTER THEREUPON — LETTERS FROM SARATOGA — ANECDOTES OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS DAVIS — THE IRVING LITERARY UNION — A BREAKFAST WITH SON- TAG — LETTER TO MISS HAMILTON — LETTER TO GEORGE P. PUTNAM. rrUlE following letter is addressed to Mrs. Storrow, -*- at Paris, just after the world had been astounded by the coup oVetat of Louis Napoleon. New York, in addition, had been filled with excitement by the arri- val of the graceful and eloquent Hungarian patriot, Kossuth. Sunxyside, Jan. 13, 1852. My dear Sarah : We have all been quite electrified by the coup d'etat of our friend Louis Napoleon. It is one of the most complete things of the kind I have ever heard or read of, and quite Napoleonic. His uncle could not have done the thing better in his most vig- orous day. "Who would have thought, " when his gracious Majesty took his disjeune with us at Tillietudlem," he had so much in him ? You are in a fair way of becoming experi- enced in warfare, and seasoned to alarms, by your residence in a 100 LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. capital where every political change is a military convulsion. At present you are likely to have a great deal of the pomp and parade of arms, without any more of the ragamuffin war- fare of the barricades ; for no doubt Louis Napoleon will keep up such a military force in the capital as to render insurrection hopeless. I should not be surprised if there were a long spell of tranquillity in Paris under his absolute sway. Had his coup d'etat been imperfectly effected, or his election been but moder- ately successful, France might have been thrown into a terrible turmoil ; but now he will hold her doWn with a strong hand, until she has kicked out the last spasm and convulsion of French liberty, and is quiet. You will then most probably have all the splendors of the imperial court, with the spectacles and public improvements by which Napoleon used to dazzle the capital, and keep the Parisians in good humor. All this, I presume, will be more to the taste of temporary residents like yourself, than the stern simplicity of republicanism ; and a long interval of quiet would be a prosperous interval for the commercial world ; so both you and Storrow may find your- selves comfortable under the absolute sway of Napoleon the Second. It is a pity Van "Wart had returned to England before this event took place. He lost an opportunity of seeing that grand spectacle, Paris in a tumult and under arms ; though perhaps he might have had a propensity to go about and see every- thing, as I should have done in like case, and have paid for the spectacle by being shot down at a barricade. I never could keep at home when Madrid was in a state of siege and under arms, and the troops bivouacking in every street and square ; and I had always a strong hankering to get near the gates when the fighting was going on. An. 63.] OP WASHINGTON IRVING. 101 "We have had a great turmoil and excitement, though of a peaceful kind, here, on the arrival of Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot. New York, you know, is always ready for a par- oxysm of enthusiasm on the advent of any great novelty, whether a great singer, a great dancer, a great novelist, or a great patriot ; and it is not often it has so worthy an object to run mad about. I have heard and seen Kossuth both in public and private, and lie is really a noble fellow, quite the beau ideal of a poetic hero. There seems to be no base alloy in his nature. All is elevated, generous, intellectual, and refined, and with his manly and daring spirit there is mingled a tenderness and sensibility of the gentlest kind. He is a kind of man that you would idolize. Yet, poor fellow ! he has come here under a great mistake, and is doomed to be disappointed in the high- wrought expectations he had formed of cooperation on the part of our Government in the affairs of his unhappy country. Admiration and sympathy he ha3 in abundance from individu- als ; but there is no romance in councils of state or deliberative assemblies. There, cool judgment and cautious policy must restrain and regulate the warm impulses of feeling. I trust we are never to be carried away, by the fascinating eloquence of this second Peter the Hermit, into schemes of foreign interfer- ence, that would rival the wild enterprises of the Crusades. ****** I can give you but little of New York news. Indeed, I have not been much there since you were last here. I draw more and more into the little world of my country home as the silver cord which binds me to life is gradually loosening ; and, indeed, I am so surrounded here by kind and affectionate hearts, and have such frequent visits from one or other of the family, that I feel no neod and but little inclination to look be- 102 LIFE AND LETTERS [1S52. yond for enjoyment. Even the opera does not draw me to town so often as formerly, although we have had a very excel- lent one, and New York, in fact, is inundated with musical talent. ****** It is now half-past twelve at 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. However, I have a strong presentiment that I shall die in harness ; and I am content to do so, provided I have the cheerful exercise of intellect to the last. * * * The first paragraph of the letter which follows refers to a fortunate investment in "Western lands, in which he had embarked with his friend Kemble years before, and from which the returns were steadily com- ing in : [ To Gouverneur Kemble^\ Sunnyside, Feb. 5, 1852. My dear Kemble : I have received with much satisfaction the intelligence of a further remittance from the enchanted purse of Godfrey, and have drawn upon "William for my share. You talk of having made a jovial tour among the gastro- nomes of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. So it is. Some men may steal a horse with impunity, while others are hanged for only looking over a hedge. I did but venture to Mr. 68.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 103 town, about two weeks since, to eat a dinner or two, when I returned home with an attack of bile, and have been confined to the house ever since. I, this afternoon, for the first time, ventured out in my sleigh to breathe a little fresh air. Any time that you will stop, on your way to or from town, I shall be happy to see you, and to give you the best my hum- ble house affords ; not pretending to rival the luxurious aristo- crats with whom you have been jollifying. Yours ever, my dear Kemble, Washington Irving. February 17th, he had a visit from Clark, of the Knickerbocker, and Leutze, the painter, who came by appointment and dined with him. " We had a very pleasant dinner. I was much pleased with Leutze," he writes to me. In the same letter, which was writ- ten on Thursday, February 19th, though it is without date, he says : " I shall come to town in the beginning of next week — on Monday, if Webster's address to the Historical Society is on that night, though I rather think it is on Tuesday. The Cooper celebration is ad- vertised for Wednesday." James Fenimore Cooper, the distinguished novelist, had died on the 14th of the previous September. This meeting to honor his memory took place at Metropoli- tan Hall, February 25th, 1852, Mr. Webster presid- ing, supported by Bryant and Irving. In the fine address delivered by Mr. Bryant on the occasion, he quotes Irving's compliment to the Pathfinder, and 1Q4: LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. alludes incidentally to " an unhappy coolness that had existed between them." Adverting afterward to this passage to me, Mr. Irving remarked that the coolness was all on Cooper's side ; that he had never been con- scious of any cause of difference between them. It was not long after this meeting, that the steamer brought the tidings of the death of the poet Moore, which had occurred on the day following the commemoration. It was mournful news to Mr. Irving, whose attachment to the Irish bard had been warm and sincere. The circumstance, too, that his mind, like Scott's, had suf- fered eclipse during his life, he dwelt on with much feeling. It had always been to him, in contemplation, the saddest possible fate. After a time he went back to many reminiscences of his pleasant intercourse with Moore in Paris and London. Among other anecdotes, he mentioned that Moore once told him of his hearing an eager exclamation from a carriage as he was pass- ing : " There's Moore ! there's Moore ! " and, looking round, saw a lady with upraised hands and an expres- sion of sad disappointment, as much as to say : " Good heaven ! can that be Moore ? " Moore once introduced him to a friend of his who had the misfortune afterward to be thrown into King's Bench for debt. Subsequent to his release, he offered to show Mr. Irving the mysteries of the prison house, and he accompanied him to spend the day there. They took dinner within, and Mr. Irving was intro- duced to several who seemed to be enjoying themselves JEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 105 very much. In the evening, two or three women were introduced, who were confined for debt. They were rang out at nine o'clock. Before they were rang out, one of them accosted Mr. Irving : " If you think of coming here, let me give you a word of advice. Don't come empty handed. With fifty pounds or so in the pocket, one can make oneself very comfortable." " From here," said Mr. Irving, " I went to Holland Ilouse. What a contrast ! " To Mrs. Storrow he writes, May 29th : • * * My Life of Washington lags and drags latterly. I have repeatedly been interrupted by turns of ill health — bilious attacks — which have dogged me for the last two or three years, and obliged me occasionally to throw by the pen and take to horseback. This spring I have been almost en- tirely idle, from my mind's absolutely refusing to be put in har- ness. 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 press- ing myself in the matter. ****** I am glad to find the Prince President is getting on so quietly, and that the 10th of May has passed off without ex- plosions. I hope Paris may be spared, for a time, all further paroxysms either imperial or republican, and that the schemes set on foot for its improvement and embellishment may be car- Vol. IV.— 5* 106 LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. ried out before everything is again thrown into chaos. Not that I expect ever to enjoy the result of them ; but it is a city associated with too many happy scenes of my life not to be endeared to me ; and, though I may never see it again, I carry so familiar a picture in my mind of all its localities, that I can fancy to myself every new modification that I read of. If Louis Napoleon continues in power, he will make Paris the centre of everything splendid and delightful, and will treat its fete-lov'mg inhabitants to continual spectacle and pageant. He seems to understand the tastes and humors of the Parisians. July 15th, he writes to the same correspondent : I write a hasty line, in the midst of preparations for an excursion. To-morrow, Mr. G , Julia, and the young folks, with S G , P M., and H , set off on a tour to Canada, and some of them to the "White Moun- tains. I shall accompany them to Saratoga, Lake George, and Lake Champlain, but think it probable I shall then return to the Springs and take the Saratoga waters. It is a hot time of the season for such an excursion, and therefore I am dubious of following it out ; but Mr. G could not conveniently time it better. I do not feel the same disposition to travel as I did in younger days. The quiet of home is becoming more and more delightful to me, and I find it difficult to tear myself away from it, even for a short absence. But I am sensible even too much quietude is to be resisted. A man, as he grows old, must take care not to grow rusty or fusty or crusty — an old bachelor especially ; and for that reason it is good for him now and then to dislodge himself from the chimney corner. In this hot summer weather, however, how delicious it is to JEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 107 loll in the shade of the trees I have planted, and feel the sweet southern breeze stealing up the green banks, and look out with half-dreaming eye on the beautiful scenery of the Hudson, and build castles in the clouds, as I used to do, hereabouts, in my boyhood. "•Oh, blessed retirement ! friend to life's decline." How fortunate has been my lot in being able so completely to enjoy it ; so completely to realize what was once the mere picturing of my fancy. I wish you could see little Sunnyside this sea- son. I think it more beautiful than ever. The trees and shrubs and clambering vines are uncommonly luxuriant. "We never had so many singing birds about the place, and the hum- mingbirds are about the windows continually, after the flowers of the honeysuckles and trumpet creepers which overhang them. In the following letter, addressed to one of the in- mates of Sunnyside, we have a glimpse of him on his tour: [ To Miss Kate Irving.'] Saratoga Speings, July 17, 1S52. My dear Kate : "We had a glorious hurry-scurry drive along the railroad — left steamboats behind as if they had been at anchor. A flight of wild pigeons tried to keep up with us, but gave up in despair. "We arrived here between eleven and twelve. The weather was pleasant, and there was but little dust. * * * I have found some old friends here : Mr. and Mrs. Ken- nedy, of Baltimore ; Mr. S , President of the Bank of Commerce, and his family ; our neighbor, Mr. B , but without his pleasant little wife, who remains at home, castle jOg LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. building. By the by, they do not expect to get into their castle before October, if then. "We were all at a little hop, as they call it, last evening, in one of the saloons of the hotel. It was not very brilliant, but gratified the small folks, who, however, could not summon up resolution to dance. * * * The Springs appear to be quiet and sociable, without any attempt at dashing and flashing, and therefore suit me better than they would at a gayer season. I should like very well to pass some days here, and take the waters ; but we have march- ing orders for eleven o'clock for Lake George. I find it so easy to get here, and in such brief time, that I shall be apt to pay the Springs another visit. I have no idea of remaining mewed up at home until I grow to be an old fogy. * * * To another of his nieces at home, he writes from the same place, July 21st : My dear Mary : Having written to Kate and Sarah (who have my permis- sion to show you my letters, though in great confidence), I now write a hasty line to you in turn. A letter which I for- warded from H to E has no doubt given you all an idea of our voyage across Lake George, and our visit to Ticon- deroga, in all which we were favored with delightful weather, bright, yet temperate, and enjoyed to perfection the interesting and beautiful scenery. At Ticonderoga I made up my mind to give up the visit to Canada, and return here and take the waters. The party went off in splendid style yesterday morn- ing, at eleven o'clock, in a fine steamer down the lake. At two o'clock I embarked on board of another one for Whitehall, JSt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 109 and, after a fine run through lovely scenery, got into the rail- road cars at the latter place, and arrived here about six o'clock in the evening. Here, to my great joy, I found Mr. Gouverneur Kemble, and Mr. Davis (Major Jack Downing), so that I am well pro- vided with cronies. My friend Mr. Kennedy, however, leaves here to-morrow for Washington, being appointed Secretary of the Navy. His wife, however, and her father and sister, re- main here ; and I have promised Kennedy to pay some small attentions to Mrs. Kennedy during his absence, taking his seat beside her at table. I have, therefore, a little domestic party to attach myself to in place of the G party ; but I see I shall be at no loss for acquaintances here. I began this morn- ing to take the waters regularly, and mean to give them -a fair trial. This morning, after breakfast, I set off in a carriage, with Mr. Kemble and Mr. Stevens, to visit the scene of the battle of Saratoga, about twelve miles off. We had a fine drive through beautiful scenery, crossing Saratoga Lake in a scow. The day was very warm, but there was a pleasant breeze which tempered it. After passing an hour or two at the battle ground, and ac- quainting ourselves with all its localities, we returned to a hotel on the banks of the lake, where we had an excellent dinner of black bass, lake trout, and game, and enjoyed ourselves in what little Fan would call " tip-top style." A pleasant drive home completed one of the most charming days I have had in the course of my charming tour. * * * HO LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. \To Miss Kate Irving i\ Saratoga, July 24, 1852. My dear Kate : I really don't know when I shall get home ; for either the waters or the company agree so well with me in this place, that I find myself in first-rate health and spirits, and very much tempted to prolong my sojourn. It is really delightful to me to have this social outbreak after my long course of quiet life. I have found some old friends, and have made new acquaint- ances here, all very cordial and agreeable. * * * "We have fine music, sometimes professional, sometimes by ama- teurs, and all of an excellent quality. This morning we had splendid performances on the piano, in the saloon, by Mr. Bull (or some such name), I believe a Norwegian, and one of the best performers on that instrument I have ever heard. After- ward we had charming singing by Miss L S , who has cultivated her fine voice in a high degree since I heard her, two or three years since. ****** Gouverneur Kemble returned yesterday to his old bach- elor's nest in the Highlands. I did all I could to keep him here, but in vain. I wonder he should be so anxious to get home, when he has no womankind to welcome him, as I have. Yet even I, you see, can keep away. There are some very agreeable talking ladies here, and a great number of very pretty -looking ones ; two or three with dark Spanish eyes, that I sit and talk to, and look under their dark eyelashes, and think of dear old Spain. Mr. Frank Granger is here, and has joined the Kennedy set, with which I am in a manner domesticated. I am strong in the belief that Mr. Granger will have the situation of Post- ^t. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. m master offered to him, and that he will accept of it ; though he shakes his head whenever it is mentioned. I regret extremely that A is not with him. She is on a visit to a friend at Niagara. It is dinner time, and I must travel down stairs from my room, which is near the roof. Give my love to all the house- hold. Your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. To the same correspondent he writes, the day fol- lowing : * * * In my letter of yesterday, I told you I was going to a children's party at a gentleman's country seat in the neighborhood. * * * The house was of stone, spacious, and solid, built in the skirts of what had once been a forest, but which was now thinned out into groves and clumps and green lawns, until it had the air of British park scenery. A platform had been laid beneath some spreading trees, and here the little fairy people danced, while the grown-up people sat around in groups. It was one of the most charming little fetes of the kind that I have ever seen. There were beautiful children, very beautifully dressed, from the age of two and three years upward. I felt like a patriarch among them ; for among the spectators was Mrs. J , an aunt of Mr. Finlay, whom I had danced with in my younger days, when she was a Miss B , but who was now a venerable grandmother ; and there was a maiden lady, Miss B L , whom I had likewise danced with nearly fifty years ago. I sat by them, and talked of old times, and looked at the dancing group, in which we recognized the descendants (some two or three gen- H2 LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. erations off ) of some of our early contemporaries. To strike a balance, however, I paid some small attentions to two or three little belles from six to ten years of age, and was received with smiles that might have made me vain had I been fifty or sixty years younger. ****** I think it is the excitement of this cheerful society in which I am mingling, even more than the waters, which has had an effect of lifting me into a more elastic buoyancy of frame and spirits than I have experienced for a long time ; and I am con- vinced, that if I had come up here for a few days when I felt so heavy and bilious, several weeks since, I should have swept all the clouds out of my system immediately. Give my love to your father, and to such of the family as you have with you. Your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. Two days later, lie writes again to the same, from Saratoga : I expected before this to have seen you face to face. Here, however, I linger, as it were, with one foot' in the stirrup ; and as I may continue to linger indefinitely, I have thought proper to scrawl you another line. The truth is, I am passing my time so agreeably, and find my so- journ here operating so admirably on health and spirits, that I am continually tempted to prolong it. I am linking up so many old friendships that had almost run out, and meeting, on the easiest of terms, so many pleasant and inter- esting people from all parts of the Union, that every day At. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. H3 brings some new gratification and excitement. One sees soci- ety here without the trouble, formality, late hours, and crowded rooms of New York. This hotel in which I am quartered (the United States) is a little world of itself, with its spacious sa- loons, long galleries, broad piazzas, and shady walks ; where there is a constant succession of polite society circulating, and you may throw yourself in the current, or remain aloof and look on, just as you please. I think I have never seen a watering place on either side of the Atlantic, where things were on a better footing, and better arranged, than in this, especially at the particular hotel in which I reside. I take the waters every morning, and think they have a great effect on my system. I have entirely got rid of all bil- ious symptoms, and find my mental faculties refreshed, invigor- ated, and brightened up. I have no doubt I derive some bene- fit from gossiping away part of the day in very agreeable female society, in which I experience such favorable treatment as inclines me to think old gentlemen are coming into fashion. They won't allow me for a moment to enrol myself in the respectable order of old fogies. My worthy coexecutor and cotrustee, Mr. Lord,* is here with his wife and daughter, and I am to take my afternoon's drive with them. Yesterday I had a beautiful drive among the hills with Mrs. R and a party in her carriage, and saw a succession of lovely land- scapes, such as I had no idea were to be found in the neighbor- hood of Saratoga. Early in August, Mr. Irving left Saratoga for * Daniel Lord, an eminent counsellor of New York, one of the execu- tors of John Jacob Astor, and a trustee of the Astor Library. Vol. IV.— (8) 114 LIFE AND LETTEKS [1852. home, accompanied on his journey as far as Troy by Charles Augustus Davis, the " Major Jack Downing " and " old crony " mentioned in one of the preceding letters as sojourning at the Springs with his family. From some reminiscences of Mr. Irving at this period, kindly furnished me by this gentleman, whose gro- tesque history of " The First Locomotive" the readers of the Knickerbocker Magazine will not easily forget, I select the following : No one seemed more unconscious of the celebrity to which he had attained. In this there was not a particle of affecta- tion. Nothing he shrank from with greater earnestness and sincerity and (I may add) pertinacity, than any attempt to lionize him. Although he was at once surrounded, at Sara- toga, by a very gay and brilliant circle assembled there from near and distant parts of our Union, he was sure to withdraw at once from any circle that attempted to make a lion of him. He much preferred sauntering out alone, or with some familiar friend — trusting to any accidental event that might occur to in- dulge his own whim or fancy, or crack a joke, as occasion might call. In one of these rambles, I recollect his attention was ar- rested by the crying and sobbing of a poor little barefooted and ragged boy, wearing an old " cone-shaped " hat that had lost all its original form. He had just been punished by an elder sister, a thin, slatternly young vixen, who was following him. Mr. Irving at once, reading the whole story, turned aside from our route, and commenced, in a most friendly and affectionate tone, with, " I know what is the matter Avith my little boy. It is enough to make anybody cry, to wear a hat Mt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 115 that falls down over his eyes so he can't see, and stubbing his little toes. I see the cause of all this trouble ; " and, with that he took off the old hat, and rolling its flabby brim inward, replaced it on the little boy's head. " There," said he ; " that is all rio-ht now." Both the children, confounded by the event, stood for a time silent, and then moved off, chuckling together at its oddity ; while Mr. Irving, resuming his walk, seemed not less gratified at his success in turning a scene of grief into one of gladness. And in this connection I will venture to relate another sim- ple incident, showing his interest in children. On his return from Saratoga, I accompanied him a portion of his way home- ward. "We were seated together, and directly in front of us sat an anxious mother with three children — one, an infant, in her arms, and the other two (a little boy and girl of some two and three years of age) giving the mother great trouble, and waking the infant by striving to clamber over her to look out at the window. Mr. Irving at once interposed, and, lifting each alternately over to his lap, and looking at his watch, said : " Now, three minutes for each to look out of my window ; " and began lifting them over and replacing them, each in turn, accordingly, till they were tired of it, though much gratified. " Ah, sir," said the relieved mother, " any one can see that you are a kind father of a big family." This amused him greatly, and amply rewarded him for his interposition. He would not spoil a good joke by refutation or controversy. After his return home, we all missed him so much, I was induced (at the instance, also, of many friends) to renew the invitation, and ask his return ; to which I received the follow- ing reply : HQ LIFE AND LETTERS [1851 Bunntside, Aug. lo, 1852. My dear Davis : Your letter found me lolling under the trees, and rumi- nating, like one of my own cows, over the past pleasures of Sara' toga. It was most welcome, smacking, as it did, of that emi- nently social resort, and bringing back the flavor of the happy hours passed there. It will take me some time, however, ta get over the excitement of gay scenes, gay company, and tho continual stimulus of varied and animated conversation, and bring myself down to the meek quiet of country life, and the sober equanimity of Sunnyside. You who are always enjoy- ing these gay chirpings of society, have no idea of what an effect such a long draught has upon one of my present abste- mious habits. I really think, for a part of the time, I was in a state of mental intoxication. I trust, however, it will be bene- ficial in the end ; as I have heard it said by old-fashioned doc- tors, in the days of hard drinking, that " it was good for a man's health now and then to get tipsy." Still it will not do for me to repeat the revel very soon ; so I am not to be tempted by your suggestion of another visit to Saratoga during the present season. That must be for next summer's outbreak. I envy those who have quiet conversations with Alboni about her art. I