EARLY VISIT TO EUROPE.-INTIMACY WITH ALLSTON.

His first literary productions known to the public, bear date at the early age of nineteen. They were a series of essays on the theatrical performances and manners of the town, and kindred topics, with the signature, “Jonathan Oldstyle," and were written for a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, just then commenced, in 1802, by his brother, Dr. Peter Irving. A surreptitious edition of these papers was published | twenty years later, when the Sketch-Book had made the author famous; but they have not been included in his collected works. We have read them with pleasure. They present a quaint picture of the life of New York half a century ago, and are noticeable for the early formation of the writer's happy style.

reside among these delightful scenes, surrounded by masterpieces of art, by classic and historic monuments, by men of congenial minds and tastes, engaged like him in the constant study of the sublime and beautiful. I was to return home to the dry study of the law, for which I had no relish, and, as I feared, but little talent.

"Suddenly the thought presented itself, 'Why might I not remain here, and turn painter?' I had taken lessons in drawing before leaving America, and had been thought to have some aptness, as I certainly had a strong inclination for it. I mentioned the idea to Allston, and he caught at it with eagerness. Nothing could be more feasible. We would take an apartment together. He would give me all the instruction and assistance in his power, and was sure I would succeed.

A year or two after this time, in 1804, Mr. Irving, induced by some symptoms of ill-health, apparently of a pulmonary nature, visited the "For two or three days the idea took full posSouth of Europe. Embarking at New York for session of my mind; but I believe it owed its Bordeaux in May, he travelled, on his arrival in main force to the lovely evening ramble in which France, by Nice to Genoa, where he passed two I first conceived it, and to the romantic friendmonths; thence to Messina, in Sicily, making a ship I had formed with Allston. Whenever it tour of that island, and crossing from Palermo recurred to mind, it was always connected with to Naples. He continued his journey through beautiful Italian scenery, palaces, and statues, Italy and Switzerland to France; resided several and fountains, and terraced gardens, and Allston months in Paris, and finally reached England as the companion of my studio. I promised mythrough Flanders and Holland, having accumu- self a world of enjoyment in his society, and in lated, by the way, an abiding stock of impres- the society of several artists with whom he had sions, which lingered in his mind, and furnished made me acquainted, and pictured forth a scheme ever fresh material for his subsequent writings. | of life, all tinted with the rainbow hues of youthIt was while at Rome, on this journey, that he ful promise. became acquainted with Washington Allston, and so far participated in his studies as to meditate for a time the profession of a painter, a pursuit for which he had naturally a taste, and in which he had been somewhat instructed. His own reminiscence of this period, in his happy tribute to the memory of Allston,* is a delightful picture, softly touched in an Italian atmosphere.

"We had delightful rambles together," he writes, "about Rome and its environs, one of which came near changing my whole course of life. We had been visiting a stately villa, with its gallery of paintings, its marble halls, its terraced gardens set out with statues and fountains, and were returning to Rome about sunset. The blandness of the air, the serenity of the sky, the transparent purity of the atmosphere, and that nameless charm which hangs about an Italian landscape, had derived additional effect from being enjoyed in company with Allston, and pointed out by him with the enthusiasm of an artist. As I listened to him, and gazed upon the landscape, I drew in my mind a contrast between our different pursuits and prospects. He was to * Kindly contributed to “The Cyclopedia of American Lit

erature."

66

My lot in life, however, was differently cast. Doubts and fears gradually clouded over my prospects; the rainbow tints faded away; I began to apprehend a sterile reality, so I gave up the transient but delightful prospect of remaining in Rome with Allston, and turning painter."

After an absence of two years, Mr. Irving returned to New York, in March, 1806. He resumed the study of the law, which he had abandoned for his journey, and was admitted at the close of the year attorney-at-law. He, however, never practised the profession.

