om the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. This is not to say that what they wrote was utterly and dramatically different from what had been written in the colonia

n addition to being the seats of government, they have been the great commercial centers and usually the great ports of their countries. In the United States, then, the final adoption of Washington in the District of Columbia as the national capital was a compromise step; this could not result in bringing to it the additional distinction which natural conditions gave to New York. Washington h

uld ever again bring it into the warfare from which it was so glad to be escaping. The Atlantic was immensely broader in those days than now, for its real breadth is to be measured not in miles but in the number of days that it takes to cross it. When Irving went abroad for the first time in 1803 he was fifty-nine days in passage. To-day o

lf unseemly," whereas the new nation was very self-conscious; quickly irritated at foreign criticism, and uncomfortably aware of its own crudities in manner and defects in character. As far as foreign criticism was concern

arm could Home

avil, and who

nius pours the

yle, or nibble

d the War of 1812, was less inclined than befor

he, and others

friendly vis

d find food for

virtues. Americans could not strike back with any effect, because they could not make the English feel their blows.

punkins, the

some related

few small intr

ounter o' Joh

can't conceit ho

rd druv down C

helpin' from th

ive to keep thi

awed from busi

ence with sech s

rge 'thout them to

nce doth make cowards of us all." In a period of such rapid expansion as prevailed in the young manhood of Irving, Cooper, and Bryant it was unavoidable that most of the population were drawn into business undertakings that were usually eager and hurried and that were often slipshod or even shady. The American colleges and their graduates were no

ell-versed; a

nment, far mor

achers, lately

aken lessons,

h in each; and

Italian, eq

ortuguese, or

ore surprising,

ngest English

liar in Low Du

tudying modern G

ith servants and "whatever is necessary for a 'genteel liver'" and buttressed with a coach and half a dozen unpaid-for horses. A

ople o

honest, qui

ble too-for

ke their roads,

sp is warm and welc

] looked back a half century,

us women, sour

ess, old befo

human interest

ound of smal

candal of the

. .

fearful of the

over pulpit ta

rewd economis

, with the leas

sanctity;

ittle actual

charity and

rmon on the

e a last yea

ithin the country, was that American writers of any moment bided their time as patiently a

destal, broad-

shapes of the A

rough labors und

Sculpture and Pain

from Williams College at the end of the first year, and Cooper from Yale toward the end of the second. The real education of these two and of Irving,

NGTON

s particularly fond of the pleasures of life. A boy of his capacities in Boston at this time would have been more than likely to go to Harvard College, which was a dominating influence in eastern Massachusetts, but King's College (Columbia) occupied no such position in New York. Irving's higher education began in a law office, and then, when his health seemed to be failing, was continued by travel abroad. The long journey, or series of journeys, that he took from 1804 to 1806 were of the greatest importance. They were important to Irving because he was peculiarly fitted to get the greatest good fro

y number that they proposed to "instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." In the twenty-two papers that came out at irregular intervals between January, 1807, and January, 1808, they criticized everything that struck their attention, and they had their eyes wide open. The American love of display, the inclination to indulge in fruitless discussion which made the country a "logocracy" rather than a democracy, the lack of both judgment and order which marked their political elections, and their social and literary fashions make just a beginning of the list of subjects held up to genial ridicule. Yet, though the criticism was fair and to the point, it was an old-fashioned kind of comment, the kind that England had been feeding on for the better part of a century, ever since Addison and Steele had made it popular in the Tatler and th

opher Columbus," living and writing in Madrid for the two years before its publication in 1828; and this book he followed quickly, as in the case of "The Sketch Book," with two other productions of the same kind-"The Conquest of Granada" in 1829 and "The Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus" in 1831. For three years before his return to America, Irving served as Secretary of Legation to the court of St. James, London, and then came back to enjoy at home a popularity which had been almost wholly earned abroad. Out of his career thus far four main facts deserve attention. First, that his literary work began with two pieces of social satire, written in a boyish, jovial manner which he largely abandoned in later years; second, that his fame was established on works of "The Sketch Book" type, made up of short units, gracefully written, and full of quiet humor and tender sentiment (now and again he continued in this sort of composition up to the end of his life);

