Of this book there have been printed three hundred 
 copies from type and original wood blocks on 
 French hand-made paper, and three copies 
 on Roman parchment, by order of the 
 Committee on Publications of The 
 Grolier Club of the City of 
 New York, November, 
 Nineteen Hundred 
 and Twelve 
 
THE WRITERS 
 OF KNICKERBOCKER 
 NEW YORK 
 
THE WRITERS 
 OF KNICKERBOCKER 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS ENGRAVED BY 
 \V \L WORTH STILSON 
 
 THE GROLIER CLUB 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 1912 
 
20$ 
 
 Copyright, 1912, by 
 The Orolier Club of the 
 City of New York 
 
LIST OF WOODCUTS 
 
 Device of the Gbolieh Club Title-page 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tail-Piece viii 
 
 " From Bowling Green to Trinity Church." 
 
 1 Head-Band 3 
 
 " New York has grown by the process of 
 destruction, and has become metropolitan 
 through successive stages of self-efface- 
 ment." 
 
 2 Tail-Piece 28 
 
 "And there was a bridge on the Boston Post 
 Road . . . which bore the suggestive name 
 of the Kissing-bridge." 
 
 3 Head-Band 29 
 
 "The old Government House." 
 
 4 Tall-Piece 51 
 
 "The old-fashioned gentleman who was last 
 seen on the Albany Post Road." 
 
 5 Head-Band 52 
 
 "Celebrated in the 'Salmagundi' papers as 
 Cockloft Hall." 
 
 6 Tail-Piece 67 
 
 " Sitting . . . overlooking the river . . . the 
 old man delighted to recall the golden 
 Knickerbocker age." 
 
 Tii 
 
LIST OF WOODCUTS 
 
 7 Head-Band 
 
 PAGE 
 
 68 
 
 'Whose distinction was invariably expressed 
 in a preen or common, a Congregational spire, 
 an academy, and rows of graceful elms." 
 
 8 Tail-Piece 
 
 " Let it be taken from the top of Wechawk 
 Hill, overlooking New York." 
 
 88 
 
 89 
 
 9 Head-Band 
 
 " In the back room of Wiley's shop . . . Dana 
 met Cooper, Halleck, Brevoort." 
 
 10 Tail-Piece 121 
 
 " Lines to a water-fowl." 
 
 VA.W, BCbn' 
 
THE WRITERS 
 OF KNICKERBOCKER 
 NEW YORK 
 
KNICKERBOCKER 
 NEW YORK 
 
 In these days, when New York has be- 
 come a metropolitan city with a popu- 
 lation of four million souls, and the old 
 city has shrunk politically into the 
 Borough of Manhattan, it is not easy 
 to recall the obliterated outlines of the 
 Town which was satirized by the viva- 
 3 
 
4 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 cious young men who wrote the "Sal- 
 magundi" papers. Unlike Rome, which 
 has been rebuilt half a dozen times on 
 its early site and largely out of its old 
 materials, so that the city of to-day is 
 a kind of palimpsest in stone, brick, and 
 mortar, New York has grown by the 
 process of destruction, and has become 
 metropolitan through successive stages 
 of self-effacement. Here and there one 
 comes upon a building which has sur- 
 vived from the late colonial period, but 
 no structure now standing bears witness 
 to the taste or lack of taste of the 
 Dutch settlers, and the streets preserve 
 no traces of the old lanes and highways 
 save an occasional name as misleading 
 descriptively as the Bowery. Canal 
 Street is as stolid a reminiscence of a 
 water-channel as is the heavy warehouse 
 frontage of Grub Street of the humor- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 5 
 
 ous or tragic traditions of literary 
 Bohemia in the days of Mr. Pope and 
 Dr. Johnson. New York has changed 
 its form almost as often as, according to 
 the physiologists, men change their 
 bodies. It has kept certain character- 
 istics which marked its youth and pre- 
 dicted the traits of its maturity ; but 
 its growth has been so great that the 
 divergencies between the latest and the 
 earliest city seem to be differences in 
 kind rather than in degree. 
 
 The New York in which Washington 
 Irving was born in April, 1783, was still 
 in the possession of British troops, who 
 withdrew six months later, leaving a 
 half-ruined city behind them. The 
 population had been reduced from 
 twenty thousand to ten thousand ; ship- 
 ping had deserted the captive town, and 
 the wharves were rotting from disuse ; 
 
6 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 streets which had been opened before 
 the war to afford room for growth were 
 desolate and forlorn, with that over- 
 growth of straggling weeds which is the 
 final evidence of neglect. Many public 
 and private buildings which had been 
 used for military purposes were falling 
 in ruins. The great fire of September, 
 1776, had left a large part of the west- 
 ern side of the little city a mass of ruins ; 
 and Broadway from Bowling Green to 
 Trinity Church was a dreary waste of 
 blackened walls and heaps of rubbish. 
 There was no money in the city treas- 
 ury, and the once growing town was ap- 
 parently blighted. Other cities had 
 been more active in the struggle for in- 
 dependence; none had suffered more 
 severely from the devastation of war. 
 
 "In June, 1787," wrote Samuel 
 Breck, "on my return from a residence 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 7 
 
 of a few years in France, I arrived at 
 that city [New York] and found it a 
 neglected place, built chiefly of wood, 
 and in a state of prostration and decay. 
 A dozen vessels in port; Broadway, 
 from Trinity Church, inclusive, down to 
 the Battery, in ruins, owing to a fire 
 that had occurred when the city was 
 occupied by the enemy during the later 
 part of the war — the ruined walls of the 
 houses standing on both sides of the 
 way testifying to the poverty of the 
 place five years after the conflagration ; 
 for although the war had ceased during 
 that period, and the enemy had de- 
 parted, no attempt had been made to 
 rebuild them. In short, there was si- 
 lence and inactivity everywhere." Mr. 
 Breck was mistaken about the date of 
 the fire, but his description of the deso- 
 late city was accurate. 
 
8 
 
 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 In these depressing conditions, New 
 York did not give itself up to gloomy 
 misgivings ; it had always been a cheer- 
 ful, social community, and it was not 
 long in recovering its prosperity and 
 high spirits. Six years after the close 
 of the war it was the Capital of the 
 United States, the population had 
 more than doubled, ships were in the 
 harbor, grass no longer gave the streets 
 a rustic aspect, and the tide of activity 
 had reached the highest point in its 
 history. There were nearly twenty-four 
 thousand people living south of Reade 
 Street on the west, and of Pike Street 
 on the east; a swamp arrested the 
 growth of the town along the East 
 River. There were about twenty- 
 four hundred slaves. The houses were 
 mainly of English architecture, though 
 peaked roofs and gable-ends to the 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 9 
 
 streets recalled the good old days of 
 Dutch dominion, when a canal ran 
 through Broad Street and broad- 
 sterned Dutch vessels lay at anchor in 
 the centre of the town. 
 
 Politics ran high, and during elec- 
 tions language was used with far less 
 restraint than at present. The first 
 man sent to Congress from New York 
 under the recently adopted national 
 Constitution was Mr. John Lawrence, 
 and a letter published in the "Daily 
 Advertiser" in March, 1789, contains 
 the following frank statement: "Of all 
 the men who framed that monarchical, 
 aristocratical, oligarchical, tyrannical, 
 diabolical system of slavery, the New 
 Constitution, One Half were lawyers. 
 Of the men who represented, or rather 
 misrepresented, this city and county in 
 the late convention of this State, to 
 
10 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 whose wicked arts we may safely at- 
 tribute the adoption of that diabolical 
 system, seven out of the lime were law- 
 yers. . . . And what crowns the wick- 
 edness of these wicked lawyers is, that 
 a great majority of them throughout 
 the State are violently opposed to our 
 good and great head and never-failing 
 friend of the city and city interests, the 
 present governor. 
 
 "Beware, beware, beware of Law- 
 yers !" 
 
 Very pleasant things were said about 
 the New York of 1789 when, at the end 
 of a three months' session of the United 
 States Congress, it was announced that 
 only one member had been ill. After 
 commenting on its nearness to the ocean 
 and the sweetening of its air by abun- 
 dant verdure, a charming picture is 
 evoked by the statement that the resi- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 11 
 
 dents on the west side of Broadway are 
 "saluted by fragrant odors from the 
 apple orchards and buckwheat fields in 
 blossom on the pleasant banks of the 
 Jersey shore." 
 
 The little city was already charged 
 with extravagance and frivolity, and 
 the details of these offences are not lack- 
 ing. One reads of blue satin gowns 
 with white satin petticoats, large Ital- 
 ian gauze handkerchiefs with satin 
 border stripes worn about the neck, 
 completed by a head-dress of "pouf of 
 gauze in the form of a globe, the head- 
 piece of which was made of white satin 
 having a double wing, in large plaits, 
 and trimmed with a large wreath of arti- 
 ficial roses." There were shoes of blue 
 satin adorned by rose-colored rosettes, 
 and muffs of wolfskin with knots of 
 scarlet ribbon. The gentlemen of the 
 
12 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 period were arrayed with equal splen- 
 dor : bottle-green, pearl, scarlet, purple, 
 mulberry, and garnet were among the 
 colors of cloths advertised by a local 
 tailor on Hanover Square; while waist- 
 coats fairly glowed with brilliant hues 
 and brocaded and spangled buttons. 
 Beaver and castor hats were in vogue, 
 and superior boots were made by Mr. 
 Thomas Garner, of Pearl Street, whose 
 proud claim to the patronage of the 
 fashionable was that he had worked for 
 the first nobility in England. It cost 
 approximately seventy-five dollars to 
 dress a lady's hair every day in the 
 year ; and there were dentists who pulled 
 the teeth of the poor gratis between the 
 hours of six and nine on the mornings of 
 Monday and Thursday. The sociability 
 and hospitality of the city made a deep 
 impression on Noah Webster, who was 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 13 
 
 also struck by the absence of affectation 
 and of social snobbery. 
 
 Lectures appear to have been few in 
 number and serious in theme; the city, 
 which took its pleasures comfortably, 
 took its opportunities of enlightenment 
 sparingly and in a heroic temper. There 
 appears to have been but one candidate 
 on the lecture platform for public ap- 
 proval in this field during the winter of 
 1789, and he is described as "a man 
 more than thirty years an Atheist." The 
 lecture was delivered at Aaron Aorson's 
 tavern, and tickets were to be had from 
 the Aldermen ! 
 
 The play enjoyed greater popular 
 favor, but the John Street Theatre was 
 without competition until 1798, when 
 the Old Park Theatre was opened. Dur- 
 ing the season of 1789, William Dunlap 
 put several home-made American dra- 
 
14 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 mas on the stage. He was the prolific 
 author of forty-nine plays, which stand 
 to the credit of his industry if not of 
 his genius. These dramas were the 
 premature births of the Genius of the 
 American stage, and none of them sur- 
 vives. They were very faint prophecies 
 of the interesting dramatic movement 
 now in progress ; but one of them, 
 "Darby's Return," achieved the rare 
 distinction of evoking a laugh from 
 Washington — an occurrence so unusual 
 that it stimulated a writer in the "Daily 
 Advertiser" to report it in the most 
 stately English: "Our Adored Ruler 
 seemed to unbend and for the moment 
 give himself to the pleasures arising 
 from the gratifications of the two most 
 noble organs of sense, the Eye and the 
 Ear!" 
 
 The Musical Society gave an occa- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 15 
 
 sional recital, and there were subscrip- 
 tion concerts under the management of 
 local music-teachers. The young gen- 
 tlemen at Columbia College were deliv- 
 ering Commencement orations "On the 
 Progress and Causes of Civilization" 
 and "On the Rising Glory of America." 
 There were nine publishers and booksel- 
 lers in the city, and in the year of Ir- 
 ving's birth one of them announced "The 
 First American Novel" under the por- 
 tentous title, "The Power of Sympathy ; 
 or, the Triumph of Nature." The So- 
 ciety Library, disrupted by the war, 
 was re-established, and a circulating li- 
 brary organized. William Dunlap, the 
 playwright, painted portraits and, 
 later, became one of the founders of the 
 National Academy of Design. Mr. 
 Edward Savage and Mr. Joseph Wright 
 followed the same profession, and Wash- 
 
16 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 ington sat for all three. The city was 
 kept informed of events by five news- 
 papers ; a magazine had been born pre- 
 maturely and expired after a brief and 
 unimportant life. The journalistic 
 style of the day was of an eloquence that 
 is happily illustrated by a description 
 of one of the barges which escorted 
 Washington on his voyage across the 
 bay to New York to attend his inaugu- 
 ration: "The voices of the ladies were 
 as much superior to the flutes that 
 played with the stroke of the oars in 
 Cleopatra's silken-corded barge, as the 
 very superior and glorious water scene 
 of New York bay exceeds the Cydnus in 
 all its pride." 
 
 The two-story house in which Irving 
 was born, at No. 131 William Street, 
 about half-way between Fulton and 
 John Streets, was pulled down ten years 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 17 
 
 before his death, and the house directly 
 across the street, in which he spent his 
 childhood, has shared its fate. The lat- 
 ter was larger and afforded greater 
 facilities for boyish gymnastics. There 
 were front and rear buildings with a 
 narrow structure between which was 
 hardly more than a passage, and it was 
 from the sloping roof at the rear that 
 Irving made his perilous descents when 
 he set out to enjoy the forbidden pleas- 
 ures of the John Street Theatre. 
 George William Curtis tells a delight- 
 ful story of a boy in Philadelphia, whose 
 father, like the elder Irving, was of a 
 very serious turn of mind, and who, by 
 way of youthful reaction, secretly fre- 
 quented the forbidden playhouse. 
 "John," said the father, "is this dread- 
 ful thing true that I hear of thee? Hast 
 thou been to see the play-actress 
 
18 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 Frances Kemble?" "Yes, father." "I 
 hope thee has not been more than once, 
 John." "Yes, father," was the honest 
 if somewhat discouraging answer; 
 "more than thirty times." 
 
 The easy-going temper of the metrop- 
 olis to which Irving was to give a last- 
 ing expression is still further indicated 
 by the story that in order to escape the 
 rigid requirements of his father's Pres- 
 byterian faith the boy had himself con- 
 firmed in Trinity Church. His temper 
 was genial and kindly, and the mingled 
 sentiment and humor which were to give 
 his books a quality American writing 
 had so far lacked, made him a loiterer 
 and an observer rather than an arduous 
 and methodical student. New York was 
 the gateway to the beautiful country of 
 Dutch settlement and tradition on the 
 banks of the Hudson, and the gun and 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 19 
 
 fishing-rod were the instruments of ex- 
 ploration with which the boy who was 
 to write "The Legend of Sleepy Hol- 
 low" and "Rip Van Winkle" carried his 
 discoveries into the heart of a region in 
 which it was always afternoon. He had 
 read "Orlando Furioso" and had played 
 the knight with great fire and gallantry 
 in the back yard on John Street ; he had 
 surreptitiously saved candle-ends and 
 read the moving adventures of Sindbad 
 and Robinson Crusoe in forbidden 
 places and at improper hours, and the 
 thirst for travel was on him. He wan- 
 dered about the pier-heads when he 
 should have been poring over text- 
 books, and watched lessening sails with 
 eager desire to fare with them to the 
 ends of the earth. He was, in a word, 
 taking that course in romance, adven- 
 ture, and dreaming which boys of his 
 
20 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 temperament and genius have elected 
 from the beginning of time, to the sore 
 but fortunate disappointment of their 
 elders. His brothers went through 
 Columbia College, but he went up the 
 Hudson and discovered to the imagi- 
 nation the river which Hudson had 
 discovered to the eye. Diedrich 
 Knickerbocker was last seen, it will be 
 remembered, by the passengers in the 
 stage for Albany ! 
 
 The literary temperament in Irving 
 was not without the confirmation of the 
 literary impulse, and while he was still 
 in his teens he began to try his hand at 
 social satire, a form of literature which 
 is practised only by men of city breed- 
 ing and interest. In the "Morning 
 Chronicle," of which his brother Peter 
 was editor and proprietor, he published, 
 in 1802, a series of short papers dealing 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 21 
 
 with the fashions and foibles of the town 
 after the manner of the "Spectator" and 
 "Tatler," and especially with the man- 
 ners of the actors and their auditors. 
 They were boyish performances, but 
 they showed sensibility and humor, and 
 a chivalrous attitude toward women. 
 Irving's health, which had been uncer- 
 tain, was established by a residence of 
 two years in Europe, where he saw 
 countries and peoples with infinite zest 
 not only in the picturesque Old World 
 but in the range and variety of char- 
 acter, the broad contrasts, the mingled 
 tragedy and comedy of life in a more 
 highly organized society. "I am a 
 young man and in Paris," he wrote to a 
 friend at home, and he was happy in a 
 wholesome appetite for a more pictur- 
 esque and vivid life than he had enjoyed 
 in the little provincial city at the mouth 
 
22 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 of the Hudson. When he returned in 
 1806 it was to find a group of com- 
 panions whose knowledge of the great 
 world was less than his, but who were 
 equally ready for work or for mischief 
 in a little provincial city which had 
 developed what may be called a town- 
 consciousness. 
 
 It was still bounded on the north by 
 Anthony and Hester Streets ; Green- 
 wich Village, a pleasant suburban vil- 
 lage through which Christopher Street 
 now passes, was a place of refuge from 
 the plague for families fleeing from the 
 city ; the State prison was there, and 
 there were faint streets budding in the 
 adjacent farms. Broome Street had 
 been laid out; Astor Place and Green- 
 wich Street, Mr. Jarvis tells us, were 
 lanes ; the latter had attained the dig- 
 nity of a fashionable drive, and opulent 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 23 
 
 citizens drove out to Greenwich Village 
 on pleasant afternoons, as to-day they 
 motor to West Point or Peekskill ! The 
 seats of fashion were to be found on the 
 Battery, which would have remained the 
 most delightful locality for residence in 
 New York if the people of the metrop- 
 olis had not conceived a repugnance to 
 living in near proximity to business 
 quarters. Lower Broadway, Upper 
 Pearl and Nassau Streets were of high 
 respectability ; and Broadway had been 
 paved as far as the City Hall. Beyond 
 lay charming country roads, occasional 
 country houses to which the leading 
 families retreated from the summer 
 heat, and thrifty farms whose owners 
 were happily ignorant of the enormous 
 future values of their fields. 
 
 The American imagination, which has 
 since built so many cities over night in 
 
24 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 the newer sections of the country, did 
 not slumber, however, even in a city in 
 which Dutch reluctance to move faster 
 than the fact was so large a factor, and 
 a map made by Mangin in 1803 carries 
 the Boston Road far north through a 
 network of supposititious streets that 
 lay across the broad fields owned by Mr. 
 Bayard, Mr. Rutgers, Mr. Lispenard, 
 Mr. De Peyster, and other well-known 
 citizens, and obliterates as by magic the 
 Swamp; the Collect, or fresh-water 
 pond; and the salt meadows of the 
 earlier maps. 
 
 The Collect was not, however, so 
 easily dealt with. It was a marsh lying 
 across the island from Roosevelt Slip to 
 the Hudson at what is now the foot of 
 Canal Street. The focal point of this 
 marsh was a pond which found an out- 
 let through the Swamp where leather 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 25 
 
 has had its shrine these many years, and 
 whence the first Brooklyn Bridge takes 
 its flight over the East River. The 
 Swamp had been drained and the water 
 from the pond flowed along the course 
 of the present Canal Street; but the 
 pond was still to be disposed of. It was 
 very deep and it was proposed at one 
 time to connect it with the two rivers by 
 canals, which would have made New 
 Amsterdam reminiscent of old Amster- 
 dam ; but it was finally filled in by level- 
 ing the high ground, and adventurous 
 youths and maidens who had been ac- 
 customed, on pleasant afternoons, to 
 venture into the country beyond the 
 City Hall lost a convenient excuse for 
 Sabbath-day excursions. 
 
 It is amusing to find a pleasure-gar- 
 den bearing the Old World name of 
 Ranelagh oh the older maps ; and Old 
 
26 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 Vauxhall, which stood originally at the 
 corner of Warren and Greenwich Streets 
 in a house built by Sir Peter Warren, 
 was also a public garden, patterned 
 after its famous original in London 
 and kept by Sam Fraunces, at one time 
 a steward in the employ of Washington, 
 and whose connection with the old tav- 
 ern which still stands ensures his name 
 a local immortality. Later this pleas- 
 ure-ground covered the section between 
 Broadway and the Bowery of which the 
 Astor Library was the centre. The chief 
 cattle-market was on the Bowery some- 
 what south of the garden. There were 
 various road-houses along the East 
 N River where oysters and turtles were 
 cooked with great skill. Fishing and 
 water parties in summer and sleighing 
 parties in winter found the best of fare 
 in these houses, with their pleasant 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 27 
 
 grounds. It was the day of the old- 
 fashioned chaise, and there was a bridge 
 on the Boston Post Road at about 
 Third Avenue and Seventy-seventh 
 Street which bore the suggestive name 
 of the Kissing-bridge. The exaction 
 of this kind of toll appears to have 
 been widely practised ; not only bridges 
 but gates and stiles were penalized 
 for women. The Rev. Mr. Burnaby 
 sagely observed that this custom was 
 "curious, yet not displeasing." New 
 York had spread out since Irving's 
 birth, but it was still a neighborly little 
 city, of a social turn and disposed to 
 make easy terms with life. 
 
 In 1809 Thomas Paine had just died 
 in Greenwich Village, at what is now 
 No. 293 Bleecker Street, where he was 
 often to be seen at the open window 
 reading, with his book in close proxim- 
 
28 KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 
 
 ity to a decanter of what appeared to 
 be brandy or rum. It is reported that 
 two clergymen who visited him with the 
 hope of changing his attitude toward 
 Christianity were abruptly dismissed 
 and the housekeeper received orders to 
 bar the door against such visitors. "If 
 God does not change his mind, I 'm sure 
 no human can," was her sage comment, 
 and the author of "The Age of Reason" 
 was troubled no more. 
 
After a stormy passage of sixty-four 
 days, not lacking in serious perils, 
 Irving landed in New York in the wake 
 of a heavy snowstorm in February, 
 1806, in high spirits and ready for such 
 pleasures as the little town afforded. One 
 of his biographers has described it as 
 a "handy" city ; it was large enough to 
 furnish ample variety of character 
 studies and many opportunities for 
 good-fellowship of an intimate, easy- 
 going sort; there was an air of con- 
 viviality about the place, but there was 
 29 
 
30 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 little serious dissipation. It was a very 
 pleasant moment in the growth of the 
 metropolis which had become, in a quiet, 
 provincial way, a town in the special 
 sense in which that word connotes a 
 group of people numerous enough to 
 constitute a society, fond of the same 
 pleasures, interested in local incidents 
 and amusements, sufficiently intimate to 
 have formed a code of social standards 
 and manners. In a word, in the New 
 York of Irving's early maturity, as in 
 the London of the time of Steele and 
 Addison, there was an organized so- 
 ciety, open to clever portraiture and 
 brisk satire; supplying at the same 
 time the material and the audience for 
 local wit and humor. It was easy to 
 know everybody in the society of the 
 town, and easy to get about the place. 
 The tone was not intellectual, though 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 31 
 
 the city never lacked men and women 
 of distinguished ability and social cul- 
 tivation. It was a well-bred and hos- 
 pitable society, with a keen relish for 
 pleasure. There were numberless din- 
 ners and suppers, much less costly and 
 elaborate than those of to-day, and 
 more informal and merry. The country 
 was convivial in all sections outside New 
 England, and the social use of wine was 
 over-generous. In America, as in Eng- 
 land, getting under the table was an in- 
 discretion, not a fault. One of Irving's 
 friends reported that, after a festive 
 occasion, he had fallen through an open 
 grating on his homeward way and was 
 disposed to feel very much depressed by 
 the darkness and solitude ; but, one after 
 another, several fellow-guests joined 
 him in the same manner, and the hilarity 
 was prolonged until dawn. 
 
