Ah! while I write, dear France Allied, THE REPUBLICAN GENIUS Emperors and kings! in vain you strive Your torments to conceal The age is come that shakes your thrones, In western worlds the flame began: And lays all tyrants low. Genius of France! pursue the cnase Man to be Man, in every clime;— In dreadful pomp he takes his way 40 ΙΟ O'er ruined crowns, demolished thronesPale tyrants shrink before his blazeRound him terrific lightnings playWith eyes of fire, he looks them through, Crushes the vile despotic crew, And Pride in ruin lays. TO A CATY-DID2 IN A branch of willow hid While upon a leaf you tread, All the day you nothing said: Half the night your cheery tongue Reveled out its little song, Nothing else but Caty-did. 21 1 First published in Jersey Chronicle, 23 May, 1795. Published in collective edition of 1815. WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859) "The first ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old"-the description is Thackeray's was born in New York on 3 April, 1783. His father was a merchant, honest and blameless in his life, but severe and devoted to a stern religion-so devoted that he would have had his children believe that all pleasures were sinful. Mrs. Irving was of softer, gentler temper, like Washington, her youngest and eleventh child. Thanks to her the child was tenderly brought up. In his boyhood he was mischievous and an indifferent student, though an eager reader of such narratives of adventure as he could find. In 1799, after he had attended for varying periods some four different schools, he entered a law office to prepare himself for a legal career. His study was not over-zealous and was much interrupted-by literary reading, which included novels by Mrs. Radcliffe and Sterne's Sentimental Journey, by attempts at essay-writing, by social diversion, and by travel. It was owing to poor health that he was sent abroad in 1804, where he traveled in Sicily, Italy, France, Holland, and England, returning to America early in 1806. In the fall of the same year he was admitted to the bar, rather, it has been thought, because of the friendship of one of his examiners than because of his knowledge of the law. He never made more than a vague pretense at the practice of his profession, but instead gave himself over to a gay social life, fell in love with a beautiful young girl, Matilda Hoffman, and joined his brother and a friend in writing a series of essays, Salmagundi, imitative of Addison's Spectator, to “amuse, edify, and castigate the town." The castigation was mild and the town was genuinely amused. Following this success, Irving, with another brother, undertook to write a parody of "a small handbook which had recently appeared, entitled A Picture of New York." Presently the brother went to Europe, and Irving, working on alone, altered the plan, so that the book became a humorous History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It was published in December, 1809. Earlier in the same year Matilda Hoffman had died, causing Irving grief which was deep and not easily forgotten, but which has been exaggerated by most of his biographers. In 1810 he was taken into their hardware business by his brothers, their object being to give him an income, but to leave him free for literary work. Though during the next few years he was connected with two periodicals, he did little writing, and chiefly used his freedom to enjoy social life. His most recent biographer (G. S. Hellman) believes that during this period Irving proposed marriage to a Scotchwoman some years his senior but, if he did so, his proposal was rejected. In the late spring of 1815 he sailed for Liverpool, where one of his brothers conducted the English establishment of the firm. He expected to remain in England only a few months, but in fact did not return to America until seventeen years later. His brother in Liverpool had become practically an invalid, and Irving took charge of the business, but was able also to travel occasionally. His circle of acquaintance, always wide, soon included Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, and Sir Walter Scott. In 1818 the Irving firm, which had been suffering from unsettled business conditions, became bankrupt, and Irving now had, for the first time, to face the problem of earning a living. After a period of distress and hesitation he determined to try to make his way by writing, and began the series of essays which was published in seven numbers, or parts, in 1819-1820, with the title, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The book was an immediate and great success in both America and England, and it seemed that Irving would have no difficulty in earning his living by his pen. For many years, however, he was more or less embarrassed financially, because he was almost uniformly unfortunate in the speculations into which he ventured with the large profits from this and succeeding volumes. Bracebridge Hall was published in 1822, and Tales of a Traveler in 1824. Meanwhile in 1821 Irving had left England for the Continent, had spent some time in Paris, and then had traveled in Germany, where, in the winter of 1822-1823, he had met an English girl, Emily Foster, whom he had sought to marry. Probably he continued for several years to press his suit, but without success. In 1826 he went to Madrid as a member of the American legation, and began work upon his History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (published 1828). He traveled extensively in Spain, visiting the Alhambra in 1828, and living there for some time in 1829. In the latter year his Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada was published, and he returned to England to become secretary of the legation in London. His continued success and increasing reputation were signalized by high honors, which included a D.C.L. from Oxford in 1831. In the same year the Italian Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus was published, and in 1832 The Alhambra. In this year also Irving returned to New York, where he met with an overwhelming reception. He continued, however, to be a wanderer, traveling in the West and South. In 1836 he settled in the house at Tarrytown, on the Hudson, which he later called “Sunnyside." About this time were published several books resulting from his Western travels-notably A Tour of the Prairies (1835). Irving was now and later embarrassed by multiplied indications of his eminence, and had to decline two invitations to high public office, as well as many lesser invitations. As early as 1838 he began to work upon his Life of George Washington. In 1841 he accepted appointment as American Minister to Spain, and from 1842 until 1846 he was again in Europe. During the remaining years of his life he published his books on Goldsmith (1849), Mahomet (1849-1850), and Washington (1855-1859), besides other volumes. He died at "Sunnyside” on 28 November, 1859. Irving's mild, gentle, companionable nature gave him a multitude of warm friends and, communicated to his books, made him perhaps the best loved, as well as one of the most highly honored, of nineteenth-century writers. He probably never understood his father's austere Calvinism, but he felt and resented the conscientious officiousness which seemed to be its chief outward sign. Given his own character, his conclusion was inevitable: "For my part, I have not so bad an opinion of mankind as many of my brother philosophers. I do not think poor human nature so sorry a piece of workmanship as they would make it out to be; and as far as I have observed, I am fully satisfied that man, if left to himself, would about as readily go right as wrong." His bent was for worldly enjoyment and the cultivation of sentiment, and he gave himself free rein, with at least innocent results. Thomas Moore, after unsuccessful attempts to exhibit Irving to several acquaintances, wrote that he was "not strong as a lion, but delightful as a domestic animal." Francis Jeffrey, a friendly and appreciative critic, pointed out that the sweetness and charm which made him thus delightful were, if unrelieved, in danger of proving insipid. Mildness and gentleness are well, but we want, too, positive force. Irving, however, shrank from the actual world about him. As a boy he loved what was picturesque, strange, and distant. As a young man he seized upon the Dutch past of New York as its "poetic age, poetic from its very obscurity," and he sought "to clothe home scenes and places and familiar names with those imaginative and whimsical associations so seldom met with in our new country, but which live like charms and spells about the cities of the old world, binding the heart of the native inhabitant to his home." In this aim he was at the time eminently successful, though Knickerbocker's History is immature, diffuse, and no longer really readable as a whole. But again, in those of his writings which still secure his fame because of their intrinsic worth-in Rip Van Winkle, the English essays, and The Alhambra-Irving finds himself most at home in an imaginative or legendary past. Indeed, one is not far wrong who thinks of him as a gracious ambassador, to us an ambassador from the world of sentimental fancy, as he was in his own time an ambassador who succeeded remarkably in creating friendly feeling for America in England and Europe. my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents and the emolument of the towncrier. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with all its places famous in history. or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, and conversing with their sages and great men. I even journeyed one long summer's day to the summit of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra incognita, and was astonished to find how vast a globe I inhabited. This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring their contents I neglected the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes; with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth! Further reading and thinking, though they brought this vague inclination into more reasonable bounds, only served to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own country; and had I been merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere its gratification, for on no country have the charms of nature been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with their bright aërial tints; her valvalleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine;-no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. But Europe held forth the charms of storied and poetical association. There were to be seen the masterpieces of art, the refinements of highly cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local custom. My native country was full of youthful promise: Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age. Her very ruins told the history of times gone by, and every moldering stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander over the scenes of renowned achievement -to tread, as it were, in the footsteps of antiquity to loiter about the ruined castle to meditate on the falling tower—to escape, in short, from the commonplace realities of the present, and lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past. I had, beside all this, an earnest desire to see the great men of the earth. We have, it is true, our great men in America: not a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled among them in my time, and been almost withered by the shade into which they cast me; for there is nothing so baleful to a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the great man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of Europe; for I had read in the works of various philosophers, that all animals degenerated in America, and man among the number. A great man of Europe, thought I, must therefore be as superior to a great man of America as a peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson, and in this idea I was confirmed, by observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude of many English travelers among us, who, I was assured, were very little people in their own country. I will visit this land of wonders, thought I, and see the gigantic race from which I am degenerated. It has been either my good or evil lot to have my roving passion gratified. I have wandered through different countries, and witnessed many of the shifting scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied them with the eye of a philosopher; but rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the picturesque stroll from the window of one print-shop to another; caught sometimes by the delineations of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the entertainment of my friends. When, however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me at finding how my idle humor has led me aside from the great objects studied by every regular traveler who would make a book. I fear I shall give equal disappointment with an unlucky landscape painter, who had traveled on the continent, but, following the bent of his vagrant inclination, had sketched in nooks and corners and by-places. His sketch-book was accordingly crowded with cottages and landscapes and obscure ruins; but he had neglected to paint St. Peter's, or the Coliseum; the Cascade of Terni, or the Bay of Naples; and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole collection. ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam." MILTON ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.1 It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America. Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels through the Republic; but they seem intended to diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there is no people concerning whom the great mass of the British public have less pure information, or entertain more numerous prejudices. English travelers are the best and the worst in the world. Where no motives of pride or interest intervene, none can equal them for profound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphical descriptions of external objects; but when either the interest or reputation of their own country comes in collision with that of another, they go to the opposite extreme, and forget their usual probity and candor, in the indulgence of splenetic remark and an illiberal spirit of ridicule. Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more remote the country described. I would place implicit confidence in an Englishman's descriptions of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile; of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior of India; or of any other tract which other travelers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their fancies; but I would cautiously receive his account of his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices. It has also been the particular lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travelers. While men of philosoph 1 I.e., Areopagitica. ical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous nations with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Manchester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respecting America. . From such sources she is content to receive her information respecting a country in a singular state of moral and physical development; a country in which one of the greatest political experiments in the history of the world is now performing; and which presents the most profound and momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher. That such men should give prejudicial accounts of America is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a state of fermentation; it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it has already given proofs of powerful and generous qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into something substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indications of admirable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers; who are only affected by the little asperities incident to its present situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of things; of those matters which come in contact with their private interests and personal gratifications. They miss some of the snug conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an old, highly finished, and over-populous state of society; where the ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many earn a painful and servile subsistence by studying the very caprices of appetite and self-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all-important in the estimation of narrow minds; which either do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbalanced among us by great and generally diffused blessings. They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some unreasonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold |