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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 
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 https://archive.org/details/washingtonirvingOOputn 
 
Washington Irving: 
 His Life and Work. 
 
Where Irving was Baptized. 
 
 2 
 
3 
 
 Washington Irving: 
 His Life and Work. 
 
 ASHINGTON IRVING 
 
 was born in the city of 
 
 New York on April 3, 
 
 1783, the year in which 
 
 the American colonies 
 
 finally achieved the 
 
 independence which 
 
 they had promised for 
 
 themselves in the Declaration seven vears 
 
 •/ 
 
 earlier. I remember, when visiting Sunny- 
 side with my father a few years before Ir¬ 
 ving’s death, hearing him narrate (doubtless 
 not for the first time), how his nurse had 
 held him up in her arms while General 
 Washington was passing by on horseback, 
 in order that the General might put his 
 hand on the head of the youngster who bore 
 his name. Irving was at this time five years 
 old. I looked with reverential awe at the 
 head that had been touched by the first Presi¬ 
 dent of the country. It is probable, however, 
 that I did not see the actual spot that had 
 been thus consecrated, for in the latter years 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 AA^asHington Irving: 
 
 of his life Irving wore the wig that is depicted 
 in Martin’s crayon sketch,—the portrait by 
 which he is best known. 
 
 After a common-school training, Irving was 
 admitted to the bar in 1806, having previously 
 served as a clerk, first with Brockholst Liv¬ 
 ingston, and later with Ogden Hoffman. The 
 law never appears, however, to have exercised 
 for him any fascination, and his practice at 
 the bar was probably not important. He was, 
 however, associated as a junior among the 
 counsel who undertook the defence of Aaron 
 Burr in the famous trial held in Richmond 
 in June, 1807. The letters written by him 
 from Richmond at this time show graceful 
 powers of description and a keen sense of 
 humour. He was frank enough to say, in 
 chronicling the final acquittal of Burr, that 
 the result could hardly be said to be due to 
 any noteworthy efforts on the part of the 
 particular junior counsel who described the 
 case. 
 
 The first literary undertaking to which his 
 pen was devoted (apart from a few ephemeral 
 sketches for one of the weekly papers) was a 
 serial publication issued at irregular inter¬ 
 vals under the title of Salmagundi. In this 
 work he had the collaboration of his brother 
 William and of James K. Paulding. The 
 Salmagundi Papers , afterwards collected in 
 
M«-- S-w. 
 
 The Edict of William the Testy. 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 WasHington Irving: 
 
 book form, possess, in addition to their in¬ 
 terest as humorous literature, historic value 
 as pictures of social life in New York during 
 the first decade of the nineteenth century. 
 The famous History of New York by Died- 
 
 “Conducted every stray hog or cow in triumph to the pound.” 
 
 rich Knickerbocker was published in 1809. The 
 mystery concerning the disappearance of old 
 Dr. Knickerbocker, to whom the authorship 
 of the work was assigned, was preserved for a 
 number of months. The first advertisement 
 of the book stated that the MS. had been 
 found by the landlord of a well-known inn 
 


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His Life and WorK. 
 
 7 
 
 among the effects of his departed lodger, and 
 had been sold to the printer in order to offset 
 the lodger’s indebted¬ 
 ness. When Irving was 
 finally announced as the 
 author, it was difficult 
 for his fellow New-York- 
 ers to believe that this 
 unsuccessful young law¬ 
 yer (he was then in his 
 twenty-sixth year) could 
 have produced a work 
 which gave evidence of 
 such maturity of literary 
 power. 
 
 Irving had occupied 
 an excellent position in 
 New York society, a so¬ 
 ciety which in the earlier 
 years of the century was 
 still largely made up of 
 the old Dutch families. 
 
 In the Veracious Chronicle of Dr. Knicker¬ 
 bocker free use had been made of the names of 
 these historic families, and it is related that 
 many of the young author’s Dutch friends 
 found it difficult to accord forgiveness for the 
 liberty that had been taken in making their 
 noble ancestors the heroes of such a travesty 
 of history and of such rollicking episodes. 
 