32 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 Like many other young men whose 
 ultimate good or evil fortune it was to 
 write books, Irving was admitted to the 
 bar at about the same time that the 
 sign, "William Cullen Bryant, attorney 
 and counsellor at Law," appeared in the 
 little village of Cummington in western 
 Massachusetts. In after years his esti- 
 mate of his legal acquirements was indi- 
 cated by his quoting the comments of 
 two well-known lawyers who were exam- 
 ining students for admission to practise 
 law. "Martin," said one of these exam- 
 iners, referring to an aspirant who had 
 acquitted himself very lamely — "Mar- 
 tin, I think he knows a little law." 
 "Make it stronger," was the reply ; 
 "damned little." Irving had loitered 
 and dreamed on the water-front as a boy 
 when he ought to have been at his 
 books ; and now, at the gateway of his 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 33 
 
 career, the literary temperament turned 
 him toward congenial fellowship rather 
 than arduous study. There was plenty 
 of material for comradeship in the town, 
 and young men of spirit instinctively 
 gathered about him. It was a very 
 kindly and wholesome Bohemia in which 
 they disported themselves in the halcyon 
 days of a fleeting youth. They re- 
 garded themselves as "men about town" 
 of the deepest dye, but it was a very 
 innocent town in which they amused 
 themselves, and they all bore honorable 
 names in later and more serious years. 
 
 Henry Ogden, Henry Brevoort, 
 James K. Paulding, John and Gouv- 
 erneur Kemble, Peter and Washington 
 Irving, the leaders of this vivacious 
 company, were members of families who 
 had long been foremost in the social life 
 of the city, and they were far from 
 
34 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 being the "roistering blades" they 
 fondly thought themselves to be. They 
 were young men of spirit, generous 
 tastes, and no little cultivation. They 
 combined with great success devotion to 
 literature and social activity. Irving 
 speaks of himself as "a champion at the 
 tea-parties," and the "nine worthies," 
 or "lads of Kilkenny," as he called 
 them, shone in the society of what was 
 then known as "the gentler sex" no less 
 than on the festive occasions when they 
 celebrated their youth in private rev- 
 els. The old country house built by 
 Nicholas Gouverneur, from whom it had 
 descended to Gouverneur Kemble, was 
 the favorite out-of-town haunt of these 
 lively youths. It had a pleasant site on 
 the banks of the Passaic not far from 
 Newark, and is celebrated in the "Sal- 
 magundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. An 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 85 
 
 old-time air hung about the place, with 
 its antique furniture and generous en- 
 dowment of family portraits. It was 
 cared for by two old servants of long 
 standing in the family, and a negro boy, 
 and it afforded a well-set stage for the 
 lively comedy which these vivacious 
 youths made of life in the golden hour of 
 coming into the heritage of youth and 
 pleasure and Letters. "Who would 
 have thought," wrote Irving in his 
 sixty-seventh year to the owner of the 
 old Hall, "that we should ever have lived 
 to be two such respectable old gentle- 
 men?", and many years after the curtain 
 had fallen on the gaiety and fun of those 
 hilarious days, Peter Irving often re- 
 called the Saturdays at the Hall, when 
 "we sported on the lawn until fatigued, 
 and sometimes fell sociably into a gen- 
 eral nap in the drawing-room in the 
 
36 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 dusk of the evening." In town the 
 "lads of Kilkenny" often assembled at 
 Dyde's, a tavern of good standing in 
 Park Row ; a convenient place for after- 
 theatre suppers. 
 
 To riot at Dyde's on imperial champagne, 
 And then scour our city — the peace to maintain, 
 
 was an occupation which these gentle- 
 men pursued with great success. When 
 the financial resources of the revelers 
 ran low they reduced the scale of expen- 
 diture by resorting to an unpretentious 
 porter-house at the corner of Nassau 
 and John Streets, not far from the 
 theatre, where they indulged in what 
 they depreciatingly called "Blackguard 
 Suppers." The modern misogynist 
 habit of living in clubs and associating 
 with one sex only had not come into 
 vogue in those sociable and informal 
 days, and the young men who formed 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 37 
 
 the Knickerbocker group were on good 
 terms with the belles of the day, and ap- 
 pear to have been much in evidence at 
 social functions. Irving asked Henry 
 Ogden, who had sailed for China, to 
 "pick up two or three queer little pretty 
 things that would cost nothing and be 
 acceptable to the girls," and there are 
 hints of a Chinese supper later. 
 
 The first number of "Salmagundi," 
 the initial work of the so-called Knick- 
 erbocker School, was published on 
 January 24, 1807, preceded by some 
 clever and mystifying announcements in 
 the "Evening Post." It appeared fort- 
 nightly through the year, and came to 
 an untimely end in January, 1808, not 
 because its popularity was waning, but 
 because its publisher was disposed to 
 deal in an arbitrary fashion with its 
 high-spirited editors. The idea of a 
 
38 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 periodical which would deal freely and 
 frankly, in a satiric or humorous spirit, 
 with the fashions and foibles of the town 
 originated with Irving, who secured his 
 brother William and his friend James 
 K. Paulding as associates in what 
 turned out to be a more extended and 
 elaborate frolic than they had hitherto 
 planned. They proposed to amuse 
 themselves with the town, and they suc- 
 ceeded for a year in keeping the little 
 city on tip-toe expectation, not unmixed 
 with apprehension; for "Salmagundi," 
 while entirely free from personalities 
 and scandal, was keen in its comments 
 on manners and local social standards. 
 It was written in the manner of the 
 "Spectator" ; but New York did not 
 furnish the varied and brilliant material 
 which London offered Steele and Addi- 
 son, and the Irvings and Paulding 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 39 
 
 lacked the sophisticated charm, the in- 
 timate and adroit skill of their prede- 
 cessors. They were, moreover, very 
 young apprentices, and must not be 
 judged by the standards set by the mas- 
 ters of the art, whose comments on 
 passing fashions have become contribu- 
 tions to literature. The banter was 
 somewhat heavy-handed and the humor 
 gave little promise of the lightness of 
 Irving's later manner, or of the clear- 
 cut and nimble wit of Lowell and 
 Holmes. It bore the stamp of a pro- 
 vincial society and was rollicking and 
 hilarious rather than keen and pungent. 
 
 Irving had no illusions about its 
 quality. The "North American Re- 
 view," however, described "Salmagundi" 
 as a production of extraordinary merit. 
 Eleven years after the last number ap- 
 peared, Irving wrote to Brevoort that, 
 
40 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 while it was pardonable as a youthful 
 production, it was full of errors, pueril- 
 ities, and imperfections ; and in a letter 
 to Irving, Paulding said : "I know you 
 consider old Sal. a sort of saucy, flip- 
 pant trollope belonging to nobody and 
 not worth fathering." "Salmagundi" 
 had the crudity of youth, but it also 
 had its high spirits, its gaiety, and its 
 audacious confidence in its own opin- 
 ions. It was frolicsome and joyous and 
 not devoid of literary grace and skill, 
 and will remain the happiest contem- 
 porary record of old New York. 
 
 The old Government House, which 
 had been built for the President of the 
 United States, faced Bowling Green 
 when "Salmagundi" published the 
 chapter entitled "A Tour in Broad- 
 way." This building passed through a 
 period of great distinction as the resi- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 41 
 
 dence of Governor George Clinton and 
 of Chief Justice Jay, and then lost pres- 
 tige as the local post-office. In its 
 cellar were stored the statues of gods 
 and goddesses belonging to the homeless 
 Academy of Arts. The lead statue of 
 George the Third, which formerly stood 
 on Bowling Green, had been pulled 
 down and run into bullets to be aimed 
 at his Majesty's troops, and the Green 
 had been put to bucolic uses as a pas- 
 turage for cows. Cortlandt Street cor- 
 ner was a famous vantage-ground from 
 which to see the belles go by in pleasant 
 weather, on shopping bent. The City 
 Hall, according to "Salmagundi," was 
 a resort for young lawyers, not because 
 they had business there, but because 
 they had no business anywhere else. 
 
 There was an advanced wing of so- 
 ciety which practised the latest arts of 
 
THE WRITERS OF 
 
 pleasure imported from the Old World. 
 The great god Style already had its 
 votaries, and then, as now, many were 
 the sacrifices of good taste and refined 
 manners offered at its painted paste- 
 board shrine. "Salmagundi" found a 
 rich yield of satire in the imitative in- 
 stinct which shaped many of the cus- 
 toms and social habits of the hour. It 
 informs us that 
 
 Style, that with pride each empty bosom swells, 
 Puffs boys to manhood, little girls to belles. 
 
 The waltz was a novelty in those days, 
 and "Salmagundi" "views with alarm" 
 its introduction into the social life of 
 the town : 
 
 Scarce from the nursery freed, our gentle fair 
 Are yielded to the dancing-master's care; 
 And, ere the head one mite of sense can gain, 
 Are introduced 'mid folly's frippery train. 
 A stranger's grasp no longer gives alarms, 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 43 
 
 Our fair surrender to their very arms, 
 
 And in the insidious waltz will swim and twine, 
 
 And whirl and languish tenderly divine ! 
 
 O, how I hate this loving, hugging dance; 
 
 This imp of Germany brought up in France ! 
 
 Let France its whim, its sparkling wit supply. 
 The easy grace that captivates the eye; 
 But curse their waltz, — their loose, lascivious arts 
 That smooth our manners to corrupt our hearts ! 
 
 In the novel and play of the time 
 "Salmagundi" found still more alarm- 
 ing evidences of a decline in morals and 
 manners : 
 
 Where now those books, from which in days of yore 
 
 Our mothers gained their literary store? 
 
 Alas ! stiff-skirted Grandison gives place 
 
 To novels of a new and rakish race; 
 
 And honest Bunyan's pious, dreaming lore, 
 
 To the lascivious rhapsodies of Moore. 
 
 And, last of all, behold the mimic stage 
 
 Its morals lend to polish off the age, 
 
 With flimsy farce, a comedy miscall'd, 
 
 Garnished with vulgar cant, and proverbs bald, 
 
44 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 With puns most puny, and a plenteous store 
 Of smutty jokes, to eateh a gallery roar. 
 Or see, more fatal, graced with every art 
 To charm and captivate the female heart, 
 The false, "the gallant, gay Lothario" smiles, 
 And loudly boasts his base seductive wiles— 
 In glowing colors paints Calista's wrongs, 
 And with voluptuous scenes the tale prolongs. 
 
 The stage of social development at 
 which the town had arrived is indicated 
 by the words "female heart." Its old- 
 fashioned virtue, assailed by "Lalla 
 Rookh" and "The Penitents," had, for- 
 tunately, no premonitions that its in- 
 fancy in the dramatization of vice was 
 to pass into the full and voluptuous 
 maturity of these later days of the 
 play of passion without a shred to its 
 back. 
 