delight in conversations of the kind with eminent artists, whom I have always found very communica- tive and interesting when properly drawn out. So I have found Talma, Pasta, Mrs. Siddons, and Cooke, who were the greatest in their respective lines that I ever was acquainted with. I was much pleased with Alboni. She appears to be of a frank, happy, joyous nature, and I think it is her rich, JEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 117 mellow, genial temperament, which pours itself forth in her voice like liquid amber. I thank you, my dear friend, for saying a kind word for me to such of my acquaintances and intimates at Saratoga as I came away without seeing. I made several delightful ac- quaintances there, whom it is probable, considering my time of life and my retired habits, I may never see again ; yet I shall always retain them in choice recollection. Eeally, such an easy, social intercourse with the intelligent, the matured, the young, the gay, and the beautiful, rallies one back from the growing apathy of age, and reopens one's heart to the genial sunshine of society. Farewell, my good friend. Give my kind remembrance to your wife, and that " discreet princess," your daughter ; and tell Mrs. R I shall ever remember her as one of the most striking and interesting features of my visit to Saratoga. Yours, very faithfully and affectionately, Washington Irving. Two days after his return from Saratoga, he ad- dressed the following letter, in response to an intima- tion that a club of young men of the city of New York had associated for literary improvement, and denominated themselves the " Irving Literary Union." [To Richard C. McCormicki] Sun-ntside, Aug. 9, 1852. My dear Sir : Three weeks' absence from home has prevented an earlier reply to your letter of the 21st of July, and to the letter from your Society which accompanied it. I now thank you heartily 118 LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. for the kind expressions of your letter, and assure you that I appreciate most deeply the esteem and goodwill manifested by yourself and your associates in adopting my name as a desig- nation for your literary union. To inspire such sentiments in the bosoms of the young and ingenuous, is one of the purest and dearest rewards that an author can receive ; and as my long and desultory career is drawing to a close, I regard such demonstrations on the part of my youthful countrymen as a soothing assurance that, with all my shortcomings, and however imperfectly I may have per- formed my part, I have not lived entirely in vain. "With great respect, your obliged and humble servant, "Washington Irving. " "When this club held its anniversary gatherings," says Mr. McCormick, " which were public, and occa- sions of peculiar interest to its members and their friends, an invitation to Mr. Irving to attend was always sent, and always promptly and courteously- accepted ; but the modest author never managed to get to the city ! " A breakfast with the delightful prima donna, Sontag, whose early appearance he had witnessed at Prague, some thirty years before, is thus alluded to in the following letter : [To Miss Mary M. Hamilton^ Scnntsidb, Sept. 20, 1852. My dear Miss Hamilton : "When I engaged to join your party on the 28th, I was not jEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 119 aware that the following day was the last "Wednesday in the month, when I have to attend the stated meetings of the executors of the Astor estate, and the trustees of the Astor Library. I cannot be absent on this occasion, as it is the last meeting of the Library board previous to Mr. Cogswell's de- parture for Europe. Should you set off on Tuesday, I can join your party at any designated place on Thursday. I set off this morning for Mr. Kemble's, in the Highlands, to be absent until the last of the week. How the breakfast went off at Mr. King's, at Highwood ; and how the Sontag looked and moved and conducted herself, and how I admired, but did not talk with her ; and how I re- turned to town with the S s, in their carriage ; and how I went with Mrs. S to Niblo's theatre ; and how Mr. S was to join us there, and how he did not join us there, but left me to be her cavalier for the whole evening ; and how I won- dered that he should trust such a charming wife with such a gay young fellow : all this, and more also, I will recount unto you when next we meet. Until then, farewell. Yours truly, Washington Irving. November 10th, 1852, he writes to Mrs. Storrow : George Sumner has been twice up here : once on a visit to us, and another time at the H s. He was, as usual, full of floating history about the men and the events of the day ; hav- ing mingled in the most striking scenes and among the most striking people of the countries in which he has travelled and sojourned. I really was heartily glad to meet him again, for he is altogether one of the most curiously instructed American travellers that I have ever met with. Mr. Mitchell (Ike Mar- 120 LIFE AND LETTERS [1852. vel, author of Reveries of a Bachelor, Dream Life, &c.) came up from town and passed a day with us while Sumner was making his visit. * * * I have taken a great liking to him, both as an author and a man. I close the year with the following letter to his publisher, who had sent him, the day before Christ- mas, a parcel of books for the acceptance of "the young ladies," with the remark that it would require a good many more if he were to begin even to suggest the obligations which had been incurred by the honor- able and pleasant privilege of being associated with his name even in his " humble capacity." [To George P. Putnam, Esq] Sunntside, Dec. 27, 1852. 'My deae Sir : Your parcel of books reached me on Christmas morning. Your letter, not being addressed to Dearman, went to Tarry- town, and did not come to hand until to-day. My nieces join with me in thanking you for the beautiful books you have sent us, and you and Mrs. Putnam for your wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. For my own especial part, let me say how sensibly I appre- ciate the kind tone and expressions of your letter ; but as to your talk of obligations to me, I am conscious of none that have not been fully counterbalanced on your part ; and I take pleasure in expressing the great satisfaction I have derived, throughout all our intercourse, from your amiable, obliging, and honorable conduct. Indeed, I never had dealings with jEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 121 any man, whether in the "way of business or friendship, more perfectly free from any alloy. That those dealings have been profitable, is mainly owing to your own sagacity and enterprise. You had confidence in the continued vitality of my writings. * * * You called them again into active existence, and gave them a circulation that I believe has surprised even yourself. In rejoicing at their success, my satisfaction is doubly enhanced by the idea that you share in the benefits derived from it. "Wishing you that continued prosperity in business which your upright, enterprising, tasteful, and liberal mode of con- ducting it merits, and is calculated to insure ; and again in- voking on you and yours a happy New Year, I remain, very truly and heartily, yours, "Washington Irving. Vol. IV.— 6 122 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. CHAPTER VII. AT NEW YORK, ON HIS WAT TO BALTIMORE — LETTER FROM BALTIMORE — MEETS THACKERAY IN THE CARS— HOSPITABLE RECEPTION AT BALTIMORE — DEPAR- TURE FOR WASHINGTON — LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON — AT WORK AMONG THE ARCHIVES OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT — A MINIATURE ANCHOR PRESENTED TO HIM — ITS HISTORY — TABLE TIPPING — REMINISCENCES OF THE FAMILY OF THE EMPRESS OF FRANCE — LETTER TO MRS. KENNEDY, AFTER HIS RETURN TO SUNNTSIDE. TN the course of the preceding year, Mr. Irving had promised his friend Kennedy, the Secretary of the Navy, to pay him a visit at Washington ; and " hav- ing occasion to rummage the public archives for his- torical information," he sets out on his journey in the beginning of January. January 13th, he writes from New York on his way : "The day of my arrival in town I tried to get a ticket to hear Sontag, but, finding there was trickery in disposing of seats, I went off in a huff to the other house, and saw Alboni in the Somnambula, which she performed to admiration." On another evening before his start, " feeling in want of city amusement," he writes, " I went to Wal- lack's, and saw the old play of the Road to Ruin, played in excellent style." He also went to a ball, JEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 123 where, though after the opera, he found himself " among the early ones." " I think it," he writes to an unmarried niece, " one of the pleasantest balls I have been at for a long time, inasmuch as I sat all the evening on a sofa beside N , in the front room up stairs, where they received their guests, so as to leave the rooms down stairs free for the dancers. In this way I saw a great part of the company in the course of the evening, without fatigue, and without going into the ballrooms to be crowded and cramped, and kicked into a corner. Besides," he adds, with a touch of fun, " the dances that are the fashion put me out of counte- nance, and are not such as a gentleman of my years ought to witness." On the 17th, he had reached Baltimore, as will appear by the following letter : [7b Miss Catherine Irving, Sunny side.] Baltimore, Jan. 17, 1853. My dear Kate : In a letter to Sarah, I gave an account of my whereabouts and whatabouts while in New York, last week, where I was detained beyond my intended time by a snowstorm. I was rather in a humdrum mood during my sojourn, and, although I had big dinners, gay balls, Italian operas, and Banvard's Dio- rama to entertain me, I would willingly have stolen back to " my native plains," and given up the "gay world" and all terrestrial joys. The last evening of my detention, however, the weather and my dull humor cleared up ; the latter, doubt- less, under the influence of Sontag's charms, who, in the, 124 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. " Daughter of the Regiment," looked, played, and sang divinely. The next morning proving bright and fair, I broke up my encampment, and got down to the foot of Cortlandt street, in time for the ferry boat which took over passengers for the express train. I looked forward to a dull, wintry journey, and laid in a stock of newspapers to while away time ; but, in the gentlemen's cabin of the ferry boat, whom should I see but Thackeray. We greeted each other cordially. He was on his -way to Philadelphia, to deliver a course of lectures. "We took seats beside each other in the cars, and the morning passed off delightfully. He seems still to enjoy his visit to the United States exceedingly, and enters into our social life with great relish. He had made a pleasant visit to Boston ; seen much of Prescott (whom he speaks highly of ), Ticknor, Longfellow, &c. Said the Bostonians had published a smashing criticism on him ; which, however, does not seem to have ruffled his temper, as I understand he cut it out of the newspaper, and enclosed it in a letter to a female friend in New York. *...* * I arrived, after dark, at Baltimore. I had to inquire my way to Mr. Kennedy's, or rather Mr. Gray's, as Mr. K. shares the house of his father-in-law in Balti- more. The door was opened by Mr. Gray's old factotum and valley-de-sham Phil, an old negro who formed a great friend- ship with me at Saratoga last summer, and, I am told, rather values himself on our intimacy. The moment he recognized me, he seized me by the hand with such exclamations of joy, that he brought out old Mr. Gray, and then Miss Gray, into the hall ; and then a scene took place worthy of forming a companion piece to the return of the prodigal son. In a mo- ment I felt myself in my paternal home, and have ever since Mr. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 125 been a favored child of the house. To be sure, there was no fatted calf killed ; but there was a glorious tea table spread, with broiled oysters and other substantial accessories worthy of a traveller's appetite. Here, then, I am delightfully fixed, in this most hospitable, spacious, comfortable mansion, with Kennedy's library and study at my command, where I am scribbling this letter, and with my friend Phil ever at hand to take care of me, and attend to all my wants and wishes. On the morrow, he writes : This day we have a family gathering at Mr. Gray's, at din- ner, and music in the evening, the old gentleman being a great amateur. To-morrow morning I take my departure in the nine-o'clock train for Washington, where the cars take me in less than two hours. I shall leave Baltimore with regret, for they have made me completely at home here, and I have passed my time very much to my taste ; having a capital library to retire to when I wish to be alone, or to exercise my pen, and my old friend Phil to hover about me like a guardian spirit — though rather a black one. Mr. Gray is a capital specimen of the old Irish gentleman — warmhearted, benevolent, well informed, and, like myself, very fond of music and pretty faces, so that our humors jump together completely. I believe it was our sympathies in these two last matters which linked us together so cordially last sum- mer, and made him exact a promise from me to visit him this winter. From Washington, he writes to Sarah Irving, at Sunnyside : 126 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. I am most comfortably fixed at Mr. Kennedy's, with a capital room, and everything snug about me for writing or reading or lounging. Mrs. K. received me in her own frank, kind manner. She could not treat me better even if she vjere a niece. I understand my friend Major Jack Downing is in "Washington with his family ; also A H , who is here pleading a cause before the Supreme Court. I found my dar- ling little friend, Mrs. S , on a morning visit to Mrs. K., on my arrival, so that I see I shall meet with lots of agreeable company. I wish, however, to keep out of the whirl as long as I can, that I may get among the archives of the State De- partment, before I am carried off my feet by engagements. On Friday evening is the President's levee, which I shall attend, and then I shall be launched. And launched lie was, if not immersed, as we shall see by the letters which follow : [To Hiss Catherine Irving, Sunnyside.~\ Washisgtos, Jan. 23, 1S53. My dear Kate : I am in the midst of terrible dissipation, and in great dan- ger of being carried away by it, in spite of all my efforts at sober life. I have three young belles in the house with me, on a visit to Mrs. K. They are very pretty, very amiable, very ladylike, and one of them very musical; and 1 could make myself very happy at home with them, if Tom, Dick, and Harry out of doors would leave me alone ; but I am assailed with invitations of all kinds, which I find it impossible entirely to fight off. Yesterday I made a delightful excursion, with some of oui household and some of the voung folks of the President's fanv ^Et. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 127 ily, down the Potomac, in a steamer, to Mount Vernon. "We began by a very pleasant breakfast at the President's, -where we met Mr. Augustine Washington, the proprietor of Mount Vernon, who accompanied us on the excursion. The day was superb. It was like one of those Indian summer days we had just before I left home. On board the steamer we were joined by Mrs. D , and two very agreeable ladies from Boston. Everything conspired to render our visit to Mount Vernon a very interesting and delightful one ; and we returned in the steamer by four o'clock in the afternoon. In the evening I was at the President's levee. It was very crowded. I met with many interesting people there, and saw many beauties from all parts of the Union ; but I had no chance of enjoying conversation with any of them, for in a little while the same scene began that took place here eleven years ago, on my last visit. I had to shake hands with man, woman, and child, who beset me on all sides, until I felt as if it was becoming rather absurd, and struggled out of the throng. From the levee I was whirled away to a ball, where I found my friend Madame Calderon, the Spanish Minister's lady, and was getting a world of chat about Madrid and our acquaintances there, when the system of hand shaking began again, and I retreated, and came home. It is certainly very gratifying to meet with such testimo- nials of esteem and cordial goodwill, but, at the same time, it is extremely embarrassing. ***<*„*• This morning I have taken my seat as an honorary mem- ber at a meeting of the Smithsonian Institute. It is a noble institution, and is beginning to make itself known throughout the world. The edifice is a very imposing one, of brown 128 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854 stone, in the Norman style of architecture, built by Kenwick ; the interior, excepting part of the wings, yet unfinished. ****** I have been much pleased with what I have seen of the President and his family, and have been most kindly received by them. Indeed, I should have a heart like a pebble stone, if I was insensible to the very cordial treatment I experience wherever I go. The only fault I find is, that I am likely to be killed by kindness. With my best love to all at my dear little home, Your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. January 27th, lie writes to his niece Sarah : Yesterday I was rather good for nothing, having passed a somewhat sleepless night. Still I worked all the morning in the archives of state, and had to play my part at a large din- ner party at home. * * * I cannot keep my spirits up to these continual claims upon them. * * * Playing the lion has killed me. I should like to repose for a few days in my den at Sunnyside. Washington, February 4th, he writes to his nieces at Sunnyside : My dear Girls : I am in debt for several letters from home, so this must do for you all. I have, in fact, been so much taken up by hard work at the State Department, when I can manage to get there, and by the incessant demands of society in all kinds of shapes, that I have neither leisure nor mood to write. I have at times been nearly done up, and would have broken away £r:M.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 125 and hurried home, but for the mine I have to dig at in the archives. I foresee I shall be detained here some time longer, having such a world of documents to examine, and being so often in- terrupted in my labors. You must not think I am staying here for pleasure's sake ; for pleasure, just now, I would gladly dis- pense with, if I could. I do manage to keep clear of most of the evening parties ; but the long dinners are inevitable, and the necessity of returning visits cuts up my time deplorably. Had I nothing to do but amuse myself, I should find "Washington really delightful, for I meet pleasant and interest- ing people at every turn ; but I have no time to follow up new acquaintances, and am only tantalized by proffered friendships which I cannot cultivate. Mrs. Kennedy had one of her soirees a few evenings since,, when all Washington poured in upon us. * * * On this occasion, an officer of the navy delivered to me a small paper box containing a miniature anchor. It was made from the bolt to which Columbus was chained in the prison at St. Do- mingo. A purser of the navy * had gouged the bolt out of the wall, and sent part of it to the National Institute of this city ; the other part he designed for me. The poor fellow was taken ill, and died of the yellow fever ; but his sister had exe- cuted his wishes, in having a little anchor wrought out of the relic, and had forwarded it, with a letter, to me. Both the letter and the anchor have been between six and seven years in reaching me, having lain in the hands of a naval officer at Washington. I shall treasure them up in the archives of Sunnyside. * * * * Robert S. Moore, of Ncwbern, N. C. Vol. IV.— 6* fff) - .. .J 130 klFE AND LETTERS [1853. In a letter to myself, dated February 6th, 1853, he says : I am making a longer sojourn in Washington than I had intended, but it takes time to make the necessary researches in the archives of state. * * * I cannot say that I find much that is new among the manuscripts of Washington, Sparks having published the most interesting ; but it is impor- tant to get facts from the fountain head, not at second hand through his publications. The following is in answer to a letter which con- tained an allusion to a party in New York, where the amusement of the evening was moving tables:— a novel and mysterious experimenting, of which the whole city was just then full : \_To Mrs. Pierre M. Irving.] Washington, Feb. 10, 1S53. My dear Helen : % ' % ^ •& * * I had hoped Lent, which put a stop to the balls, would likewise put a stop to the dinner parties ; but the latter con- tinue, and I stand committed for several. The last one for which I am engaged is at the President's, on Saturday week. It is to be a small social party, his huge dinners being rather unwieldy, and somewhat promiscuous. I shall accept no invi- tations after that, hoping then to turn my face homeward, tarrying a day or two at Baltimore on the way. ****** Thackeray has delivered one of his lectures here, and de- livers another to-morrow evening. I attended the first, and JEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 131 shall attend the next. He is well received here, both in public and private, and is going the round of dinner parties, &c. I find him a very pleasant companion. I see you are in the midst of hocus pocus with moving tables, &c. I was at a party, last evening, where the grand experiment was made on a huge table, round which were seated upward of a dozen young folks of both sexes. The table was for a long tune obdurate. At length a very pretty, bright-eyed girl, who in England would have passed for a Lan- cashire witcli, gave the word, " Tip, table ! " whereupon the table gradually raised on two legs, until the surface was at an angle of forty-five degrees, and was not easily to be put down again, until she gave the word, " Down, table ! " It afterward rose and sank to a tune, performed gyrations about the room, &c. ; all which appeared very mysterious and diabolic. Unfor- tunately, two or three of us tried an after experiment, and found that we could tip table, and make it move about the room without any very apparent exertion of our hands ; so we remain among the unconverted — quite behind the age. From the close of the following letter, it would seem there had been some table waltzing at Sunny- side : [To Miss Sarah Irving. .] Washington, Feb. 25, 1S53. My dear Sarah : I have just received your letter, dated 24th, by which I am happy to find all is going on well at home. I went down, yesterday, in the steamer Vixen, with a large party, to visit the caloric ship Ericsson. In our party were the 132 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. two Presidents (Fillmore and Pierce), all the Cabinet, and many other official characters. The Ericsson appeared to jus- tify all that has been said in her praise, and promises to pro- duce a great change in navigation. After inspecting the machinery, and visiting all parts of the ship, which is a noble vessel, and beautifully fitted up, we par- took of a plentiful collation, and returned, well pleased, to the capital. This morning I went down to Mount Yernon, in company with Miss Mary K . We were joined at the steamboat by Mr. B and Sarah, and found Mr. Augustine "Washington on board. Our visit to Mount Vernon was but for two or three hours, returning in the afternoon. I went merely for the purpose of taking one more view of the place and its vicinity, though pressed by Mr. Washington to make a longer visit. This evening I have been at the last reception of President Fillmore. It was an immense crowd, for the public seemed eager to give him a demonstration, at parting, of their hearty goodwill. I see you are all conjuring, and setting the tables waltzing. It is really high time for me to come home. I beg you won't set the table in my study capering. If that gets bewitched, I am undone. Three days after, lie writes to Mrs. Pierre M. Irving as follows : I have been thinking of setting off homeward for the last week, yet here am I still lingering, and I begin to question whether I shall not make good your surmise, that I would stay until after the inauguration. I really am yearning for home j Mr. 60.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 133 but my friends the Kennedys will not hear of my going off until they break up their camp, which will probably be at the end of the week. I have become acquainted with the President elect. He is a quiet, gentlemanlike man in appearance and manner, and I have conceived a goodwill for him, from finding, in the course of our conversation, that he has it at heart to take care of Hawthorne, who was his early fellow student. Hawthorne afterward received the appointment of Consul at Liverpool — a lucrative post. Mr. Irving had never met the gifted author, but was a great ad- mirer of his powers, and considered his novels and essays among the best productions of our literature. His letter continues : I have a letter from Sarah S , giving an account of the grand spectacle of the Emperor and Empress going to Notre Dame, with all their wedding retinue. It must have been a magnificent pageant. I believe I have told you that I knew the grandfather of the Empress — old Mr. Kirkpatrick, who had been American Consul at Malaga. I passed an evening at his house, in 1827, near Adra, on the coast of the Mediterranean. A week or two after, I was at the house of his son-in-law, the Count Teba, at Granada — a gallant, intelligent gentleman, much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye, and been maimed in a leg and hand. His wife, the daughter of Mr. Kirkpatrick, was absent, but he had a family of little girls, mere children, about him. The youngest of these must have been the present Empress. Several years afterward, when I had recently taken 134 LIFE AND LETTERS [1S53. up my abode in Madrid, I was invited to a grand ball at the house of the Countess Montijo, one of the leaders of the ton. On making my bow to her, I was surprised at being received by her with the warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She claimed me as the friend of her late husband, the Count Teba (subsequently Marquis Montijo), who, she said, had often spo- ken of me with the greatest regard. She took me into an- other room, and showed me a miniature of the Count, such as I had known him, with a black patch over one eye. She sub- sequently introduced me to the little girls I had known at Granada — now fashionable belles at Madrid. After this, I was frequently at her house, which was one of the gayest in the capital. The Countess and her daughters all spoke English. The eldest daughter was married, while I was in Madrid, to the Duke of Alva and Berwick, the lineal successor to the pretender to the British crown. The other now sits on the throne of France. Mr. Irving remained in Washington until after the inauguration of President Pierce, when he returned to Sunny side. The following letter to Mrs. Kennedy, at whose house he had been domesticated for nearly two months, was addressed to her a few days after his return. The " gentle Horseshoe " was a name Mr. Irving was fond of giving the late Secretary of the Navy, from the title of one of his novels, Horseshoe Kobinson. jEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 135 [To Mrs. John P. Kcn?icdi/.