ntemptuous and famous query, "Who reads an American book?" was fairly representative of the English-reading public. Murray was interested in Irving's manuscript, but did not see any prospect of selling enough books to justify the risk of publication. Irving had wanted the indorsement of Murray's imprint to offset the severity of the kind of English criticism deplored years earlier by John Trumbull (see p. 111). As soon, however, as the sketches were printed in New York in a set of seven modest installments, the attention of English readers was attracted to them, and Irving heard rumors that a "pirated" English edition was to appear. There was no international copyright in those days, and no adequa

an that contained in a letter written many years later by Charles Dickens in which he refers to the delight he took in Irving's pages when he was "a small and not over particularly well taken care of boy." Even the austere Edinburgh Review indorsed the

and on country estates. Of the remainder six are literary essays of various kinds; four are in the nature of personal traveling reminiscences; three are the famous short s

anded strictest accuracy from author-travelers; that if a man who wrote a book on the regions of the Upper Nile or the unknown islands of the Yellow Sea was caught in error at a few minor points, he was held up to scorn as careless and unreliable, and another English traveler who could convict him of mistakes or misstatements could completely discredit him. But in marked contrast to this, no such scrupulousness was demanded o

lage; which might have interfered occasionally with our true interests, and prevented the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard to give up the kindred tie! and there are feelings dearer than interest-clos

lfilled nearly a hundred years later, though few, perhaps, who would have put it in such temp

inviting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm, but it is a paltry and unprofitable contest.... The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid and dispassionate. They are, individually, portions of the sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should be enabled to come to all qu

e title should be conferred on this neglected number in "The Sketch Book." It was long before either English or Am

have been quite natural. In the opening paper, as well as in the sixth, there is a gentle reminder that the literary east wind had felt rather sharp and nipping in New Yor

his idea I was confirmed by observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude of many English travelers among us, who, I was assured,

y, quick-tempered, over-conservative average English country gentleman, but to the intelligent and attentive reader this gentleman turns out to be the embodiment of the English government and the British Empire. The character of Parliament, the relation between Church and State, the condition of the national treasury, the attitude of the rulers toward reform legislation and toward the colonies, dep

t be so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbors represent him. His virtues are all his own; all plain, home-bred, and unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qual

ll as he appears in "Rural Life," "The Country Church," "

ebration of the Christmas festivities. There is a touch of autobiography in his comment on the good cheer that prevailed at Bracebridge Hall,-a home that Squire Bracebridge tried to make his children feel was the happiest place in the world,-it was so utterly different from the suppressed family circle over which his Presbyterian father had ruled. As a guest he enjoyed all the picturesque and quaint merrymaking at the Hall, and re-conjured up pictures like those which Addison had previously drawn at Sir Roger de Coverley's. Yet all the while he was aware that the old English gentleman was a costly luxury for England to maintain, that Squire Bracebridge was after all nothing but John Bull, an

way to Eastcheap, "that ancient region of wit and wassail, where the very names of the streets relished of good cheer, as Pudding Lane bears testimony even at the present day"; and he took much more evident satisfaction in his recollection of Shakespearean revelr

tion many of the holiday games and customs of yore. The inhabitants most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot-cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-letters on Valentine's Day, burn the

baleful influence of the socially ambitious Misses Lamb and the decline of the choice old games All-Fours, Pope Joan, and Tom-come-tickle-me. It is no wonder that the youthful Dickens loved these papers, for the same England appealed to both Irving and Dickens t

eserved and impassive. If a man was amused he laughed loud and long; if he was angered he came up with "a word and a blow"; and if his deeper feelings were touched he was not ashamed of a tear. In fact he seemed almost to feel a certain pride in his "sensibility," as if his power to weep proved that his nature was not destitute of f

