with the literary merits of the young American ?-for such acquaintance he seems to have had. Lockhart shall again be our spokesman :

"Scott had received The History of New York by Knickerbocker, shortly after its appearance in 1812, from an accomplished American traveller, Mr. Brevoort; and the admirable humor of this early work had led him to anticipate the brilliant career which its author has since run. Mr. Thomas Campbell, being no stranger to Scott's high estimate of Irving's genius, gave him a letter of introduction," &c.

It so happens-though it is hardly an accident, either-that we have before us a fac-simile of Scott's letter to Mr. Henry Brevoort, acknowledging the receipt of Knickerbocker's History of New York; and it is strictly to our present purpose-the citation of opinions upon Irving's works-to quote this epistle for the gratification of the reader:

My Dear Sir-I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have received from the most excellently-jocose history of New York. I am sensible that as a stranger to American parties and politics, I must lose much of the concealed satire of the piece; but I must own that, looking at the simple and obvious meaning only, I have never read any thing so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been 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 laughing. I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different kind, and [he] has some touches which remind me much of Sterne, I beg you will have the kindness to let me know when Mr. Irving takes pen in hand again, for assuredly I shall expect a very great treat,

which I may chance never to hear of but through your kindness.

Believe

me, dear sir,

"Your obliged and humble servant,

"Abbotsford, 23d April, 1813.”

"WALTER Scorr.

We have already seen that it was to the friendly offices of Scott that Irving was indebted for the happy circumstance which made John Murray his publisher, and the handsome tribute to both these gentlemen which appears in the Preface to the revised edition of The Sketch-Book (New York, 1848), must not be omitted in this place:

"From that time [the publication of The Sketch-Book in 1820] Murray became my publisher, conducting himself in all his dealings with that fair, open, and liberal spirit which had obtained for him the well-merited appellation of the Prince of Booksellers. Thus, under the kind and cordial auspices of Sir Walter Scott, I began my literary career in Europe; and I feel that I am but discharging, in a trifling degree, my debt of gratitude to the memory of that golden-hearted man, in acknowledging my obligations to him. But who of his literary contemporaries ever applied to him for aid or counsel, that did not experience the most prompt, generous, and effectual assistance?

We continue the quotation of opinions :

“Equally or more admired [than Salmagundi] was Knickerbocker's History of New York, a work to be compared with any thing of the kind in our language; a book of unwearying pleasantry, which, instead of flashing out, as English and American humor is wont, from time to time, with long and dull intervals, is kept up with a true French vivacity from beginning to end; a book which, if it have a fault, has only that of being too pleasant, too sustained a tissue of merriment and ridicule."-EDWARD EVERETT: N. Amer. Rev., xv. 206, July, 1822.

"It has the same faults and same good qualities in its style, its wit and humor; and its characters are evidently by the same hand as the leading ones in Salmagundi, though not copies from them. They are perfectly fresh and original, and suited to their situations. Too much of the first part of the first volume is laborious and up-hill; and there are places, here and there, in the last part, to which there is the same objection. Our feelings seldom flag in the second."-RICHARD H. Dana, Sr.: N. Amer. Rev., ix. 345, Sept. 1819.

"This we consider as equal to the best, and in some respects perhaps superior to any other, of our author's productions, [viz.: Oldstyle, Salmagundi, Naval Biographies, The Sketch-Book, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, and Columbus.] It is the one which exhibits most distinctly the stamp of real inventive power, the true test, as we have hinted, of genius. The plan, though simple enough, and when hit upon sufficiently obvious, is entirely original.”—ALEX. H. EVERETT: N. Amer. Rev., xxviii. 117-118, Jan. 1829.

"The most elaborate piece of humor in our literature,— Irving's facetious history of his native town."-HENRY T. TUCKERMAN: Sketch of Amer. Lit.

"Of the point of many of the allusions contained in this political satire, partaking somewhat of the style of Swift's Tale of a Tub, and in which more than one President of the United States figures, we very much lament that we are not fully competent to judge. To us it is a tantalizing book, of which all that we understand is so good, and affords us so much pleasure, even through an imperfect acquaintance with it, that we cannot but conclude that a thorough knowledge of the whole point in every part would be a treat indeed."-Lon. Quar. Rev., xxxi. 475, March, 1825.

Another English authority does not consider that Irving was so invariably allegorical as the critic just quoted seems to sup

pose:

"By nine readers out of ten, perhaps, Knickerbocker is read as a piece of generous drollery,-nothing more. Be it so. It will wear the better. The design of Irving himself is not always clear, nor was he always undeviating in his course. Truth or fable, fact or falsehood,—it was all the same to him, if a bit of material came in his way. In a word, we look upon this volume of Knickerbocker-though it is tiresome, though there are some wretched failures in it, a little overdoing of the humorous, and a little confusion of purpose throughout-as a work honorable to English literature, manly, bold, and so altogether original, without being extravagant, as to stand alone among the labors of men."-American Writers, No. 4, in Blackw. Mag., xvii. 62, Jan. 1825.

"To speak the plain truth, Diedrich Knickerbocker is, after all, our favorite. There is more richness of humor, and there is more strength of language too, in these earlier efforts."-Ibid., xiv. 504, Nov. 1823.

"The whole book is a jeu-d'esprit, and perhaps its only fault is, that no jeu-d'esprit ought to be quite so long as to fill two closely-printed volumes."-Ibid., vii. 361, July, 1820, (by J. G. Lockhart.)

The eloquent historian of the Conquest of Mexico, in a dissertation upon the Right of Title by Discovery, after referring the reader to some of the great legal luminaries of different countries,-to Vattel, Kent, and Wheaton,-concludes with the following allusion to the erudite essay of our ancient friend, the chronicler of the early fortunes of Nieuw-Nederlandts:

"If it were not treating a grave discussion too lightly, I should crave leave to refer the reader to the renowned Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York, (book 1, chap. 5,) for a luminous disquisition on this knotty question. At all events, he will find there the popular arguments subjected to the test of ridicule, a test showing, more than any reasoning can, how

much, or rather how little, they are really worth."--Prescott's Hist. of the Conquest of Mexico, 23d. ed., Bost., 1855, ii. 33, n.

For further notices of Knickerbocker's History of New York, see Lon. Month. Rev., xciv. 67; Lon. Athen., 1832, 458; Knickerbocker Mag., iii. 1; GRAHAME, JAMES, p. 717, in this Dictionary.

3. THE SKETCH-BOOK, 1819-20.

It is positively

"I have glanced over the Sketch-Book. beautiful, and increases my desire to crimp you, if it be possible." -Sir Walter Scott to Washington Irving, offering him the editorship (with a salary of £500 per annum) of a projected Edinburgh weekly literary periodical. This offer was gratefully declined by Irving.

"But, though it is primarily for its style and composition that we are induced to notice this book, it would be quite unjust to the author not to add, that he deserves very high commendation for its more substantial qualities; and that we have seldom seen a work that gave us a more pleasing impression of the writer's character, or a more favorable one of his judgment and taste. . . . It seemed fair and courteous not to stint a stranger on his first introduction to our pages; and what we have quoted, we are persuaded, will justify all that we have said in his favor. We have found the book in the hands of most of those to whom we have thought of mentioning it."-LORD JEFFREY: Edin. Rev., xxxiv. 161, 168, 176, Aug. 1820.

...

"Few recent publications have been so well received in England as the Sketch-Book. Several of the Waverley novels have passed through fewer editions than this agreeable work, and the journals of most consequence have paid the highest compliments to its merit. We are nevertheless free to confess, that we think The Sketch-Book, as a whole, inferior to the author's earlier