~\ Sunnyside, March 11, 1S53. My dear Mrs. Kennedy : I was really sad at heart at parting with you and Mary Kennedy at Washington. Indeed, had not your establishment fallen to pieces around me, I hardly know when I should have gotten away. I could almost have clung to the wreck so long as there was a three-legged stool and a horn spoon to make shift with. You see what danger there is in domesticating me. I am sadly prone to take root where I find myself happy. It was some consolation to me, in parting, that I had Mrs. H and the gentle Horseshoe for fellow travellers. "Without their company, I should have been completely downhearted. The former was bright, intelligent, and amiable as usual ; and as to "John," you know he is a sympathizing soul. He saw I needed soothing, so lie cracked some of his best jokes, and I was comforted. I was rejoiced to find your father down stairs, and seem- ingly almost, if not quite as well as when I left him. My reception by him and your sister made me feel that I was in another home — or rather in another part of the family circle in which for some time past I had been flourishing so hap- pily. * * * I arrived in New York too late for the Hudson River Railroad cars, so I had to remain in the city until morning. Yesterday I alighted at the station, within ten minutes' walk of home. The walk was along the railroad, in full sight of the house. I saw female forms in the porch, and I knew the spy- glass was in hand. In a moment there was a waving of hand- kerchiefs, and a hurrying hither and thither. Never did old bachelor come to such a loving home, so gladdened by blessed 136 LIFE AND LETTERS • [1853. womankind. In fact, I doubt whether many married men receive such a heartfelt welcome. My friend Horseshoe, and one or two others of my acquaintance, may ; but there are not many as well off in domestic life as I. However, let me be humbly thankful, and repress all vainglory. After all the kissing and crying and laughing and rejoicing were over, I sallied forth to inspect my domains, welcomed home by my prime minister Robert, and my master of the horse Thomas, and my keeper of the poultry yard, "William. Everything was in good order ; all had been faithful in the dis- charge of their duties. My fields had been manured, my trees trimmed, the fences repaired and painted. I really believe more had been done in my absence than would have been done had I been home. My horses were in good condition. Dandy and Billy, the coach horses, were as sleek as seals. Gentleman Dick, my saddle horse, showed manifest pleasure at seeing me ; put his cheek against mine, laid his head on my shoulder, and would have nibbled at my ear had I permitted it. One of my Chinese geese was sitting on eggs ; the rest were sailing like frigates in the pond, with a whole fleet of white topknot ducks. The hens were vying with each other which could bring out the earliest brood of chickens. Taffy and Tony, two pet dogs of a dandy race, kept more for show than use, received me with well-bred though rather cool civility ; while my little ter- rier slut Ginger bounded about me almost crazy with delight, having five little Gingers toddling at her heels, with which she had enriched me during my absence. I forbear to say anything about my cows, my Durham heifer, or my pigeons, having gone as far with these rural mat- ters as may be agreeable. Suffice it to say, everything was just as heart could wish ; so, having visited every part of my JEt. 69.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 137 empire, I settled down for the evening in my elbow chair, and entertained the family circle with all the wonders I had seen at Washington. To-day I have dropped back into all my old habits. * * * I have resumed my seat at the table in the study, where I am scribbling this letter, while an unseasonable snow- storm is prevailing out of doors. This letter will no doubt find you once more at your happy home in Baltimore, all fussing and bustling at an end, with time to nurse yourself, and get rid of that cold which has been hanging about you for so many days. And now let me express how much I -feel obliged to you and Kennedy for drawing me forth out of my little country nest, and setting me once more in circulation. This has grown out of our fortunate meeting and sojourn together at Saratoga last summer, and I count these occurrences as among the most pleasant events of my life. They have brought me into do- mestic communion with yourselves, your family connections and dearest intimacies, and have opened to me a little world of friendship and kindness, in which I have enjoyed myself with a full heart. God bless you all, and make you as happy as you delight to make others. Ever yours, most truly, "Washington Irving. 138 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. CHAPTER Till. LETTER TO MRS. STORROTV — LOUIS NAPOLEON AND EUGENIE MONTIJO — HI3 SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY— LETTER TO HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP — WILKIE'S SKETCH— LETTER TO MR. GRAY— TO MRS. KENNEDY— SECOND LETTER TO MR. WINTHROP— LETTER TO MISS MARY E. KENNEDY — LEAVES SUNNYSIDE ON AN EXCURSION — LETTERS DURING HIS ABSENCE— LETTER ON HIS RETURN. rpPlE following letter is addressed to Mrs. Storrow, -*- at Paris : Sunnyside, March 28, 1853. My dear Saeah : A letter received from you while I was at Washington, gave an account of the marriage procession of Louis Napoleon and his bride to the Church of Notre Dame, which you saw from a window near the Hotel de Ville. One of your recent letters, I am told, speaks of your having been presented to the Empress. I shall see it when I go to town. Louis Napoleon and Eugenie Montijo, Emperor and Empress of France ! — one of whom I have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson ; the other, whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Granada ! It seems to cap the climax of the strange dramas of which Paris has been the theatre during my lifetime. I have repeatedly thought that each grand coup de theatre would be the last that would occur in my time ; but each has Mt. CO.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 13<j been succeeded by another equally striking, and what will be the next, who can conjecture ? The last I saw of Eugenie Montijo, she was one of the reigning belles of Madrid ; . and she and her giddy circle had swept away my charming young friend, the beautiful and ac- complished , into their career of fashionable dissi- pation. Now Eugenie is upon a throne, and a volun- tary recluse in a convent of one of the most rigorous orders ! Poor ! Perhaps, however, her fate may ultimately be the happiest of the two. " The storm," with her, " is o'er, and she's at rest ; " but the other is launched upon a returnless shore on a dangerous sea infamous for its tremendous ship- wrecks. Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her career, and the end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which seems to be of " such stuff as dreams are made of? " I confess my personal acquaintance with the individuals who figure in this historical romance gives me uncommon inter- est in it ; but I consider it stamped with danger and instability, and as liable to extravagant vicissitudes as one of Dumas's novels. You do right to witness the grand features of this passing pageant. You are probably reading one of the most peculiar and eventful pages of history, and may live to look back upon it as a romantic tale. I have passed part of the winter at Washington, delight- fully situated in the house of my friend Kennedy, who was Secretary of the Navy. ****** I was present at the going out of one Administration and the coming in of another ; was acquainted with both Presi- dents and most of the members of both Cabinets, and wit- 140 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. nessed the inauguration of General Pierce. It was admirable to see the quiet and courtesy with which this great transition of power and rule from one party to another took place. I was at festive meetings where the members of the opposite parties mingled socially together, and have seen the two Presi- dents arm in arm, as if the sway of an immense empire was not passing from one to the other. * * * At the last of this week I expect some of the family up here to my birthday, the 3d of April, when I come of age — of full age — seventy years ! I never could have hoped, at such an advanced period of life, to be in such full health, such activity of mind and body, and such capacity for enjoyment as I find myself at present. But I have reached the allotted limit of existence ; all beyond is especial indulgence. So long as I can retain my present health and spirits, I am happy to live, for I think my life is important to the happiness of others ; but as soon as my life becomes useless to others, and joyless to myself, I hope I may be relieved from the burden ; and I shall lay it down with heartfelt thanks to that Almighty Power which has guided my incautious steps through so many uncer- tain and dangerous ways, and enabled nie to close my career in serenity and peace, surrounded by my family and friends, in the little home I have formed for myself, among the scenes of my boyhood. With affectionate remembrances to Mr. Storrow, and love to the dear little folks, Your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. The following letter also touches upon his three- score and ten. It is addressed to the Hon. Kobert C. JEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 141 "Winthrop, of Boston, -who had just sent him a volume of his writings, and with whom he had recently be- come acquainted under Mr. Kennedy's roof, at "Wash- ington, where they sojourned together for a week. It has allusion also to a sketch of him by "Wilkie. Of this last, Mr. Winthrop writes : " Do you remember my telling you that I had a sketch of you, by "Wilkie, in one of his published volumes ? I have found it, since my return, in a volume which I purchased in London, and which was just out when I was there, in 1847. The sketch is entitled, " "Washington Irving consulting the Archives of Cordova," and is dated 25th April, 1828. It forms the frontispiece to a large volume dedicated to Lord Lansdowne. The original of the sketch of you is said to be in the possession of Sir "William Knighton, Bart." Sukntbide, April 4, 1853. My dear Mr. "WiNTimor : I have deferred replying to your very kind and acceptable letter until I could acknowledge the receipt of the volume it announced. It has now come to hand, and I shall prize it, not only for its own merit, but as a memorial of the very pleasant time we passed together under the hospitable roof of Kennedy, at "Washington ; and I assure you I esteem it one of the most gratifying circumstances attending my delightful sojourn there, that it brought me into domestic companionship with you. I regret to learn that you, like Kennedy, have been a suf- ferer in health since we parted, though I trust you are both fully recovered. You have no doubt been shocked, like my- self, at the sad bereavement which has afflicted the worthy 142 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. Fillmore family. I almost think poor Mrs. Fillmore must have received her death 'warrant while standing by my side on the marble terrace of the Capitol, exposed to chilly wind and snow, listening to the inaugural speech of her husband's successor. This sad event, as you perceive, has put an end to the South- ern tour, which did not seem to meet your approbation, and has left Kennedy to the quiet of his home and his library, which I should think he would relish after the turmoil of Washington. As to myself, to echo your own words, I am " safely at Sunnyside, and in the best of health." The shadows of de- parted years, however, are gathering over me, for yesterday I celebrated my seventieth birthday. Seventy years of age ! I can scarcely realize that I have indeed arrived at the allotted verge of existence, beyond which all is special grace and indul- gence. I used to think that a man, at seventy, must have sur- vived everything worth living for ; that with him the silver cord must be loosed, the wheel broken at the cistern ; that all desire must fail, and the grasshopper become a burden. Yet here I find myself, unconscious of the withering influences of age, still strong and active, my sensibilities alive, and my social affections in full vigor. " Strange, that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long ! " "While it does keep in tune ; wrhile I have still a little music in my soul to be called out by any touch of sympathy ; while I can enjoy the society of those dear to me, and contribute, as they tell me, to their enjoyment, I am content and happy to live on. But I have it ever present to my mind that the measure of my days is full and running over ; and I feel ready JEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 143 at any moment to lay down this remnant of existence, with a thankful heart that my erratic and precarious career has been brought to so serene a close, among the scenes of my youth, and surrounded by those I love. The sketch of me by TVilkie, which you tell me you have in one of his published volumes, cannot be an attempt at a likeness. I recollect the composition ; the scene, I think, was at Seville. I was seated in a dusky chamber at a table, look- ing over a folio volume which a monk who was standing by my side had just handed down to me. TVilkie thought the whole had a Rembrandt effect, which he aimed at produ- cing ; but, if I recollect right, my face could not be seen dis- tinctly. Farewell, my dear Mr. Winthrop, and believe me, with no common regard, Your friend, "Washington Irving. [To Mr. Uchvard Gray.'] Sunnyside, April 24, 18c3. My dear Mr. Gray : The hams which you have had the kindness to send me, came safe to hand. One of them was served up to-day, at dinner. All my family partook of it with uncommon relish. Never did a ham achieve such sudden popularity. In a word, it covered itself with glory ! I must get your receipt for cur- ing hams ; but there must be much in the breed of the animal, as well as in the treatment and feeding. I never attempt any- thing but a few green hams, in which I succeed very well ; but hams so rich, high flavored, and thoroughly cured as those you have sent me, are quite beyond my art. I thank you most heartily for this specimen of what Maryland can furnish in this 144: LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. line. If I had the ordering of things, I should have all our pigs sent to Maryland to be cured, as they send patients to southern climates. I am happy to learn from Mrs. Kennedy that your health is restored to its usual state, and anticipate the pleasure of again meeting you in the ensuing summer. Since we parted, I have celebrated my seventieth birthday, and passed that boundary beyond which a man lives by special privilege. Your example shows me, however, that a man may live on beyond that term, and retain his sensibilities alive to every- thing noble and good and pleasurable and beautiful, and enjoy the society of his friends, and spread happiness around him. On such conditions, old age is lovable. I shall endeavor to follow your example. Ever affectionately, your friend, "Washington Irving. [To Mrs. Kennedy.'] Stjnntside, April 24, 1853. My dear Mrs. Kennedy : I am truly concerned to hear that Kennedy still continues unwell. He has overtasked himself, and has led a life of too much excitement for some months past, and is now in a state of collapse. He must give his mind perfect repose for a time — do as they do with the horses, when they take off their shoes and turn them out to grass. His study is no place for him just now. I think the idea a good one to make an excursion — try change of scene and a course of agreeable society. I think Mrs. S a capital prescription for his present case ; and the sooner you pay her your proposed visit, the better. I should indeed like to be of your party, for I am be- wEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 145 witched with the South, and Virginia has always been a poet- ical region with me. But I begin to doubt whether those high-seasoned regales of society that I have had of late, at Saratoga and Washington, do not unsettle me a little, and make it hard for me to content myself with the sober, every- day fare of Sunnyside. I have now to work hard to make up for past dissipation, and to earn any future holiday. * * * I have just been writing to your father, to thank him for the hams, which have arrived in prime order, and to give him an account of the brilliant manner in which one of them ac- quitted itself at dinner to-day. I strike my flag to him com- pletely, and confess that, for hams, we cannot pretend to cope with old Maryland (always saving and excepting certain green hams peculiar to Sunnyside). It gives me sincere pleasure to learn that your father continues in his usual health. I trust that be has his musical evenings, and his pet minstrels to play and sing for him. There will never be any wrinkles in his mind as long as he can enjoy sweet music, and have youth and beauty to administer it to him. I am writing late at night, and it is high time to go to bed. So give my kindest remembrances to your sister and your hus- band, and believe me ever, your affectionate friend, "Washington Irving. The following letter, among other matters, contains a cordial and complimentary allusion to Sparks, the more interesting that it is entirely spontaneous, and that it expresses a mature and unbiassed judgment of the manner in which the task of editing " Washing- ton's Writings w bad been executed by him : Vol. IV.— 7 (10.) 146 UFE AND LETTERS [1853. [To Hon. Rolert C. Winthrop.] Sunntside, May 23, 1S53. My dear Mr. "W inthrop : I thank you and Mr. Prescott for your kind remembrances of me. It is very gratifying to be so remembered by such men. I have heretofore consulted Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston, about which you speak. It merits the character you give it, as being " the best thing written about the Bunker Hill period." I am also much obliged to you for the clippings which you send me from newspapers, giving familiar anecdotes of Washington. It is surprising how few anecdotes there are of him in his familiar life ; but he was essentially a public character, and so regulated in conduct by square and rule, as to furnish very little of the amusing and picturesque anecdote that we find in the lives of more irregular men. I doubt whether the world will ever get a more full and correct idea of Washington than is furnished by Sparks's col- lection of his letters, with the accompanying notes and illus- trations, and the preliminary biography. I cannot join in the severe censures that have been passed upon Sparks for the ver- bal corrections and alterations he has permitted himself to make in some of Washington's letters. They have been spoken of too harshly. From the examination I have given to the correspondence of Washington, in the archives of the State Department, it appears to me that Sparks has executed his task of selection, arrangement, and copious illustration, with great judgment and discrimination, and with consummate fidelity to the essential purposes of history. His intelligent and indefatigable labors in this and other fields of American jEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 147 history arc of national and incalculable importance. Posterity will do justice to them and him. I am glad to learn that you are supervising a lithographic portrait of our friend Kennedy, ironing out " the wrinkles and crow's feet," and fitting it to figure to advantage in the shop windows. It will rejoice the heart of his good little wife, who thinks he has never had justice done him in that line, and was half piqued at a lithographic effigy of myself, where the painter and engraver had represented me as flourishing in " immortal youth." * Such likenesses, " corrected and amended," will do well to go with the Homes of American Authors, recently published, to give Europeans a favorable idea of literary men and literary life in this country. In commenting on that publication, a London critic observes, that " the American authors seem to court the muse to some purpose." He did not know that most of them, so well housed, had courted a rich wife into the bar- gain. Ever, my dear Mr. "Winthrop, yours, with great regard, "WasIiington Irving. On the 27th of May, Mr. Irving writes to Miss Mary E. Kennedy, a niece of Mr. John P. Kennedy, and one of his household at "Washington : Too much occupation has produced symptoms, of late, which oblige me to suspend literary occupation, and may exile me for a time from my study. In sober sadness, I believe it is high time I should throw * Probably the likeness prefixed to Mr. H. T. Tuckerman's article on Sunnyside and its Proprietor, in the Homes of American Authors. — Ed. 148 LIFE AND LETTERS [1S53. by the pen altogether ; but writing has become a kind of hab- itude with me, and, unless I have some task on hand to occupy a great part of my time, I am at a loss what to do. After being accustomed to literary research, mere desultory reading ceases to be an occupation. There is as much difference be- tween them, in point of interest, as between taking an airing on horseback and galloping after the hounds. It is pretty hard for an old huntsman to give up the chase. In the following June, being " ordered to throw by his pen, and abstain from head work of all kinds for a time," he left his manuscript with me to look over, and give him my impressions of the work, and set out for Kennedy's, connecting with his journey some object of advantage in inspecting the manuscripts of Mr. Washington Lewis, which had been mentioned to him as containing letters and diaries of Washington, and a visit to some places noted in Washington's history. From Philadelphia, where his compagnon de voyage from New York left him, to continue on to Washing- ton in the night train, at ten o'clock, while he retired to his room, he writes me, June 13th, as follows : Inform my beloved family of my well-being, as well as of my extraordinary prudence and self-restraint in not continuing on in the night train with Mr. P , to which I confess I felt sorely tempted. But I gain prudence with years, and, I trust, will in time be all that my friends could wish. Aft TO.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 149 [To Mrs. Pierre M. Irving.] Ellicott's Mills, Juno 15, 1S53. My deaii Helen : I arrived at Baltimore yesterday, between one and two o'clock, after a pretty warm and dusty ride from Philadelphia. However, as I sat by a window on the shady side of the cars, I did not suffer much from the heat. I found Kennedy on the lookout for me. He had expected me the evening before. The family were all out of town, at old Mr. Gray's country establishment, where I am now writing. We dined at Kennedy's brother, Anthony's, in Baltimore, and had a very gay family dinner, after which we came out in the evening train, and had a beautiful drive along the lovely valley of the Patapsco, on the banks of which stream the country resi- dence is situated. You may have an idea of the house from an engraving in Putnam's " Homes of American Authors." We found the family all assembled round the tea table ; and a bright, happy gathering it was, there being a matter of five young ladies, guests in the house. Among the number, J was delighted to meet with one of the three young belles with whom I was domesticated at Washington — the one who plays so admirably on the piano. There was great greeting on all sides, and most especially by my warmhearted old friend, Mr. Gray. The evening passed delightfully. TVe had music from Miss A . "We sat out in the moonlight on the piazza, and strolled along the banks of the Patapsco, after which I went to bed, had a sweet night's sleep, and dreamt I was in Ma- homet's paradise. * * * 150 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. Juno 22d, lie writes to Miss Sarah Irving, from Cassilis, the residence of Mr. Andrew Kennedy : Mr. John Kennedy and myself left Ellicott's Mills yester- day (Monday) morning, in the train which passed at nine o'clock. * * * We had an extremely hot drive of about a hundred miles, but through lovely scenery. The railroad fol- lows up the course of the Patapsco to its head springs, and a romantic stream it is throughout. The road then crosses some fine, open, fertile country on the summit of Elk Ridge, and de- scends along the course of Reynolds's Creek and the Monocacy to the Potomac, all beautiful. At Harper's Ferry we changed cars, and pushed on to Charleston, where we found Mr. An- drew Kennedy waiting for us with his carriage. A drive of about a mile and a half brought us to his seat, whence this let- ter is dated. Here I am, in the centre of the magnificent val- ley of the Shenandoah, the great valley of Virginia. And a glorious valley it is — equal to the promised land for fertility, far superior to it for beauty, and inhabited by an infinitely superior people — choice, tbough not chosen. % * * * * * To-morrow I expect to go, in company with the two Mr. Kennedys, on a visit to Mr. George Washington Lewis, who has a noble estate about twelve miles off, where we shall remain until the next day. I have several places to visit in this vicinity, connected with the history of Washington, after which we shall push on to the mountains, where we shall find a cooler tempera- ture. * * * JEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 151 Daring this absence, I "was at Simnyside, mounting guard, as he terms it, and reading over his Life of Wash- ington in manuscript, then nearly completed to the com- mencement of the Administration. I -wrote to him that I was proceeding with the Life of "Washington with an interest that seemed almost surprising to myself ; and that I could not have believed that so much of fresh- ness and new interest could be thrown about a subject so often gone over. The following is his reply : Cassilis, June 25, 1853. My dear Pierre : Your letter of the 19th, received two or three days since, lias put me quite in spirits. From your opinion of my manu- scripts, I begin to hope that my labor has not been thrown away. Do not make a toil of reading the manuscripts, but take it leisurely, so as to keep yourself fresh in the perusal, and to judge quietly and coolly of its merits and defects. I have paid my visit to Mr. George Washington Lewis, to inspect the manuscripts in his possession. His seat (Audley) is about twelve or fourteen mile3 from this. Andrew and John Kennedy accompanied me. We went on Wednesday, and returned on Thursday. The visit was a most agreeable one. We were hospitably entertained by Mr. Lewis, who is a young man of engaging appearance and manners. * * * His mother, however, is the real custodian of the Washington reliques and papers, which she laid before me with great satis- faction. I did not find much among the manuscripts requiring note. In less than an hour I had made all the memoranda necessary. * * * Yesterday I drove out with the Kennedys, to visit two 152 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. other establishments of the Washington family in this neigh- borhood, the proprietors of which had called to see me during my absence at Audley. These visits are all full of interest ; but I will tell you all about them when we meet. * * * To-day we are to visit some other places of note in the neighborhood. On Monday, the day after to-morrow, I set off with Mr. John Kennedy and his bachelor brother, Pendleton Kennedy, for the mountains. I must again apologize for my wretched scrawl ; but it seems hard work for me to extract any ideas out of. my weary brain, which is as dry as " a remainder biscuit." I hope you will continue to mount guard at Sunnyside during my absence. "With love to all, your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. The next day, in replying to a letter of Mrs. Irving giving him some account of affairs at Sunnyside, where we were sojourning, and speaking encouragingly of his manuscript Life of Washington, he remarks : I never shall be able, I fear, to give it the toning up which a painter gives to his picture before finishing it. I am afraid my head will not bear much more work of the kind. It gives me hints, even when I am scrawling letters. [To Miss Kate Irving.'] Berkeley Springs (Bam), July 1, 1853. My dear Kate : I received, yesterday, your letter of Sunday and Monday last, and rejoice to find you have all survived the late intense uEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 153 weather. I have been for four or five days in this watering place, which is in a small valley among the mountains, and, as far as my experience goes, one of the hottest places in the known world. You will be surprised to learn, however, that my greatest amusement, during the heat of the day, is at the ten-pin alley, and that I am getting quite expert at bowling. The perspiration it produces is awful, and only to be allayed by the cool baths for which this place is famous. To-morrow I trust to emerge from this oven, and to return with Mr. Andrew Kennedy to Cassilis, where I shall be once more within the reach of cooling breezes. * * * Tell Robert [the gardener] I charge him not to work in the sun during the hottest hours of the day, should this intense warm weather continue. He injured himself by it last sum- mer ; and I would not have anything happen to him for all the hay in the country. * * * Farewell. The weather is so hot that I cannot write, nor do anything else but play at bowls and fan myself. "With love to all, your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. On the 6th of July, I wrote him that I had con- cluded the perusal of his manuscript the day before, and that the impression I communicated in my former letter had gained strength by what I had since read. " Familiar as I am with the story," I add, " I have been equally surprised and gratified to perceive what new interest it gains in your hands. I doubt not the work will be equally entertaining to young and old." The following is his reply : Vol. IV.