The period of seventy-six years covered by the life of Irving was marked by great changes. The development of steam transportation transformed the slow-moving world of his youth. The narrow limits of the thirteen original states extended west to the Pacific and south to the Rio Grande. In literature, notable writers had arisen Poe, Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, and others. The "irrepressible conflict" was at hand, which was to free his country from the burden of slavery a national institution in his boyhood. But we look in vain through the works of Irving for the reflection of these momentous times, or for any reference to the questions of the day. He stands aloof; his interests lie rather with the past; he is concerned with the romance and the beauty of times gone by. This attitude is the more remarkable when we consider his wide acquaintance with men and cities, and remember that all his literary friends lived and moved in the full stream of contemporary affairs. Yet these same friends found in him no lack of breadth or humanity. To them he was the dean of American letters a man whom they delighted to honor. Nor do we see in Irving any want of human sympathy. If the bent of his genius led him away from the fume and stress of modern living, we must remember that he laid the foundations of American literature and breathed through all his work the ideals of purity, chivalry, kindly humor and good taste. If he did not stand in the forefront of the battle with the reformers of the day, he none the less drew upon a fund of human kindness and exercised a practical helpfulness quite as useful and effective as many a more pretentious creed.

A typical incident will illustrate the point. He had planned for many years to tell the story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. By taste and training he was unusually well fitted for the task, and had collected a mass of material bearing upon the period. When actually at work on the opening chapters, he learned that William Hickling Prescott, a young and unknown writer, had taken up the same subject. Irving at once relinquished his own plans and laid aside the dream of years in order that the new historian should have his chance.

The best work of Irving is undoubtedly found in the four "sketch books" - the original volume of that name, together with Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, and The Alhambra. The Sketch Book itself, most widely known of all his works, best represents the genius of the writer. The form was excellently adapted to his needs. The volume contains, in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the first artistic presentation of the modern short story; in essays such as Westminster Abbey and The Stage Coach the beauty of style and the fine qualities of observation, imagination and humor which distinguish him as the most charming of American essayists. He was the first of a remarkable group of American historians, among whom Prescott, Motley and Parkman stand preeminent. Here he founded a noble tradition, and his own writings in the field while not, perhaps, evincing the qualities of the trained and critical rcholar possess high excellence in respect of insight and literary art.

The fine tribute of Thackeray, written after Irving's death, may fittingly close this sketch:

The good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with extraordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Byron, Southey, a hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him) he was a messenger of goodwill and peace.... Of his works, was not his life the best part? In society a delightful example of complete gentlemanhood; quite unspoiled by prosperity; eager to acknowledge every contemporary's merit; always kind and affable to the younger members of his calling; in his professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and grateful; one of the most charming masters of our lighter language; to men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar of goodness, probity and pure life,

INTRODUCTION TO RIP VAN WINKLE.

THE story of Rip Van Winkle purported to have been written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was a humorous invention of Irving's, and whose name was familiar to the public as the author of A History of New York. The History was published in 1809, but it was ten years more before the first number of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., was published. This number, which contained Rip Van Winkle, was, like succeeding numbers, written by Irving in England and sent home to America for publication. He laid the scene of the story in the Kaatskills, but he drew upon his imagination and the reports of others for the scenery, not visiting the spot until 1833. The story is not absolutely new; the fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood has the same theme; so has the story of Epimenides of Crete, who lived in the sixth or seventh century before Christ. He was said to have fallen asleep in a cave when a boy, and to have awaked at the end of fifty-seven years, his soul, meanwhile, having been growing in stature. There is the legend also of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Christian martyrs who were walled into a cave to which they had fled for refuge, and there were miraculously preserved for two centuries. Among the stories in which the Harz Mountains of Germany are so prolific is one of Peter Klaus, a goatherd who was accosted one day by a young man who silently beckoned him to follow, and led him to a secluded spot, where he found twelve knights playing, voiceless, at skittles. He saw a can of wine which was very fragrant, and, drinking of it, was thrown into a deep sleep, from which he did not wake for twenty years. The story gives incidents of his awaking and of the changes which he found in the village to which he returned. This story, which was published with others in 1800, may very likely have been the immediate suggestion to Irving, who has taken nearly the same framework. The humorous additions which he has made, and the grace with which he has invested the tale, have caused his story to supplant earlier ones in the popular mind, so that Rip Van Winkle has passed into familiar speech, and allusions to him are clearly understood by thousands who have never read Irving's story. The recent dramatizing of the story, though following the outline only, has done much to fix the conception of the character. The story appeals very directly to a common sentiment of curiosity as to the future, which is not far removed from what some have regarded as an instinct of the human mind pointing to personal immortality. The name Van Winkle was happily chosen by Irving, but not invented by him. The printer of the Sketch Book, for one, bore the name. The name Knickerbocker, also, is among the Dutch names, but Irving's use of it has made it representative. In The Author's Apology, which he prefixed to a new edition of the History of New York, he says: "I find its very name become a household word,' and used to give the home stamp to everything recommended for popular acceptation, such as Knickerbocker societies; Knickerbocker insurance companies; Knickerbocker steamboats; Knickerbocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker ice; and New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding them selves upon being 'genuine Knickerbockers."

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