 “And stumping up and down 
 stairs.” 
 
8 Washington Irving: 
 
 After a brief editorial experience in charge 
 of a magazine entitled The Analectic , which 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 (From the drawing made by Vanderlyn in Paris, 1805.) 
 
 never achieved a very robust existence, Irving 
 enjoyed for a few months the excitement of 
 
His Life and WorK. 
 
 9 
 
 military service, having been appointed a 
 colonel on the staff of Governor Tompkins. 
 
 Matilda Hoffman. 
 
 During the campaign of 1813 he was charged 
 with some responsibility in connection with 
 the defence of the northern line of the State, 
 
io Washington Irvings 
 
 but he does not appear ever to have come 
 under fire. 
 
 During Irving’s brief law association with 
 Mr. Hoffman, he became intimate in the 
 Hoffman family circle, and this intimacy was 
 kept up after the law office was forsaken. It 
 was Josiah Hoffman’s daughter Matilda who 
 formed the heroine in the only romance in 
 Irving’s life. He became engaged to her 
 when he was barely of age, but the engage¬ 
 ment lasted but for a few months, Matilda 
 Hoffman dying suddenly at the age of nine¬ 
 teen. At the time of Irving’s death it was 
 found that he was still wearing in a locket her 
 miniature and a lock of hair that had been 
 given to him more than half a century before. 
 
 In 1810, Irving was taken into partnership 
 by his two brothers, who were carrying on 
 business as general merchants and importers, 
 and whose operations were attended by all 
 the fluctuations and risks which were insepa¬ 
 rable from, business undertakings during the 
 years of the embargo and of the war. On the 
 declaration of peace, when there seemed to be 
 some prospect for an improvement of trade 
 with England, Irving was sent by his firm to 
 be its representative in London. If the busi¬ 
 ness plans of that year had proved successful, 
 it is very possible that Irving might for the 
 rest of his life have remained absorbed in 
 
u. OF ILL Uti, 
 
 He was a great favorite among all the children of the village.” (From a drawing by F. O. C. Darley.) 
 
12 
 
 Washington Irving: 
 
 commercial undertakings. The firm was, 
 however, in 1816, overtaken by disaster, and 
 the young lawyer-merchant found himself 
 adrift in England with very little money and 
 with no assured occupation or prospects. 
 
 Irving came speedily, however, into friendly 
 relations with a number of the leading authors 
 of the day, a group which included Scott, 
 Moore, and Southey. Scott had, in fact, 
 sought him out very promptly, having been 
 fascinated some years earlier by the original¬ 
 ity of the humor shown in Knickerbocker’s 
 New York. He wrote at the time to Murray: 
 “We have been devoting some pleasant hours 
 to that most excellently jocose history of New 
 York. . . . Our sides are actually sore 
 
 with laughing.’’ 
 
 After a couple of years of rather desultory 
 travelling and scribbling, Irving completed 
 the series of papers which was published in 
 1818 under the title of The Sketch-Book. It 
 is probably by this volume that he is still 
 today best known among readers on both 
 sides of the Atlantic. The book has been 
 translated into almost every European tongue, 
 and it served for many years, and possibly 
 still serves, in France and in Germany as a 
 model of English style, and as a text-book 
 from which students are taught their English. 
 In this latter role it replaced the Spectator of 
 
His Life and WorK. 13 
 
 Addison. If the style of some of our older 
 German friends strikes us to-day as somewhat 
 stilted and antiquated, it may be considered 
 as due to the fact of their having in their early 
 youth taken in their English through Addison. 
 
 The Sketch-Book was about ready for the 
 press when Irving received from the Secretary 
 of the Navy an offer of the position of chief 
 clerk of the Navy Department, with a salary 
 (large for that time) of $2400. In those ear¬ 
 lier days of the Republic positions of this kind 
 were held under tenure of good behavior, and 
 such an appointment would therefore have 
 meant for Irving a competency free from 
 care, upon which he could depend for a num¬ 
 ber of years. 
 
 Absorbed as he was, however, at this time 
 in literary plans, he was not willing to bind 
 himself with the trammels of office, and the 
 offer was declined. It is possible that in the 
 course of the next few months the young 
 writer rather regretted his decision, as The 
 Sketch-Book was refused by Murray and by 
 other of the leading publishers, and he found 
 himself discouraged as to the prospects of 
 securing for it a hearing. He finally, how¬ 
 ever, risked the publication of a small edition 
 on his own account, and the work won for 
 itself so immediate a reputation that, a year 
 later, Murray was very glad to reconsider his 
 
14 WasHington Irving : 
 
 former conclusion and took charge of the book 
 under a satisfactory arrangement. 
 
 The publication by Murray of The Sketch- 
 Book , and, two years later, of Bracebridge 
 Hall brought Irving at once into repute with 
 the most attractive literary circles in Great 
 Britain. His publisher was Murray the sec¬ 
 ond, who had on his list the works of Byron, 
 Southey, Coleridge, Disraeli the elder, and 
 other of the leading writers of the time, and 
 whose imprint was accepted as stamping a 
 book with literary importance. 
 
 After a year or two spent in travelling on 
 the Continent, Irving was appointed attache 
 to the legation at Madrid, where he took 
 up his residence in 1826. The appointment 
 came to him from Alexander Everett, at that 
 time Minister of State, who was an old friend 
 and who had a cordial interest in Irving’s 
 literary undertakings. 
 
 In sending him the appointment Everett 
 took pains at once to place before him a lit¬ 
 erary suggestion. He proposed that Irving 
 should make a translation of the history that 
 Senor Navarrete, of the Madrid Historical 
 Society, had at that time in preparation of 
 the voyages of Columbus. After due con¬ 
 sideration Irving decided against the plan for 
 the translation, on the ground that Navarrete 
 had prepared a mass of records rather than a 
 
His Life and AA^orK. 
 
 15 
 
 biography. Irving came, however, into pleas¬ 
 ant personal relations with the historian, who - 
 placed his materials freely at the disposition 
 of the young American; and with these ma¬ 
 terials Irving began at once the preparation 
 of the biography. He devoted to this the 
 year 1826 and brought it to completion in 
 the spring of 18 2 7. It may be of interest to the 
 present reader of Irving’s Columbus to note 
 the following extract from a German historian 
 with whom Irving appears not to have been 
 acquainted. Oscar Peschel states, in his His¬ 
 tory of the Age of Discoveries (Stuttgart, 1848), 
 that ‘‘Columbus brooded over the prophetic 
 song of the chorus in the Medea of Seneca’’: 
 
 “Venient annis saecula seris 
 Quibus Oceanus vincula serum 
 Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, 
 
 Tethysque novos delegat orbes, 
 
 Nec sit terris ultima Thule.” 
 
 (Distant the age, but surely it will come, 
 
 When Ocean shall relax the bonds of men 
 And to them open all the great wide earth. 
 
 Then Tethys will reveal worlds now unknown, 
 And no far Thule can be called “ the last.”) 
 
 In the summer of 1827 the Life of Columbus 
 was accepted by Murray, who writes concern¬ 
 ing it: “It is beautiful. By far the best thing 
 Irving has ever done.” Murray paid for the 
 English rights £3 000. This first London 
 
16 AiVasHington Irving: 
 
 edition was published in four octavo volumes. 
 The arrangement for the American edition 
 was made with Carvell & Co. of New York. 
 At about the same time Carey, Lea & Blan¬ 
 chard of Philadelphia secured from Irving the 
 right to publish for a term of seven years his 
 four preceding works, paying him for the 
 privilege $600 per annum. 
 
 The Columbus met with very cordial appre¬ 
 ciation on both sides of the Atlantic. Southey 
 writes from London, “This work places Irving 
 at the front of modern biographers.” Ed¬ 
 ward Everett says that “through the Colum¬ 
 bus Irving has secured the position of founder 
 of the American school of polite learning.” 
 