— 7* 154 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. Ellicott's Mills, July 8, 1S53. My dear Pierre : I have just received your letter of the 6th, which I need not tell you has been most gratifying and inspiriting to me. I thank you for writing it ; for I was looking most anxiously and dubiously for your verdict, after reading the narrative of the war, in which the interest, I feared, might suffer from diffusion, and from the difficulty of binding up a variety of enterprises and campaigns into one harmonious whole. I now feel my mind prodigiously relieved, and begin to think I have not labored in vain. I left Bath shortly after I wrote to Kate. "We had in- tended a tour among the Alleghanies, but the intense heat of the weather discouraged us, and we determined to postpone that part of our plan to another season. Returning to Cassilis, we passed a few days more under the hospitable roof of Mr. Andrew Kennedy, where I saw some- thing of a harvest home in the noble valley of the. Shen- andoah. Leaving Cassilis on Wednesday morning, we arrived here before sunset. * * * Tell Sarah I have received her letter of the 1st July, but cannot answer it at present. To tell the truth, though my excursion has put me in capital health and spirits, I find I cannot handle the pen, even in these miserable scrawls, with- out feeling a sensation in the head that admonishes me to re- frain. Think, then, how gratifying it must be to me to learn from your letter that I may dispense from any severe task work in completing my historical labor. I feel that my working days are over, and rejoice that I have arrived at a good stopping place. At. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRYING. 155 At this period, he did not think of continuing the Life through the history of the Administration, but proposed to make the inauguration of "Washington his "stopping place." Hence his premature felicitation that he had reached the end of his " working days." He was yet to give a great deal of handling even to the part he deemed finished ; but when he returned to Sunnyside, it was with the desire and intention of pre- paring the Life at once for the press — an intention frustrated by the condition of his health. 15(5 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. CHAPTEE IX. EXCURSION TO THE SPRINGS — NIAGARA, ETC. — EXTRACT OF LETTER TO MISS MART E. KENNEDY — OGDENSBURG REVISITED — LETTER TO JOHN P. KENNEDY — EX- TRACT OF LETTER TO MRS. STORROW — HIS FINAL RESTING PLACE MARKED OUT — SETS OFF ON AN EXCURSION — LETTER TO MISS SARAH IRVING — THE IRVING HOUSE — TRAVELLING ON HIS CAPITAL — THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL — EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MISS CATHERINE IRVING — EXPEDITION TO WINCHESTER AND GREENWAT COURT — RETURN TO SUNNYSIDE — LETTER TO MRS. KENNEDY. inOR some time before he went to Virginia, in -*- June, 1853, Mr. Irving had to lay aside the pen almost entirely, " having overtasked myself," he says, " and produced a weariness of the brain that renders it an irksome effort even to scrawl an ordinary letter." On his return, though in excellent general health, he found himself still unable to resume his literary occu- pations, and thereupon determined to set off for Sara- toga, the waters of which were of such service to him the preceding year, and might be this ; " though," he says, " I believe all that I require is a good spell of I itcrary abstinence. ' ' He did not remain long at the Springs. " I feel a little fatigued with the bustle of the place," he writes, August 6th, a few days after his arrival, " and the ^Et. 70.] OF •WASHINGTON IRVING. 157 very attentions I receive begin to be a task upon my spirits." The following letter, written after his return home, will continue the story of his travels. His reminis- cence of the Ogdensburg of his boyhood will recall a similar passage in another letter in the third chapter of the first volume. [To Miss Mary E. Kennedy.] Scnn-yside, Sept. 8, 1S53. My dear Miss Kennedy : Indisposition has prevented me from replying earlier to your -welcome letter of the 4th August, which I received about three weeks since, on my return from Saratoga. ft * ft ft ft- • The hot weather was as intolerable at Saratoga as I had found it at Berkeley Springs ; so, after passing about ten days there, I set off on a tour with your uncle Johnr who wished to visit the F s, at Buffalo. We went by the way of the lakes, and had a magnificent sail (if I may use the word) down Lake Champlain in a steamer to Flattsburg, whence we made a night journey by railroad to Ogdensburg. Here we passed part of a day — a very interesting one to me. Fifty years had elapsed since I had visited the place in company with a party of gentlemen proprietors, with some ladies of their families. It was then a wilderness, and we were quar- tered in the remains of an old French fort at the confluence of the Oswegatchie and the St. Lawrence. It was all a scene of romance to me, for I was then a mere stripling, and everything was strange, and full of poetry. The country was covered with forest ; the Indians still inhabited some islands in the 158 LIFE AND LETTERS [185S. river, and prowled about in their canoes. There were two young ladies of the party to sympathize in my romantic feel- ings, and we passed some happy days there, exploring the for- ests, or gliding in canoes on the rivers. In my present visit, I found, with difficulty, the site of the old French fort, but all traces of it were gone. I looked round on the surrounding country and river. All was changed. A populous city occupied both sides of the Oswegatchie ; great steamers ploughed the St. Lawrence, and the opposite Canada shore was studded with towns and villages. I sat down on the river bank, where we used to embark in our canoes, and thought on the two lovely girls who used to navi- gate it with me, and the joyous party who used to cheer us from the shore. All had passed away — all were dead ! I was the sole survivor of that happy party ; and here I had returned, after a lapse of fifty years, to sit down and meditate on the mutability of all things, and to wonder that I was still alive ! From Ogdensburg we made a voyage up the St. Lawrence, through the archipelago of the " Thousand Islands," and across Lake Ontario to Lewistown, on the Niagara Eiver, where Ave took a carriage to the Falls. There we passed an insufferably hot day, and parted in the evening — your uncle to go to Buf- falo, I to Cayuga Lake to visit one of my nieces ; whence I went to Syracuse to visit Mrs. B , and then hastened homeward. All this tour was made during a spell of intensely hot weather, that deranged my whole system. The conse- quence was, that, the day after my return home, I was taken down with a violent fever and delirium, which confined me several days to my bed. * * * At. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 159 He had hardly got rid of his fever, and was still in a state of great debility, when he addressed the follow- in"- letter to the friend and travelling companion with whom he parted at Niagara Falls : [To Mr. John P. Kennedy.] Sosntside, Aug. 24, 1853. My dear Kennedy : ■ After much weary travelling by land and -water, by night and -day, through dust and heat and "fell morass," I reached home on Wednesday last, and almost immediately broke down.% "Whatever it was of evil that had been lurking in my system for some time past, took vent in a spell of chills, fever, and delirium, which hung over me for several days, and has almost torn me to rags. I avail myself of a tolerably sane fragment of myself which is left, to scrawl these lines. You will now perceive, my dear Horseshoe, that when I was a little techy under your bantering at Niagara, it was not the fault of your jokes — which were excellent, as usual — but because I was too miserably out of tune to be played upon, be the musician ever so skilful. I trust this outbreak of malady, when I get through with it, will carry off with it all the evils that have been haunting my system for some time past, and that, when next we meet, I shall relish your jokes with my usual hearty zest, even though, by singular chance, they should happen to be bad ones. I fear, however, I shall not be strong enough to go sight- seeing with you in New York ; and, indeed, have seen so much of the Crystal Palace in my delirium, that I am afraid the very sight of it would bring on a paroxysm. I look forward, however, to a visit from you all at my IQQ LIFE AND LETTERS [1S53. " small contentment," where, however I may be, my nieces will be happy to entertain you in their own modest way, on our rural fare — " a couple of shortlegged hens, a joint of mut- ton, with any pretty little tiny kickshaws," or, peradventure, with a juicy ham sent to me from the banks of the Patapsco, by a much-valued and somewhat musical friend who flourishes in that quarter. To that excellent friend, and his two inesti- mable daughters, give my most affectionate remembrances. " Thine evermore," my dear Horseshoe, " while this ma- chine is to him." Geoffrey. Very soon after the date of this letter, Mr. Irving received the visit to which he was looking forward from Mr. and Mrs. JKennedy, and Mr. and Miss G , who passed the day at Sunnyside. " I do not know," he writes to Miss Kennedy, " when I enjoyed a day more thoroughly. I only wish you had been here, to make the party complete." The following extract contains an interesting men- tion of the rural cemetery in which, " after life's fitful fever," he was himself to sleep. It is addressed to his niece in Paris, as he was on the point of setting off on another visit to Maryland and Virginia : [To Mrs. Storroiv.] Scnntside, Sept. 29, 1S53. ****** I have had one solemn and sacred duty to perform, of late ; which was, to remove from- New .York the remains of such of uEt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. lQ-± the family as were interred in the vault in front of the Brick Clmrcli, in Beekman street. That street was to be widened and, of course, the churchyard invaded. I have always appre- hended some such event, and am glad it has taken place while I am here to protect the ashes of those I loved from desecra- tion. I accordingly purchased a piece of ground in a public cemetery established within a few years on the high ground adjacent to the old Dutch church at Beekman's millpond, com- monly called the Sleepy Hollow Church. The cemetery, which is secured by an act of the Legislature, takes in a part of the Beekman woods, and commands one of the most beautiful views of the Hudson. The spot I have purchased is on the southern slope, just on the edge of the old churchyard, which is included in the cemetery. I have had it enclosed with an iron railing, and shall have evergreens set out around it. It is shaded by a grove of young oaks. There I have seen the remains of the family gathered to- gether and interred, where they cannot be again disturbed ; and a vast satisfaction it was, to have rescued them from that restless city, where nothing is sacred. As I was selecting this place of sepulture, I thought of Byron's lines : " Then look around, And choose thy ground, And take thy rest." I have marked out my resting place by my mother's side, and a space is left for me there. This may seem to you rather a melancholy theme for letter writing. Yet I write without melancholy, or, rather, without gloom. I feel deeply gratified at having been able to perform Vol. IV.— (11) 1(32 L1FE AND LETTERS [1853. this duty, and I look forward with serene satisfaction to being gathered at last to a family gathering place, where my dust may mingle with the dust of those most dear to me. God bless you, my dear Sarah. I owe my dear little Kate a letter, but have not time at present to answer it. Give my love to her and the other young princesses, and my affectionate remembrances to Mr. Storrow. Your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. P. S. — I set off on my expedition this afternoon, and ex- pect to be absent nearly all October. I give some letters written during this excursion, the, first dated, as will be seen, the night of his depar- ture, at a hotel named in his honor in New York : [ To Miss Sarah Irving.] Irving House, Friday Evening, Sept. 29, 1853. My dear Sarah : I hasten to inform you of my well-being, as I know you will be anxious. I arrived in town safe, and proceeded to the Irving House, where I asked for a room. "What party had I with me ? None. Had I not my lady with me ? No ; I was alone. I saw my chance was a bad one, and I feared to be put in a dungeon, as I was on a former occasion. I be- thought myself of your advice, and, when the book was pre- sented, wrote my name at full length — from Sunnyside. My dear Sarah, I was ushered into an apartment on the first floor (second story), furnished with rosewood, yellow damask, pier glasses, &c. ; a sumptuous bedroom, with a bed large enough JSt. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 163 for an alderman and his wife ; a bathroom adjoining. In a word, I am accommodated completely en prince. The negro waiters all call me by name, and vie with each other in waiting on me. The chambermaid has been at uncommon pains to put my rooms in first-rate order ; and, if she had been pretty, I absolutely should have kissed her ; but as she was not, I shall reward her in sordid coin. Henceforth I abjure all modesty with hotel keepers, and will get as much for my name as it will fetch. Kennedy calls it travelling on one's capital. I am at a loss where to go this evening — the Crystal Pal- ace, Julien's, or the opera. I shall let you know, before I go to bed, my decision in the matter. My dear Sarah, I have just returned. It is near twelve o'clock. They have made such a fire in my sitting room, that it is roasting to sit there ; and I am sleepy, so I must be brief. I determined to go to the opera ; but, on the way, as it was early, I strolled into the St. Nicholas Hotel, to take a look at it. It beats everything of the hotel kind I have ever seen. I wandered up stairs and down stairs and into the ladies' saloon. Such splendor ; such extent ; such long corridors and vast saloons ; and such crowds of well-dressed people and beautiful ladies ! In the course of my rambles, I came upon Mr. Baldwin, who is boarding there. He took me all about to see the wonders of the house, and, among other places, took me into the bridal chamber, about which so much has been said. It is very magnificent, but, I am told, has never been occupied excepting by a Californian prince and his bride. On the 17th of October, a day or two after his arrival at the residence of Mr. Andrew Kennedy, near 164 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. Harper's Ferry, Mr. Irving set off with that gentleman and his brother, Mr. John P. Kennedy, for "Winches- ter, whence they extended their excursion to Greenway Court, once the residence of old Lord Fairfax, the early patron of Washington, and an occasional resort of the latter in his youthful days. In the following letter the reader is furnished with an amusing account of the ex- pedition to these historic points : [To Miss Sarah Irving, .] Cassilis, Oct. 21, 1853. My dear Sarah : The expedition to Winchester and Greenway Court, in company with Messrs. John and Andrew Kennedy, was very pleasant. We went to Winchester by railroad, and then hired a carriage and an old negro coachman to take us to Greenway Court, once the residence of old Lord Fairfax, and a resort of Washington in his younger days. We set off from Winches- ter in the afternoon. The distance to Greenway Court was said to be about twelve miles, but the roads so bad that it would be impossible to return to Winchester the same evening. What was to be done ? Greenway Court was no longer habitable. There was no good country inn near at hand. Mr. Andrew Kennedy determined to seek quarters at the house of a Mr. Nelson, who resided about three miles from the Court, and with whom he was acquainted. We hoped to reach his house before sunset, so as to seek quarters elsewhere should we fail to find them there. We had a delightful afternoon drive, through a fine country diversified by noble forests in all the glory of their autumnal hues. I saw some of the noblest specimens of oaks I have ever seen in this country. The At. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 165 roads, in many places, were very bad. We travelled slowly. The sun went down in great splendor, and the landscape soon began to darken. Our black John knew nothing of the situa- tion eilher of Greenway Court or of Mr. Nelson. We made inquiries along the road, but received replies- which rather per- plexed us. It grew quite dark before we reached a gate, which, we were told, opened into Mr. Nelson's grounds. We drove across two or three broad fields — opened as many com- mon country gates. Nothing had the appearance of the ap- proach to a gentleman's seat. I began to feel dubious. It seemed very much of an intrusion, for three persons to drive up to a gentleman's house after dark, and ask quarters for the night. The Kennedys laughed at my scruples. It was the custom in Virginia. Mr. Nelson would be glad to receive us. "Perhaps," said I, "he may not have room." "Oh, yes; he has lately enlarged his house. You will find yourself in clover." We drove on. No signs of a house. We might have mistaken the road. At length we saw a light twinkling at a distance. It appeared to be from a small house. More consultation. This might not be Mr. Nelson's ; or he might not have enlarged his house. For my part, I was so fatigued, that I declared myself resigned to quarters in a barn, provided Mr. Nelson would allow me a little clean straw. The road gradually wound up to the house. As we approached, the moon, rising above a skirt of forest trees, lit up the scene, and we saw a noble mansion crowning a rising ground, with grand portico and columns, and wings surmounted with battlements. We drove up to the door. A negro boy came forth, like a dwarf from an enchanted castle. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson were both from home ! What was to be done ? It was too late to go wandering about the country in quest of other quarters. 1QQ LIFE AND LETTERS [1S53. "Would Mr. and Mrs. Nelson be home soon ? Oh, yes ; they had gone to make a visit in the neighborhood, and would be back to tea. Mr. Nelson's mother-in-law was in the house ; that would do. We alighted ; entered a spacious hall upward of twenty feet wide, with a beautiful circular staircase ; thence into a noble dining room, where the tea table was set out, but nobody present. After a time, the mother-in-law made her ap- pearance. Mr. John Kennedy was slightly acquainted with her, and introduced us. She was very civil, and by no means dis- posed to set the dogs on us. I began to have hopes of some- thing better than the barn. After a time, Mr. and Mrs. Nel- son came home. They accosted us in true Virginia style. Mr. Nelson claimed some acquaintance with me. He reminded me of his having introduced himself to me three years before, at the Revere House in Boston, when I was on there with the G s ; and said he had a prior acquaintance, having been one of a committee of the students at the University of Char- lottesville, who, about twenty years since, waited on me at the hotel to invite me to accept a public dinner. In a word, we were made at once to feel ourselves at home ; invited to pass several days there. Mr. Nelson would take us all about the country, and make us acquainted with all his neighbors. We had glorious quarters that night. The next day Mr. Nelson took us to Greenway Court. Had a large party of the neighboring gentlemen to meet us at dinner ; and it was with great difficulty we got away in time to return in the evening to Winchester. So much for my expedition to Greenway Court. To-morrow I set off, with Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, on our .return to Ellicott's Mills, and,. in the beginning of next week, Mr. 70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 167 shall take my departure for New York, to be at my post at the Astor Library on "Wednesday. The following is an extract from a letter to Mrs. Kennedy, written after his return home : How comes on the " house that Jack built " — or is to build ? I envy Kennedy the job of building that tower, if he has half the relish that I have for castle building — air castles, or any other. I should like nothing better than to have plenty of money to squander on stone and mortar, and to build chateaux along the beautiful Patapsco with the noble stone which abounds there ; but I would first blow up all the cotton mills (your father's among the number), and make picturesque ruins of them ; and I would utterly destroy the railroad ; and all the cotton lords should live in baronial castles on the cliffs, and the cotton spinners should be virtuous peasantry of both sexes, in silk skirts and small clothes and straw hats, with long ribbands, and should do nothing but sing songs and choruses, and dance on the margin of the river. Of late, I have gratified my building propensity in a small way, by putting lip a cottage for my gardener and his hand- some wife, and have indulged in other unprofitable improve- ments incident to a gentleman cultivator. A pretty country retreat is like a pretty wife — one is always throwing away money in decorating it. Fortunately, I have but one of those two drains to the purse, and so do not repine. I see you are again throwing out lures to tempt me back to Baltimore, and sending me messages from M D and dear little " Lu ;" and I have a letter from Mr. Andrew Ken- nedv, inviting me to come to Cassilis and the Shenandoah, 1(38 LIFE AND LETTERS [1853. when I am tired of the Hudson. Ah, me ! I am but mortal man, and but too easily tempted ; and I begin to think you have been giving me love powders among you — I feel such a hankering toward the South. But be firm, my heart ! I have four blessed nieces at home hanging about my neck, and sev- eral others visiting me, and holding me by the skirts. How can I tear myself from them ? Domestic affection forbids it ! ^Jr.70.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. IgQ CHAPTER X EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MRS. KENNEDY — NO DESIRE TO TRAVEL WITH POLIT- ICAL NOTORIETIES — EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MRS. SANDERS IRVING — HIS OLD DANCING-SCHOOL DAYS — A BREAKFAST AT JOHN DDER'S — THE NAME OF DEARMAN CHANGED TO IRVINGTON — CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE KNICKERBOCKER GALLERY — TO MRS. KIRKLAND — LETTER TO JOHN P. KENNEDY VISIT TO IDLEWILD — THE HOME JOURNAL'S ACCOUNT OF CONVERSATION ABOUT MOORE — LETTERS TO JOHN P. KENNEDY — LETTER TO MRS. STORROW — EUROPEAN REMINISCENCES. rT^HE following letter was addressed to Mrs. Ken- -*- nedy, just as her husband was about to start on a Southern tour with Mr. Fillmore, the late President, which was to have taken place the previous spring, but was prevented by the death of Mrs. Fillmore. Mr. Kennedy had intimated a wish that Mr. Irving should accompany them ; " but I have no inclination," he writes, " to travel with political notorieties, to be smothered by the clouds of party dust whirled up by their chariot wheels, and beset by the speechmaker8 and little great men and bores of every community who might consider Mr. Fillmore a candidate for an- other presidential term.'' " Douce Davie,'" mentioned in the letter, was the name of a horse his correspondent Vol. IV.— 8 170 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854. used to ride, and which he had often mounted at Elli- cott's Mills : Sxtnntsidb, Feb. 21, 1854. My dear Mrs. Kennedy : * * * * * # I met Mr. Meredith in town on Saturday last, and he told me that Kennedy had been unwell. If it is that affection of the head of which he complained last year, tell him I have found, in my own case, great relief from homoeopathy, to which I had recourse almost accidentally, for I am rather slow at adopting new theories. I can now apply myself to literary occupation day after day for several hours at a time, without any recurrence of the symptoms that troubled me. In fact, my head seems to be as hard as ever it was — though perhaps somewhat heavier. You tell me Kennedy is about to set off with Mr. Fillmore on his Southern tour, and would like to have me for a com- panion. Heaven preserve me from any tour of the kind ! To have to cope at every turn with the host of bores of all kinds that beset the paths of political notorieties ! To have to listen to the speeches that would be made, at dinners and other occa- sions, to Mr. Fillmore and himself; and to the speeches that Mr. Fillmore and he would make in return ! Has he not found out, by this time, how very borable I am ? Has he not seen me skulk from barrooms, and other gathering places, where he was making political capital among the million ? Has he for- gotten how, last summer, a crew of blatant firemen, whose brass trumpets gave him so much delight, absolutely drove me into the wilderness ? No, no. I am ready at any time to clatter off on Douce Davie into the woods, with the gentle Horseshoe, or to scale the Alleghanies with him (barring Mi. 71.1 OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 171 watering places) ; but as to a political tour, I would as lief go campaigning with Hudibras or Don Quixote. You ask me how I have passed my time this winter. Very much at home — dropping into town occasionally to pass a few hours at the Astor Library, but returning home in the evening. I have been but once or twice at the opera, and to none of Julien's concerts. Still my time has passed pleas- antly in constant occupation ; though I begin to think that I often toil to very little purpose, excepting to keep off ennui, and give a zest to relaxation. * * • The letter which follows, was written on his sev- enty-first birthday, to the wife of a nephew rather deli- cate in health, and a great favorite, who had been for some time housed at Simnyside, and was now " rough- ing it about the world." It was in reply to a letter from Montgomery, Ala., in which she gave an account of her pilgrimages : [To Mrs. Sanders Irving .] StfXNYSiDE, April 3, 1854. My dear Julia : Sarah has engaged that I shall write a postscript to her let- ter ; but I am in a sad state of incompetency to do it. My faculties seem benumbed, probably from the long spell of dis- mal, wintry weather we have enjoyed for the last fortnight. It is quite tantalizing to read your account of your roses and rho- dodendrons, and the budding and blossoming of spring in the " sweet south country " through which you have been pilgrim- aging. I should have liked to be with you in your voyage up 172 ^K AND LETTERS [1854. the Tennessee. I begin to long for a wild, unhackneyed river, unimproved by cultivation, and unburdened by commerce. To-day is my seventy-first birthday, and opens with a serene, sunny, beautiful morning. * * * I have wished a thousand times, my dear Julia, since your departure, that you were with me, making your home under my roof, as you do in my heart ; and I never wished it more strongly than at this moment. I feel very much this long separation, and grieve that it is likely to be so much prolonged, and that you are moving to farther and farther distances from me. I wish S could have some employment near at hand, so that you could take up your abode with me entirely. In a letter to Mrs. Irving, then on a visit with me to North Carolina, dated April 6th, after giving some account of his dissipations during a week's sojourn in town, he writes : Another of my dissipations was an evening at the dancing school, where I was very much pleased and amused. I met your friend Mrs. M there, whom I found very agreeable, and who made me acquainted with her bright little daughter. The scene brought my old dancing-school days back again, and I felt very much like cutting a pigeon wing, and showing the young folks how we all footed it in days of yore, about the time that David danced before the ark. The next morning, where should I breakfast but at Judge Duer's ! It was to meet Mr. Lawrence, the English portrait painter, who has come out with letters from Thackeray, and I don't know who all, and is painting all the head people (some of whom have no heads) in town. It was a very agreeable JEt.71.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 173 breakfast party, three or four gentlemen besides Mr. Lawrence and myself; but what made it especially agreeable, was the presence of two of the Miss . My dear PI I was delighted with them — so bright, so easy, so ladylike, so intelligent ! IT has one of the finest, most spiritual faces I have seen for a long time. Why, in heaven's name, have I not seen more of these women ? "We have very few like them in New York. However, I see you are beginning to laugh, so I will say no more on the subject. In April, he receives a note from a neighbor, in- forming him that the Postmaster General " acceded to the wishes of all the inhabitants of Dearman, save himself, to have the name of Dearman changed to Irvington." Dearman was the original name of the village and railroad station a few hundred yards south of Sunnyside. It was known thereafter as Irvington. May 30th, he is "on a two-days' visit at the old bachelor nest of his friend Mr. Gouverneur Kemble, in the very heart of the Highlands, with magnificent scenery all around him ; mountains clothed with for- ests to their very summit, and the noble Hudson moving along quietly and majestically at their feet." June 16th, Mr. Hueston writes him for a contribu- tion to the Knickerbocker Gallery, a complimentary tribute to Louis Gaylord Clark, for twenty years editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, and trusts he will be able to furnish it by the 1st of July. On the 21st of the same month, Mrs. C. M. Kirkland throws herself on his gallantry for a ten-line scrap — the sweeping of 174 LIFE A5D LETTERS [1854. his portfolio — that might be read aloud at a literary and musical festival that had been devised at Milwau- kie, as a means to raise three hundred dollars toward an institution for the education of young women at the West. After being read aloud, the article was to be sold to the highest bidder. Both requests were com- plied with, and articles sent. June 29th, he writes to Kennedy, with " a head confused and almost stupefied with catarrh ; " that this had " been rather an unfortunate season with him, hav- ing had two returns of his old complaint, chills and fever ; the last just as he was on the way to attend a wedding of a grand niece, at which all the ten tribes of the family were assembled." In the following letter we have an account, among other things, of a visit to Idlewild, the home of iN". P. Willis : [To Mr. J. P. Kennedy.'] Sunntside, Aug. 31, 1854. My dear Kennedy : Wherever this letter finds you, whether in your tower on the banks of the Patapsco, at your brother's in the Shenandoah Valley, or with that rare old cavalier, your uncle Pendleton, in his favorite resort, the cool hollow of Berkeley Springs, may it find you in the enjoyment of good health and good spirits. ****** I am concerned to learn that Mr. Gray's health has been feeble of late, and that he has had days of suffering and " nights of prolonged nervous distress." Your account of his JET.71.J OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 175 firm presentiment that he was to close his earthly career on his birthday, the lGlh of last July, of his business arrangements for the event, and the calm serenity with which he awaited it, is really touching and beautiful. It only proved how truly worthy he is of length of days ; for none is so fitted to live as he who is well prepared to die. God send him many more years, with a body as free from pain as his mind is from evil or his heart from unkindness. He has everything that should accompany old age, " A3 honor, love, obedience, troops of friends ; " and he is an instance how lovable old age may render itself. I lately made a day's excursion up the Hudson, in company with Mr. and Mrs. M G and two or three others, to visit Willis in his poetical retreat of Idlewild. It is really a beautiful place, the site well chosen, commanding noble and romantic scenery ; the house commodious and picturesque, and furnished with much taste. In a word, it is just such a retreat as a poet would desire. I never saw Willis to such advantage as on this occasion. * * * Willis talks and writes much about his ill health, and is really troubled with an ugly cough ; but I do not think his lungs are seriously affected, and I think it likely he will be like a cracked pitcher, which lasts the longer for having a flaw in it, being so much the more taken care of. ****** I have been passing the summer entirely at home, deter- mined not to travel any more in hot weather. I have had no return of the chills and fever, that paid me a slight visit early in June, and am now in fair health for such a green old gentle- man. I wish I had Douce Davie here to mount occasionally, 176 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854. for Gentleman Dick is in such disgrace that my womankind will not hear to my mounting him any more. The last time I did so, he took a start from hearing a young horse in a pasture galloping alongside of the fence, and, fancying it to be a chal- lenge to a race, set off ventre a terre, and gave me a run of nearly three miles before I could bring him to a stop. Fortu- nately, I had a fair road ; everybody and everything turned aside, and made way for me ; and Dick showed such speed and bottom, that I am thinking of entering him for the cup at the next races. God bless you, my dear Kennedy. Yours very faithfully, "Washington Ikving. It was nine months before he again mounted the back of Gentleman Dick ; and the equestrian mis- chance that then befell him, will be told in its place. I introduce, now, Mr. Willis's account of a conversa- tion with him about Moore, the poet, which took place on his late visit to Idlewild : We chanced to be present, the other day, when Washing- ton Irving took up the defence of the memory of Tom Moore. So noteworthy an outpouring, as it was, of a generous and genial nature — properly eloquent in defence of the friend with whom he had exchanged cordialities, and over whose grave he would not, therefore, see an ill weed grow unplucked — we wished, at the time, that the summer wind would play reporter, and tell the whole world of it. The subject was started by Irving's being rallied on having been such a Brummel, while in London, as to have served Moore for a model in dress ; as ^Et. 71.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 177 appeared by a passage in one of his letters, giving directions to his publisher to look up Irving's tailor to make him a coat. "Ah," said Geoffrey, with one of his genial lightings-up of the face still handsome, " that was owing to the mere chance of Moore's having been with me, one morning, when I went into Nugee's. And I have often thought of it since, by the way, as a curious instance of the bringing together of opposite classes in England. We were strolling down St. James street, and Moore just stepped in with me while I ordered a coat. Seeing that Nugee did not know him, I stepped between the two, and said, ' Really, gentlemen, two such very distinguished men ought to know each other ! Mr. Nugee, this is Mr. Thomas Moore ; Mr. Moore, Mr. Nugee ! ' Upon which, Nugee, who was worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds at least, came forward, bowing almost to the ground in his excessive humility, and could not find words enough to express his sense of the honor of such an introduc- tion.* He was delighted with it, too, and thanked me warmly for it afterward. ' Good creature ! ' he said of Moore ; ' good creature ! ' — using the pbrase very popular in London, at that time, to express great admiration. Yes," continued Irving, musingly, " there was that tailor, worth a magnificent fortune, and he would come to your lodgings with the coat he had made, to try it on ! I remember his flattering way of looking * Irving thus provided a customer for the tailor. In Moore's Diary- occurs the following passage : " Nugee called with the first sketch of my coat, to try it on. Said he would dress me better than ever I was dressed in my life. ' There's not much of you, sir,' he said, ' and therefore my object must be to make the most I can of you.' Quite a jewel of a man, this Nugee. Have gone to him in consequence of my former tailor being bankrupt." Vol. rV.— 8* (12) 178 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854. at me, and expressing his interest when I called upon him, on my return from the Continent, to order something. ' Not look- ing quite so well, my dear sir ; not quite so well ! Take care of yourself, dear Mr. Irving ; pray, take care of yourself ! We can't spare you yet.' " But they do Moore the greatest injustice in denying him a sincere affection for his wife. He really loved her, and was proud of her. I know it," continued Irving, very emphatic- ally. " When we were in Paris together, I used to go out and breakfast with him ; and most delightful those breakfasts were. And I remember being with Moore when his friends Lord and Lady Holland had just arrived ; and Lady Holland told Tom they were coming out the next day to breakfast, and she wished particularly to see little Bessy. ' They shall have the breakfast,' said his wife, when he told her, ' but they wont see little Bessy ! ' She said it very archly, but with the posi- tiveness of an habitual independence, for she would not be patronized by great folks ! Moore admired this, though he used to say it was quite beyond what he was capable of him- self. Bat she did yield to him occasionally, and go out with him to parties — once, particularly, exciting her husband's great- est admiration by the way her quiet and self-possessed manner completely baffled the condescension of Lady L . Her ladyship had intended to be excessively cordial ; but the simple way in which ' little Bessy ' took it as a matter of course, turned the balance of dignity altogether. Moore spoke of it delightedly afterward. Oh, they have cruelly misrepresented that man ! He was an honorable, highminded fellow, and, in some trying money matters particularly, he showed the great- est disinterestedness and liberality. He has been shamefully wronged since his death." JEt. 71.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 179 Thus vindicatorily of his friend spoke the just and kind Geoffrey Crayon a day or two since ; and we are glad to re- cord it while the dark wing of the poet's renown is uppermost. For, says Milton, " Fame has two wings — one black, the other white ; She waves them both in her unequal flight." To Mrs. Kennedy he writes, from Sunnyside, Au- gust 31st : ****** You ask me whether the homoeopathies still keep me quite well. I really begin to have great faith in them. The com- plaint of the head especially, which troubled me last year, and obliged me to throw by my pen, has been completely van- quished by them, so that I have fagged with it as closely as ever. * * * My nephew, P. M. I., is about to build a cottage in my immediate vicinity, I having given him a site for the purpose — one of my fields, which lies on the south side of the lane lead- ing down to my dwelling. [To John P. Kennedy.] Sunnyside, Oct. 5, 1854. My dear Kennedy : Your letter has remained too long unanswered ; but I find it impossible to be regular and prompt in correspondence, though with the best intentions and constant efforts to that effect. I condole with you sincerely on the loss of your mother, for, from my own experience, it is one of the losses which sink deepest in the heart. It is upward of thirty years since I lost mine, then at an advanced age ; yet I dream of 180 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854. her to this day, and wake up with tears on my cheeks. I think the advanced age at which she died endears her memory to me, and gives more tenderness and sadness to the recollec- tion of her. Yet, after all, a calm and painless death, closing a long and well-spent life, is not a thing in itself to be lament- ed ; and, from your own account, your mother's life was happy to the end ; for she was, you say, " well conditioned in mind and body," and one of her last employments was to perform for her grandchildren on the piano. * * * "What a bless- ing it is to have this feeling for music, which attended your mother to the last ! It is indeed a sweetener of life, and a fountain of youth for old age to bathe in and refresh itself. [To Mr. J. P. Kennedy.] Sunntside, Nov. 22, 1854. My dear Kennedy : Your last letter was in cheerful contrast to those which pre- ceded it. I had heard, in a circuitous way, of Mrs. Ken- nedy's illness, and was about to write to you on the subject, when I received from you the intelligence that she had routed the enemy ; was " gathering strength with her accustomed energy of action ; " walked, rode, and ate with a determination to be as well as ever ; and that you hope she would even be better than ever. I rejoice in your bulletin, and trust that she and her allies, the doctor and quinine, will be more prompt and complete in their triumph than the allied powers in the Crimea, with whom you have compared them. I am glad to find, also, that Mr. Gray continues to falsify his predictions, and to grow fat and hearty in spite of himself. I trust nature will continue to make him a false prophet in this respect ; she is very apt to surprise valetudinarians with a latent ^Et. 71.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 181 fund of longevity of which they had no conception. I think, if he were to take a jaunt to New York, and hear Grisi and Mario through their principal characters, it would be like a dip in the fountain of youth to him. I have had some delicious treats since their arrival in New York. I think Grisi's singing and acting would be just to Mr. Gray's taste. There is a freshness and beauty about her, in voice and person, that seem to bid defiance to time. I wish Mr. Gray could see her in Semiramide, and in Rosina (Barber of Seville), which exhibit her powers in the grand and the comic. I had always seen her in the former, and considered her a magnificent being. It was only lately, on my last visit to town, that I saw her in comedy, when she played Rosina twice, and surprised me by the truthfulness with which she could assume the girl, and the unforced whim and humor with which she could illustrate all her caprices. But, to perceive her thorough excellence in this part, one must be able to dis- cern every play of her countenance, and especially of her eye. Her acting, like all great achievements of art, is worthy of especial examination. It is a perfect study. Like all great achievements of art, it is delightful from its simplicity. The Semiramide and the Barber of Seville, as now per- formed in New York, are worthy of a winter's journey from Baltimore. Just before I left town, there was a semi-centennial anni- versary of the New York Historical Society. Indeed, I stayed in town to be present at it ; but, when the time arrived, my incorrigible propensity to flinch from all public ceremonials and festivals came over me. I mingled in the crowd, and heard Bancroft's erudite address from the " auditorium," but kept clear of the banquet which took place afterward. Among 182 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854. the dignitaries and invited guests on the stage, I saw our friend "Winthrop, who, I find by the papers, made an eloquent speech at the banquet. This I regret not to have heard. I have never heard him speak in public, but have heard much of his talent for public speaking ; and I think, from what I have seen of him, he would be apt to acquit himself well and grace- fully. * * * "With affectionate remembrances to Mr. G , Miss G , and your (much) better half, Yours, my dear Kennedy, very truly, Washington Irving. [ To Mrs. Storrow, at Pan's.] Sttnnyside, Nov. 23, 1854. My dear Sarah : Your last letter has taken me over many scenes of former travel, and brought up delightful recollections. Switzerland, the Rhine, and the southern parts of Germany bordering on the Tyrol, with the quaint old towns and cities, Baden-Baden, Strasburg, Ulm, Augsburg, Salzburg, &c, &c. Did you, when at Baden-Baden, visit those awful chambers, or dungeons, under the old castle, one of the seats of the " Vehm Gericht," or Secret Tribunal — that mysterious and tremendous associa- tion that once held such sway over Germany ? I do not know whether they are generally shown to strangers ; but, having read a great deal on the subject of that secret institution, I sought them out, and visited them with thrilling interest. You say you found my name written in the visitors' book at Augs- burg, thirty-two years since. Had there been a visitors' book at Zurich of sufficiently ancient date, you might have met my name written there forty -nine years since, as I made a visit to -St. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 183 it in 1805, in the course of my first European tour; and well do I recollect how much I was charmed with it, and how will- ingly I would have lingered there. You do not say whether, Avhen at Salzburg, you visited the famous salt mine, and made a subterranean excursion. I presume you did not, as you would have found it rather " awsome," as the Scotch say, though I was very much inter- ested by it. Salzburg and its vicinity struck me as a very region for legendary romance. I presume you recollect the Untersburg, or "Wanderburg, a few miles from Salzburg ; within which, according to popular tale, the Emperor Charles sits in state, with golden crown on his head and sceptre in his hand. In the interior of the same mountain are palaces and churches and convents and gardens and untold treasures, guarded by dwarfs, who sometimes wander, at midnight, into Salzburg, to say their prayers in the cathedral. No doubt Kate lias come across all this in the course of her German studies, and was able to put you on the track of these won- ders. Before the breaking out of any war, the Emperor Charles issues out of the mountain with all his array, and marches round it with great blast and bray of trumpet, and then returns into his subterranean palace. I wish you could have seen a procession of the kind. It would have surpassed all the state of the mongrel emperors and empresses in whom you delight. ****** Give my love to the princesses, who, I understand, are growing in grace as in years. You are devoting vourself to their education. Do not attempt to make remarkable women of them. Let them acquire those accomplishments which en- liven and sweeten home, but do not seek to fit them to shine in 184 LIFE AND LETTERS [1854. fashionable society. Keep them as natural, simple, and unpre- tending as possible ; cultivate in them noble and elevated sen- timents, and, above all, the feeling of veneration, so apt to be deadened, if not lost, in the gay, sensuous world by which they are surrounded. They live in the midst of spectacle ; everything around them is addressed to the senses. The soci- ety with which they mingle is all of a transient kind — travel- ling Americans, restless seekers after novelty and excitement. All this you must bear in mind, and counteract as much as possible, by nurturing home feelings and affections, habits of thought and quiet devotion, and a reverence for grand and noble and solemn and sacred things. Give my kindest remembrances to your husband, and be- lieve me, my dear Sarah, ever your affectionate uncle, Washington Irving. Mr. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 185 CHAPTEK XI. A NEW-YEAR SALUTATION* — PUBLICATION OP WOLFERT's IIOOST— EXTRACTS FROM SCME OF THE NOTICES — ANECDOTE HESPECTING MOUNTJOT — PUBLICATION OF VOL. I OF THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON — AN EQUESTRIAN OVERTHROW — LETTER TO JOHN- P. KENNEDY — LETTER FROM BANCROFT ON RECEIPT OF VOL. I OP LIFE OF WASHINGTON — DETERMINES TO COMPLETE THE WORK — PASSAGE FROM LETTER TO MRS. STORROW — IMPATIENT TO GET VOL. II READY FOR THE TRESS — REPLY TO INVITATION FROM MOSES THOMAS — LETTER TO JAMES K. PAULDING. npHE new year finds Mr. Irving again at Cassilis* -*- in the valley of the Shenandoah, where he had gone to attend a wedding of a niece of Mr. Kennedy. A letter to one of the inmates of his little home, dated January 1st, opens with this characteristic salutation from the country seat where the nuptials were to be celebrated : " My dear Kate, a happy New Year to you, and all the family. So there, I've caught you all." There was generally a strife, at Sunnyside, who should be first to bid " Happy New Year." Soon after his return, the volume entitled " ¥ol- fert's Roost " was issued from the press. This work derives its title from what was the first name given by the author to his residence of Sunnyside — the Roost 186 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. (or Rest) of "Wolfert Acker, " one of the privy council- lors of the renowned Peter Stuyvesant," who retreated to this " quiet and sheltered nook " after the subjuga- tion of New Amsterdam by the English. The opening piece of the volume, consisting of three chronicles, gives a humorous description of " the little old-fash- ioned stone mansion, all made up of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat ; " and recounts the remarkable inhabitants it has had at various periods of history ; and how it came to be the keep or stronghold of Jacob Yan Tassel, a valiant Dutchman, during the dark and troublous times of the Revolutionary war ; and how, finally, the eventful little pile was selected for the haunt or sojourning of Diedrich Knickerbocker. The reader, familiar with the letter to the editor of the Knickerbocker, with which the series of articles contributed by Mr. Irving to that magazine began, will detect in these opening chronicles a striking simi- larity to parts of that communication, upon which these quaint and amusing legends have evidently been remodelled. The rest of the volume is but a collection of tales and sketches long before published in that periodical, with the exception of " The Creole Til- lage," "The Widow's Ordeal," and "A Contented Man," which were given originally in annuals. The work appeared early in February, and proved, no doubt, to the majority of its readers, a new publica- tion ; to the young particularly, who could hardly have JK.72.1. OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 187 been familiar with the contents of any of the papers of which it is composed. The volume was greeted in the highest terms by the press and the public on both sides of the Atlantic. " It would not be easy to overpraise this American miscellany," is the commencement of some favorable comments of the London Athenaeum. " There is as much elegance of diction, as graceful a description of natural scenery, as grotesque an earnest- ness in diablerie, and as quiet but as telling a satiric humor, as when Geoffrey Crayon first came before the English world, nearly forty years ago," says the Lon- don Spectator. " This volume," writes a critic in the columns of the New York Courier and Enquirer, " will be almost equally welcome to those who have and those who have not read the papers of which it is composed. * * * It was well to collect these scat- tered waifs of his genius while he himself was by to superintend the labor. * * * He has given to the world few productions more charming than ' Wolfert's Eoost' and the < Sketches in Paris in 1825.' " The Evening Post cites the second paper on the Birds of Spring as " a special favorite." " It is the one which relates the history of the boblink, or bob- o'lincoln, from his first appearance as a gay warbler in the fields of the Northern States, through his various changes ; becoming a reed bird in the marshes border- ing the rivers of the Middle States, and finally a rice bird at the South, where he degenerates into a fat epicure, and is shot for the table. The rest of the 188 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. sketches and narratives," it adds, " have all the charac- teristics of Irving's graceful genius, and are worthy to be placed by the side of his ' Sketch Book,' composed long years since." A notice in the Boston Telegraph says : " We think it superior to any of his previous works in one respect — that of wide range and variety. There is some one or more papers in the new volume, which bring to mind each of the author's former works. It seems as if, when he published his previous imaginative works, he had laid aside one or more papers from each of them, and that here they were. Thus there are Span- ish and Moorish legends, which remind us of the ' Alhambra ' and the ' Conquest of Granada ; ' Dutch stories, reminding one of portions of the ' Sketch Book,' ' Tales of a Traveller,' and of the ' History of New York.' It is, in fact, a volume which contains ' representative ' papers of all his former works." Of the varied effusions of this compilation, a great favorite with many was the unfinished narrative of " Mountjoy ; or, Some Passages out of the Life of a Castle Builder." This first appeared in the Knicker- hocker in 1839, but it was written in England prior to the publication of the first number of the Sketch Book, in 1819. He read it to Leslie when the artist was in a tired mood, and, receiving from him little encourage- ment to proceed, threw it aside, and' never touched it again. It was in vain that Leslie tried afterward to put him in heart about it. He was effectually discour- Mi. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING 189 aged. I have little doubt that Ogilvie was shadowed forth in this piece under the character of Glencoe, as he afterward sat to Leslie for the portrait of Don Quixote. , The publication of the first volume of the Life of Washington soon succeeded the appearance of " Wol- ' fert's Koost." In regard to the size and form of this long-expected biography, it had been his intention to publish it only in the octavo form ; but it was so de- cidedly the judgment of his publisher that the duo- decimo form would be the most in demand, from being uniform with his other works, that a sort of compro- mise was effected, by which it was to appear in both forms together. To enforce the propriety of his views in favor of the duodecimo edition, his publisher writes him, January 11th, at Sunnyside, where he had now returned : " You are aware we printed an edition of Columbus in octavo, to range with Prescott's Works ; but of these we have never sold but two hundred and fifty copies ; while about eleven thousand have been sold of the duodecimo." The author, at the age of seventy-two, had just got through correcting the proofs of the first volume, when he met with his second accident from his horse Dick, to which allusion was made in a previous chapter. He had not mounted him since his former accident ; but on this day, April 18th, 1855, a favorite young lady friend calling at the house on horseback, he could not resist the temptation to try him once again, and accom- 190 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. pany her on a short ride. His " womankind," as he styled his nieces, sought to dissuade him, but he was not to be overruled. He had gone but about two hun- dred yards on the main road, when the animal became so restless that he was induced to turn about, and, leaving his companion at the head of the lane, retrace his steps alone toward home, resolving within himself, as he told me, never to get astride of Master Dick again. This purpose was hardly formed, before the unquiet beast suddenly became ungovernable, and, starting off at full speed, rushed madly down the hill. His rider tried the curb in vain. He did not heed it ; and, continuing his frantic pace through the cottage gate, tore his way into an evergreen that overhung the road, and, stumbling, fell himself, and threw his rider with violence to the ground, about a hundred feet from his own door. Luckily, no limbs were broken, but his head received a severe bruise, and his chest was sorely wrenched by the violence of the overthrow, so that for two days he could not be moved in bed without great pain, and could not rise up or turn without assistance. This was about the eighth or ninth escape he had had from somewhat similar accidents on horseback or in carriage since he built the cottage. His physician, Dr. John C. Peters, of New York, who was immediately sent for, on coming in, asked him how he felt. The reply was ludicrously expressive : " I feel as if an attempt had been made to force my head down into my chest, as you shut up a spy- wEt. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 191 glass." To an inquiry of one of his nieces how he felt now, after his position had been changed in bed, though he was still in great pain, " First rate," was the reply, making the motion as if touching his hat, and showing that he had in mind the answer of a. poor starving soldier to Lieutenant Strain, when his party was perishing for food, and he was asked by his officer how he was. Lieutenant Strain had shortly before been at the cottage, and told the touching anec- dote. The next day he was somewhat less helpless, and, though he could not rise up or turn directly, yet, " by a good deal of circumlocution," as he oddly ex- pressed it, he was able to move himself. Llis humor never seemed to desert him, even in his most painful moments. On the third day, though still feeling " somewhat battered and bruised," he got up very unexpectedly, and dressed and shaved himself; and, a day or two after, wrote the following reply to an inquiry of Ken- nedy about the accident : [To John P. Kennedy.] Sunntside, April 23, 1855. My dear Kennedy : The telegraphic report was, as usual, exaggerated. I have been thrown from my horse, but not as dangerously hurt as reported. Thanks to a hard head and strong chest, I have withstood a shock that would have staved in a sensitively con- structed man. My head was pretty well battered, and came nigh being forced down into my chest, like the end of a tele- 192 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. scope ; and my chest is still so wrenched and sore, that I am like one suffering with the asthma. But I have left my bed, and am on my legs again. It's all the doings of that rascal, Gentleman Dick, who, knowing my fondness for him, has played me all kinds of tricks. This is the second time he has fairly run away with me, but at least the tenth time he has attempted it. The first time I kept my seat, but this time he was determined I should not ; so he ran me among trees, and we both came down together. I have cut him off with a shilling. The worst result of the accident (he writes to a niece who had expressed great concern about it from abroad) was, that I had to sell my favorite saddle horse, Gentleman Dick, or there would have been no peace in the household, the " womenkind " were so clamorous against the poor animal. Poor Dick ! His character was very much misunderstood by all but myself. He was one of the gentlest, finest tempered animals in the world. But a scamp of a coachman had played tricks with him, and made him so timid, that he was apt to get into a panic, when suddenly he would take the bit. between his teeth, and trust to his heels for safety. I am now looking out for a quiet, sober, old-gentlemanlike horse, if such a thing is to be met with in this very young country, where everything is so prone to go ahead. May 20th, 1855, Mr. Irving writes to me : " I en- close a letter, just received from Murray, which I will thank you to hand to Mr. Putnam. You will see that some negligence or omission in forwarding advance sheets to London may mar my interests in that qnar- JEt. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 193 ter. But no matter. If my work be well received by the public, I shall be content, whatever be the pecu- niary profits." The letter from Murray informed him that he had placed the advance sheets of " Washington " in the hands of Bohn, on " a promise of £50, and a hope of something more if he could keep the field to himself; but added that there was risk of perfect copies coming over from America before Bohn could complete his edition, in consequence of there being some pages missing from the proof sheets sent over. " It is quite absurd," he says, " to think of sending sheets of a book otherwise than in duplicate sets." If there were demand for a large edition, he would print one himself, in conformity with the terms of his last letter ; " but," he writes, " I fear the publication in volume will be fatal to a large edition. The pros- pects of literature seen athwart the war are not en- couraging, and I am disposed, consequently, to publish as little as possible." This volume treats of the earlier part of Washing- ton's career previous to the Eevolution, ending with his arrival at the camp before Boston as Commander- in-Chief. Mr. Irving, as usual, had been a good deal de- pressed about the work, and had avoided looking over it since its publication ; but the following cordial letter from Bancroft helped to put him more in conceit of it, and made him hope that the Life of "Washington Vol. |V.— 0 (13) 194 UFE AND LETTERS [1855. would not be the death of him, as he sometimes used to say he feared it would. Wednesday, May 30, 1855. Deae 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, shortened 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 historians. But, in addition, you have the peculiarity of writing from the heart, enchaining sympathy as well as com- manding 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 mas- terly, clear, easy, and graceful ; picturesque without manner- ism, and ornamented without losing simplicity. Among men of letters, who do well, you must above all take the name of Felix, which so few of the great Roman generals could claim. You do everything rightly, as if by grace ; and I am in no fear of offending your modesty, for I think you were elected and foreordained to excel your contemporaries. ~* Ever, dear Irving, most truly yours, George Bancroft. The letter of the distinguished historian was soon followed by other notices and letters, which conspired to relieve the sort of nightmare solicitude he had felt about the work, and determined him to complete it. At. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 195 He had before wellnigh given up the idea of carry- ing it any farther than the inauguration of "Washing- ton as President, the history of the Administration admitting of so little personal or picturesque detail that he feared he could give it no interest. « He lost his indifference, however, about the completion of the Life, with the success of the first volume, and now determined, at whatever expense of labor, to go through with the whole. The following close of a letter to Mrs. Storrow, dated June 27th, 1855, gives, in his own characteristic vein, a picture of a summer evening at Sunnyside : * * * I am writing late at night, as I have to go to town on business in the morning. It is a beautiful moonlight night, and I have been kept up late by the young folk ; having two of P. P. I 's daughters with me — Hatty and sweet little Nelly ; and they have been with the young G s, cruising by moonlight on the Tappan Sea, in a beautiful yacht which G has recently bought. It puts me in mind of the water parties in former days, in the Dream, with the H s, B s, &c, when the old chorus used to be chanted : " We won't go home till morning, Till daylight doth appear." It is a different yacht and a different generation that have taken up the game, and are now sailing by moonlight and sing- ing about the Tappan Sea. So rolls the world. In September, Mr. Irving was all impatience to get his second volume of " Washington " ready for the 196 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. press. " I live only in the Revolution," said he to me. " I have no other existence now — can think of nothing else. My desire is to give everything vividly, but to avoid all melodramatic effect. I wish the incidents to be brought out strongly, and speak for themselves ; but no hubbub of language, no trickery of phrase, nothing wrought up." He had made great additions to the " Life " since I had read it before. I spoke with admiration of his narrative of the battle of Princeton. " It is very diffi- cult," said he, " to give a clear account of a battle: Bancroft told me he was bothered about his battles, but Prescott likes them. I study it thoroughly, to seize the strong point, then dip my brush in the paint, and color up for that." September 27th. — I accompanied him to the com- plimentary festival to authors and booksellers at the Crystal Palace. A carriage was sent for him to "No, 33 Lafayette Place, where he was staying. "We got in, and were to call for Bishop , at No. street. When we got near, I asked Mr. Irving if he knew the Bishop. "No. Don't you?" "No." " "Well, then, let's get out. It will be very awkward to be in the carriage with him." P 's lad, who accompanied the carriage on the driver's seat, expostu- lated. " Mr. P had sent him expressly with the carriage. "Would not like it." " But I must get out." " But Mr. P " " Never mind Mr. P . I want to have my way, not his." So down we got, and /Et. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 197 walked from Twentieth street to the Crystal Palace, entering on Fortieth street. Mr. Irving could not endure the thing, as he drew near, but, after he got in, spent a pleasant evening. Was especially delighted at meeting Moses Thomas, his old bookseller, now a prosperous auctioneer in Philadelphia. October 5t/t. — I was reading with Mr. Irving, in his study, the proof of some of the early pages of his second volume of " Washington," which had gone to the press about a week before. He was, at the same time, engaged in retouching and adding to the battle of White Plains ; was desirous, he said, to ex- hibit the Revolution in its motley character, and give the play of human nature throughout. Some days after, I drove over to Chattcrton Hill with him, to visit the battle ground, he taking his manuscript account of it with him. While en- gaged in the survey, an old man, on a mealy-mouthed horse with white eyebrows, came up, and, informing us that he was the owner of the property, asked if we did not wish to buy it ; he was too old to take care of it. Mr. Irving told him he was too old to buy it. On our way. down, met a bright'eyed lad about six or seven years of age. " Stop — stop a moment," said he ; " let me see what money I have," pull- ing out his purse. " I must buy those e5'es. My little fellow, what will you take for those eyes ? " The little fellow stood aghast with amazement. " Well," said he, " here's sixpence for you, at any rate." 198 'LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. The anecdote is of a piece with that related by Mr. Davis, of the lad at Saratoga, and, though trivial, serves to illustrate his peculiar fancy for drolling with and mystifying children. November \Zth. — I went up to the cottage, to return the next day. Found Mr. Irving correcting proof of second volume of " Washington." Yery glad of my visit. Had recast and improved the chapter about Lee's tardy movements to join Washington. Spoke of the raciness of Lee's character historically. "A game flavor about it," he said. Made a less flowing narrative, by giving the extracts from letters, and dates, but gave strength and accuracy to the detail. The character of Washington grew upon him con- stantly. Gave me the first chapters of the third vol- ume to read. Was determined to push on with that the moment he finished the second. November 21s;!. — Mr. Irving had been some days in the city, preparing the last chapters of the second vol- ume of " Washington " for the press. Was busy on the last chapter but one when I called, soon after breakfast. Had been reading, in a morning paper, a report of the address of the Hev. Dr. De Witt, the night previous, before the Historical Society, in which there was a touching allusion to his Life of Washing- ton, followed by loud cheers, and to himself, as " one whose modesty was only increased by the weight of public commendation." " I do not know," said he, adverting to it, " when anything has gratified me so jEt. 72. J OP WASHINGTON IRVING. 199 much as this mention of me by old Dr. De Witt. I must write to him, and express to him what I feel." I called again in the evening, and asked him if he had added to the close of the second volume, as he had thought of doing in the morning. " No ; I was too weary. Oh ! I shall be so glad to throw off the har- ness, and take a roll on the grass." At the moment of completing his second volume, he received from Mr. Charles L. Brace some manu- script Hessian journals, which had been copied for the Historical Society, and which led him to recal and revise some of his proofs, and make some additions and alterations. The following letter to his early Philadelphia pub- lisher, Moses Thomas, was in reply to an invitation to attend a literary dinner in that city, and a request that he would make his home at his house on the occasion : [7b Moses Thomas.] Sunntside, Dec. 15, 1855. My dear Thomas : I thank you heartily for your kind and hospitable invitation to your house, which I should be glad to accept did I propose attending the Godey Complimentary Dinner ; but the annoy- ance I suffer at dinners of the kind, in having to attempt speeches, or bear compliments in silence, has made me abjure them altogether. The Publishers' Festival, at which I had the great pleasure of meeting you, was an exception to my rule, but only made on condition that I would not be molested, by extra civilities. 200 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. I regret that on that occasion we were separated from each other, and could not sit together and talk over old times. However, I trust we shall have a future opportunity of so doing. I wish, when you visit New York, you would take a run up to Sunnyside. The cars set you down within ten min- utes' walk of my house, where my " womenkind " will receive you (figuratively speaking) with open arms ; and my dogs will not dare to bark at you. Yours ever, very truly, "Washington Irving. To the same Moses Thomas he wrote, from Liver- pool, March 3d, 1818, prior to the appearance of the Sketch Book, when he was just getting himself into habits of study and literary life, from which he had been so long divorced : I notice what you say on the subject of getting up an origi- nal work ; but I am very squeamish on that point. "Whatever my literary reputation may be worth, it is very dear to me, and I cannot bring myself to risk it by making up books for mere profit. The following is addressed to his old friend and literary compeer, at his residence on the east bank of the Hudson, about eight miles above Poughkeepsie, where he had been living since his retirement from public life, as Secretary of the Navy, in 1841. In this picturesque seclusion, which he had left to visit the city but once since it became his abode, he resumed his literary activity ; and here the veteran author, the ^It. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 201 senior of Mr. Irving by more than four and a half years, gave to the press two novels, " The Old Conti- nental," in 1846, and "The Puritan's Daughter," in 1850, at the ripe age of seventy-two. At the date of his application to Mr. Irving for his autograph, to be presented to a peerless beauty, he had passed his seventy-seventh year — a circumstance to be borne in mind in reading the reply : [ To James K. Paulding.] Sunntside, Dec. 24, 1855. My dear Paulding : I enclose an autograph for the " paragon of a young lady," whose beauty you extol 'beyond the stars. It is a good sign that your heart is yet so inflammable. I am glad to receive such good accounts as you give of yourself and your brother, "jogging on together in good humor with each other and with the world." Happy is he who can grow smooth as an old shilling as he wears out ; he has endured the rubs of life to some purpose. You hope I am " sliding smoothly down the hill." I thank you for the hope. I am better off than most old bachelors are, or deserve to be. I have a happy home ; the happier for being always well stocked with womenkind, without whom an old bachelor is a forlorn, dreary animal. My brother, the " General," is wearing out the serene evening of life with me ; almost entirely deaf, but in good health and good spirits, more and more immersed in the study of newspapers (with which I keep him copiously supplied), and, through them, better ac- quainted with what is going on in the world than I am, who Vol. TV.— 9* 202 LIFE AND LETTERS P855. mingle with it occasionally, and have ears as well as eyes open. * * * I have had many vivid enjoyments in the course of my life, yet no portion of it has been more equably and serenely happy than that which I have passed in my little nest in the country. I am just near enough to town to dip into it occasionally for a day or two, give my mind an airing, keep my notions a little up to the fashion of the times, and then return to my quiet little home with redoubled relish. I have now my house full for the Christmas holidays, which I trust you also keep up in the good old style. "Wishing a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and yours, I remain, my dear Paulding, yours ever, very truly, "Washington Irving. J2t.72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 203 CHAPTEK XII. PUBLICATION OF VOL. II OP LIFE OF WASHINGTON — LETTER FROM PRESCOTT — LETTER TO HENRT T. TUCKERMAN — LETTER OF CHARLES L. BRACE ON VOL. II — LETTER TO BANCROFT — LETTER TO JOHN P. KENNEDY — LETTER TO GOUVER- NEUR KEMBLE— PUBLICATION OF VOL. III. rj^HE second volume of the Life of Washington, -*- which brings the history down from the period of his taking command of the army — a year before the Declaration of Independence — to the close of the successful campaign in New Jersey, in January, 1777, was issued in December, 1S55. The following letter from Prescott, who had just received a copy, will be read with interest. In the opening paragraph, the distinguished historian alludes to a complimentary letter from Mr. Irving on his Philip the Second. Henry Brevoort, so touchingly referred to at the close, had been dead some years. [From W. H. Prescott.'] Boston, Jan. 3, 1S56. My dear Friend : Since the publication of Philip the Second, I may truly say nothing has given me greater pleasure than your kind note, 204: LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. and the cordial manner in which you speak of my labors. Ever since I have been old enough to distinguish good from evil in literary composition, your writings have been my familiar study. And if I have done anything that deserves half the commendation you bestow on me, it is in a great, measure from the study I have made of you, and two or three others of the great masters of our language. Every one who knows me, knows that this is true. You may understand, then, how well I am pleased to obtain your unsolicited ap- proval. I have been gladdened by the sight of the second volume of your great work, which came to us a few days since. You are a good deal quicker on the trigger than I can be. You must have had a quantity of the material already potted down for posterity. It is very tantalizing to the reader, this fashion of publishing by instalments of a volume or two at a time, and people complain if they are not turned out as rapidly as romances. Macaulay used to tell the story of a young lady of his acquaintance, whom he met the week after his first two volumes appeared, who said to him : " I have just finished your volumes, Mr. Macaulay, and now we are all ready for another two ! " You have done with "Washington just as I thought you would, and, instead of a cold, marble statue of a demigod, you have made him a being of flesh and blood, like ourselves — one with whom we can have sympathy. The general 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. What naturally was of especial interest to me in your first volume, was that pons asinorum, over which so many have JEr. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 205 stumbled — the battle of Bunker Hill* You have gone over it in a way which must satisfy the most captious critic. The silly question as to the command, has been a much vexed ques- tion in New England, as you are aware. I don't know whether you ever heard of the amusing fact of three folio volumes of affidavits of survivors having been taken by the late William Sullivan, bearing particularly on that matter. At his death, they were presented by his brother, Richard Sulli- van, to the Massachusetts Historical Society. A committee was appointed by that body to examine their contents, and to report respecting them. The report was, that the testimony was so contradictory in its nature, that it would rather perplex than enlighten the historian ; and the volumes were returned to Mr. Sullivan. A good commentary, this, on the value of even contemporary evidence. But your kind note should not bring down such an ava- lanche on your head. Its date from Sunnyside reminds me of the pleasant day I passed in company with your early friend Brevoort, and mine of later years. It is long since I made a visit to New York ; and when I have had occasion to pass a day there, the forms of those who used to greet me kindly, and who have gone forever, are sure to come up before my eye. May you be among the number of those who are spared, and long spared, dear Mr. Irving, to delight the world by your writings, and enjoy the love and gratitude of your countrymen. Believe me, always, very truly and affectionately, yours, ¥m. H. Prescott. * It had been a moot point, in New England, whether General Putnam or Colonel "William Prescott, the grandfather of the historian, bad the chief command at the battle of Bunker Hill. 206 LIFE AND LETTERS [185G. The battle of Bunker Hill, of which Prescott re- lates his amusing anecdote, is given near the close of the first volume. The second volume carries the nar- rative down to the victories of Trenton and Princeton. To a Yery kind letter from Mr. Tuckerman, soon after the publication of his second volume, he sends the following reply, giving some insight into his own views and plan in the treatment of his theme : [Tc Mr. II. T. Tuckerman.] Sttnjjyside, Jan. 8, 1856. My dear Me. Tuckerman : I thank you most heartily for your letter, which, I frankly assure you, was very seasonable and acceptable, being the first intimation I had received of the fortune of the volume I had launched upon the world. It was very considerate and obliging in you to seek to relieve me from the suspense of " waiting for a verdict ; " which, with me, is apt to be a time of painful doubt and self-distrust. You have discovered what I aimed at, " the careful avoidance of rhetoric, the calm, pa- tient, and faithful narrative of facts." My great labor has been to arrange these facts in the most lucid order, and place them in the most favorable light, without exaggeration or em- bellishment, trusting to their own characteristic value for effect. Rhetoric does very well under the saddle, but is not to be trusted in harness, being apt to pull facts out of place and upset them. My horse, Gentleman Dick, was very rhetorical, and showed off finely ; but he was apt to run away with me, and came near breaking my neck. I have availed myself of the license of biography, to step down occasionally from the elevated walk of history, and JEt.12.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 207 relate familiar things in a familiar way ; seeking to show the prevalent passions and feelings and humors of the day, and even to depict the heroes of Seventy-six as they really were — men in cocked hats, regimental coats, and breeches ; and not classic warriors, in shining armor and flowing mantles, with brows bound with laurel, and truncheons in their hands. But enough of all this. I have committed myself to the stream, and, right or wrong, must swim on or sink. The latter I Avill not do, if I find the public sustain me. The work, as I am writing it, will inevitably overrun three volumes. I had supposed, originally, that it would not, though I did not intend that number should be specified in the title page. It was specified by my publisher, who will put an author's incidental surmises into print, and make positive prom- ises of them. Should I have occasion to avail myself of the papers you so kindly put at my disposition, concerning Gouverneur Mor- ris, Early American Society, &c, I shall have no hesitation in applying to you for them. In the mean time, let me repeat how very sensibly I feel the generous interest you have mani- fested in my literary success on the present occasion. Yours, very truly, "Washington Irving. C. L. Brace, author of various interesting works, writes, January 22d, of the second volume : My dear Mr. Irving : I do not see why one should not acknowledge a pleasure, when one has so enjoyed it ; and I want to say how intensely interesting your second volume of " "Washington " is. I have 208 LIFE AND LETTERS [1856. read it as I would read a romance. To me it is history alive. I enter into the feelings and struggle and uncertainties of the actors, so that I feel, as it were, doubtful of the issue. * * * "Washington looms out grandly in this volume ; much more so than in the first, naturally. It is the most living picture we have ever had of him, and shows, best of all, the incessant difficulties of his work. It is strange, too, how you have made those battles real. I have read them often, and never had any clear idea at all of them ; now they are indissolubly associated with the places. You have again made the Hudson classic ground. I predict without a doubt that this will be the "Wash- ington of the people — especially of the young people. As a boy, I should read it like Kobinson Crusoe or Captain Cook's Voyages. To a letter from Bancroft, congratulating him on the success of his second volume, he replies : My dear Bancroft : I thank you sincerely for your cordial and well-timed note. It is always an anxious time with an author when he has just launched a volume, and is waiting for a verdict ; and especially with one like myself, apt to be troubled with self-distrust. I never was more troubled with it than in the prosecution of my present task, when I am occasionally venturing, in a somewhat familiar way, upon themes which you will treat in such an ampler, nobler, and more truly historical style. Indeed, I am putting to sea at a hazardous time, when you and Macaulay and Prescott (with his grand Spanish Armada) are afloat. However, I am ready to drop my peak whenever any of you come into the same waters. JEt. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 209 Give my best thanks to Mrs. Bancroft for her favorable opinion of my volume. As Sir Fretful Plagiary says, the women are the best judges, after all. Ever, my dear Bancroft, yours most heartily, "Washington Irving. February 23d, 1856. — I returned to the city from a visit of ten days at the cottage. Mr. Irving was busy at the third volume of "Washington," which was going through the press. About one hundred pages were printed when I came down. He had been recon- structing the narrative of Burgoyne's expedition, and the affair of Schuyler and Gates. His head troubled him occasionally, and he seemed to feel the pressure of such a task at his time of life. Rewrote three or four pages after he had got the proof; viz., Signs of an Approaching Enemy at Ticonderoga. Seemed to feel, at times, an uneasy consciousness that he might not get through with his labor. " I am constantly afraid," he said to me the morning I came down, " that some- thing will happen to me," alluding to his head. Never saw him so impatient at the encroaching demands of letters upon his valuable time. " Oh ! these letters — these letters ! They tear my mind from me in slips and ribbons." He had received, the day before (Washington's birthday), from his publisher, the present of a new table for his study. It had a good many drawers, and sundry novel conveniences, the use of which he did not Vol. IV.— (14) 210 LIFE AND LETTERS [1856. readily comprehend. " You will be bothered with your very conveniences," said I. " Yes. I must get everything in a mess, and then I'll go on comfortably." The letter which follows, is in reply to one from Mr. Kennedy, announcing the death of his wife's father, Mr. Edward Gray : [To Mr. J. P. Kennedy.] Scnntside, March 22, 1S56. My dear Kennedy : The sight of your letter, just received, with its black seal and edgings, gave me a severe shock, though I thought I was prepared for the event it communicated. The death of my most dear and valued friend, Mr. Gray, is a relief to himself, and to the affectionate hearts around him who witnessed his prolonged sufferings ; but I, who have been out of the hearing of his groans, can only remember him as he was in his genial moments, the generous and kind-hearted centre of a loving circle, dispensing happiness around him. My intimacy with him, in recent years, had fully opened to me the varied excellence of his character, and most heartily attached me to him. My dear Kennedy, my intercourse with your family connection has been a great sweetener of the last few years of my existence, and the only attraction that has been able to draw me repeatedly from home. And in all this I recognize the influence of the kind, cordial, sympathetic character of Mr. Gray. To be under his roof, in Baltimore or at Ellicott's Mills, was to be in a constant state of quiet enjoy- ment to me. Everything that I saw in him, and in those about him ; in his tastes, habits, mode of life ; in his domestic relations and chosen intimacies, continually struck upon some Mt. 73.1 OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 211 happy chord in my own bosom, and put me in tune with tho world and with human nature. I cannot expect, in my brief remnant of existence, to replace such a friend, and such a do- mestic circle rallying round him ; but the remembrance will ever be most dear to me. Give my most affectionate remembrance to your wife and her noble-hearted sister, and believe me, my dear Kennedy, Ever yours, most truly, "Washington Irving. A few weeks before the date of the following letter, Mr. Irving had written to Gouverneur Kemble that his gardener had been constructing a hothouse, and pre- paring a piece of ground, sheltered by a fence, where he expected to effect great things ; and tliat, if he had any cuttings or plants of grapes and figs to spare, and could send them to him by railroad, he would make his gardener very happy : [7b Gouverneur Kemble.'] Scnntside, April 23, 1S56. My dear Kemble : The roots and cuttings sent by your gardener arrived safe, and are all. properly disposed of. I should like to have a few more cuttings for out of doors, and a black Hamburg or two, if you have any. I shall raise some of the grapes under glass, having a small hothouse which will accommodate a few. I hope your visit to Washington was pleasant and profitable, and that you will be favored with a seat in the Cabinet, or a foreign mission in this or the next Presidency. I am happy to learn that your lawn is green. I hope it 212 LIFE AND LETTERS [1856. will long continue so, and yourself likewise. I shall come up, one of these days, and have a roll on it with you. Yours ever, my dear Kemble, Washington Irving. April 24th, 1856, lie writes to his niece, at Paris, " at a late hour of the night, after a hard day's work " : I have about two thirds of my third volume of " Washing- ton " in type, and shall be heartily glad when the whole vol- ume is completed ; when I will give myself repose before I commence another. It is a toilsome task, though a very inter- esting, and, I may say, delightful one. It expands and grows more voluminous as I write, but the way it is received by the public cheers me on ; for I put it to the press with more doubt and diffidence than any work I ever published. The way the public keep on with me is a continual wonderment to me, knowing my own shortcomings in many things ; and I must say I am sometimes surprised at my own capacity for labor at my advanced time of life — when I used to think a man must be good for nothing. The third volume, embracing the period from the commencement of the year 1777 to the retirement of Washington into winter quarters in 1779, appeared in July, 1856. ■aiT.73.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 213 CHAPTEE XIII. A RECURRENCE TO THE DRESDEN EPISODE — INTERPOLATION OP THE ENGLISH EDITION OF THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE LIFE AND LETTERS — LETTER FROM MRS. EMILT FULLER TO WASHINGTON IRVING — REPLY — LETTER FROM DICK- ENS—LETTER TO MRS. STORROW. T3 EFORE I proceed to introduce the letters -which "*— * are to follow, I must invite the reader to travel back with me to the little episode in Mr. Irving's life, his intercourse with the Fosters, at Dresden. From motives of delicacy, I had imposed on myself a reserve as to some particulars of that intimate companionship ; and, as no mention had been made of it among the let- ters and extracts which Mrs. Fuller had been kind enough to furnish me, I had hesitated to betray my consciousness that the imperfect memorial of his early life, found in his secret drawer after his death, was addressed to Mrs. Foster. Of this I had undoubted evidence, as well from other circumstances as from the names of Emily and Flora appearing in the manu- script. From an entry in Mr. Irving's diary, while at Prague, in June, 1823, mentioning the writing and sending to Mrs. Foster, from that city, a letter " giving 214 LIFE AND LETTERS [1856. anecdotes of self," I had surmised that the faded manuscript, so long preserved, was a transcript from that letter. I now learn, from the journal of Mrs. Flora Dawson, which has strangely enough made its appearance in the English edition of the third volume of my biography, that I erred in this conjecture, and that the written sheets were brought to the family by Mr. Irving himself, at Dresden, and left for their peru- sal, under a sacred promise that the manuscript should be returned to him ; that no copy should be taken, and that no eyes but theirs should ever rest upon it — a promise, adds the same authority, faithfully kept. From this, I perceive that the sheets in my posses- sion, instead of being a transcript from a letter, as I had supposed, are part of the original manuscript, here mentioned as having been left and reclaimed. In the first volume of my work, I had already in- troduced some affecting passages from this memorial, bearing upon the history of his early attachment, and had supposed that I had given all that would be of interest to the general reader ; but as the London pub- lisher of the biography, to whom the advanced sheets were sent, has taken the surprising liberty of intro- ducing two whole chapters, making seventy-nine addi- tional pages, at the end of the third volume, without my knowledge or consent, giving some further particu- lars of the author's life at Dresden, I feel it necessary again to recur to the subject. This new matter, to which the bookseller has resorted as a device to obtain JEt.78.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 215 a copyright, consists mainly of the journals of Mrs. Fuller and Mrs. Dawson, the Emily and Flora of those days. "While there is much that is of interest in their record of those " pleasant days," as Mr. Irving calls them in a letter which is to follow — the last he ever wrote to the family — there are some things in the jour- nal of Mrs. Dawson a little calculated, though no doubt unintentionally, to mislead, or rather to be mis- understood. A notice of the English edition of my work, which met my eye in a London periodical before I had been able to see the English copy, or had any intima- tion of the nature of the additions intruded upon it, mentioned, to my surprise, that Mr. Irving had aspired to the hand of Miss Emily Foster, at Dresden, and met with a " friendly but decided rejection of his ad- dresses." On receiving the English copy, I find that Mrs. Dawson makes no positive assertion of the kind ; but, while she claims for her sister, from Mr. Irving, a degree of devotion amounting to " a hopeless and con- suming attachment," she goes on to say : " It was for- tunate, perhaps, that this affection was returned by the warmest friendship only — (the italics are her own) — since it was destined that the accomplishment of his wishes was impossible, for many obstacles which lay in his way." "While I am not disposed to question, for a moment, the warmth or sincerity of his admiration for the lady, that he ever thought of matrimony at this time is £16 LIFE AND LETTERS [1856. utterly disproved by a passage of the very manuscript to which the sister refers, as addressed to her mother, and of which she errs in supposing that I had in possession only the first and last sheets. A more care- ful reference to the first volume of the biography, will show her that only the first and last sheets were miss- ing, and that there remained sixteen consecutive pages. In that manuscript, after recounting the progress and catastrophe of his early love, forever hallowed to his memory, and glancing at other particulars of his life, with which the reader has already been made familiar, all given with the frankness and unreserve of perfect confidence, he closes, by saying : You wonder why I am not married. I have shown you why I was not long since. When I had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I became involved in ruin. It was not for a man broken down in the world, to drag down any woman to his paltry circumstances. I was too proud to tolerate the idea of ever mending my circumstances by matrimony. My time has now gone by ; and I have growing claims upon my thoughts and upon my means, slender and precarious as they are. I feel as if I had already a family to think and pro- vide for. The reader will perceive from this passage, ad- dressed to Mrs. Foster, at Dresden, after months of intimate friendship, what color there is for the assertion that Mr. Irving ever made advances for the hand of Miss Emily Foster, however great or undisguised may Mt. 73.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 217 have been his admiration for her. That the " -warmest friendship " existed between them, is fully shown from the tone of the letters which follow, written thirty- three years after their sojourn at Dresden. Their last meeting, alluded to in the letter, which I now lay before the reader, was in London, in 1832, shortly before his return to America, alter his prolonged ab- sence of seventeen years. [From Mrs. Emily Fuller to Washington Irving."] May 25, 1856. My dear Mr. Irving : I think I ought to begin by telling you who is writing to you — Emily Foster, now Emily Fuller ; and I address you, after so long a time, because I hope that my eldest boy Henry may have the happiness and advantage of meeting you, and making your acquaintance personally, as he has long ago by hearsay. I have been renewing former days. I have lately been reading over my old Dresden journal, where you are a part of our daily life, and feel it all over again so completely, I cannot believe all the time since has really passed. Then, too, in the course of last winter, we were all living with you in the Alhambra. "We were reading it out loud in the evenings, and the sunshine and moonlight and fountains and Lindaraxa's garden became almost more real than the real fire and winter evenings. "We also read the Sketch Book and Bracebridge Hall, and I really thought they came upon me more fresh and more delightful than even the first time I read them — the touclung expressions, and the arch, pretty humor — I could see you, your own self, as we read, and your very smile. How I Vol. IV.— 10 218 LIFE AND LETTERS [1356. should like to hear from you, dear Mr. Irving ! I married soon after we met in London. Do you remember you used to come, and often spend the evening with us in Seymour street ? And now I have four boys and one little girl. They are all so good and promising as to add much to our happiness. Two of them are still at school. * * * My eldest has a great desire to settle in the States, with a friend who goes out with him — a very nice, gentlemanly young man. * * * I wish you would give us your advice as to situation, &c. Climate would be one of the first considerations ; and they wish to go as far "West as would be convenient. * * * I must not exceed my space. It will be such a real happi- ness to hear from you. Do tell me- about yourself, dear Mr. Irving. You do not know how much and often I think of you. Yours ever, most truly, Emily Fuller. To this letter Mr. Irving sent the following reply, which came to me from Mrs. Fuller with the extracts given in a former volume, and accompanied by her own beautiful testimonial to his character, in a letter to myself, already before the reader : [To Mrs. Emily Fuller.] StruNYSiDE, July 2, 1856. My dear Mrs. Fuller : You can scarcely imagine my surprise and delight, on opening your letter and finding that it came from Emily Foster. A thousand recollections broke at once upon my mind, of Emily Foster as I had known her at Dresden, young, and fair, and bright, and beautiful ; and I could hardly realize that so JEx. 73.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 219 many years had elapsed since then, or form an idea of her as Mrs. Emily Fuller, with four boys and one little girl. * * * I wish you had given me a few more particulars about your- self, and those immediately connected with you, whom I have known. After so long an interval, one fears to ask questions, lest they should awaken painful recollections. By the tenor of your letter, I should judge that, on the whole, the world has gone smoothly with you. Your children, you tell me, are all " so good and promising, as to add much to your happiness." How much of what is most precious in life is conveyed in those few words ! You ask me to tell you something about myself. Since my return, in 1846, from my diplomatic mission to Spain, I have been leading a quiet life in a little rural retreat I had previously established on the banks of the Hudson, which, in fact, has been my home for twenty years past. I am in a beautiful part of the country, in an agreeable neighborhood, am on the best of terms with my neighbors, and have a house full of nieces, who almost make me as happy as if I were a married man. Your letter was put into my hands just as I was getting into the carriage to drive out with some of them. I read it to them in the course of the drive, letting them know that it was from Emily Foster, the young lady of whom they had often heard me speak ; who had painted the head of Herodias, which hangs over the piano in the drawing room, and who, I had always told them, was more beautiful than the head which she had painted ; which they could hardly believe, though it was true. You recollect, I trust, the miniature copy of the head of Herodias which you made in the Dresden Gallery. I treasure it as a precious me* morial of those pleasant days. My lifiilth is excellent, though, at times, I have tried it 220 LIFE AND LETTEKS [1S56. hard by literary occupations and excitement. There are some propensities that grow upon men with age, and I am a little more addicted to the pen than I was in my younger days, and much more, I am told, than is prudent for a man of my years. It is a labor, however, in which I delight ; and I am never so happy of an evening, as when I have passed the whole morn- ing in my study, hard at work, and have earned the evening's recreation. Farewell, my dear Mrs. Fuller. If any of those of your family whom I ever knew and valued are at hand, assure them that I ever retain them in cordial remembrance ; and believe me, ever, my dear Emily Foster, your affectionate friend, "Washington Ikving. I shall give, in an Appendix to this volume, the whole of the new matter so unwarrantably obtruded at the end of the third volume of the English edition of my work, published by Mr. Richard Bentley. My next letter is one from Dickens to Mr. Irving, introducing a relative, glancing at a capital story of Mr. Irving of a dinner at Holland House, in which a clergyman's leg was a feature, and giving a comic yet touching anecdote of poor Rogers in his eclipse : [From Charles Dickens.'] Tavistock House, London, July 5, 1856. My dear Irving : If you knew how often I write to you, individually and personally, in my books, you would be no more surprised in seeing this note, than you were in seeing me do my duty by ALr. 73.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 221 that flowery julep (in what I dreamily apprehend to have been a former state of existence) at Baltimore. Will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, Mr. B , who is associated with a merchant's house in New York ? Of course, he wants to see you, and know you. How can / wonder at that ? How can anybody ? I had a long talk with Leslie at the last Academy dinner (having previously been with him in Paris), and he told me that you were flourishing. I suppose you know that he wears a moustache — so do I, for the matter of that, and a beard too — and that he looks like a portrait of Don Quixote. Holland House has four-and-twenty youthful pages in it now — twelve for my lord, and twelve for my lady ; and no clergyman coils his leg up under his chair all dinner time, and begins to uncurve it when the hostess goes. No wheeled chair runs smoothly in, with that beaming face in it ; and 's little cotton pocket handkerchief helped to make (I believe) this very sheet of paper. A half-sad, half-ludicrous story of Rogers is all I will sully it with. You know, I dare say, that, for a year or so before his death, he wandered, and lost himself, like one of the Children in the "Wood, grown up there and grown down again. He had Mrs. Procter and Mrs. Carlyle to break- fast with him, one morning — only those two. Both exces- sively talkative, very quick and clever, and bent on entertain- ing him. When Mrs. Carlyle had flashed and shone before him for about three quarters of an hour on one subject, he turned his poor old eyes on Mrs. Procter, and, pointing to the brilliant discourser with his poor old finger, said (indignantly), " Who is she t " Upon this, Mrs. Procter, cutting in, deliv- ered— (it is her own story) — a neat oration on the life and 222 LIFE AND LETTERS [1856. writings of Carlyle, and enlightened him in her happiest and airiest manner ; all of which he heard, staring in the dreariest silence, and then said (indignantly as before), " And who are you?" * * *. Ever, my dear Irving, most affectionately and truly, yours, Charles Dickens. While engrossed, as far as incessant interruptions would permit, by the task of preparing his fourth vol- ume of the Life of Washington for the press, he writes a letter to his niece, at Paris, of which I extract some interesting passages. The " Pierre " mentioned in the first extract is not the editor, but the eldest son of his brother Ebenezer, Pierre Paris Irving, an Episcopal clergyman, who had recently returned to his parochial duties from a brief excursion in Europe, which had extended to the Orkneys. [To Mrs. Storrow.] Sttnnyside, Oct. 27, 1856. * * * After Pierre's return from France to England, he made an expedition to the end of the world — in other words, to the Orkneys ! It was in those islands that the branch of the Irving family from which we are descended vegetated for centuries ; once having great landed possessions, ultimately losing them. Pierre found a highly intelligent circle of society existing at Kirkwall, the capital of the Orkneys, principally composed of persons from Edinburgh, holding official stations. He was hospitably entertained by them, in a style of elegance which he had not expected in that remote region. JEt. 73.] OP WASHINGTON IRVING. 223 At Shapinsha, the island whence my father came, Pierre was shown the house in which he was born, and whence he emigrated about a century since. It is a house of modest pre- tensions, and still bears its old name of Quholme (pronounced Home). In the flourishing days of our family, it must have owned the greater part of Shapinsha. Mr. Balfour, the pres- ent proprietor, received Pierre very hospitably in his noble residence of Balfour Castle, and submitted to his inspection a chest full of deeds and documents of several generations, show- ing how, by piecemeal, the landed property passed out of the hands of the Irving?, and centred in those of the family which at present hold it. Pierre brought home one of those docu- ments, given to him by Mr. Balfour, three or four centuries old, bearing the name of one of our ancestors, with the old family arms of the Three Holly Leaves. He also brought home a genealogy of the family, which some official gentleman, curious in antiquarian research, had digested from deeds and other documents existing at the Orkneys, and in the public archives at Edinburgh. This genealogical table, which is officially cer- tified, establishes the fact of our being descended from the Irving of Bonshaw, who gave shelter to Robert the Bruce in the day of his adversity. * * * You are going to pass the winter at a city I never visited — Florence. At the time I was in Italy, a cordon of troops was drawn round Tuscany, on account of a malignant fever prevalent there, and I was obliged to omit the whole of it in my Italian tour. I also failed to see Venice, which I have ever regretted. Your letter of last June mentions your being just returned from an excursion of four days to Touraine. It recalled a tour I once made there with your uncle Peter, in which, besides 224 LIFE AND LETTEiiS [1S56. visiting the places you speak of, we passed a day or two in the beautiful old chateau of Ussy, belonging to the Duke of Duras, the Duchess having given me a letter to the concierge, which put the chateau and its domains at my disposition. Our sojourn was very interesting. The chateau had a half-deserted character. The Duke had not fortune enough to keep it up in style, and only visited it occasionally in the hunting season. There were the traces of former gayety and splendor — a pri- vate theatre, all in decay and disorder ; an old chapel turned into a granary ; state apartments, with stately family portraits in quaint, antiquated costumes, but some of them mouldering in their frames. I found, afterward, that the Duchess had hoped I might be excited to write something about the old chateau in the style of Bracebridge Hall : and it would indeed have been a fine subject. * * * Mt. 73.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 225 CHAPTEE XIY. LETTERS TO CHARLES LANMAN — FOURTH VOLUME OF LIFE OF WASHTNGTOW GOING THROUGH THE PRESS — LETTER TO HENRY T. TUCKERMAN — PUBLICA- TION OF VOL. IV — LETTER FROM GEORGE BANCROFT — REPLY — LETTER TO FREDERICK S. COZZENS— LETTER FROM WILLIAM U. PRESCOTT — LETTER FROM J. LOTHROP MOTLEY — LETTER FROM S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE, AND REPLY. rpiHE letter which follows is addressed to a young •*- author, to whom Mr. Irving had before written encouragingly in acknowledgment of the presentation of his first work : \To Mr. Charles Lanman.~\ Sunntside, March 2, 1857. My dear Mr. Lanman : I am suffering a long time to elapse without acknowledging the receipt of the copy of your work* which you have had the kindness to send me, and expressing to you the great delight I take in the perusal of it. But when I remind you that I am approaching my seventy-fourth birthday; that I am laboring to launch the fourth volume of my Life of Washington ; and that my table is loaded with a continually increasing multitude of unanswered letters, which I vainly endeavor to cope with, I * Adventures in the Wilds of America. Vol.. IV.— 10* (15) 226 LIFE AND LETTERS [1857. am sure that you will excuse the tardiness of my correspond- ence. I hope the success of your work has been equal to its merits. To me, your " Adventures in the Wilds " are a con- tinual refreshment of the spirits. I take a volume of your work to bed with me, after fagging with my pen, and then I ramble with you among the mountains and by the streams in the boundless interior of our fresh, unhackneyed country, and only regret that I can but do so in idea, and that I am not young enough to be your companion in reality. I have taken great interest, of late, in your Expedition among the Alleghany Mountains, having been campaigning, in my work, in the upper parts of the Carolinas, and especially in the " Catawba country," about which you give such graphic sketchings. Really, I look upon your work as a vade mecicm to the American lover of the picturesque and romantic, unfold- ing to him the wilderness of beauties and the variety of ad- venturous life to be found in our great chains of mountains and system of lakes and rivers. You are, in fact, the picturesque explorer of our country. "With great regard, my dear Mr. Lanman, yours ever, very truly, "Washington Irving. By the following brief notes to myself, it will appear that the fourth volume of the Life of Washing- ton was going through the press, and that he was prone to make modifications and corrections during the process : jEt.73.