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CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE (Continued).

PERIOD COVERED BY IRVING'S LIFE.

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1842 Minister to Spain.
(His nomination was
suggested by Dan-
iel Webster.)

1846 Returns to New
York for remain-
der of his life.

1849 Life of Oliver Gold

smith.

1849 Mahomet and his
Successors.

1855 Wolfert's Roost.

1855-9 Life of Washington.

1859 Death of Irving.

1846-7 Mexican War.

1848 Gold discovered in
California.

Controversy over
slavery increases
in bitterness.

1850 Fugitive Slave Law.

1842 John Fiske born.

1852 Daniel Webster and
Henry Clay die.

1853 Putnam's Magazine

founded.

1850 William Wordsworth dies.

1857 Atlantic Monthly 1859 Henry Hallam dies.

founded.

1846

1848

Repeal of Corn Laws
in England.
France second time

a republic.

1852

Napoleon III., Em-
peror.

1854-56 Crimean War.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

WASHINGTON IRVING - “the first ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old" was born in New

York on April 3, 1783. His mother named him after George Washington, and a pleasant anecdote connects his childhood with the great man whose biographer he was to be in later years. One morning, as his Scotch nurse had him out for a walk, she saw the President enter a shop. The nurse hastened in with her charge, and said: "Please, your honor, here's a bairn was named for you." Washington turned and, laying his hand on the child's head, gave him his blessing.

Born of well-to-do parents, Irving was the youngest of a large family; his formative years were passed under the influence of a cultured home, and with plenty of congenial companionship. The surroundings of his childish days thus were fortunate, and no doubt tended to mould his mind and character for an appreciation of the finer things of life. His boyhood was in no sense remarkable; he was fond of reading, Robinson Crusoe and The Arabian Nights being among his favorite books, while a youthful inclination towards travel and adventure seems to have been stimulated by a History of the Civil Wars of Granada, and stirred still further by a set of voyages called The World Displayed. He attended school until the age of sixteen, when for some reason he declined to complete his education in the normal way by following his two brothers William and Peter to Columbia College; instead, he entered a lawyer's office.

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But the study of the law did not very closely engage his attention; his tastes lay outside the walls of the office. "How wistfully," he wrote afterwards of this period of his life, "would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes; with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth." These restless cravings were partially satisfied by two journeys one up the Hudson to Albany; the other north as far as Montreal and Quebec. They were venturous expeditions; discomfort and difficulty were all in the day's work, while dangers came unsought. But Irving from the first inured himself to the hardships inseparable from travel at a time when the voyager was lucky to reach Albany in half a week, and when the journey from New York to Boston occupied six days. He was by nature, and became still more by trining, an excellent traveller. "For my own part," he said, "I endeavor to take things as they come, with cheerfulness; when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner."

Not only did he begin at this time to gratify his desire for travel, but he entered also tentatively and insecurely into the field of literature. He wrote a few essays, signed "Jonathan Oldstyle," and published them in a journal owned by his brother Peter. They mildly satirized New York life after the manner of the eighteenth-century essayists in England and show neither more nor less merit than might be expected of a young man of nineteen. Their chief value lies in the fact that they indicate a practical interest in writing.

During his youth, Irving's health had never been very good. With the hope that change might help him, his brothers sent him to Europe, where he spent the years from 1804 to 1806. The experience was a delightful one, despite the delays and difficulties which fell to the lot of the wayfarer by sailing-ship and stage-coach. He visited Sicily and Italy; he wandered leisurely through France, Holland, and England. "The young American traveller" was most cordially received; he possessed a geniality of temper which everywhere won him friends. At the same time, his sagacious powers of observation and his keen sense of humor enabled him to grasp and store up impressions which later were to form the inspiration for much of his writing. He came home again completely restored to health.

The legal studies of his earlier years had been so far successful that soon after his return he was admitted to the bar and taken into partnership with his brother John. It cannot be said, however, that he seriously practised his profession. A little law and a great deal of literature, together with the enjoyment of the society of his native city, carried him comfortably through four years, at the end of which he joined his brothers Ebenezer and Peter in the large hardware importing business which they had built up. There was an understanding that he should be connected with the firm as a "silent" partner, and, while sharing in the profits, should be called upon to do merely a nominal portion of the work. Thus he would have plenty of opportunity to follow his literary tastes, with which his brothers were thoroughly in sympathy. Under this kindly arrangement, he became well-known as a man about town a man of literary promise and one who had seen the world.

As a result came the publication of Salmagundi, a magazine in which he was associated with James Kirke Paulding and William Irving. It lived for about a year. "Our intention," ran the editorial announcement, "is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." The matter was humorous and original enough, and made a stir in New York; the manner was pleasantly reminiscent of Addison's Spectator papers.

His next venture was the book which established his reputation - A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. Intended at first as a parody upon a pompous narrative called A Picture of New York, the History soon outgrew the limits of a mere imitation and developed into a comic history of the city under Dutch rule. The book was heralded by humorous advertisements in the newspapers, which announced the disappearance of "a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, called Knickerbocker." He was last seen on the Albany stage, and had left at his lodgings nothing but a "very curious kind of written book," which was to be published to pay his board bill. Introduced in this original way, the History appeared in 1809 and created a sensation. It dealt with characters, places, and situations which were familiar to every New Yorker of the day, it was conceived in a serio-comic vein of amusing irony that piqued the curiosity, and it was written in a style already marked by the distinction afterwards so characteristic of Irving's work. Some of the old families, whose sense of dignity was greater than their sense of humor, felt aggrieved at supposed slights on their ancestors; but the large majority thoroughly enjoyed the unshackled treatment of history and tradition, and the good-humored satire.

While Irving was completing the History, he suffered a loss which deeply influenced his whole life. This was the death of Matilda Hoffman, the young girl to whom he was engaged. Long afterwards when time had soothed though it could not take away - his sorrow, he wrote: "For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." He never married, he never forgot; and to this ineffaceable grief we may probably trace the touch of melancholy which is seen all through his writings.

We have now to consider the most important period of his life - the seventeen years from 1815 to 1832, which were spent abroad. In 1815 he went to Liverpool to take over the conduct of the English branch of the business from his brother Peter, whose health had broken down. For a time

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