 "Salmagundi" had made the town 
 smile, but "A History of New York" 
 was so broad in its mock-heroic treat- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 45 
 
 ment of the local forefathers that it 
 gave grievous offence to those members 
 of the early Dutch families who lacked 
 the sense of humor. An old gentleman 
 who died twenty years ago once said to 
 the writer of these lines, with perfect 
 gravity, that Mr. Irving once confessed 
 to him that the history was not entirely 
 accurate ! It appeared just before 
 Christmas in 1809, preceded by cun- 
 ningly devised hints and intimations in 
 the form of letters, asking for informa- 
 tion about a certain old gentleman who 
 bore the name of Knickerbocker, who 
 was last seen resting himself near Kings- 
 bridge by the passengers in the Albany 
 stage. He had a small bundle tied in a 
 red bandana handkerchief in his hands, 
 and appeared to be very much fatigued. 
 Ten days passed without news of the 
 whereabouts of this weary old gentle- 
 
46 THE WRITERS OP 
 
 man, when it was announced that a book 
 in his handwriting had been discovered 
 in his room and would be disposed of to 
 pay the arrears of his board and lodg- 
 ing! 
 
 The town became immensely inter- 
 ested, and when the History appeared it 
 was eagerly read, laughed over, and 
 denounced. Never was a book more 
 cleverly announced even in this day, 
 when advertising has become an art 
 based on a deep study of the psychology 
 of the crowd and the effect on the 
 human mind of rhythmical recurrence, 
 at short intervals, of skilfully phrased 
 testimonials from eminent persons to 
 the superiority of certain articles with- 
 out which it is impossible to live. There 
 were eighty thousand people in New 
 York, and the society folk who consti- 
 tuted the "town" in the technical sense 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 47 
 
 of the word were a comparatively small 
 and homogeneous group, many of 
 whom were of Dutch descent and bore 
 names long honored in the city and 
 now inscribed on the signs on the cor- 
 ners of the streets. The History, 
 originally projected as a satire on a 
 solemn and heavy-handed "Picture of 
 New York" which had recently ap- 
 peared, had widened its scope, and, like 
 "The History of the Adventures of 
 Joseph Andrews," which started out to 
 be a travesty on Richardson's "Pamela," 
 took on the dimensions of an original 
 contribution to literature. The dedica- 
 tion "To the New York Historical 
 Society" struck the key-note of its bur- 
 lesque gravity of manner and its auda- 
 cious and rollicking fun. Its appearance 
 was the signal for a blaze of wrath ac- 
 companied by a peal of laughter from 
 
48 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 New York to Albany. Mrs. Hoffman 
 wrote to Irving, referring to one of his 
 friends who was a social leader: "Your 
 good friend, the old lady, came home in 
 a great stew this evening. Such a scan- 
 dalous story had got about town — a 
 book had come out called a 'History of 
 New York' ; nothing but a satire and 
 ridicule of the old Dutch people — and 
 they said you was the author ; but from 
 this foul slander, I '11 venture to say, she 
 has defended you. She was quite in a 
 heat about it." 
 
 Ten years later, when its obvious bur- 
 lesque intention ought to have filtered 
 into the most solemn-minded, it was de- 
 scribed by an eminent citizen of Dutch 
 descent as "a coarse caricature." Its 
 humor was not lost, however, by a host 
 of people in the town and elsewhere. 
 "If it is true, as Sterne says," wrote a 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 49 
 
 correspondent in a Baltimore newspa- 
 per, "that a man draws a nail out of his 
 coffin every time he laughs, after reading 
 Irving's book your coffin will fall to 
 pieces." Walter Scott wrote to Irving's 
 friend Henry Brevoort : ''Looking at the 
 simple and obvious meaning only, I have 
 never read anything so closely resem- 
 bling the style of Dean Swift as the 
 annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I 
 have employed these few evenings in 
 reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two 
 ladies who are our guests, and our sides 
 have been absolutely sore with laugh- 
 ing" 
 
 This audacious burlesque of the early 
 history of the city and of its men of 
 local fame and Dutch descent was the 
 initial volume in American literature, 
 the first book of what used to be called 
 belles-lettres published in this country, 
 
50 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 the first piece of American writing of 
 literary quality which caught the atten- 
 tion of Europe. It also created the 
 Knickerbocker Legend, and gave the 
 earliest group of writers in New York 
 a descriptive name. Diedrich Knicker- 
 bocker has long been the impersonation 
 of old New York, and, with Rip Van 
 Winkle and Brom Bones, forms the 
 central group in our New World my- 
 thology; and "The Legend of Sleepy 
 Hollow," "Rip Van Winkle," and the 
 old-fashioned gentleman who was last 
 seen on the Albany Post Road constitute 
 our chief group of legendary characters 
 and are all the creations of Irving's 
 imagination. While descriptions of the 
 scenery and peoples of the New World 
 had been written south of Manhat- 
 tan Island and theological treatises 
 abounded in New England, it was sig- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 51 
 
 nificant of the metropolitan spirit of 
 New York that its earliest writers, who 
 were also the earliest writers of literary 
 spirit and purpose in the country, were 
 men of humor and urbanity, and on easy 
 terms with life. 
 
Two years after the publication of 
 "A History of New York," Irving 
 was living at No. 16 Broadway, near 
 Bowling Green, with his friend Henry 
 Brevoort. He had made various jour- 
 neys to Albany and Washington by the 
 tedious methods of travel in use at the 
 time, and his letters showed conditions 
 in political life which differed from those 
 prevailing to-day chiefly in being more 
 sordid and unscrupulous. The coterie 
 who were to become known as the 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 53 
 
 Knickerbocker group had become a lit- 
 tle less boisterous in their convivialities, 
 but not less persuaded that literature 
 and jovial good-fellowship throve well 
 together. They were often at the Hall 
 on the Passaic or at the home of Cap- 
 tain Phillips in the Highlands of the 
 Hudson, where spacious mansions and 
 large estates had multiplied ; and there 
 were houses in town, like Mrs. Ren- 
 wick's, where these gay young men were 
 at ease. 
 
 On the 25th of May, 1815, Irving 
 sailed for Liverpool, and did not set 
 foot on Manhattan Island again until 
 1832. He had given New York the 
 Knickerbocker tradition, made the first 
 important contribution to belles-lettres 
 in this country, and conferred on the 
 metropolis the distinction of being the 
 birthplace of American literature. 
 
54 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 Between the publication of "Salma- 
 gundi" in 1807 and Irving's return from 
 Europe in 1832, the group of young 
 men who belonged to his coterie and 
 who formed the Knickerbocker group 
 had their golden age of easy conditions 
 so far as absence of competition was 
 concerned. Long afterward Irving said 
 to George William Curtis : "You young 
 literary fellows to-day have a harder 
 time than we old fellows had. You trip 
 over each other's heels ; there are so 
 many of you. We had it all our own 
 way. But the account is square, for you 
 can make as much by a lecture as we 
 made by a book." The "town" lasted 
 well on into the Thirties, but it was no 
 longer the undisturbed provincial city. 
 Cooper, Bryant, Willis, and Poe had 
 become residents, and there was a fur- 
 ther progression toward cosmopolitan- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 55 
 
 ism. Moreover, the city was fast out- 
 growing its old-time metes and bounds, 
 and complaints about the distances be- 
 tween sections and lamentations for the 
 passing of "the good old times" began 
 to be heard. While Irving was indus- 
 triously transcribing the half-forgotten 
 background of ripe landscape and an- 
 cient custom in the Old World and win- 
 ning a reputation of the most enviable 
 kind, the rollicking friends who had 
 been young together were passing into 
 maturity and making the most of the 
 morning hours of reputation and po- 
 sition. 
 
 No more interesting face was seen in 
 the streets of New York in the days of 
 Irving's long expatriation than that of 
 James Kirke Paulding. The regular 
 and clear-cut features, the smiling but 
 penetrating eyes, the compact, well- 
 
56 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 poised head with its mass of hair worn 
 with the picturesque carelessness of na- 
 ture, gave him a look of distinction. He 
 was a very companionable man, and 
 there was no suggestion of the precision 
 and preoccupation of the man of affairs 
 about Paulding; his convictions were 
 deep-set and never kept in the back- 
 ground if there was occasion for their 
 expression; but, like all companionable 
 men, he knew how to find common 
 ground with a friend ample enough for 
 the freest interchange of jest and idea. 
 He was of colonial stock, as were all the 
 men of his craft in New York. For 
 many years before the Revolution the 
 Pauldings had lived in Tarry town, 
 which is intimately associated with the 
 Knickerbocker tradition ; but that lovely 
 shore of the Hudson was open to the 
 ravages of both armies during the war, 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 57 
 
 and the family removed to Dutchess 
 County. This county lies north of 
 Westchester, and both have fed New 
 York with men of distinction. Dutchess 
 claims to have been the mother of 
 beautiful women as well, one of them of 
 such surpassing loveliness that the Czar 
 of Russia of that day pronounced her 
 the most beautiful woman he had ever 
 seen. The poet's father was active in 
 the American cause, and his cousin John 
 was one of the captors of Major Andre. 
 His boyhood was so ravaged by the un- 
 certainties and hardships of war that 
 he said later that he never wished to be 
 young again. 
 
 He was in his nineteenth year when 
 he came to New York, and, through his 
 acquaintance with William Irving, met 
 the group of young men who were mak- 
 ing a business of pleasure and a recrea- 
 
58 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 tion of literature. He and Washington 
 Irving were soon fast friends, and the 
 first number of "Salmagundi" was their 
 j oint production. Paulding, like Cooper, 
 became involved later in controversies 
 which gave sharp point to his pen, but in 
 "Salmagundi" he shared with Irving the 
 gaiety of spirit and urbanity of manner 
 which made the keen satire of that 
 quick-witted journal entertaining even 
 to its victims. Duyckinck was of opin- 
 ion that the papers in Oriental guise 
 were from Paulding's hand, and that 
 he wrote many of the best descriptive 
 passages ; and characterized his style as 
 stamped by feeling, observation, friendly 
 truth, and genial sympathy. He was 
 one of the first to state forcibly the 
 American case in the long and at times 
 acrimonious interchange of criticism 
 between this country and England, and 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 59 
 
 "The Diverting History of John Bull 
 and Brother Jonathan" was so keen a 
 piece of satire, but so free from malice, 
 that it was reprinted in England. A 
 later satire in the form of a parody on 
 the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" made 
 such stinging comment on the British 
 raids on Chesapeake Bay as to be 
 thought worthy of the attention of the 
 "Quarterly Review," an adept in the 
 heavy-handed castigation in vogue at 
 that time. A retort to the strictures of 
 the "Quarterly Review" soon followed 
 in pamphlet form, and raided English 
 morals and manners with such effective- 
 ness that it caught the attention of 
 President Madison. 
 
 In 1816 Paulding traveled in Vir- 
 ginia and wrote one of the earliest of 
 those local studies which record the 
 interstate commerce of observation and 
 
60 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 criticism for which this country supplies 
 such abundant material. The spirited 
 and frank retorts to the somewhat op- 
 pressive "condescension of foreigners" 
 had made Paulding known to the coun- 
 try at large, but when "The Backwoods- 
 man" appeared in 1818 its elaborate 
 and very formal heroics, descriptive of 
 the fortunes of an emigrant who made 
 the perilous change from the Hudson to 
 the frontier, found the same scanty 
 measure of favor now generally extended 
 to narrative poems. The poem enjoyed 
 a distinction, however, at that time very 
 rare: it was translated into French. 
 Paulding's friend and contemporary has 
 left a somewhat enigmatic comment on 
 this original American production : 
 
 Homer was well enough ; but would he ever 
 Have written, think you, "The Backwoodsman" ? 
 Never ! 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 6l 
 
 If these lines had fallen under the eye 
 of Matthew Arnold we should have 
 had another light-handed international 
 amenity to conti'ibute to the joy of 
 both nations. 
 