 The Columbus was completed, but Irving 
 still found himself fascinated with the exam¬ 
 ination of the Spanish chronicles. He made 
 long sojourns in Granada, living within the 
 precincts of the Alhambra Palace, and later 
 he took up his residence for a number of 
 months in Seville. It was at this time that 
 he prepared the collection of Legends of the 
 Alhambra , and in the year following he com¬ 
 pleted his Conquest of Granada. 
 
 It was in the latter part of 1828 that Irving 
 declined an offer of one hundred guineas to 
 write an article for the British Quarterly Re¬ 
 view (of which his friend Murray was the pub¬ 
 lisher), on the ground, as he wrote, that “the 
 

 MMM&mmi 
 
 iSflasMSiisiaaapMiraBaaBni 
 
 The Cladera Portrait 
 
 of Christopher Columbus 
 
18 WasHington Irving : 
 
 Review has been so persistently hostile to our 
 country that I cannot draw a pen in its ser¬ 
 vice.” This episode may count as a fair re¬ 
 joinder to certain of the home critics who were 
 then accusing Irving (as, half a century later, 
 Lowell was in like manner accused) of having 
 become so much absorbed in his English sym¬ 
 pathies as to have lost touch with the patriot¬ 
 ism of his native land. 
 
 In the same year Irving declined a further 
 suggestion from Murray to take charge as 
 editor, at a salary of ^jiooo a year, of a 
 monthly magazine that Murray had in plan. 
 It may be mentioned that the plan was put to 
 one side and did not take shape until seventy- 
 one years later, when John Murray the fourth 
 (the grandson of Irving’s Murray) estab¬ 
 lished the Monthly Review. 
 
 In 1829 Irving was made a member of the 
 Royal Academy of History in Madrid. The 
 recognition that came to him from Spain was 
 only in the form of honours of this kind. 
 Spanish editions of his books had been pro¬ 
 duced and were in active demand, but for 
 these editions the author received no com¬ 
 pensation. Irving was still in Spain at the 
 time of the election to the presidency of Gen¬ 
 eral Jackson. He writes to one of his brothers 
 just before the inauguration: “As to the old 
 General, with all his ‘ hickory ’ characteristics. 
 
“ He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at 
 
 Mr. Doolittle’s hotel.” 
 
 (Half-tone reproduction of photogravure in “ Rip Van Winkle.”) 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 WasHington Irving: 
 
 I judge he has good stuff in him and will make 
 a sagacious, independent, high-spirited Presi¬ 
 dent. I doubt his proving as high-handed as 
 many are anticipating." 
 
 In July, 1829, Louis McLane, Minister to 
 the Court of St. James, appointed Irving Sec¬ 
 retary of Legation, and he again took up his 
 residence in London. In 1830 the Royal So¬ 
 ciety of Literature of England voted him, as a 
 recognition of his service to history and to 
 literature, one of its ten-guinea gold medals. 
 The recognition was said to have been given 
 more particularly on the ground of the repute 
 secured for the Life of Columbus. The other 
 medal of that year was given to Hallam for 
 his History of the Middle Ages. 
 
 In 1831 Irving was made an LL.D. of Ox¬ 
 ford. The ceremony of the installation was 
 a serious experience for a man of his shy and 
 retiring habits. As he sat in the Senate Hall 
 the students saluted him with cries of “ Here 
 comes old Knickerbocker!" “How about 
 Ichabod Crane?” “Has Rip Van Winkle 
 waked up yet?” and, “Who discovered Co¬ 
 lumbus ? ’ ’ 
 
 In September, 1831, Irving dined with 
 Scott. It was their last meeting. The great 
 novelist was already seriously broken down, 
 having exhausted himself in the gigantic 
 efforts made during the previous five years to 
 
His Life and AVorK. 21 
 
 earn with his pen sufficient to pay off the in¬ 
 debtedness incurred through his partnership 
 with the Ballantynes and through the ad¬ 
 vances made by Constable. During Irving’s 
 sojourn in London, William Cullen Bryant be¬ 
 spoke his friendly service in securing publica¬ 
 tion in England for his first volume of poems. 
 The book was declined by Murray, but Irving 
 finally arranged to get it published by An¬ 
 drews, the latter making it a condition that 
 the volume should bear Irving’s name as edi¬ 
 tor. The London publisher found himself 
 troubled by the following lines in the poem on 
 Marion: 
 
 “The British foeman trembles 
 
 When Marion’s name is heard.” 
 