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 227 StrNNTSiDE, March 20, 1857. My dear Pierre : Page 161 must be carefully collated with the manuscript. There are two places where I cannot supply the deficit. I have struck out some lines in page 172, so that the chap- ter may end on page 173, and save the great blank in page 174. The printers appear to be fond of ending a chapter at the top of a page. I have no doubt of getting the Inauguration into this vol- ume ; but the printers must not make blank pages unneces- sarily. Sunntsidb, Monday Evening. There is a passage in, I think, De Rochambeau's Memoirs, about the sending in a flag, at Yorktown, to Cornwallis, to obtain permission for Secretary Nelson to leave the town ; and about his being brought out on a litter, being old, and ill with the gout. I wish you would copy it, and send it to me with the next proofs, as I wish to make immediate use of it. You will find De Rochambeau's Memoirs in the American depart- ment of the Astor Library. If it is not in De Rochambeau's Memoirs, it is in Chastel- lux ; but I think it is in the former. It was in Chastellux. Sunnyside, March 22, 1857. I send you the page which was missing. Fortunately, I had impaled it, as I now do all the cancelled pages. * * * Scnntside, Tuesday Evening. * * * I shall send no copy for a day or two, for I am 228 LIFE AND LETTERS [1857. fagged and a little out of order, and need rest ; and I -wish to be careful about the ensuing chapters, which I have been patching, and must revise to avoid muddling. * * * I shall be heartily glad to receive the last proof sheet. IsTot long after this note was written, Mr. Irving received a visit from Mr. Charles Lanman, who had recently sent him his " Adventures in the "Wilds of America," for which he makes his acknowledgment in a letter just given. On his return to his residence, at Georgetown, Mr. Lanman gave a detail of his visit in a letter to Peter Force, Esq., entitled, " A Day with "Washington Irving," which was published in the Na- tional Intelligencer, and enclosed in an epistle from the writer to Mr. Irving. This is his tardy but charac- teristic acknowledgment : [ To Charles Lanman, Georgetown, D. C\ Scnntsidb, May 9, 1857. My dear Mr. Lanman : I have been too thoroughly occupied in getting a volume of my work through the press, to acknowledge, at an earlier date, your letter of March 24tb, respecting your letter* which has found its way into the Intelligencer. I can only say, that I wish you had had a worthier subject for your biographic pen, or that I had known our conversation was likely to be re- corded ; I should then have tasked myself to say some wise or witty things, to be given as specimens of my off-hand table talk. One should always know when they are sitting for * A letter to Peter Force, Esq. JEt. 74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 229 a portrait, that they may endeavor to look handsomer than themselves, and attitudinize. I am scrawling this in great haste, merely that your letter may not remain longer unacknowledged ; and am, very truly, your friend, Washington Irving. The letter which follows is addressed to Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, in acknowledgment of his volume of " Biographical Essays," which Mr. Irving had pro- nounced, in a previous letter, written on a partial peru- sal, the best work he had given to the public, and one that must greatly advance his reputation : [To Mr. II. T. Tuckerman.] Scitoyside, Jan. 26, 1857. My dear Mr. Tuckerman : I wrote to you, some days since, on the subject of your new work, when I had read but a part of it. I have just fin- ished the perusal of it, and cannot rest until I have told you how thoroughly I have been delighted with it. I do not know when I have read any work more uniformly rich, full, and well sustained. The liberal, generous, catholic spirit in which it is written, is beyond all praise. The work is a model of its kind. I have no doubt that it will take a high stand in England, and will reflect great credit on our literature, of which it will remain a lasting ornament. Congratulating you, with all my heart, on this crowning achievement of your literary career I remain, yours, very cor- dially and truly, Washington Irving. LIFE AND LETTERS [1857. The fourth volume of the Life of Washington was published in May. The first letter he received on the subject was from Bancroft, who pronounced the pic- ture he had drawn of Washington " the most vivid and the truest " that had " ever been written." To a warm, congratulatory letter from Mr. Frederick S. Cozzens, author of the humorous " Sparrowgrass Papers," a resident of Yonkers, about eight miles south of Sunny- side, he sends the following characteristic reply : SraNYSiDE, May 22, 1S57. My dear Me. Cozzens : Your letter has been most acceptable and animating ; for letters of the kind are not, as you presume, " common to me as blackberries." Excepting a very cordial and laudatory one from Bancroft, yours is the only one, relative to my last vol- ume, that I have yet received. Backed by these two letters, I feel strong enough to withstand that self-criticism which is apt to beset me and cuff me down at the end of a work, when the excitement of composition is over. You speak of some misgivings which you felt in the course of my literary enterprise, whether I would be able to go through with it, and "end as happily as I had begun." I confess I had many misgivings of the kind myself, as I became aware of the magnitude of the theme upon which I had adventured, and saw " wilds immeasurably spread " lengthening on every side as I proceeded. I felt that I had presumed on the indulgence of nature in undertaking such a task at my time of life, and feared I might break down in the midst.of it. Whimsical as it may seem, I was haunted occasionally by one of my own early pleasantries. My mock admonition to Diedrich Knicker- yET. 74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 231 bocker not to idle in his historic wayfaring, rose in judgment against me : " Is not Time, relentless Time, shaking, with pal- sied hand, his almost exhausted hourglass before thee ? Has- ten, then, to pursue thy weary task, lest the last sands be run . ere thou hast finished thy history of the Manhattoes." Fortunately, I had more powers of endurance in me than I gave myself credit for. I have attained to a kind of landing place in my work, and, as I now rest myself on the bank, feel that, though a little weary, I am none the worse for having so long tugged at the oar. And now, as the winter is past, the rains are over and gone, and the flowers are appearing upon the earth, I mean to recreate myself a little, and may, one day or other, extend my travels down even to Yonkers, but will always be happy to welcome you to Sunnyside. "With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Cozzens, believe me, very truly, your obliged friend, Washington Ieving. I now place before the reader the two following letters ; the first written by Prescott after completing the perusal of the fourth volume of the Life of "Wash- ington, and the second by Motley, about to leave the country, and whom Mr. Irving never met. Motley had recently achieved a brilliant fame by Ins " Rise of the Dutch Republic;" and, after some modest demur to which his letter alludes, had sent his volumes to Mr. Irving, who responded with a sincere and warm eulogy : 232 LIFE AND LETTERS [1857. [From Mr. W. H. Prescott] Lynn, Mass., Aug. 7, 1857. My dear Mr. Irving : I have just closed the fourth volume of your Life of "Washington. I have not hurried myself, as you see ; and, in truth, a man who travels through books with the ear, instead of the eye, cannot hurry. I don't know whether you care about remarks on your books from friends, though they be brothers of the craft ; but it always seems to me that, when one has derived great pleasure from reading an author, to make no acknowledgment is as uncourteous as for a gourmand, after he has crammed himself with a good dinner, to go away with- out a civil word to his host. My wife, who has been my reader, and myself, have in- deed read with the greatest interest this your last work — an interest which went on crescendo from the beginning, and which did not reach its climax till the last pages. I have never before fully comprehended the character of "Washing- ton ; 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 greatness, 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 resem- blance of life. This you have done throughout ; but it is more especially observable in the first volume and in the last. No one — at least, I am sure, no American — could read the last without finding pretty often a blur upon the page. Yet, I see, like your predecessors, you are not willing to mar the beautiful picture, by giving Washington the infirmity of temper which ^Et. 74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 233 common report assigns to him. Perhaps you are not satisfied with the foundations of such a report. I had feared, from your manner of talking, that you would never set about the great work in earnest. Happy for the country that it ha3 been at last accomplished by your pen ! It is long since I had the pleasure of seeing you, though I often get particulars about you. How gratified should I be, for one of many, if you would pay a visit to our northern lati- tudes ! I so rarely go to New York, that, when I go, the memory of friends like Brevoort, "Wainwright, and a few others, rises to my mind, and fills it with a melancholy feeling. Adieu, my dear Mr. Irving. Long may it be before you are called away, and before you cease to give pleasure and instruction to the world by your writings. Always, very sincerely, your friend, Wm. H. Prescott. \J. Lothrojp Motley to Washington Irving^\ Boston, Aug. 7, 1857. My bear Sir : You must permit me to address you a single line of thanks for the kind note you did me the honor of sending me several days since. To receive such warm and generous commendation from so venerated a hand, is sufficient reward for literary labor, al- though it were far more severe and more successful than mine has been. Having been, from youth upward, among the warmest and most enthusiastic admirers of your genius, I appreciate entirely the generosity with which you extend to me the hand of fellowship and sympathy. 234: LIFE -A^0 LETTERS [1857. It is your great good fortune to command not only the respect and admiration of your innumerable readers, but their affection also. A feeling of personal obligation — almost of personal friendship — mingles itself, in their minds, with the colder sentiments which are often entertained toward even a successful author. I will not proceed in this vein, lest I should say more than you would think becoming, as addressed directly to yourself. I will only say, that when the book of which you have been pleased to speak so indulgently first appeared, I wished very much to depart, in a single instance, from the rule which I had laid down — not to send, namely, a copy to any one who was not an old personal acquaintance. I did wish very much to send you one, as a testimony of gratitude and respect from one who had been long most familiar with you, although utterly unknown to you. I refrained, however, until recently, and I am rejoiced to find that you did not consider my sending the book an intrusion. I need not tell you how bitterly disappointed I was at miss- ing the promised pleasure of meeting you at dinner at Presi- dent King's. It is just possible that you may not know the nature of the contretemps. Mr. King was so kind, upon my expressing a strong desire to see you, as to invite me to New York upon a certain day, when he hoped also to have the pleasure of your company. Subsequently, by letter, he coun- termanded this arrangement, thinking you absent from home. Nevertheless, on the day before the appointed one, I was ready, with my trunk packed, to take the afternoon boat for New York, and wTent to the post office, hoping for a summons. There was nothing there, so I remained. Five days after the dinner, I received from Mr. King a telegraphic dispatch via JEr. 74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 235 Nahant (where I had not been for several days), notifying me that you were to dine with him " to-morrow" — that to-morrow having already crept, with its stealthy pace, into the regions of eternal yesterday. Alas ! I must say, in the bitterness of my spirit, " The best laid schemes of mice and men Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain For promised joy ; " for the pleasure which I anticipated has been turned into a perpetual " grief and pain." I indulge the hope of meeting you, however, after my return. I leave this country on the 12th of this month. If I can be of any service to you in England or France, during my residence there, I need not say how much it will gratify me to be of use to you. My address is, " Care of Baring Brothers & Co." Meantime, with sentiments of the most sincere respect and regard, I remain, your obliged friend and servant, J. Lothrop Motley. The following "brief correspondence between Mr. Irving and S. Austin Allibone, of Philadelphia, author of the " Dictionary of Authors," is not without in- terest : \To Washington Irving.] Philadelphia, Oct. 28, 1857. Dear Sir: Last night, or rather this morning — for it was after mid- night— I was deeply engrossed with your graphic picture of your own residence in the Aihambra in the spring of 1829. 236 LrFE AND LETTERS [1857. It occurs to me to send you the descriptive title of Owen Jones's illustrations of the Alhambra. May I venture to ask, whether the thrilling sketch of your midnight "night- walking" through the halls of the Alhambra is an account of a real ramble, or whether it is partly a fancy picture, founded on fact ? It is certainly one of your best passages, and that is saying a great deal. I am, dear sir, very truly yours, S. Austin Allibone. [2b S. Austin Allibone.'] Sunnyside, Nov. 2, 1857. Mr dear Sir : "We have in the Astor Library a copy of Owen Jones's work illustrative of the Alhambra. I have lately seen a num- ber of photographs of various parts of the Alhambra, which I believe are intended for publication. They will give a per- fectly truthful idea of the old pile. The account of my midnight rambles about the old palace is literally true, yet gives but a feeble idea of my feelings and impressions, and of the singular haunts I was exploring. Everything in the work relating to myself, and to the actual inhabitants of the Alhambra, is unexaggerated fact. It was only in the legends that I indulged in romancing ; and these were founded on materials picked up about the place. "With great regard, my dear sir, yours very truly, "Washington Irving. JSt. 74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 237 CHAPTER XV. A LITERARY HARVEST— ENGAGED ON HIS FIFTH VOLUME — LETTER TO MRS. STOR- HOW — THE CRISIS OF 1S57 — CONVERSATIONS — KEMBLE— COOKE— COOPER — DARLEY AND DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER — WASHINGTON ALLSTON — LETTER TO BANCROFT — LETTER TO PROFESSOR LIEBER — LETTER TO MISS J. I. GRINNELL — THE ATLANTIC CABLE— INDISPOSITION — LETTER TO A JUVENILE CORRE- SPONDENT. rpHE year 1857 had been a calamitous year for per- -** sons engaged in trade ; and Mr. Irving, who had been in suspense in regard to his publisher's affairs, found it necessary to make a settlement with Mr. Put- nam, and continue his connection with him on a differ- ent footing. Their connection, thus far, had been most advantageous to both ; but other enterprises swept from the upright and liberal publisher the profits real- ized from the sale of Irving's works. On preparing for Mr. Irving, in December, 1857, a summary of his sales and receipts from July, 1848 — when he made his first agreement with Mr. Putnam for the publication of a new edition of his already published works — to June 30th, 1857, a period of nine years, I found there had been sold about three hundred and fifty thousand volumes, and that he had realized about eighty thou- 238 LIFE AND LETTERS [1858. sand dollars ; that is, his receipts had averaged about nine thousand dollars a year — a prolific literary har- vest. At the opening of \he year 1858, I wrote to him : " The contract with Mr. Putnam, to begin April 1st, has been executed." By this contract, Mr. Put- nam, who had made a full settlement of their present business, was to act as his agent, Mr. Irving purchas- ing from him the stereotype plates of all his works. I had written to him on the 31st of December : " In taking a business retrospect of the year that is just closing, it may be a satisfaction to you to know that you have received from Mr. Putnam, in the course of it, what is equivalent to twenty-five thousand dollars. Though the close of the year has been attended with some annoyances, I think, therefore, you may bid it farewell with a blessing." At the date of the following letter to his niece, at Paris, Mr. Irving was trying, with apparent benefit, a prescription for an obstinate catarrh, which had been very troublesome of late. Three days after its date (February 18th), I was led, by some anxiety in regard to his health, to the cottage, to spend a few days. A temporary deafness, which had been shifting from one ear to the other, had now reached both ears, so that I found it necessary to speak above my natural tone to be heard by him. He was troubled, also, with diffi- culty of breathing, especially in making ascents, and told me that he had been sensible, for some time, of shortness of breath, in going up hill, to an unusual Mt. 74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 239 degree. It "was evident to him that the " harp of thou- sand strings " was no longer " in tune." " But I can- not complain now," said he to me, " if some of the chords should be breaking." That morning, for the first time in about a month, he had taken pen in hand and written a page on his historical task. December 14th, he had written me that he was "in the vein, and anxious to complete the rough draft of his final volume." [7b Mrs. Storrow.~\ Sc.NNTSiDE, Feb. 15, 1858. My dear Sarah : Your letter of January 9th came to me like a reproach, making me feel my delinquency in not having answered your previous letter ; but I am unavoidably a delinquent on this score, my weary brain being overtasked by my literary under- takings, and unable to cope with the additional claims of an overwhelming correspondence. I am endeavoring to accom- plish a fifth volume, wherewith to close the Life of Washing- ton, but I work more slowly than heretofore. For two or three years past I have been troubled by an obstinate catarrh, but this winter it has been quite harassing, at times quite stupe- fying me. Recently I have put myself under medical treat- ment, and begin to feel the benefit of it. Mr. Storrow must have brought you lamentable accounts of the state of affairs in this country during the late revulsion. He was here in the height of the storm, when we seemed to be threatened with an almost universal shipwreck. Happily, the crisis is past ; things are returning to order, but it will take some time for business to regain its usual activity. * * * 24:0 LIFE AND LETTERS [1858. Fortunately, I have experienced but a very moderate loss in my investments, and my relations with my publisher have been placed on a different footing, which, I trust, will prove advan- tageous to us both. I have never been more struck with the energy and elas- ticity of the national character, than in observing how spirit- edly it has struggled with this overwhelming calamity, and is exerting itself, amid the ruins of past prosperity, to build up the edifice anew. The crisis has been felt sorely in my imme- diate neighborhood, among those who were largely in business, some of whom have been completely ruined ; yet they have borne their reverses manfully, and are looking forward hope- fully to better times. I have a very pleasant social neighborhood ; and it has been more social than usual this winter, people seeming to draw closer together and seek refuge in cordial intercourse from external evils. Indeed, I am so happy in my neighborhood, and the home feeling has grown so strong with me, that I go very little to town, and have scarcely slept a dozen nights there within the last twelve months. Perhaps it is the effect of gathering years, to settle more and more into the quiet of one's elbow chair. ****** You have no doubt learned, before this, that the G s intend to set out, in June next, on a European tour. I can easily imagine what a delightful meeting it will be when you all come together. I wish they could bring you all back with them, and put an end to your protracted absence from your natural home, which I cannot help considering a protracted JJt.74.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 241 "With kind remembrances to Mr. Storrow, and love to the young folks, your affectionate uncle, "Washington Irving. February 19^, 1858, at Sunnyside. — Mr. Irving had been kept awake until after three by coughing, yet seemed in tolerable spirits at breakfast, and re- sumed his writing after it. The next day he got speaking of George Frederick Cooke, the eminent per- former. " He was a great actor," he said ; " a great actor. The finest group I ever saw, was at Covent Garden, when Cooke, after long disgrace for his intem- perance, reappeared on the boards to play Iago to John Kemble's Othello. Mrs. Siddons played Desde- mona and Charles Kemble Cassio, beautifully. Kemble [John] had sent for Cooke to rehearse with him at his room, but Cooke would not go. ' Let Blade Jack ' — so he called Kemble — ' come to me.' So they went on the boards without previous rehearsal. In the scene in which Iago instils his suspicion, Cooke grasped Kemble's left hand with his own, and then fixed his right, like a claw, on his shoulder. In this position, drawing himself up to him with his short arm, lie breathed his poisonous whispers. Kemble coiled and twisted his hand, writhing to get away — his right hand clasping his brow, and darting his eye back on Iago. It was wonderful. Speaking to Cooke of the effect on me of this scene, after his arrival in New York [in 1810], 'Didn't I play up to Black Jack!' he ex- Vol. iv.— n ad) 242 LIFE AND LETTERS [1855. claimed. ' I saw his dark eye sweerjing back upon nie.' " I was at John Howard Payne's, near Corlier's Hook, the night of Cooke's arrival in New York. I was there by invitation, to meet him. Cooke came in a little flustered with drink. Was very much exasper- ated at the detention at the Custom House of some silver cups, possibly presents, he had brought with him, and would break forth, every now and then, with, ' "Why did they keep my cups ? They Tcnew they would melt!' with significant emphasis. He was harsh and abusive when drunk, but full of courtesy when sober." Mr. Irving dwelt upon " the easy jol- lity " with which he played Falstaff. " Hodgkinson " [whom, probably, some living may yet remember on the boards of the old Park Theatre] " was a little fustian in tragedy, but capital in comedy and farce. He was finer than Cooper in Petruchio. Cooper was harsh. With Hodgkinson, you could ' see the fun at the bottom ' of his treatment to Catherine." I asked which he preferred — John Kemble, or Cooke ? " Kemble had, perhaps, more the sympathy of his audience, because he played nobler characters — Cooke, the villains ; but, in his range, which was limited, he was the greatest actor." Speaking afterward of artists, he remarked : " Jar- vis tried, but failed to embody my conception of Die- drich Knickerbocker. Leslie also. Darley hit it in jEt. 72.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 243 the illustrated History of New York. My idea was that he should curry the air of one profoundly im- pressed with the truth of his own History. " Allston was always the gentleman. Would talk by the hour. Liked to talk. A capital teller of ghost stories. Would act them with voice, eyes, gesture. Had touches of gentle humor. Rather indolent. Would lie late in bed. Smoked segars. A man of real genius. A noble painter. It was a pity he came back [in 1818] ; he would have risen to the head of his art — been the greatest painter of his day." The foregoing, and the anecdotes which follow, I give from rough notes made at the time. March 23d, 1858 (still at Sunny side). — Mr. Irving' mentioned, after breakfast, a dream of the night before, that he had killed one of the little birds that had com- menced singing about the cottage, and his waking in great distress in consequence, and lighting his lamp to read off the effect. Had shot many a robin when a youngster ; and, when they were skipping about the cottage, often thought with compunction how many of their ancestors he had killed. " Oh, nncle ! " ex- claimed a niece, u how could you ever shoot those innocent little things ! " " Well, my dear, it wasn't the same robins that covered the babes in the wood." March 27th, 1S58. — He came down to the city for the day, in good health. Entered my office half past one, chuckling at the idea of his having just left the 24-4 LIFE AN]D LETTERS [1855. Astor Library with a volume in his pocket lie was using in his Life of Washington, and for once circum- vented his friend Cogswell, the librarian. April 3d, 1858, was his seventy-fifth birthday, and a family party was assembled, as usual, to cele- brate it. It was a bright, beautiful, genial day. He was in line spirits, serenely cheerful. Spoke of his happiness at feeling so well on his seventy-fifth birth- day, when a little before he had been troubled with asthma and difficulty of breathing, and had begun to feel that " he had got his ticket " for the other world. Soon after breakfast came baskets of flowers, and various other birthday offerings from the neighbor- hood. Later in the day, different friends dropped in with their congratulations. Altogether, the day passed off delightfully — nothing to mar it. April 17th, 1858.— A Mr. T , from the centre of Ohio, called at the cottage, as he stated, " simply to see Washington Irving before his return." He brought a letter from Horace Greeley, saying that he was no author, and only curious to have a look at him. Made a short visit, and proved to be a very good fellow. Began by telling Mr. Irving his first fondness for read- ing dated from Knickerbocker's New York. Showed no great inclination that way until his schoolmaster set him down to that. " And that," said Mr. Irving, " begot a taste for history." The visitor being con- nected with railroads, Mr. Irving spoke of the wonder- ful rapidity of locomotion nowadays. " Travellers jEt. 75.] OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 245 now walked Broadway with the dust of the prairies on their boots." " Yes, literally," said his auditor. 1 follow, with a letter to Mr. Bancroft, on receipt of a fresh volume of his History : Scnnvside, May 17, 1858. My dear Bancroft : I have delayed acknowledging the receipt of your volume until I should have read it through. I now thank you heartily for your kindness in sending it to me. The interest with which I have devoured it, notwithstanding the staleness of the sub- ject with me, is a proof that you have told the story well. I was charmed with the opening of your volume : the political state of England and France ; the decadence of the French nobility ; the characters of the French monarchs ; the beautiful sketch of Marie Antoinette ; then the transition to sober, earnest Xcw England — the " meeting of the nine committees " (p. 35), " the lowly men accustomed to feed their own cattle, to fold their own sheep, to guide their own plough — all trained to public life in the little democracies of their towns,'1'1 &c, &c. How graphic ! how suggestive ! how true ! I see you place Samuel Adams in the van of the Revolu- tion, and he deserves the place. He was the apostle of popu- lar liberty, without a thought of self-interest or self-glorifica- tion. There is capital management throughout all the chapters treating of the New England States, wherein you go on build- ing up the revolutionary fire stick by stick, until, at last, you set it in a blaze. You have a mode of individualizing, if I mav so use the word, which gives great spirit and a dramatic effect to your 246 LIFE AND LETTERS [1858. narration. You make brief citations from speeches, letters, or conversations, which stamp the characters, reveal the motives, or express the actions of the persons concerned. So also with regard to States,, cities, villages, communities — they are made to take a part in the drama by " word of mouth," as it were, thus saving a world of detail and circumlocution. In this way, by turns, you vocalize the whole Union, and make the growing chorus of the Revolution rise from every part of it. I hope you will make out what I mean to say ; for I consider what I attempt to designate, a capital quality in your work of narrating. I am delighted with the tribute you pay to the noble policy of Chatham, and the cold charity which you dispense to Lord North. " Lord North was false only as he was weak and un- certain. He really wished to concede and conciliate, hut he had not force enough to come to a clear understanding with him- self." You have given me a hearty laugh at the expense of poor Lord North. In a word, my dear Bancroft, I congratulate you upon the