Salmagundi; or, the or, the Whim- Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and others—an undertaking much more to his taste

was at that time projected, and the publication was commenced in a series of small eighteenmo numbers, appearing about once a fortnight from the Shakspeare Gallery of Longworth. The first is dated January 24, 1807. It was continued for a year through twenty numbers. Paulding wrote a good portion of this work, William Irving the poetry, and Washington Irving the remainder. The humors of the day are hit off, in this genial collection of essays, in so agreeable a style, that the work is still read with interest— what was piquant gossip then being amusing

THE RECEPTION OF KNICKERBOCKER.

history now. It was the intention of Mr. Irving to have extended these papers by carrying out the invention, and marrying Will Wizard to the eldest Miss Cockloft-with, of course, a grand wedding at Cockloft Hall, the original of which mansion was a veritable edifice owned by Gouverneur Kemble, on the Passaic, a favorite resort of Geoffrey Crayon in his youthful days. Among other originals of these sketches we have heard it mentioned that some of the peculiarities of Dennie, the author, were hit off in the character of Launcelot Langstaff. The well-defined picture of "My Uncle John" is understood to have been from the pen of Paulding; his, too, was the original sketch of the paper entitled "Autumnal Reflections," though extended and wrought up by Mr. Irving.

To the last revised edition of this work, in 1850, which contains some very pleasant additions, the author prefixed an Apology,' which, however, offered little satisfaction to the irate families who had considered their honor aggrieved by the publication of this extravagant burlesque-seeing that the incorrigible author insisted upon it that he had brought the old Dutch manners and times into notice, instancing the innumerable Knickerbocker hotels, steamboats, icecarts, and other appropriations of the name; and had added not only to the general hilarity but to the harmony of the city, by the popular traditions which he had set in vogue "forming a convivial currency; linking our whole community together in good humor and good fellowship; the rallying points of home feeling; the Knickerbocker's History of New York was pub- seasoning of civic festivities; the staple of local lished in December, 1809. It was commenced tales and local pleasantries.”* We should atby Washington Irving, in company with his tach little importance to the subject had it not brother, Peter Irving, with the notion of paro- been made a matter of comment in the New York dying a handbook, which had just appeared, en- Historical Society, in an address before which titled "A Picture of New York." In emulation body it was gravely held up to reprehension. of an historical account in that production, it The truth of the matter is that the historians was to burlesque the local records, and describe should have occupied the ground earlier, if posin an amusing way the habits and statistics of sible, and not have given the first advantage to the town. Dr. Irving departing for Europe, left the humorist. We do not find, however, that the work solely with his brother, who confined the burlesque has at all damaged the subject in it to the historical part, which had grown in his the hands of Mr. Brodhead, who has at length hands into a long comic history. The humorous brought to bear a system of original investigacapabilities of the subject were turned to account tion and historical inquiry upon the worthy in the happiest way, the fun being broad enough Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam; or deterioto steer clear of the realities; though a venera- rated a whit the learned labors of O'Callaghan, ble clergyman, who was on the lookout for a who has illustrated the early Dutch annals history with that theme from a clerical brother, with faithful diligence. The style of Knickeris said to have begun the work in good faith, and bocker is of great felicity. There is just enough to have been only gradually warmed to a con- flavor of English classical reading to give the sciousness of the joke. The highest honor ever riant, original material, the highest gusto. The paid to the authentic history of Knickerbocker descriptions of nature and manners are occasionwas the quotation from it-in good Latin phrase ally very happy in a serious way, and the satire -by Goeller, German annotator of Thucydides, is, much of it, of that universal character which in illustration of a passage of the Greek author: will bear transplantation to wider scenes and "Addo locum Washingtonis Irvingii Hist. Novi interests. The laughter-compelling humor is irEboraci," lib. vii., cap. 5.* To humor the pleas-resistible, and we may readily believe the story antry, preliminary advertisements had been in- of that arch wag himself, Judge Brackenridge, serted before the publication in the Evening Post, exploding over a copy of the work, which he had calling for information of "a small elderly gen-smuggled with him to the bench. tleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked Has the reader ever noticed the beautiful, hat, by the name of Knickerbocker," etc., who pathetic close of this humorous book? "Alhad left his lodgings at the Columbian Hotel in ready," writes Diedrich Knickerbocker, "has Mulberry street; then a statement that the old withering age showered his sterile snows upon my gentleman had left a very curious kind of a brow; in a little while, and this genial warmth, written book in his room," followed by the an- which still lingers around my heart, and throbs nouncement of the actual book, "in two volumes-worthy reader-throbs kindly towards thyself, duodecimo, price three dollars," from the pub- will be chilled forever. Haply this frail comlishers, Inskeep & Bradford-to pay the bill of pound of dust, which while alive may have given his landlord.

* Classical Museum, Oct., 1849.