lf betray him. In "an agony of tears" he tells a friend, and by him is persuaded to be honest with her. Her latent heroism comes out in the face of his announcement; and on her welcome to him at his first homecoming to the modest cottage he is rendered speechless, and tears once more gush into his eyes. The second is a direct attempt to shame "those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up ... to laugh at all love stories." The third, on "The Widow and her Son," is more convincing to the reader of to-day, for it is on the tragic picture of a fond parent's bereavement. The fourth is the best example of all. The pride of the village is introduced as "blushing and smiling in all the beautiful confusion of girlish diffidence and

will long be read for its own sake, and as such it needs no comment, for it is familiar to everyone. But it is also a milestone in literary history. One reason for this is that it carries into practice a principle that American authors had long been talking and writing about-the principle of using native material. It is located in the Catskill Mountains and in the years before and after the Revolutionary War. It introduces real colonial and early American people. Although it is a far-fetched romance in its theme, it makes use of homely, realistic details. Jonathan Doolittle's hotel was just the sort of shabby boarding house that marred the countryside during the slipsho

ime-the few hours just before and the few hours just after Rip went to sleep on the mountain. And the whole story was composed to lead up to the main point,-the chief point of this history and of all history,-the relentless way in which life moves on, regardless of the individual who falls asleep and is left behind. All the details in the story help to develop this idea. Rip, the ne'er-do-well, was the sort of man to serve as the central character, for he was more anxious to escape life than to take his part in it. His eager, querulous, sharp-tongued wife reminded him of the burden of living only to make him avoid it the more; her loss was the only one which he did not regret on his return. His dog and gun, which he missed first and missed most keenly, were the pride of the old-fashioned trapper out of pl

ter of Cotton Mather's history of New England witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes." Ichabod, moreover, is a comic type in American li

it against the writing of a hundred years ago, without comparing the book in question with others of its own generation, is to ignore the very point of "Rip Van Winkle"-that fashions change. Assuming, then, that styles do change, and that Irving was no more formal than other a

are full of peculiarity and interest; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man is in a comparatively primitive state, and what he owes to civilization. There is something of the charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and

G. S. Lee's "Crowds

men who pass, and you feel hundreds of years-the next hundred years-like a breath swept past. America, with all its forty-story buildings, its little play Niagaras, its great dumb Rockies, is the unseen country. It c

ving, who is discussing the past, employs abstract or general words-to use the nouns alone, words like discovery, anecdotes, peculiarity, civilisation, sentiment, qualities, magnificence; Lee, who is looking to the future, uses definite and picturesque terms like faces, street, buildings, eyes, panorama, towers, footfalls,-uses these words even though he admits the idea he is dealing with cannot be pictured. Again, Irving cast hi

le readers"-men who enjoyed the rhythmical flow of a courtly and elegant style, who felt that there was a virtue in purity and beauty of diction apart from any idea the diction was supposed to express; but the modern reader esteems literature as a means rather than an end. It must catch and hold his attention; it must be clear and forcible first, and elega

ks and all the best known of his works but the lives of Goldsmith and Washington. When he came back after seventeen years' absence he was known and admired in England, France, and Germany, and the most popular of American authors.

and the poor man frowns-where all repine at the present and dread the future. I come from these to a country where all is life and animation; where I hear on e

of a whole "school" of writers. Diedrich Knickerbocker had become a household word, which was applied to the Knickerbocker school of Irving's followers and used in the christening of the Knickerbocker Magazine (1833–1865). Irving was in truth a connecting link between the century of his birth and the century of his achievements. He carried over t

r eager interest in the current English output. According to his biographer they were absorbed in "The Lady of the Lake" and "Marmion," in Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope," Rogers's "Pleasures of Memory," Moore's "Melodies," Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs" and "Thadd

ote between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-"Alnwick Castle," "Red-Jacket," "A Sketch," "A Poet's Daughter"; and in "Wyoming" he sometimes grieved for the old and sometimes protested at the new. When in 1823 he wrote "Marco Bozzaris," he lived up to

