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By Root 607 0

English prose-writers. In Knickerbocker he had been dancing or skipping in the lightness of his heart to a delicious measure of his own; in Salmagundi he had waked up to a sense of literary responsibility, without quite knowing in what direction his new-found sense of style would lead him. In the Sketch-Book he is a finished and classic writer, bowing to the great tradition of English prose, and knowing precisely what it is that he would do, and how to do it. He sustains this easy mastery of manner through his next book, Bracebridge Hall, and then, if he wrote no less well in future, the voice at least had become familiar, and the peculiar wonder and delight with which his age received him faded into a common pleasure. The Sketch-Book and Bracebridge Hall, then, remain the bright original stars in this gracious constellation.

—from Critic (March 31, 1883)

EDWIN P. WHIPPLE

The “revival” of American literature in New York differed much in character from its revival in New England. In New York it was purely human in tone; in New England it was a little superhuman in tone. In New England they feared the devil; in New York they dared the devil; and the greatest and most original literary dare-devil in New York was a young gentleman of a good family, whose “schooling” ended with his sixteenth year, who had rambled much about the island of Manhattan, who had in his saunterings gleaned and brooded over many Dutch legends of an elder time, who had read much but had studied little, who possessed fine observation, quick intelligence, a genial disposition, and an indolently original genius in detecting the ludicrous side of things, and whose name was Washington Irving. After some preliminary essays in humorous literature his genius arrived at the age of indiscretion, and he produced at the age of twenty-six the most deliciously audacious work of humor in our literature, namely, The History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It is said of some reformers that they have not only opinions, but the courage of their opinions. It may be said of Irving that he not only caricatured, but had the courage of his caricatures. The persons whom he covered with ridicule were the ancestors of the leading families of New York, and these families prided themselves on their descent. After the publication of such a book he could hardly enter the “best society” of New York, to which he naturally belonged, without running the risk of being insulted, especially by the elderly women of fashion; but he conquered their prejudices by the same grace and geniality of manner, by the same unmistakable tokens that he was an inborn gentleman, through which he afterward won his way into the first society of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Still, the promise of Knickerbocker was not fulfilled. That book, if considered as an imitation at all, was an imitation of Rabelais, or Swift, or of any author in any language who had shown an independence of all convention, who did not hesitate to commit indecorums, and who laughed at all the regalities of the world. The author lived long enough to be called a timid imitator of Addison and Goldsmith. In fact, he imitated nobody. His genius, at first riotous and unrestrained, became tamed and regulated by a larger intercourse with the world, by the saddening experience of life, and by the gradual development of some deep sentiments which held in check the audacities of his wit and humor. But even in the portions of The Sketch-Book relating to England it will be seen that his favorite authors belonged rather to the age of Elizabeth than to the age of Anne. In Bracebridge Hall there is one chapter called “The Rookery,” which in exquisitely poetic humor is hardly equalled by the best productions of the authors he is said to have made his models. That he possessed essential humor and pathos, is proved by the warm admiration he excited in such masters of humor and pathos as Scott and Dickens; and style is but a secondary consideration when it expresses vital qualities of genius. If he subordinated energy to elegance,