 When Paulding tried to recall the 
 atmosphere and tone of "Salmagundi" 
 in 1819, it was soon evident that the 
 "town" of the earl}' Knickerbocker had 
 merged into a larger community, and 
 much of the wit went wide of the mark. 
 Paulding, meanwhile, had entered public 
 service and was living in Washington. 
 In 1823 he published his first novel, 
 "Koningsmarke," a study of life among 
 the Swedish settlers on the banks of the 
 Delaware. But the satirical impulse 
 was strong in him, and the title of his 
 next book, "John Bull in America ; or, 
 the New Munchausen," is sufficiently de- 
 scriptive to make further comment un- 
 
62 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 necessary; while "The Merry Tales of 
 the Three Wise Men of Gotham," which 
 appeared a year later, touched some- 
 what caustically the new social doctrine 
 of Robert Dale Owen, the rising science 
 of phrenology, and other matters of in- 
 terest at the moment. His aptness for 
 satire was braced in Paulding by a lively 
 dislike for the heavy contemptuousness 
 of manner of some Englishmen of the 
 time, and the abundant material fur- 
 nished by some of these candid friends 
 led him again to enter the field with one 
 of the keenest of his satires, "The Mir- 
 ror for Travelers," a burlesque guide- 
 book and record of travel in this 
 country, in a cleverly imitated British 
 manner. 
 
 In this satiric view Paulding was a 
 true child of the Knickerbocker spirit, 
 and his next books, "Tales of the Good 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 63 
 
 Woman" and "Chronicles of the City of 
 Gotham," purported to be translations 
 of legends of early New York. A Mrs. 
 Grant, who had written pleasantly of 
 the old Dutch settlers, furnished ma- 
 terial for "The Dutchman's Fireside"; 
 a story which so greatly pleased the 
 readers of the day that it went promptly 
 through six editions and was repub- 
 lished in England, France, and Holland. 
 In Washington, as in New York, Paul- 
 ding was a thoroughgoing Knicker- 
 bocker; but he had an eye for manners 
 and great zest for the pleasures of hos- 
 pitality, and his account of Virginia was 
 followed, the year after the appearance 
 of the Dutch novel, by "Westward 
 Ho!", a story that, moving with the 
 southern flow of emigration, began in 
 Virginia and was worked out in Ken- 
 tucky. Paulding was charmed by the 
 
64 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 plantation life, the generous hospital- 
 ity, and the winning Southern temper- 
 ament, and in 1836, when the tide of 
 feeling in the country was rising, wrote 
 an uncompromising defence of slavery, 
 an institution with which he was not un- 
 familiar in his own State, where it was 
 not abolished until 1799. In 1837 
 Paulding entered the cabinet of a 
 Knickerbocker President, Van Buren, as 
 Secretary of the Navy. 
 
 On retiring from office, Paulding 
 found a delightful home overlooking the 
 Hudson, not far from Poughkeepsie, 
 within sight of many of the localities en- 
 deared by early associations and ancient 
 Dutch traditions. There he practised 
 the arts of agriculture and of writing 
 with growing content. He was as busy 
 within doors as without, and his pen 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 65 
 
 was driven as regularly as his plough. 
 A story of the Revolutionary period, 
 and, later, a novel laid partly in this 
 country and partly in England, and an 
 American comedy, "The Bucktails ; or, 
 The Americans in England," were fruits 
 of this well-ordered leisure. Five years 
 later he gave this very comfortable pic- 
 ture of his manner of life : 
 
 "I smoke a little, read a little, write a 
 little, ruminate a little, grumble a little, 
 and sleep a great deal. I was once great 
 at pulling up weeds, to which I have a 
 mortal antipathy, especially bull's-eyes, 
 wild carrots, and toad-flax, alias butter- 
 and-eggs. But my working days are 
 almost over. I find that carrying sev- 
 enty-five years on my shoulders is pretty 
 nearly equal to the same number of 
 pounds ; and instead of labouring my- 
 
66 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 self, I sit in the shade watching the 
 labours of others, which I find quite suf- 
 ficient exercise." 
 
 Sitting pipe in mouth on his veranda 
 overlooking the river, watching the 
 harvesters and the haze on the Catskills 
 on those autumn afternoons when Rip 
 Van Winkle's slumbers were deepest, the 
 old man delighted to recall the golden 
 Knickerbocker age before the "town" 
 had been lost in the metropolis, to tell 
 the brave story of the youth of the 
 Knickerbocker group, to draw the por- 
 traits of the great men he had seen in 
 Washington, to castigate John Bull 
 with passionate eloquence whenever oc- 
 casion arose, and to chant the elegy of 
 age on the good old times of the patriots 
 and demigods. A sturdy man, of deep 
 convictions and passionate feelings, 
 Paulding shared Irving's sense of hu- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 67 
 
 mor, high spirits, and gift for satire ; 
 but, while Irving saw the Old World 
 with sympathetic eyes and reknit the 
 severed ties between the young and the 
 old country, Paulding remained a pro- 
 vincial in experience and feeling; loyal, 
 prejudiced, partisan; a man of a city, 
 but not a man of the world. 
 
The last stages of the Knickerbocker 
 age began when Fitz-Greene Halleck 
 appeared on the scene. He was not to 
 the manner born ; he came from Guil- 
 ford, Connecticut ; but he felt the 
 Knickerbocker spirit and shared its 
 achievements. Born in one of the love- 
 liest of the old New England villages, 
 whose distinction was invariably ex- 
 pressed in a green or common, a Con- 
 gregational spire, an academy, and rows 
 68 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 69 
 
 of graceful elms, Halleck brought to 
 New York, in 1811, a good school train- 
 ing and skill in bookkeeping gained in 
 that forerunner of the modern depart- 
 ment store, the country store. The 
 laughter which greeted the appearance 
 of the "Salmagundi" papers was a thing 
 of the past, and the anger which met 
 Diedrich Knickerbocker's story of his 
 ancestors had lost its heat ; the merry 
 youths who gathered at Cockloft Hall 
 had blown the foam off the wine of life, 
 though they had not lost their zest in 
 the mere act of living ; Irving was board- 
 ing on lower Broadway with Brevoort 
 as a roommate, and there was plenty of 
 good talk but very little work done. 
 
 Halleck made a very quiet entrance 
 into the city which was later to honor 
 him with one of the few statues com- 
 memorate of its Men of Letters. He 
 
70 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 was a born accountant, and during his 
 long residence in New York he served 
 two men in this capacity — Mr. Jacob 
 Barker and Mr. John Jacob Astor. Mr. 
 Astor, at his death in 1848, left him an 
 annuity large enough in those days of 
 moderate prices to enable him to retire 
 to his native town and enjoy ease of 
 condition and industrious leisure in a 
 fine old colonial house which had some 
 associations with Shelley's adventurous 
 grandfather. 
 
 Halleck did not find his way into the 
 Knickerbocker group at the start, but 
 he early made acquaintance with Joseph 
 Rodman Drake and the two became ar- 
 dent friends. Drake was a young man 
 of captivating personality ; variously 
 gifted and brilliant ; a thoroughbred in 
 his sense of honor and a certain gallant 
 rectitude and courage ; a man of charm- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 71 
 
 ing fancy, who, at the age of five, was 
 writing clever verse. By descent he was 
 an American of the Americans, if we 
 accept the dictum of Richard Grant 
 White that to be an American one must 
 have come of ancestors who arrived in 
 this country before the War of the 
 Revolution. Drake had an ancestor in 
 the Plymouth Company, and his father 
 held a colonelcy in Washington's army. 
 His mother was equally well-born in the 
 true sense of the word. His childhood 
 was overshadowed by the death of both 
 his parents and the bitterness of pov- 
 erty; but the boy was of a chivalrous 
 spirit and faced hard conditions with a 
 resolution which was an assurance of 
 success. His active fancy opened a door 
 of escape from these conditions, and he 
 played many romantic parts in the 
 drama of his bleak boyhood. He was 
 
72 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 an omnivorous reader, his memory let 
 nothing escape, and despite his lack of 
 opportunity he became exceptionally 
 well informed. His facility in verse- 
 writing, so early developed, grew with 
 his years ; and his endeavor to make a 
 man of business of himself failed ut- 
 terly. 
 
 Drake was eighteen and Halleck 
 twenty-three when, on a sailing party in 
 the bay, they met James De Kay, 
 a young medical student. The day was 
 genial, youth was at the prow and also 
 at the helm, and Halleck remarked that 
 "it would be heaven to lounge upon the 
 rainbow and read Tom Campbell." It 
 requires some effort of the imagination 
 to recall Campbell's popularity at that 
 time and to revive the state of mind 
 which could see in him a possible rela- 
 tion with the rainbow ; but in youth and 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 73 
 
 fair weather all things tremble on the 
 verge of poetry. Literature was still 
 in the future for the ardent youths, but 
 life was within easy reach, and espe- 
 cially the pleasant social life of a small 
 city. In this same year Irving was be- 
 ginning to look upon the quiet pleasures 
 of New York with the jaundiced eye of 
 a veteran man of the world upon whom 
 the weight of twenty-nine years bore 
 heavily. Writing of a certain vivacious 
 young woman who played "the spark- 
 ler," he said : "God defend me from such 
 vivacity as hers in future — such smart 
 speeches without meaning ; such bubble- 
 and-squeak nonsense. I 'd as lieve stand 
 by a frying-pan for an hour and listen 
 to the cooking of apple fritters"; and 
 he reports that when he was out of the 
 house he did not stop running for a mile. 
 He speaks irreverently of the "divinities 
 
74 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 and blossoms" of the hour, of "rascally 
 little tea parties," and protests that he 
 is weary of the "tedious commonplaces 
 of fashionable society." 
 
 The two young poets, hidden in an 
 obscurity which they found very pleas- 
 ant, were probably in great awe of the 
 brilliant young Knickerbocker who had 
 dared to ridicule the town, and who, in 
 the glory of his local fame, was eager 
 for fresh fields and a wider horizon. 
 They found very excellent company 
 and much pleasant talk in the city, and 
 they hunted the joys of youth together. 
 Halleck described Drake at this time as 
 "perhaps the handsomest man in New 
 York — a face like an angel, a form like 
 an Apollo." Music was one of the ac- 
 complishments of Drake, and he played 
 the flute at a time when that instrument 
 and the harp were the symbols of social 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 75 
 
 cultivation. One of their hostesses was 
 Mrs. Peter Stuyvesant, whose spacious 
 house, not far from the square which 
 bears her name, with its gardens and 
 lawn stretching to the East River, was 
 a centre of social activity. The city 
 ended at Canal Street, and a visit in the 
 vicinity of old St. Mark's was like going 
 to Tarrytown or Trenton in these swift- 
 footed days. Mrs. Stuyvesant declared, 
 when First Avenue was laid out and this 
 earliest intrusion into the privacy of a 
 great colonial estate made, that her 
 heart was broken. A pear-tree which 
 stood long at the corner of Third Ave- 
 nue and Thirteenth Street was for many 
 decades the only surviving relic of this 
 hospitable home. 
 
