at this time; but he was given a one-fifth share in their business, and being only a silent partner, was allowed to spend his time in whatever ways he pleased.

In 1815, however, it became necessary for him to take his brother Peter's place for a time at the head of that part of the business which was carried on in Liverpool. Though he was a loyal American, he found England so much to his liking that there is no telling how long after his brother's recovery he would have kept on living in his half-idle way in his pleasant surroundings, had not the business in which he was interested failed in 1818. Thus roused to effort, he began publishing in 1819 the highly popular Sketch Book, by Geoffrey Crayon, a series of stories and essays in the first number of which appeared, with others, Rip Van Winkle. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was contained in a later issue. Bracebridge IIall and Tales of a Traveller, of the same nature as the Sketch Book, followed soon afterward, all three being sent to America and being published also in England.

A new and more serious kind of work opened before Irving in 1826 when he was invited to Madrid by the United States minister, to make a translation of Navarrete's Voyages of Columbus. Instead of translating, however, he wrote a valuable original work entitled the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Thus was awakened his deep interest in the romantic history and legends of Spain. He traveled about the country, staying for several weeks in the

celebrated palace of the Alhambra, studied rare old books, and as a result produced several other works upon Spanish subjects. Of these The Conquest of Granada was written before he left Spain and The Alhambra was completed in England after his return in 1829 to fill the office of secretary of legation. This last-named work, while highly entertaining, is in many places as beautiful as poetry.

In 1824 Irving had written to a friend in America concerning New York: "There is a charm about that little spot of earth; that beautiful city and its environs, that has a perfect spell over my imagination. The bay, the rivers and their wild and woody shores, the haunts of my boyhood, both on land and water, absolutely have a witchery over my mind. I thank God for my having been born in so beautiful a place among such beautiful scenery; I am convinced I owe a vast deal of what is good and pleasant in my nature to the circumstance." It was not, however, until 1832 that he was able to return to his much-loved birthplace. Then, after seventeen years' absence, during which he had become a very famous writer, he was welcomed with the warmest greetings and the highest honors of his townspeople.

It was not long before he made a tour through the far West,—through the wilds of Missouri and Arkansas. From a point in the latter region he wrote of his party as "depending upon game, such as deer, elk, bear, for food, encamping on the borders of brooks, and sleeping in the open

air under trees, with outposts stationed to guard us against any surprise by the Indians. The beautiful scenery and exciting events that marked this trip were later told of in his Tour on the Prairies.

Having been a wanderer for a good many years, Irving now began to wish for a home. Accordingly he bought a little estate near Tarrytown on the Hudson River, and had the cottage on this land made over into "a little nookery somewhat in the Dutch style, quaint, but unpretending." Here he gathered about him a brother's family and other relatives, and settled down to a quiet, happy, industrious life. In the first years spent in this pleasant home he contributed articles to the Knickerbocker Magazine, later collected and published under the title of Wolfert's Roost, and wrote Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, now part of the volume of Crayon Miscellany.

So smoothly did the home life at Sunnyside flow along that Irving was none too well pleased to separate himself from it in 1842 when appointed minister of the United States to Spain. Nevertheless, he looked upon this event as the "crowning hour" of his life.

During the thirteen years that remained to him after returning to Sunnyside in 1846, he produced the Life of Mahomet and his Successors, a Life of Goldsmith, an author whom he especially admired and appreciated, and a biography of his celebrated namesake, which, though entitled a Life of Washington, is nothing less than a

history of the Revolution. In the very year this last great work was completed, Irving died, surrounded by the household to whom he had become so much endeared (November 28, 1859).

In his writings Washington Irving has shown himself so gentle and unpretentious and so largehearted, that his words concerning Oliver Goldsmith seem to apply with equal fitness to himself: "There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness." These same qualities were revealed also day by day in the smallest incidents of his life. Perhaps they were never more simply illustrated than on the occasion when he was traveling in a railway car behind a woman with two small children and a baby who was being constantly disturbed by the older children's efforts to climb to a seat by the window. Having taken in the situation, Irving began lifting first one and then the other of the little ones into his lap, allowing each just three minutes at the window, and this he continued until they had had enough, and the grateful mother had enjoyed a needed rest. Apparently he bore ill-will toward no one, and his ever-ready humor helped him to view the lives. of others without harshness. Thus it is not only as a great literary artist, but as an American of the most worthy type, that he has won lasting honor.

THE KNICKERBOCKER HISTORY OF

NEW YORK

WASHINGTON IRVING

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

HISTORY of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker was published in 1809. Nearly forty years later Washington Irving, the real author, says it was his purpose in

the history to embody the traditions of New York in an amusing form, to illustrate its local humors, customs and peculiarities in a whimsical narrative, which should help to bind the heart of the native inhabitant to his home. He adds:

"In this I have reason to believe I have in some measure succeeded. Before the appearance of my work the popular traditions of our city were unrecorded; the peculiar and racy customs and usages derived from our Dutch progenitors were unnoticed, or regarded with indifference, or adverted to with a sneer. Now they form a convivial currency, and are brought forward on all occasions; they link our whole community together in good humor and good fellowship; they are the rallying-points of home feeling, the seasoning of our civic festivities, the staple of local tales and local pleasantries; and are so harped upon by our writers of popular fiction