Papers." They were both pertinent and impertinent, aided by the mystery of their authorship and accumulating in interest through the uncertainty as to when the next would appear and whom it would assail. The more general in theme had the same underlying good sense which belonged to the earlier Salmagundis (see p. 116), and in their simple and often brutal directness they must have offered then, as they do now, a relief from the fashionable

ive, leaving as his literary bequest the

the turf

f my bet

to literary account. Whether or no the anecdote is true, Drake wrote to this point in his "To a Friend," and in "Niagara" and "Bronx." Yet the fact is worth remark that nothing in "The Culprit Fay" is any more explicitly true of the Hudson region than of the Rhine country or the Norwegian fiords. The poem reads lik

o believe that the final canons for art had been fixed, and could hardly conceive of originality in a nineteenth-century poet; but Drake tried ne

rshipper at na

ds are green, an

ivers flow, h

orn them all, t

ays of feigned

ud the muse? nor

own, and hide yo

etry in democracy or the crowded town, yet in his vague craving for something better than Georgian iterations he showed that the revival of individualism was at work in him. The story is told that his intima

tly gentleman of the old school, as Irving was also, who became a friend and associate of the leading financier of the day. There was nothing restless or disconcerting about him. He was a critic of manners, but not of the social order. He probably knew little of Emerson, and he certainly disapproved of Whitman. In 1848, when

K L

dual A

Book, 1819; Bracebridge Hall, 1822; Jonathan Oldstyle, 1824; Tales of a Traveller, 1824; Columbus, 1828; Conquest of Granada, 1829; Companions of Columbus, 1831; The Alhambra, 1832; T

iogr

Cambridge History of American

hy and

. M. Irving, The Life and Letters of Washingto

Washington Irvi

the Life, Character, and Geni

's Knickerbocker. Cr

n Irving, in Literary a

nd Geoffrey Crayon, in Th

ving's Power of Idealizati

bute to Irving. Mass. Hist.

Dean. My Litera

to Irving. Mass. Hist. S

A Fable for

ading American

ria. Southern Literary M

tory of American Literature

m. Cornhill Magazine, Vol. I.

rican Men of Lett

ing's Humor. Crit

ngton Irving. Atlan

e Work of Washin

ose of Joseph Rodman Drake. J. G. Wilson, editor. 1869, 1885. (These editions include the Croaker Papers.) These appeared originally as follo

hy and

e and Letters of Fitz-Greene

on the Life and Writings of

nickerbocker School.

-Greene Halleck, in P

tory of American Literature,

Halleck, in Complete

es of Fitz-Greene Halleck, i

Bryant and his

lec

American Poetry, p

Cyclopedia of American Lite

Poets and Poetry

ibrary of American Litera

First printed in the New York Evening Post. 1819. Reprinted as a pamphl

hy and

oseph Rodman Dra

eW. American

Imagination. Complete

oseph Rodman D

Bryant and his

odman Drake, in Harper

lec

American Poetry, p

Cyclopedia of American Lite

Poets and Poetry

ibrary of American Litera

AND P

se attention will reveal obligations not merely in the use of a foreign observer, a sli

, in Macaulay's essay, and in Thackeray's "English Humourists," an

hew Carey, Publisher," by E. L. Bradsher; "Letters of Richard Watson Gilder" (edited by Rosamond Gilder, 1916); "These Many Years," by Brander Matth

ok" for the passages in specific r

for a further obligation to Goldsmith-t

ment of English life and character begun in t

subject matter, method, and tone with

in "The Sketch Book" for the light they throw o

n of the domestic group at the Van Tassels for compa

r Papers" with the

erican Poetry," pp. 154–158) for compari

characteristic of the period and then read "The Culprit Fay" ("American