writings.-EDWARD EVERETT: N. Amer. Rev., xv. 208, July, 1822. "We will be open with him, and tell him that we do not think the change is for the better. He appears to have lost a little of that natural run of style for which his lighter writings were so remarkable. He has given up something of his direct, simple manner, and plain phraseology, for a more studied, periphrastical mode of expression. He seems to have exchanged words and phrases which were strong, distinct, and definite, for a genteel sort of language, cool, less definite, and general. It is as if his mother-English had been sent abroad to be improved, and, in attempting to become accomplished, had lost too many of her home qualities. . . . The Sketch-Book is extremely popular, and it is worthy of being so. Yet it is with surprise that we have heard its style indiscriminately praised. . . . Had we thought less highly of his powers, we should have said less about his errors. Did we not take delight in reading him, we should have been less earnest about his mistakes. . . . He is a man of genius, and able to bear his faults."-RICHARD H. DANA, SR.: N. Amer. Rev., ix. 348, 350, 356, Sept. 1819. ... "The characteristics of the Sketch-Book are essentially the same with those of the preceding work; but, with somewhat more polish and elegance, it has somewhat less vivacity, freshness, and power. This difference constitutes the distinction between Mr. Irving's first and second manner, the latter of which is preserved in all his subsequent publications, excepting the one · immediately before us [Life of Columbus]. Of these two manners, the one or the other may perhaps be preferred by different readers, according to their different tastes. We incline ourselves to the former, conceiving that spirit and vigor are the highest qualities of style, and that the loss of any merit of this description is but poorly compensated by a little additional finish."ALEX. H. EVERETT: N. Amer. Rev., xxviii. 119, Jan. 1829. "His stories of Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow are per haps the finest pieces of original fictitious writing that this country has produced, next to the works of Scott."-Chambers's Cyc. Eng. Lit., Edin., 1844, ii. 594. Dr. Dibdin, a Nestor among critics, cannot find words sufficiently strong in which to express his admiration of The SketchBook. Referring to Mr. Roscoe, he remarks: "This is probably the last time that his name will adorn these pages; and in taking leave of it, how can I better express my feelings than in the beautiful language of the author of The Sketch-Book?"-Library Companion, ed. 1825, 542. Again: "I know of few passages-indeed, I know of none—which so completely and so deliciously (if I may so speak) describe the comforts of a well-stored library as the following, from the author of The Sketch-Book: 'When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value,' &c." The doctor quotes to the end of the next paragraph, and then demands, “Can sentiment (I ask) be purer, or language more harmonious, than this?"—Ubi supra, p. 544. See also p. 346. "The Sketch-Book is a timid, beautiful work; with some childish pathos in it; some rich, pure, bold poetry; a little squeamish, puling, lady-like sentimentality; some courageous writing, some wit, and a world of humor, so happy, so natural, so altogether unlike that of any other man, dead or alive, that we would rather have been the writer of it, fifty times over, than of every thing else that he has ever written. The touches of poetry are every where; but never where we would look for them. Irving has no passion: he fails utterly in true pathos,—cannot speak as if he were carried away by any thing. He is always thoughtful; and, save when he tries to be fine or sentimental, always natural. The dusty splendor' of Westminster Abbey, the 'ship staggering' over the precipices of the ocean, the shark 'darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters,'-all these things are poetry, such poetry as never was, never will be, surpassed. We could mention fifty more passages,-epithets of power, which no mere prose writer would have dared, under any circumstances, to use."-American Writers, No. 4, in Blackw. Mag., xvii. 65, Jan. 1825. "We trust some arrangement has been entered into by virtue of which the succeeding numbers of this exquisite miscellany may be early given to the English public; who, we are sure, are, at least, as much inclined to receive them well as the American. Mr. Washington Irving is one of our first favorites among the English writers of this age, and he is not a bit the less so for having been born in America."—Blackw. Mag., vii. 361, July, 1820, (by J. G. Lockhart.) We have already quoted Lockhart's opinion of The SketchBook in a preceding page, q. v. See also Christopher North's Noctes Ambrosianæ, July, 1822, and May, 1823. "Of the merit of his Knickerbocker and New York Stories, we cannot pretend to judge. But in his Sketch-Book and Bracebridge Hall he gives us very good American copies of our British Essayists and Novelists, which may be very well on the other side of the water, or as proofs of the capabilities of the national genius, but which might be dispensed with here, where we have to boast of the originals. Not only Mr. Irving's language is with great taste and felicity modelled on that of Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne, or Mackenzie, but the thoughts and sentiments are taken at the rebound, and, as they are brought forward at the present period, want both freshness and probability. Mr. Irving's writings are literary anachronisms. He comes to England for the first [the second] time; and, being on the spot, fancies himself in the midst of those characters and manners which he had read of in The Spectator and other approved authors, and which were the only idea he had hitherto formed of the parent-country. Instead of looking around to see what we are, he sets to work to describe us as we were, at second-hand.”—Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age. As this charge of literary anachronism-has often been urged against some of the graphic scenes depicted in The SketchBook and Bracebridge Hall, it is only just to allow the author to be heard in his own defence: "At the time of the first publication of this paper [The Christmas Dinner, in the Sketch-Book], the picture of an oldfashioned Christmas in the country was pronounced by some as out of date. The author had afterwards an opportunity of witnessing almost all the customs above described, existing in unexpected vigor in the skirts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, where he passed the Christmas holidays. The reader will find some account of them in the author's account of his sojourn in Newstead Abbey."-Note to revised edit. of The Sketch-Book, New York, 1848, p. 298. We lack space to quote Mr. Irving's description of the primitive customs which he found in full and honored observance in different parts of England,-customs which, as he remarks, ... "Have only been pronounced obsolete by those who draw their experience merely from city life. It has been deemed that some of the anecdotes of holiday customs given in my preceding writings, related to usages which have entirely passed away. Critics who reside in cities have little idea of the primitive manners and observances which still prevail in remote and rural neighborhoods."-Crayon Miscellany: Newstead Abbey, N. York, 1848, 298, 299. Mr. Irving's comments are fully endorsed by an eminent English authority: "The accuracy of his pictures of old English customs and sports, which he represents as flourishing under the influence of the benevolent squire, has been questioned, we know, by suburban readers in our opinion, and according to our experience, there is nothing too highly colored in them. [The writer then proceeds to prove his position.] We think, therefore, that, far from ex ceeding the limits of probability in this respect, Mr. Irving has hardly made the full use of northern customs which was really open to him. Nor can we see any thing overdrawn in the characters themselves."-Lon. Quar. Rev., xxxi. 476, 477, March, 1825. The Dublin University Magazine remarks, in the same strain: "Bracebridge Hall is the only account we have which gives any thing like a true picture of the life of an English country gentleman of our own day."-May, 1835, 554. Other reviews of The Sketch-Book appeared in the Lon. Quar. Rev., xxv. 50; Lon. Month. Rev., xciii. 198; Edin. Month. Rev., iv. 303. In our life of Lord Byron, p. 322 of this Dictionary, will be found an interesting account of the enthusiastic admiration expressed by his lordship of The Sketch-Book and its author. Before we leave our subject, we must not forget to copy an entry in Moore's Diary, in which the success of The Sketch-Book at its first appearance is referred to: "Dined with McKay at the table-d'hote, at Meurice's, for the purpose of being made known to Mr. Washington Irving, the author of the work which has lately had success, The Sketch-Book ; a good-looking and intelligent-mannered man."-Paris, Dec. 21, 1820. 4. BRACEBRIDGE HALL; OR, THE HUMORISTS, 1822: "The great charm and peculiarity of his work consists now, |