The “Sketch-Book” also received considerable new matter in the revised edition; and the story, in the preface, of the author’s connection with Scott and with Murray added new interest to the volume, which has always been the favorite with the public.  You will remember Mr. Bryant’s remark about the change in the tone of Mr. Irving’s temperament shown in this work as contrasted with Knickerbocker, and the probable cause of this change.  Mr. Bryant’s very delicate and judicious reference to the fact of Mr. Irving’s early engagement was undoubtedly correct.  A miniature of a young lady, intellectual, refined, and beautiful, was handed me one day by Mr. Irving, with the request that I would have a slight injury repaired by an artist and a new case made for it, the old one being actually worn out by much use.  The painting (on ivory) was exquisitely fine.  When I returned it to him in a suitable velvet case, he took it to a quiet corner and looked intently on the face for some minutes, apparently unobserved, his tears falling freely on the glass as he gazed.  That this was a miniature of the lady,—­Miss Hoffman, a sister of Ogden Hoffman,—­it is not now, perhaps, indelicate to surmise.  It is for a poet to characterize the nature of an attachment so loyal, so fresh, and so fragrant, forty years after death had snatched away the mortal part of the object of affection.

During one of his visits to the city, Mr. Irving suddenly asked if I could give him a bed at my house at Staten Island.  I could.  So we had a nice chatty evening, and the next morning we took him on a charming drive over the hills of Staten.  Island.  He seemed to enjoy it highly, for be had not been there, I believe, since he was stationed there in a military capacity, during the War of 1812, as aid of Governor Tompkins.  He gave us a humorous account of some of his equestrian performances, and those of the Governor, while on duty at the island; but neither his valor nor the Governor’s was tested by any actual contact with the enemy.

In facility of composition, Mr. Irving, I believe, was peculiarly influenced by “moods.”  When in his usual good health, and the spirit was on him, he wrote very rapidly; but at other times composition was an irksome task, or even an impossible one.  Dr. Peters says he frequently rose from his bed in the night and wrote for hours together.  Then again he would not touch his pen for weeks.  I believe his most rapidly written work was the one often pronounced his most spirited one, and a model as a biography, the “Life of Goldsmith.”  Sitting at my desk one day, he was looking at Forster’s clever work, which I proposed to reprint.  He remarked that it was a favorite theme of his, and he had half a mind to pursue it, and extend into a volume a sketch he had once made for an edition of Goldsmith’s Works.  I expressed a hope that he would do so, and within sixty days the first sheets of Irving’s “Goldsmith” were in the printer’s hands.  The press (as he says) was “dogging at his heels,” for in two or three weeks the volume was published.