WASHINGTON IRVING 1783-1859 The youngest of eleven children, Washington Irving was born in New York City in 1783. He received only a common school education, but soon developed a marked taste for literature, which was encouraged and confirmed by the success of some contributions to a paper edited by one of his older brothers. Ill-health suggested a trip to Europe. He remained two years, and the mental impressions and stimulus he received were such that this journey may properly be regarded as his university education. On his return, in 1807, Irving helped to launch a periodical called "Salmagundi," in frank imitation of the "Spectator," which was well received. In 1809 he published his "History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker," the most delightful and ably sustained burlesque in American literature. This work at once made Irving the most noted of American men of letters, but his happiness was clouded by the death of the young lady whom he was engaged to marry. Although he recovered from the blow, he never married. Owing to the business reverses of a mercantile house in which Irving was interested, he determined to rely henceforth upon his literary efforts for a livelihood. In 1819 he published the "Sketch Book." Murray, the English publisher having at first refused it, only undertook the venture on the personal solicitation of Walter Scott. It proved a great success, both in England and America. Bracebridge Hall" followed in 1822. These books contain some of his finest work, and are widely studied as models of English composition. After publishing "Tales of a Traveller" in 1824, Irving went to Spain for the purpose of translating some newly discovered papers referring to Columbus. Becoming interested in the subject, he wrote his admirable "History of Columbus," and this was followed by the "Conquest of Granada," The Alhambra," and several other charming books on early Spanish history. 66 In 1832 Irving returned to the United States, after an absence of seven years, being everywhere received with genuine enthusiasm. He now purchased the beautiful cottage "Sunnyside" at Tarrytown-onthe-Hudson to pass here quietly, as he thought, his remaining years. In 1842, however, he returned once more to Europe, this time in the honored capacity of American Minister to Spain, an office which he filled with distinction for four years. Having served his country well, he now devoted himself to preparing his "Life of Washington." This work of five volumes he only completed at the cost of great physical suffering. He died in his Sunnyside home at Tarrytown, in 1859, at the age of seventy-six. Irving's position in American literature is deservedly high. Not only was he the first of the group of writers who are the founders of American literature, but he was the first American writer to arouse the interest of Englishmen, or, as Thackeray's graceful phrase puts it, "the first ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old." Irving was not a versatile writer. He wrote no poetry. His essay on "The Mutability of Literature" is one of the most important of his papers in the essay style. His is master of the short story, and several of his efforts in this field rank among the finest in all literature. Diedrich Knickerbocker, Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane, and especially Rip Van Winkle, have become household names. His style is clear, musical, full of delicate touches, and pervaded with an indescribable charm that emanated from the genial character of the man. T THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY I know that all beneath the moon decays, That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. HERE are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries and build our air-castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection; when suddenly an interruption of madcap boys from Westminster School, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library. He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage leading to the chapter-house and the chamber in which Doomsday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key; it was double-locked, and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a dark, narrow staircase, and, passing through a second door, entered the library. I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joints of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the Church in his robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the centre of the library was a solitary table with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers, echoing soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away; the bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a venerable elbow-chair. Instead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air, and lifeless quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but consider the library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in dusty oblivion. How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some aching head! how many weary days! how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters; shut themselves up from the face of man, and the still more blessed face of nature; and devoted themselves to painful research and intense reflection! And all for what? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf-to have the title of their works read now and then in a future age, by some drowsy churchman or casual straggler like myself; and in another age to be lost, even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which has just tolled among these towers, filling the ear for a moment-lingering transiently in echo-and then passing away like a thing that was not! While I sat half murmuring, half meditating these unprofitable speculations, with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I accidentally loosened the clasps; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep; then a husky “hem "; and at length began to talk. At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb which some studious spider had woven across it; and having probably contracted a cold from long exposure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceedingly fluent, conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation, what in the present day would be deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to render it in modern parlance. It began with railings about the neglect of the world-about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained bitterly that it had not been opened for more than two centuries. That the dean only looked now and then into the library, sometimes took down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few moments, and then returned them to their shelves. "What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric-" what a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up here, and watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the dean? Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed; and I would have a rule passed that the dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year; or, if he is not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn loose the whole School of Westminster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing." "Softly, my worthy friend," replied I; "you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of your generation. By being stored away in this ancient library, you are like |