 The country house of Mr. Henry 
 Eckford was a kind of second home to 
 the young poets, though its distance 
 
76 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 from the city was a test of their enjoy- 
 ment of its hospitality. It stood in a 
 pine grove on Love Lane where Twenty- 
 first Street crosses Sixth Avenue ! New 
 York was surrounded by spacious coun- 
 try places, not only on the upper part 
 of the island, but across the three rivers. 
 Among these sylvan homes was that of 
 the well-known Hunt family, on the 
 Long Island shore almost opposite 
 West Farms, to which Halleck and 
 Drake made their way by stage and 
 small boat, and where they often found 
 delightful companionship over Sunday. 
 On these occasions Halleck gave himself 
 up to the pleasures of "female society," 
 but Drake went a-fishing in his old 
 clothes. In the evening the two friends 
 appeared in different roles : Halleck told 
 stories and recited verse, and Drake 
 sang. 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 77 
 
 Drake had studied medicine and em- 
 barked in the business of selling drugs 
 at one of the corners of Park Row, and 
 there is a tradition that in this building, 
 which was both a dwelling and a shop, 
 the second series of satirical papers on 
 the town, "The Croakers," was con- 
 ceived and brought forth. These lively 
 satires, which took the town by storm, 
 were in verse of varying degrees of wit 
 and melody. They were clever skits on 
 men and manners, many of them bur- 
 lesques, and appeared first in the col- 
 umns of the "Evening Post," over the 
 signature "Croakers," adapted from 
 "The Good-Natured Man." This was in 
 March, 1819, and thenceforth "Croak- 
 ers" appeared at short intervals and 
 speedily became the topic of the town. 
 The poets and Coleman, the editor of 
 the "Evening Post," adroitly concealed 
 
78 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 the authorship of the poems, and great 
 was the speculation on that subject. 
 So great was the wincing and shrinking 
 at "The Croakers," that every person 
 was on tenterhooks ; "neither knavery 
 nor folly has slept quietly since our first 
 commencement," wrote one of the two 
 poets in a mood of pardonable elation. 
 Poor Coleman was almost submerged by 
 the flood of imitations called out by the 
 brilliant success of the series. Con- 
 ceived in the spirit of mischief, these 
 facile and fetching rhymes have pre- 
 served the humors of the hour, and, with 
 "Salmagundi," are entertaining chap- 
 ters in the history of the decade between 
 1819 and 1829. 
 
 General Wilson recalls a remark of 
 Drake's which explains the lightness 
 and fun of these satirical and burlesque 
 pieces. The young poet had just cor- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 79 
 
 rected the proof of some lines he had 
 recently written, when he turned a glow- 
 ing face to his collaborator and cried 
 out: "Oh, Halleck, is n't this happi- 
 ness !" Halleck may be pardoned for 
 writing to his sister: "We have tasted 
 all the pleasures and many of the pains 
 of literary fame and notoriety under the 
 assumed name of 'The Croakers' ; we 
 have had the consolation of seeing and 
 hearing ourselves praised, puffed, eulo- 
 gized, execrated, and threatened as 
 much, I believe I can say with truth, as 
 any writers since the days of Junius. 
 The whole town has talked of nothing 
 else for three weeks past, and every 
 newspaper has done us the honour to 
 mention us in some way, either of praise 
 or censure, but all uniting in owning our 
 talents and genius." 
 
 The poets, meanwhile, were working 
 
80 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 individually as well as collectively. In 
 1819, while the town was still talking 
 about "The Croakers," "The Culprit 
 Fay," written in August, 1816, was 
 gaining a wide reputation for Drake, 
 and there were many who hailed him as 
 the coming poet. It was a charming 
 flight of fancy, delicately poised in mid- 
 air, and kept aloft with that ease which 
 is born of native gift and skill in versifi- 
 cation. The story runs that Cooper 
 and Halleck, in a warm discussion of the 
 romantic associations of the Scotch 
 lakes and streams and their rich con- 
 tributions to poetry, declared that 
 American rivers offered no such material 
 to the poet. Drake not only ardently 
 espoused the cause of the American riv- 
 ers, but in three days' time re-enforced 
 his argument by writing "The Culprit 
 Fay," with the Highlands of the Hud- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 81 
 
 son as a background, but bringing in 
 impressions received on the shore of 
 Long Island Sound; frankly confess- 
 ing his departure from poetic realism 
 in an ingeniously worded note: "The 
 reader will find some of the inhabitants 
 of salt water a little further up the 
 Hudson than they usually travel, but 
 not too far for the purposes of poetry." 
 
 In May, 1819, Drake wrote his popu- 
 lar song, "The American Flag," which 
 appeared first in the columns of the 
 "Evening Post," with very warm com- 
 mendation from the editor: "Sir Philip 
 Sidney said, as Addison tells us, that he 
 could never read the old ballad of 
 'Chevy Chase' without feeling his heart 
 beat within him as at the sound of a 
 trumpet. The following lines, which 
 are to be ranked among the highest 
 inspirations of the Muse, will suggest 
 
82 
 
 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 similar associations in the breast of the 
 gallant American officer." The praise 
 was a little too ardent, but what the 
 song lacked in poetic quality it made up 
 in the ardor of its patriotism, and it 
 has passed, through the school-books, 
 into the minds of many generations of 
 American boys, and has been proudly de- 
 claimed on many platforms. It ought to 
 be remembered that Halleck wrote the 
 closing lines: 
 
 Forever float that standard sheet ! 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
 With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 
 And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us. 
 
 One of the prominent preachers of 
 the town at that time was the Rev. 
 Dr. Samuel H. Cox, a Presbyterian 
 of unadulterated Calvinistic views and 
 the author of the well-known hymn be- 
 ginning: 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 83 
 
 We are living, we are dwelling 
 In a grand and awful time, 
 
 In an age on ages telling, 
 To be living is sublime. 
 
 The free poetic temperament of the two 
 poets revolted at the rigid doctrines 
 powerfully and dogmatically expounded 
 by Dr. Cox, and they amused themselves 
 by delivering sermons of a very different 
 theology to a very small but highly 
 appreciative audience of two intimate 
 friends. Unfortunately, these produc- 
 tions, which would have made a highly 
 original contribution to sermonic liter- 
 ature, have not been preserved. 
 
 The friendship of Halleck and Drake, 
 compounded of love and laughter, of 
 work and wit, was severed by the death 
 of Drake in September, 1820. There is 
 no more winning and unworldly chapter 
 in the story of New York than the gen- 
 
84 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 erous and loyal comradeship of these 
 two young men, who, like Irving and 
 Paulding, conspired against the dullness 
 of the town and made it smile at its own 
 follies. Neither poet had genius, but 
 both had talent ; and Drake, like Hamil- 
 ton, belongs to the group of men of 
 brilliancy and personal charm whose 
 presence has given distinction to New 
 York in every decade since it was 
 founded. 
 
 Halleck had written "Fanny" in 1819, 
 a satirical poem which dealt with con- 
 temporary manners and men with a 
 freedom that stopped short of imperti- 
 nence, but afforded much amusement to 
 all save the solemn-minded. The poem 
 passed through several editions and car- 
 ried Halleck's reputation to distant 
 parts of the country. A visit in Europe 
 gave the young poet themes like 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 85 
 
 "Burns" and "Alnwick Castle" and 
 "Marco Bozzaris," which he treated 
 with spirit and metrical effectiveness. 
 Few boys have grown up in America 
 since 1827 who have not heard of the 
 Turk who dreamed in his guarded tent 
 of the hour when Greece, "her knee in 
 suppliance bent, should tremble at his 
 power." Perhaps no song written in 
 this country has had wider currency 
 than this spirited lyric, born at a time 
 when the Greek struggle for independ- 
 ence appealed to the imagination of the 
 world. In 1848, when his service in the 
 office of John Jacob Astor was termi- 
 nated by the death of that adventurous 
 capitalist, with whom Irving had also 
 had very pleasant relations, Halleck 
 went back to Guilford and spent nine- 
 teen peaceful years in a house which 
 bore the impress of colonial taste in its 
 
86 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 dignity and spaciousness. He had com- 
 fortable means and the leisure so dear to 
 a man of literary taste and habit ; but 
 he never lost his love for the city which 
 had given him such wealth of friendship. 
 "I shall never cease to 'hail,' as the sail- 
 ors say, from your good city of New 
 York, of which a residence of more than 
 fifty years made me a citizen," he wrote 
 to an admirer who wished to reproduce 
 a view of his home in Guilford. "There 
 I always considered myself at home, and 
 elsewhere but a visitor. If, therefore, 
 you wish to embellish my poem 
 ('Fanny') with a view of my country- 
 seat (it was literally mine every Sun- 
 day for years), let it be taken from 
 the top of Weehawk Hill, overlooking 
 New York, to whose scenes and associa- 
 tions the poem is almost exclusively de- 
 voted." 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 87 
 
 Halleck died at Guilford, November 
 19, 1867, and has been commemorated by 
 substantial memorials both there and in 
 New York. A granite pillar was dedi- 
 cated to his memory in his native town, 
 in the presence of a great multitude, 
 Bayard Taylor delivering the address 
 and Dr. Holmes contributing one of his 
 happy occasional poems. In May, 
 1877, a bronze statue of Halleck was 
 unveiled in Central Park by the Presi- 
 dent of the United States. Bryant, the 
 head of the guild of American poets, 
 and William Allen Butler, the accom- 
 plished and versatile author of "Noth- 
 ing to Wear," delivered addresses, and a 
 poem by Whittier was read. 
 
 Poets of far greater genius than 
 Halleck have been far less adequately 
 honored than he ; for he was the poet of 
 a half-century and of a city, not of an 
 
88 KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 
 
 age and a nation. But he lived in a 
 fortunate time ; he was singularly happy 
 in his associations ; and he was a delight- 
 ful companion, genial and witty, scorn- 
 ful and satirical only in dealing with 
 impostors and pretenders. 
 
That light-handed, urbane, and suc- 
 cessful editor and poet, Nathaniel 
 Parker Willis, long an active and en- 
 tertaining figure in the New York of 
 the Thirties and Forties, barely touches 
 the Knickerbocker town of the Twen- 
 ties. In the spring of 1829 he started 
 the "American Monthly Magazine" in 
 Boston — a periodical described at a 
 later day by that well-known wit, 
 "Tom" Appleton, as "a slim monthly, 
 89 
 
90 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 written chiefly by himself, but with the 
 true magazine flavor." Willis had been 
 less than two years out of college and 
 was without means or experience, and 
 his enterprise had a fine air of audacity. 
 Events showed that as a venture it was 
 magnificent, but it was not war ! At the 
 end of two years the magazine was 
 moved to New York and merged in 
 "The Mirror," a journal founded in 
 1823 by George P. Morris and Samuel 
 Woodworth ; was published every Satur- 
 day ; and had a long and vigorous life 
 under a succession of names. Wood- 
 worth, who wrote a song which was 
 sung at supper-tables many years 
 afterward— "The Old Oaken Bucket" 
 — inspired, it is said, by a eulogy on 
 spring water pronounced at a wine 
 party at Mallory's, a popular hotel of 
 the time, — had withdrawn from "The 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 91 
 
 Mirror" before Willis joined its edi- 
 torial staff ; but Willis and Morris re- 
 mained partners and devoted friends to 
 the end. They both became immensely 
 popular — Willis through his versatility 
 and sentiment, Morris through a series 
 of songs which went to the hearts of a 
 host of people: "Woodman, Spare that 
 Tree," "Near the Lake where droops 
 the Lily," and "My Mother's Bible." 
 He was one of the earliest collators of 
 literature for general reading, and his 
 "Song Writers of America" and "The 
 Prose and Poetry of America" — the 
 latter edited in collaboration with Wil- 
 lis — were eminently useful compilations. 
 He had the rare good luck to write a 
 successful play founded on Revolution- 
 ary events, and a libretto for an opera ; 
 but his talent and fortune lay in his skill 
 in giving popular sentiment expression 
 
92 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 in songs. General Wilson records, as 
 the most impressive evidence of his pop- 
 ularity, that he could at any time ex- 
 change an unread song for a check for 
 fifty dollars. Genial in manner and 
 with an agreeable address, Morris was 
 also a shrewd man of affairs. 
 