 Andrews feared that these lines would pro¬ 
 voke antagonism, and Irving, desiring to 
 avoid anything that might stand in the way 
 of the success of the volume, took the respon¬ 
 sibility of changing the verse, so that it read: 
 
 “The foeman trembles in his camp 
 When Marion’s name is heard.” 
 
 Irving’s action was sharply criticised by 
 William Leggett (then editor of the New York 
 Evening Post ) and others, and Bryant himself 
 felt that a liberty had been taken. Later, 
 however, he wrote with appreciation of the 
 friendly care shown by his representative. 
 
AVasHington Irving: 
 
 O O 
 
 fi g- N 1832, Irving returned to 
 New York, having been 
 absent from the country 
 for seventeen years. His 
 fellow-citizens welcomed 
 him with a banquet given 
 in the City Hotel, some¬ 
 what to Irving’s discom¬ 
 fiture, as he had a great 
 dread of public functions 
 of any kind, and was espe¬ 
 cially nervous in any attempt at public speak¬ 
 ing. The orator of the evening, John Duer, 
 a well-known lawyer, addressed him as “the 
 Dutch Herodotus.’’ 
 
 Later in the same year Irving made a jour¬ 
 ney through the territory of the Southwest, an 
 account of which he afterwards printed under 
 the title of A Tour on the Prairies (this paper 
 is contained in the volume Crayon Miscel¬ 
 lany ). Irving’s description of St. Louis as a 
 frontier post, and of the great wilderness ex¬ 
 tending to the west of the Mississippi, makes 
 to-day interesting reading. Returning from 
 this journey by way of New Orleans, he vis¬ 
 ited Columbia, S. C., where he was the guest 
 of Governor Hamilton. The Governor had 
 just transmitted in a message to the legisla¬ 
 ture the edict of nullification. The Governor 
 insisted that Irving must certainly repeat his 
 

 Sunnyside,” the home of Washington Irving. 
 
24 
 
 Washington Irving: 
 
 visit to the State. “Certainly,” responded 
 the guest; “I will come with the first troops.” 
 
 In 1836 Irving declined the Democratic 
 nomination for Congress, and in the following 
 year he declined the Tammany nomination 
 for Mavor of New York and President Van 
 Buren’s offer of the Secretaryship of the Navy. 
 
 During these years he was building the 
 little Dutch cottage on the Hudson (south of 
 Tarry town), to which he gave the name of 
 Wolfert’s Roost, and was absorbing himself in 
 the life of a country gentleman. He writes to 
 his friend Halleck, “You must contrive to 
 come up at once to see my new pig. He is a 
 darling.” 
 
 In 1840 Irving completed his Life of Gold¬ 
 smith , a subject which he has treated with 
 the keenest personal sympathy. In 1842 
 Irving accepted from President Tyler the ap¬ 
 pointment of Minister to Spain. The sugges¬ 
 tion for Tyler’s selection came from Daniel 
 Webster, at that time Secretary of State. 
 Irving’s third sojourn in Spain was for him 
 exceedingly attractive. He continued his re¬ 
 searches in Spanish literature and legends, 
 and was accepted by the men of letters of 
 Spain as one of themselves. Some of the re¬ 
 sults of these later studies were afterwards 
 given to the public in the attractive volumes 
 called Spanish Papers. 
 
The Old Dutch Church, Sleepy Hollow. 
 
 (From a drawing by W. J. Wilson.) 
 