*The author's "Apology," preface to edition of Knickerbocker, 1848.

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S LETTER.-LIFE OF CAMPBELL.

birth to naught but unprofitable weeds, may form a humble sod of the valley, whence may spring many a sweet wild flower, to adorn my beloved island of Manna-hatta!"

later years of Irving at Sunnyside, there was much to remind the privileged visitor of the pilgrimages to Abbotsford, when the radiance of the author of Waverley shed delight on all around.

In 1810 Mr. Irving wrote a biographical sketch of the poet Campbell, which was prefixed to an edition of the poet's works published in Philadelphia, and subsequently was printed, "revised, corrected, and materially altered by the author," in the Analectic Magazine. The circumstance which led to this undertaking at that time, was Mr. Irving's acquaintance with Archibald Campbell, a brother of the author, residing in New York, and desirous of finding a purchaser for an American edition of O'Connor's Child, which he had just received from London. To facilitate this object, Mr. Irving wrote the preliminary sketch from facts furnished by the poet's brother. It afterwards led to a personal acquaintance between the two authors when Mr. Irving visited England. In 1850, after Campbell's death, when his Life and Letters, edited by Dr. Beattie, were about to be republished by the Harpers in New York, Mr. Irving was applied to for a few preliminary words of introduction. He wrote a letter, prefixed to the volumes, in which he speaks gracefully and nobly of his acquaintance with Campbell, many of the virtues of whose private life were first disclosed to the public in Dr. Beattie's publication.

Some time after the publication of Knickerbocker, a copy was sent by the late Mr. Henry Brevoort, an intimate friend of the author, to Sir Walter Scott. It drew forth the following cordial reply, dated Abbotsford, April 23, 1813: "My dear Sir, I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have received from the most excellently jocose history of New York. I am sensible that, as a stranger to American parties and politics, I must lose much of the concealed satire of the piece; but I must own that, looking at the simple and obvious meaning only, I have never read any thing so closely resembling the stile of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich | Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in reading thein aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author possesses powers of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me much of Sterne. I beg you will have the kindness to let me know when Mr. Irvine takes pen in hand again, for assuredly I shall expect a very great treat, which I may chance never to hear of but through your kindness. Believe me, dear sir, your obliged and humble servant, Walter Scott."* Praise like this was likely to create a flutter in a youthful breast. Irving had afterwards the satisfaction to learn how sincere it was, in personal intercourse with Scott. Lockhart, in the biography of Sir Walter, tells us that the latter had not forgotten the Knickerbocker, when, in the summer of 1817, Mr. Irving presented himself at the gate of Abbotsford with a letter of introduction from the poet Campbell. The welcome was prompt and earnest; and the proposed morning call was changed into that delighted residence so fondly revived in the "Visit to Abbotsford" in The Crayon Miscellany, and largely adopted by Lockhart in the Biography. We have heard Mr. Irving speak of this visit within the last year of his life with boyish delight. "This," said he, "was to be happy. I felt happiness then." So true and generous was his allegiance to the noble nature of Sir Walter, who was himself warmly drawn to his visitor.jecting his sympathies, and unconsciously porScott thanked Campbell for sending him such a guest, “one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day." In the

One sentence strikes us as peculiarly characteristic of the feelings of Mr. Irving. It is in recognition of this revelation of the poet's better nature that he writes, in words of charity, as he looked back upon the asperities which beset Campbell's career:-"I shall feel satisfaction in putting on record my own recantation of the erroneous opinion I once entertained, and may have occasionally expressed, of the private character of an illustrious poet, whose moral worth is now shown to have been fully equal to his exalted genius."

Though Mr. Irving in this later essay speaks slightingly of the earlier composition as written when he was "not in the vein," we have found it, on perusal, a most engaging piece of writing. A paragraph descriptive of the youthful Campbell might be taken for a portrait of himself. Indeed, it often happens that a writer, while drawing the character of another, is simply pro

traying himself. "He is generally represented to us," says Mr. Irving, in this description of Campbell, "as being extremely studious, but at the same time social in his disposition, gentle and endearing in his manners, and extremely prepossessing in his appearance and address. With a delicate and even nervous sensibility, and

MINISTRY OF LITERATURE. THE SKETCH-BOOK.