 A vigorous, burly man, often met on 
 the streets in the second decade, was on 
 his way to become one of the most widely 
 known Americans, whose name is now fa- 
 miliar throughout Europe. "The Spy" 
 appeared in 1821, and a few months 
 later passed into a second edition and 
 was dramatized. In the following year it 
 was published in England, and the Eng- 
 lish newspapers began to speak of its 
 author as a "distinguished American 
 novelist." The story speedily became 
 the foundation for a world-wide literary 
 reputation which has suffered little at 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 93 
 
 the hands of time; the boys in small 
 German towns still organize themselves 
 into tribes of "Cooper Indians" and per- 
 form heroic feats after the manner of 
 the "Leather-Stocking Tales," which 
 confirmed and broadened the fame es- 
 tablished by "The Spy." 
 
 James Fenimore Cooper was not 
 born in New York and did not share the 
 Knickerbocker tradition, but between 
 1822, when he became a resident of the 
 metropolis, and 1826, when he went to 
 Europe for a stay of seven years, he 
 wrote three of the most notable of his 
 novels. "The Pioneers" was published 
 in 1823, "The Pilot" in 1824, "The 
 Last of the Mohicans" in 1826. 
 "Lionel Lincoln," which saw the light 
 in 1825, is negligible, from the point of 
 view of literature. In 1823 Cooper was 
 living in Beach Street ; after his return 
 
94 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 from Europe in 1833, he spent a few 
 winters in the city, but his home was in 
 Coopers town. 
 
 Cooper's reputation, vigorous intel- 
 lect, and courage of speech made for him 
 warm friends as well as bitter enemies, 
 though the latter were of the period 
 after his return from Europe, when his 
 sharp criticism of American manners 
 and his impatience with provincial 
 standards involved him in long-con- 
 tinued and unhappy controversy. "The 
 Bread and Cheese Club," of which he 
 was the founder, included in its member- 
 ship men of more than local reputation : 
 Kent, Bryant, Morse, Halleck. 
 
 A few days before he sailed for Eu- 
 rope in 1826, the Club gave Cooper a 
 dinner at the City Hotel, at which 
 Chancellor Kent presided, and speeches 
 were made by Governor Clinton, Gen- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 95 
 
 eral Scott, and other well-known men, 
 who spoke in enthusiastic terms of the 
 distinction he had brought to the coun- 
 try and the city. Chancellor Kent 
 hailed his "genius, which has rendered 
 our native soil classic ground, and given 
 to our early history the enchantment of 
 fiction." 
 
 The high regard in which Cooper was 
 held by the men of Letters in New 
 York, and the relative positions of the 
 American poets of the day in the order 
 of merit, are reflected in Halleck's re- 
 mark to General Wilson : "Cooper is 
 colonel of the literary regiment ; Irving, 
 lieutenant-colonel; Bryant, the major; 
 while Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, 
 Dana, and myself may be considered 
 captains." In popular reputation the 
 place assigned to Cooper was not too 
 high, although Halleck put himself too 
 
96 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 complacently in the rank of Holmes 
 and Whittier. After his return from 
 Europe in 1833, Cooper spent only a 
 few winters in New York; but the city 
 in which his reputation was born, so to 
 speak, and in which his literary friend- 
 ships were formed was the scene of the 
 most impressive commemoration of his 
 life and fame. A few months after his 
 death a memorial meeting brought to- 
 gether probably the most distinguished 
 group of men who had appeared at one 
 time in the history of the city. Webster 
 presided with his accustomed dignity, 
 but spoke without his occasional in- 
 spiration ; while Bryant rose easily to 
 the highest reach of his theme in an ad- 
 dress of great beauty and feeling. 
 
 William Cullen Bryant came to the 
 city in 1825 still thinking of himself as 
 a lawyer with a strong bent toward 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 97 
 
 literature, but not yet fully committed 
 to a change of profession. A year 
 earlier he had made a flying visit to the 
 city and been warmly welcomed by 
 Cooper, Halleck, the Sedgwicks, and 
 other well-known people. The appear- 
 ance of "Thanatopsis" in 1817, and of 
 the memorable "Lines to a Waterfowl" 
 a year later, had put his reputation as 
 a poet on a basis so solid that, while it 
 was greatly broadened as time went on, 
 it did not need to be strengthened. In 
 June, 1825, his name appeared as editor 
 on the title-page of the "New York Re- 
 view and Athenaeum Magazine." Later 
 in the year he read four lectures before 
 the Athenaeum Society; and two years 
 later, under the auspices of the recently 
 established National Academy of De- 
 sign, he talked so well about certain 
 phases of Mythology that he was asked 
 
98 THE WRITERS OP 
 
 to repeat the course several successive 
 years. In 1826 he became the New York 
 editor of a periodical which bore the por- 
 tentous name of "The New York Liter- 
 ary Gazette or American Athenaeum," 
 at a salary of five hundred dollars a 
 year. His financial position was pre- 
 carious and had become desperate when 
 he was invited to join the editorial staff 
 of the "New York Evening Post," a 
 journal always intimately connected 
 with the literary history of the city. As 
 a by-product of his industry, Bryant 
 contributed editorial suggestion and 
 writing to the "Talisman," one of those 
 old-fashioned annuals which grew like 
 mushrooms during the decade which 
 ended in 1830. In the closing year of 
 that decade, having acquired an inter- 
 est in the "Evening Post," he wrote to 
 R. H. Dana that he had made sure of a 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 99 
 
 comfortable livelihood: "I do not like 
 politics any better than you do ; but 
 they get only my mornings, and you 
 know politics and a bellyful are better 
 than poetry and starvation." Long 
 after the Knickerbocker era had become 
 a tradition, Bryant was reaping the 
 double reward of the poet and journal- 
 ist, and enjoying well-earned prosperity 
 of hand and heart. 
 
 Among the men who found a con- 
 venient meeting-place in the shop of 
 Charles Wiley, a well-known publisher 
 of the Knickerbocker period, at the cor- 
 ner of Wall and New Streets, was Rich- 
 ard Henry Dana, whose "Two Years 
 Before the Mast" has been thumbed 
 by many generations of American boys. 
 A Cambridge man, with a Harvard edu- 
 cation, Dana breathed another air than 
 that of the metropolis ; but for many 
 
100 THE WRITERS OP 
 
 years his was a familiar figure in the 
 places where men of literary habit gath- 
 ered in New York. In the back room 
 of Wiley's shop, familiarly known as the 
 "Den," Dana met Cooper, Halleck, Bre- 
 voort, and a genial company who found 
 pleasure in Cooper's somewhat pessimis- 
 tic talk. It was on Broadway, Gen- 
 eral Wilson tells us, that the mod- 
 est author of "The Idle Man" was 
 almost assaulted by an enthusiastic ad- 
 mirer who cried, "Are you the immortal 
 Dana?" lifted the astonished man in his 
 arms, rushed across the street with him, 
 and placed him triumphantly on his own 
 threshold; the author meantime calling 
 out, "Release me from this maniac!" 
 Such lively demonstrations of admira- 
 tion for men of Letters are no longer 
 seen on Broadway ! 
 
 Local self-consciousness was already 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 101 
 
 pronounced in the foremost towns of 
 the country in the third decade of the 
 Nineteenth Century. Boston, New 
 York, Philadelphia, were in the race for 
 the intellectual primacy of the New 
 World, and Richmond and Charleston 
 were not unmindful of their claims upon 
 the homage of the nation. Nearly every 
 State cherished the belief that it con- 
 tained within its borders a modern 
 Athens which could bravely invite com- 
 parison with the ancient capital of 
 Attica. In 1824 Boston was spoken of 
 as "The Literary Emporium," a de- 
 scription which had, unhappily, a sug- 
 gestion of trade associations. Three 
 years later, Philadelphia, according to 
 a magazine prospectus, had "within her- 
 self a larger fund of talent, erudition, 
 and science — larger perhaps than any 
 other city can boast." New York was 
 
102 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 not lacking in the audacity which is 
 born of self-confidence. In 1820 an at- 
 tempt was made to establish in the 
 Knickerbocker town an "American 
 Academy of Languages and Belles-Let- 
 tres," which boldly set out to protect the 
 language from "local and foreign cor- 
 ruptions," and to establish a "standard 
 of writing and pronunciation, correct, 
 fixed, and uniform, throughout our 
 extensive territory." To allay the ap- 
 prehensions of the Old World, it was 
 announced that no effort would be made 
 "to form an American language." It is 
 painful to record the fact that this 
 modest effort to guard the mother 
 tongue aroused local jealousy and per- 
 ished at birth. Boston derided it! 
 
 But if New York failed to make itself 
 the seat of an academy, it did not fail 
 to foster the infant industry of journal- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 103 
 
 ism. Professor Cairns enumerates no 
 less than thirty periodicals of various 
 kinds established in the city between 
 1816 and 1833. These were all modest 
 enterprises, and of brief and varied 
 careers. The scale of expenditure must 
 fill the editors of magazines to-day with 
 bitter regret for the conditions of the 
 good old times. In 1822 the publishers 
 of the "Atlantic Magazine," issued in 
 New York, paid its editor five hundred 
 dollars a year, and authorized an expen- 
 diture of the same amount for the con- 
 duct of the magazine ! 
 
 There were many lesser writers and 
 men of cultivated taste in literature and 
 art in the closing years of the Knicker- 
 bocker period, who formed a congenial 
 society in the growing city, and, in 
 some cases, made important contribu- 
 tions to the scholarship of their time 
 
104 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 and secured local reputation and influ- 
 ence. 
 
 Gulian Crommelin Verplanck was a 
 fine type of the old-time gentleman of 
 colonial descent. After his graduation 
 from Columbia College he studied law, 
 made the "grand tour," which was not 
 only a part of a liberal education in 
 those days but an enterprise of an ad- 
 venturous character, returned to become 
 a dignified professor in what is now the 
 General Theological Seminary, spent 
 eight years in Congress, and for nearly 
 fifty years was Vice-Chancellor of the 
 State University. He had a happy 
 faculty of dignified address on public 
 occasions, was a contributor to the 
 "Talisman" with Bryant, edited an il- 
 lustrated edition of Shakespeare, and 
 appears to have been regarded by the 
 gay spirits of Cockloft Hall as a per- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 105 
 
 son not quite of their kind. Older men, 
 however, held him in great esteem, 
 Bryant reports, as "an example of 
 steady, studious, and spotless youth." 
 His protest against Irving's presenta- 
 tion of the founders of Manhattan would 
 seem to indicate that his sense of humor 
 was not always keen. 
 
 Frederick S. Cozzens, whose "Spar- 
 rowgrass Papers" later achieved a bril- 
 liant local reputation, has left a 
 characterization of Dr. John Wakefield 
 Francis, a physician of considerable 
 professional distinction, strong literary 
 interests, and much given to hospitality, 
 which stands in no need of amplifica- 
 tion: "The Doctor is one of our old 
 Knickerbockers. His big, bushy head 
 is as familiar as the City Hall. He be- 
 longs to the 'God bless you, my dear 
 young friend' school. He is as full of 
 
106 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 knowledge as an egg is full of meat. He 
 knows more about China than the Em- 
 peror of the Celestial Empire." 
 
 A fleeting figure in the Knickerbocker 
 town was the author of "Home, Sweet 
 Home," a song of such popularity that 
 Foster's songs are its only rivals. It 
 was one of the ironies of life that John 
 Howard Payne should spend his days 
 in exile and die beyond the seas. He 
 was born at No. S3 Pearl Street in 
 1791, became a clerk in a counting- 
 room at fourteen, and a semi-profes- 
 sional editor while in his teens ; though 
 his connection with the "Thespian 
 Mirror," a local journal devoted to the 
 drama, was kept secret. He spent two 
 terms in Union College, but the stage 
 was calling him, and in 1809 — a year 
 memorable for the extraordinary num- 
 ber of men of genius it brought to birth 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 107 
 
 — he played the once popular part of 
 Young Norval on the boards of the 
 Park Theatre. Three years later he was 
 playing with moderate success in Eng- 
 lish theatres, and a little later adapting 
 and writing plays in Paris, drawing his 
 material chiefly from French sources. 
 The song which was to give him a world- 
 wide reputation was written in a room 
 in the Palais Royal for his play, "Clari ; 
 or, The Maid of Milan." He died at 
 Tunis in 1852, and thirty years later 
 "Home, Sweet Home" was sung by a 
 host of people gathered in Washington 
 about the grave in which his body was 
 reinterred. Payne had talents of an 
 uncommon order; men of the quality 
 and distinction of Talma, Coleridge, 
 and Lamb were warmly attached to him ; 
 his work was rewarded with generous 
 returns in money ; but he was always in 
 
108 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 financial straits and seems to have 
 lacked the happy faculty of making 
 himself at home in the world. 
 