26 "WasHington Irving: 
 
 In returning to New York in 1847 Irving 
 was met with a serious disappointment. His 
 books were out of print, at least in the United 
 States, and his publishers, Carey, Lea & 
 Blanchard of Philadelphia, assured him that 
 there was for them no longer any public de¬ 
 mand, and that it would be an unprofitable 
 venture to undertake to put upon the market 
 new editions. They pointed out to him that 
 the public taste had changed, and that a new 
 style of authorship was now in vogue. The 
 books had, in fact, been out of print since 
 1845, but that time Irving, being still in 
 Spain, had concluded that the arrangements 
 for revised editions might wait for his return. 
 To be told now by experienced publishers, 
 who believed themselves to be fully informed 
 as to the taste of the American public, that 
 The Sketch-Book , The Legends of the Alham¬ 
 bra, Bracebridge Hall , Knickerbocker's New 
 York , and The Life of Columbus , notwith¬ 
 standing their original prestige, had had their 
 day and were not wanted by the new genera¬ 
 tion, was a serious shock to Irving, not only 
 on the ground of the blow to his confidence in 
 himself as an author, but because his savings 
 were inconsiderable and he needed the con¬ 
 tinued income that he had hoped to secure 
 from his pen. 
 
 His personal wants were few, but he had 
 
His Life and WorK. 
 
 27 
 
 always used, generously among his large circle 
 of relatives such resources as he possessed, 
 and, having neither wife nor child, he had 
 made a home at Sunnyside for an aged 
 brother and two nieces. 
 
 Some Western land investments (which in 
 later years became profitable) were at this 
 time liabilities instead of resources, and his 
 immediate financial prospects seemed to be 
 discouraging enough. 
 
 He had a desk in the office of his brother, 
 John Treat Irving, with whom he had pre¬ 
 viously studied, and to him he now spoke, 
 probably half jestingly, of the necessity of 
 resuming the practice of law. He was at this 
 time sixty-five years of age, and as it was 
 nearly forty vears since he had touched a 
 law-book it is hardly likely that he could have 
 made himself of much value as a counsellor. 
 One morning early in 1848, Irving came into 
 his brother’s office in a joyful frame of mind. 
 He tossed a letter over to his brother, saying: 
 “ John, here is a fool of a publisher willing to 
 give me $1000 a year to go on scribbling.” 
 The “fool of a publisher” was the late Geo. P. 
 Putnam, who had recently returned from 
 London, where he had for eight years been 
 engaged in inducing the English public to buy 
 American books, an experiment, by the way, 
 in which his sons, half a century later, are still 
 
28 Washington Irvines 
 
 interesting themselves. In the intervals of 
 his London business, Mr. Putnam had found 
 time to write and to publish a useful little 
 
 George Palmer Putnam. 
 
 volume called American Facts , which had been 
 planned to correct the long series of British 
 misconceptions and misrepresentations con¬ 
 cerning men and things on this side of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
His Life and AA^orK. 29 
 
 Mr. Putnam now purposed to issue a uni¬ 
 form revised edition of all of Irving’s exist¬ 
 ing writings, with which should be associated 
 such books as he might later complete; and 
 to pay to the author a royalty on each copy 
 
 sold, guaranteeing against such royalty for 
 the first year the sum of $1000; for the sec¬ 
 ond, $1500; and for each of the three years 
 succeeding, $2000. 
 
 It may be mentioned as an evidence of the 
 accuracy of the publisher’s judgment that the 
 
30 Washington Irvings 
 
 payments during the years in which this guar¬ 
 antee continued were always in excess of the 
 amounts contracted for. 
 
 In 1849, the London publisher, Bohn, began 
 to print unauthorized editions of the various 
 books of Mr. Irving, for the authority to 
 publish the authorized editions of which Mr. 
 Murray and Mr. Bentley had made liberal 
 payments. A series of litigations ensued, as a 
 result of which Murray and Bentley, discour¬ 
 aged with the long fight and with the great 
 law expense incurred in securing protection 
 under the existing copyright law, accepted 
 the offer of the “pirate” for the purchase, at 
 a merely nominal price, of their “rights,” and 
 Irving’s works came to be included in the 
 Bohn Standard Library Series. 
 