a degree of self-diffidence that, at times, is almost the American Naval Captains; and, in 1814, painful, he shrinks from the glare of notoriety | joined the military staff of Governor Tompkins which his own works have shed around him, [ as aid-de-camp and military secretary, with the and seems ever deprecating criticism, rather than title of colonel. When the war was ended the enjoying praise. Though his society is courted next year, he sailed for Liverpool in the month by the most polished and enlightened, among whom he is calculated to shine, yet his chief delight is in domestic life, in the practice of those gentle virtues and bland affections which he has so touchingly and eloquently illustrated in various passages of his poems.'

of May, made excursions into Wales, extended his tour to several of the finest counties of England, and to the Highlands of Scotland, and had the intention of visiting the continent. The commercial revulsions which followed the war overwhelmed the house with which he was connected, and he was thrown upon his resources as an author. He accepted his new method of life with cheerfulness; his spirits rose with the occasion, as he started on a literary career with not unproved powers, and an inward consciousness of his fitness for the pursuit.

In this memoir of Campbell we meet with a beautiful image illustrating the sentiment of obligation to British authorship, which must | have been entertained, as, indeed, it still is, with great force by every ingenuous mind, at the beginning of the century, when our literature was in its infancy. "When we turn our eyes to Repairing to London, his excursions and his England, from whence this bounteous tide of observations on rural life and manners furnished literature pours in upon us, it is with such feel- materials for some of the most attractive porings as the Egyptian experiences, when he looks tions of his Sketch-Book. He was very much towards the sacred source of that stream which, struck by the individuality of the English, parrising in a far distant country, flows down upon ticularly in such as were removed from business his own barren soil, diffusing riches, beauty, and centres; and found much to study in personal fertility." peculiarities, while at a small watering-place in We may here, too, recall a sentence as not un-Wales. He met there with the veteran angler suited to our own times at home, in which Mr. whom he has so pleasantly described in a paper Irving, writing in 1815, after his pen had done of the Sketch-Book, which soon after made its good service to his countrymen in the war, re-appearance. cords his sense of the peculiar sphere of authorship in its better moods. After describing "the exalted ministry of literature to keep together the family of human nature," he adds:-"The author may be remiss in the active exercise of this duty, but he will never have to reproach himself that he has attempted to poison, with political virulence, the pure fountains of elegant literature."

But we must hasten rapidly over the events of Mr. Irving's literary life, though tempted to linger at every turn, so fertile are they in topics of pleasure and instruction.

The first number was sent from London in the beginning of March, 1819, to his friend, Mr. Brevoort, in America, with the characteristic remark that it had cost him "much coaxing of his mind to get it in training again.”

The publication was commenced in New York in large octavo pamphlets-a style afterwards adopted by Dana in his Idle Man, and Longfellow in his Outre Mer. Shortly after the first volume had appeared in this form, it attracted the notice of the London editor, Jerdan, who received a copy brought over from America by a passenger, and republished some of the papers in his Literary Gazette.* A reprint of the whole was in prospect by some bookseller, when the author applied to Murray to undertake the work. The answer was civil, but the publisher declined it. Mr. Irving then addressed Sir Walter Scott (by whom he had previously been cordially received at Abbotsford, on his visit in 1817, of which he has given so agreeable an account in the paper in the Crayon Miscellany), to secure his assistance with the publisher Constable. Scott, in the most friendly manner, promised his aid; and, as an immediate assistance, offered Mr. Irving the editorial chair of a weekly periodical to The second war with Great Britain then broke be established at Edinburgh, with a salary of five out, when he took part in the spirit of the day; hundred pounds; but the sensitive author, who edited the Analectic Magazine, published at Phil-knew his own mind, had too vivid a sense of the adelphia by Moses Thomas, penning an eloquent series of biographies, accompanying portraits of

After the publication of the Knickerbocker, Mr. Irving, turning from the law with little regret, engaged with two of his brothers in mercantile business, as a silent partner. In a letter to a friend, dated May 15, 1811, he writes: "Since you left us, I have been a mere animal; working among hardware and cutlery. We have been moving the store, and I (my pen creeps at the very thoughts of it) have had, in this time of hurry and confusion, to lend all the assistance in my power, and bend my indolent and restive habits to the plodding routine of traffic."

* Autobiography of William Jerdan, ii. 288.

THOMAS MOORE'S DIARY.