Washington Irving was so important a figure, so self-conscious a writer, and so given to romantic irony and satirizing authorship that the meagerness of his literary criticism and scholarship is disappointing. Irving had little use for criticism as it was practiced. He believed that critics should judge literature according to established canons of taste and teach authors to correct their faults. Since critics fell far short of this ideal, he sided with artists against critics and urged readers to put more trust in their own judgment. In his own criticism, Irving deplored extravagance and hyperbole, praised simplicity and nobility of style and clarity of thought, indulged a taste for the picturesque and sentimental, and looked to England for his standards. Above all, he tried to be fair, balancing censure and praise.

Washington Irving was the youngest of eleven children (eight survived infancy) born to William and Sarah Sanders...