 British copyright was, in 1850, in a very 
 unsatisfactory condition, and it was not 
 easy to ascertain from its provisions just 
 what rights “alien authors” could maintain. 
 So far as American authors were concerned, 
 this uncertainty continued until the comple¬ 
 tion of the international copyright arrange¬ 
 ment of 1891. 
 
 As one result of the transfer to Bohn of Ir¬ 
 ving’s English editions, he found that he 
 could no longer depend upon any material 
 English receipts for his later works. For the 
 “right” to publish the English edition of The 
 
The Ascension of Mahomet. 
 
 From D’Ohsson’s Tableau General de T Empire Othoman 
 
 31 
 
32 
 
 Washington Irving: 
 
 Life of Washington Bohn paid the sum of ^50, 
 which was for the author a sad reduction from 
 the ^3000 that Murray had given him for the 
 Columbus. 
 
 In December, 1852, Irving wrote to his pub¬ 
 lisher, Mr. Putnam, a letter which, as express¬ 
 ing both the sense of fairness and the modesty 
 of nature of the man is worth quoting: 
 
 '‘For my own part, let me say how sensibly 
 I appreciate the kind tone and expressions of 
 your letter; but as to ) r our talk of ‘ obliga¬ 
 tions ’ to me, I am conscious of none that have 
 not been fully counterbalanced on your part, 
 and I take pleasure in expressing the great 
 satisfaction I have derived through all our 
 intercourse from your amiable, obliging, and 
 honorable conduct. Indeed, I never had 
 dealings with any man, whether in the wmy of 
 business or of friendship, more perfectly free 
 from alloy. That those dealings have been 
 profitable is mainly owing to your own sagac¬ 
 ity and enterprise. You had confidence in 
 the continued vitality of my writings. . . . 
 
 You called them again into active existence 
 and gave them a circulation that has, I be¬ 
 lieve, surprised even yourself. In rejoicing at 
 their success, my satisfaction is doubly en¬ 
 hanced by the idea that you share in the 
 benefits derived from it. Wishing you that 
 continued prosperity in business which your 
 
The House of Astor where Irving Wrote “Astoria. 
 
34 WasHington Irving s 
 
 upright, enterprising, tasteful, and liberal 
 mode of conducting it merits and is calculated 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 Minister to Spain. 
 
 to ensure, and invoking on you and yours a 
 happy New Year, I remain 
 
 “Very truly and heartily yours, 
 
 “Washington Irving.” 
 
 That these expressions of friendship were 
 
M 
 
 
 jp;v» 
 
 * vj», - -, 3w 
 
 ■fst, '*' 
 
 Fall of Braddock. 
 
 (From a painting by C. Scliucssele.) 
 
36 Washington Irving;: 
 
 not mere empty courtesy, Irving had an op¬ 
 portunity a few years later of making clear. 
 In 1857, partly because of the business mis¬ 
 management of his financial partner and 
 partly on the ground of the general disasters 
 of the year, Mr. Putnam was obliged to make 
 an assignment of his business. Irving re¬ 
 ceived a number of propositions from other 
 publishers for the transfer of his books, the 
 commercial value of which had now become 
 fully appreciated. From some of these prop¬ 
 ositions Irving could undoubtedly have se¬ 
 cured much more satisfactory returns than 
 were coming to him under the existing ar¬ 
 rangement. He declined them all, however, 
 writing to Mr. Putnam to the effect that, so 
 long as a Putnam remained in the publishing 
 business, he purposed to retain for his books 
 the Putnam imprint. 
 
 He arranged with the assignee to purchase 
 from the estate the plates and the publication 
 agreements for his books. He held these 
 plates for some years, until Mr. Putnam was 
 again in a position to control them, and then 
 restored them to his publisher, resuming the 
 old publishing arrangement and waiving the 
 larger proceeds to which, as the owner of 
 the plates, he would have continued to be en¬ 
 titled. Such an episode is an interesting one 
 in the long history of the relations of authors 
 
38 Washington Irving: 
 
 with publishers, and it may be considered as 
 equally creditable to both parties. 
 