 Other men less fugitive than Payne, 
 though of purely local fame, contrib- 
 uted to the good-fellowship of the later 
 Knickerbocker period. Charles P. 
 Clinch wrote plays, poems, and criti- 
 cisms ; held public office ; and became the 
 devoted friend of Halleck and Drake. 
 "The Spy," "The First of May," "The 
 Expelled Collegians," and an address 
 prepared for the opening of the Park 
 Theatre, testify to his industry, but 
 failed to give his reputation more than 
 local and passing importance. 
 
 The informal fellowship of the early 
 Knickerbockers gave way to the earliest 
 literary and artistic clubs. Of one of the 
 earliest of these Robert Charles Sands 
 was a member. The "Sketch Club" 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 109 
 
 included Bryant, Halleck, Verplanck, 
 Cole, Ingham, Durand, Weir, and other 
 practitioners of the arts. The "Century 
 Association," which has been intimately 
 associated with the literary, artistic, 
 and professional life of New York, was 
 organized at a meeting of the "Sketch 
 Club" in 1847. Sands was a poet and 
 journalist, a warm-hearted, kindly 
 humorist. A more vigorous person- 
 ality was William Leggett, who began 
 his professional life in the navy, while 
 still a young man published a volume 
 of poems in New York, wrote with great 
 ardor for the periodicals of the day, 
 and finally became one of the editors 
 of the "Evening Post." He was a 
 man of the old-time belligerent type, 
 and fought a duel of much local notori- 
 ety at Weehawken, where the most fa- 
 mous and tragic duel ever fought on 
 
110 
 
 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 American soil had taken place in 
 1804. 
 
 The most popular member of the 
 later Knickerbocker group was Charles 
 Fenno Hoffman, who had a happy fac- 
 ulty of song and verse writing. The 
 lasting popularity of "Sparkling and 
 Bright" needs no explanation ; while the 
 verses on the battle of Monterey have a 
 ring of genuine emotion and a force of 
 spirited action which carry them in 
 spite of awkward lines : 
 
 We were not many — we who stood 
 
 Before the iron sleet that day; 
 Yet many a gallant spirit would 
 Give half his years if but he could 
 Have been with us at Monterey. 
 
 Hoffman was connected editorially with 
 the "New York American" and was one 
 of the founders of the "Knickerbocker 
 Magazine," which was born in the after- 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 111 
 
 glow of the Knickerbocker period and 
 continued the Knickerbocker tradition, 
 though its scope gave it national im- 
 portance. His editorial duties left 
 Hoffman an ample margin of time for 
 lyrical work, and his short poems of 
 singing quality, "The Myrtle and 
 Steel," "Room, Boys, Room," " 'Tis 
 Hard to Share her Smiles with Many," 
 were sung, hummed, and whistled in 
 many parts of the country. His "Win- 
 ter in the West," made up of a series of 
 letters, was one of the early reports of 
 adventure and incident on the frontier. 
 
 Albany was, after New York, the 
 chief centre of the Dutch tradition, and 
 had a very hospitable and delightful so- 
 ciety intimately connected with its kin 
 city at the mouth of the Hudson. From 
 Albany, at short intervals, came Alfred 
 Billings Street. He was always welcome 
 
112 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 in New York, where his somewhat pro- 
 lific verse was held in great esteem. He 
 was a devout student of Nature, and 
 had a happy command of the descrip- 
 tive phrase, and his contemporaries 
 among the American poets were gener- 
 ous in their estimates of the excellence 
 of his poetry. Longfellow gave him the 
 first place as a reporter of forest scen- 
 ery, and Bryant was "impressed with 
 the fidelity and vividness of the images 
 newly drawn from Nature." 
 
 Among the scholarly writers of the 
 later time was Henry Theodore Tucker- 
 man, whose name has a colonial flavor 
 in the mind of the New Yorker of to-day. 
 He brought the name here from Boston 
 in the afterglow of the Knickerbocker 
 age, spent many years in Europe, and 
 became the most accomplished of the 
 early American writers in the field of 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 113 
 
 art. He was a man of wide reading, with 
 a charm of manner which won him an 
 enviable popularity in the social life of 
 New York and Newport, and with the 
 catholicity of interests and tastes which 
 mark the cosmopolitan temper. Evert 
 Augustus Duyckinck, on the other 
 hand, was a son of the soil and an in- 
 heritor of the tradition, though he was 
 born too late to be counted among the 
 Knickerbocker writers. In 1830, when 
 the Knickerbocker age reached its end 
 and the mid-century writers began to 
 appear, Duyckinck was preparing for 
 Columbia College, and it was not until 
 1840, on his return from an extended 
 visit in Europe, that he began a long 
 and industrious career as an editor and 
 writer. His chief claim on the attention 
 of lovers of old New York rests on his 
 service as a literary historian. His 
 
114 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 "Cyclopaedia of American Literature," 
 his text for the "National Portrait Gal- 
 lery of Eminent Americans," and his 
 "Memorial of Fitz-Greene Halleck" are 
 valuable records of the early men of 
 Letters in this country, with many of 
 whom he was personally associated. 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe came to New York 
 in the later Thirties, and made and lost 
 friends as in every place where he tried, 
 with pathetic hopefulness, to find an- 
 chorage. His attitude toward the 
 Knickerbocker group was one of mingled 
 condescension and contempt. In any 
 society he would have been a detached 
 and lonely figure, and the lasting me- 
 morial of his ill-starred genius and 
 broken career in New York is the cot- 
 tage at Fordham in which Virginia Ppe 
 died. 
 
 These variously gifted men found the 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 115 
 
 remuneration of literary work far too 
 meagre for "human nature's daily 
 food," and took refuge in business oc- 
 cupations of various kinds. Halleck 
 was an expert accountant fortunate in 
 his connection with Mr. Astor, while 
 Drake studied medicine and, after the 
 custom of many old-time physicians, 
 had an interest in a drug-store. Clinch 
 was in the employment of a ship-builder, 
 and for nearly two generations was 
 Deputy Collector of the Port of New 
 York ; Payne began his career as a 
 clerk ; and Sprague was a bank cashier. 
 Irving and Cooper were amply rewarded 
 by a public to which they offered the 
 novelty of original American literature ; 
 Bryant found ease and a comfortable 
 fortune in journalism. In 1822, Pro- 
 fessor Cairns reminds us, he set a price 
 on his shorter poems which could hardly 
 
1 1 6 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 be regarded as exorbitant — two dollars 
 each. George P. Morris was more for- 
 tunate so far as income was concerned, 
 and reached such an altitude of popu- 
 larity that he could sell a song unread 
 for fifty dollars, while a very unimpor- 
 tant drama from his hand brought him 
 thirty-five hundred dollars. Then, as 
 now, journalism was a refuge from 
 the inadequate rewards of literature ; 
 though it must be frankly conceded 
 that, while much of the work of the 
 lesser Knickerbocker writing had a 
 pleasant humor, a delightful gaiety of 
 mood or lightness of style, it was neither 
 vital nor original, and its appeal was 
 limited to a small group of readers. 
 
 In the later years of his life, Irving 
 was in the habit of speaking of "Salma- 
 gundi" as light and trivial ; an overflow 
 of youthful fun and audacity. Mr. 
 
KNICKERBOCKER XEW YORK 117 
 
 Barrett Wendell is of opinion that the 
 "literature of Brockden Brown, of 
 Irving, of Cooper, and of Poe is only a 
 literature of pleasure, possessing, so far 
 as it has excellence at all, only the ex- 
 cellence of conscientious refinement" ; 
 and that nothing in it "touched seri- 
 ously on either God's eternities, or the 
 practical conduct of life in the United 
 States." This is an incidentally happy 
 characterization of the Knickerbocker 
 literature : it was a literature of pleas- 
 ure, and it was delightfully free from 
 the didactic and sermonic note at a time 
 when, Lowell declared, all New England 
 was a pulpit. Its touch on morals and 
 manners was light, satiric, and amus- 
 ing; in its way it had the tone of the 
 world of society rather than of theology 
 or reform. Its preaching, like that of 
 Addison and Steele, was lightly winged 
 
118 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 and phrased in the language of an easy, 
 cordial society ; tolerant in opinion, hos- 
 pitable to differences of religion and 
 political habit, concerned chiefly to 
 make itself agreeable and the time of its 
 sojourn in the vale of tears pleasantly 
 profitable. New York was not indiffer- 
 ent to the religious side of life, but its 
 preaching was reserved for churches ; its 
 literature, though somewhat provincial 
 in time and manner, was kept well within 
 the ancient province of art. 
 
 In 1858 the twenty-fifth anniversary 
 of the founding of "The Knickerbocker 
 Magazine" was commemorated by the 
 publication of "The Knickerbocker 
 Gallery," a volume of portentous size 
 and effusive elegance, made up of ar- 
 ticles written by contributors to the 
 magazine. Fifty-four men are repre- 
 sented in the collection, of whom only 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 119 
 
 four belonged to the early and charac- 
 teristic Knickerbocker period. Irving 
 drew upon a commonplace-book of a 
 date thirty-five years earlier for a few 
 notes ; Bryant and Halleck were among 
 the poets of the collection; John W. 
 Francis and Alfred B. Street were fa- 
 miliar names to the old New Yorkers of 
 that day. A new generation was in pos- 
 session of the stage, however; and the 
 Old Town, with its Dutch traditions, 
 was slowly losing its outlines in the 
 neighborly city of the years between 
 1830 and 1880, as that in turn is fast 
 being obliterated by the cosmopolitan 
 city of to-day. 
 
 The old places have vanished, and the 
 old faces are remembered to-day only by 
 the aid of a few portraits. The names 
 of the streets in the lower section of the 
 modern city recall men and women 
 
120 THE WRITERS OF 
 
 whose genial hospitality set a fashion 
 which has never gone out in New York, 
 though the guests of the city have be- 
 come so many that hotels of imposing 
 size and oppressive splendor are taxed 
 to provide them shelter. But behind the 
 tumult of the great tides of life which 
 flow through the thoroughfares there is 
 a silent New York, which is unspoiled 
 by the possession of wealth, and which 
 hears the appeals of the unfortunate 
 within its borders, and gives time and 
 work and money with tireless generosity 
 of heart and hand. 
 
 There was a charm about the Old 
 Town which depended largely on neigh- 
 borliness and the narrower interests 
 which thrive in a small and homogeneous 
 community; the charm of ease and of 
 leisure and a certain contentment with 
 life; of the ripeness of temper and of 
 
KNICKERBOCKER NEW YORK 121 
 
 mind which is the fine flowering of an 
 education based on the humanities ; of 
 room for work and pleasure large enough 
 for fame, but not too large for the nearer 
 satisfactions of local celebrity. It was 
 the good fortune of the early Knicker- 
 bocker writers, by temperament and 
 taste, instinctively to adapt their gifts 
 to their time and Town ; and it was the 
 good fortune of the Town to be the 
 birthplace of American literature, and 
 the home of two writers who were first 
 to give that literature a place in the in- 
 terest of the world.