 Irving found himself not a little perplexed 
 with one of his publisher’s presents. Mr. 
 Putnam had always protested against the 
 method or lack of method with which the au¬ 
 thor would pile up on one modest writing- 
 table his mass of MSS., notes, reference books, 
 etc.; and took occasion to send him a prop¬ 
 erly arranged desk, asking only in return that 
 he might have the old table. Irving wrote to 
 his publisher, trying to be grateful for the 
 attention, but admitting that since he had 
 placed his papers in the several pigeon-holes 
 where they were supposed to belong, he had 
 never been able to find anything. 
 
 The final and, in some respects, the greatest 
 of Irving’s literary productions, the Life of 
 Washington , was completed on his seventy- 
 sixth birthday, April 3, 1859 ; and a month or 
 two later he had the pleasure of seeing the 
 printed volume. His death came on a quiet 
 day in November of the same year. 
 
 George William Curtis, a man whose sweet¬ 
 ness and refinement of nature as well as the 
 special tone of his literary quality brought 
 him into keen sympathy with the author of 
 The Sketch-Book , wrote after Irving’s death as 
 follows: “With Irving the man and the au¬ 
 thor were one. The same twinkling humor, 
 
His Life and WorK. 39 
 
 untouched by personal venom, the same 
 sweetness, geniality, and grace . . . which 
 
 endeared the writer to his readers, endeared 
 
 Irving’s Resting-Place. 
 
 the man to his friends. Gifted with a happy 
 temperament, with that cheerful balance of 
 thought and feeling which begets the sym¬ 
 pathy that prevents bitter animosity, he lived 
 
40 
 
 Washington Irving: 
 
 through the sharpest struggles of our politics, 
 not without interest, but without bitterness, 
 and holding the tenderest respect of every 
 party. 
 
 “When his death was known, there was no 
 class of men who more sincerely deplored him 
 than those of his own vocation. The older 
 authors felt that a friend, not a rival—the 
 younger, that a father—had gone. There is 
 not a young literary aspirant in the country 
 who, if he ever personally met Irving, did not 
 hear from him the kindest words of sympathy, 
 regard, and encouragement. There is none 
 of the older rank who, knowing him, did not 
 love him. He belonged to no clique, no party 
 in his own profession, more than in any other 
 of the great interests of life, and that not by 
 any wilful independence or neutrality armed 
 against all comers, but by the natural catho¬ 
 licity of his nature.” 
 
 To those of the present day who have felt 
 the charm of a personal relation with the 
 younger writer, it would seem as if these 
 words were describing not only Washington 
 Irving, but George William Curtis. 
 
 This brief account of the Knickerbocker 
 author can, I think, be appropriately con¬ 
 cluded with the lines in which he was so hap¬ 
 pily characterized by another good American, 
 also of kindred nature. The Fable for Critics 
 
His Life and WorK. 
 
 4i 
 
 was published in 1848, when Irving was sixty- 
 five. Lowell, then a youngster in his twen¬ 
 ties, writes: 
 
 “What! Irving? thrice welcome, warm heart and 
 fine brain, 
 
 You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, 
 And the gravest, sweet humor that ever were there 
 Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair. 
 Nay, don’t be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching; 
 I sha’n’t run directly against my own preaching! 
 And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and 
 Dantes, 
 
 Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes. 
 But allow me to speak what I honestly feel: 
 
 To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, 
 Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill, 
 
 With the whole of that partnership’s stock and 
 good will, 
 
 Mix well, and while stirring, hum o’er, as a spell, 
 The ‘Fine Old English Gentleman,’ simmer it well, 
 Sweeten just to your own private liking, then 
 strain, 
 
 That only the finest and clearest remain, 
 
 Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives 
 From the warm, lazy sun loitering down through 
 green leaves, 
 
 When you ’ll find a choice nature, not wholly 
 deserving 
 
 A name either English or Yankee—just Irving.” 
 
 G. H. P.