I refer to this sentimental era—­remembering that its literary manifestation was only a surface disease, and recognizing fully the value of the great moral movement in purifying the national life—­because many regard its literary weakness as a legitimate outgrowth of the Knickerbocker School, and hold Irving in a manner responsible for it.  But I find nothing in the manly sentiment and true tenderness of Irving to warrant the sentimental gush of his followers, who missed his corrective humor as completely as they failed to catch his literary art.  Whatever note of localism there was in the Knickerbocker School, however dilettante and unfruitful it was, it was not the legitimate heir of the broad and eclectic genius of Irving.  The nature of that genius we shall see in his life.

CHAPTER II.

Boyhood.

Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783.  He was the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving, and the youngest of eleven children, three of whom died in infancy.  His parents, though of good origin, began life in humble circumstances.  His father was born on the island of Shapinska.  His family, one of the most respectable in Scotland, traced its descent from William De Irwyn, the secretary and armor-bearer of Robert Bruce; but at the time of the birth of William Irving its fortunes had gradually decayed, and the lad sought his livelihood, according to the habit of the adventurous Orkney Islanders, on the sea.

It was during the French War, and while he was serving as a petty officer in an armed packet plying between Falmouth and New York, that he met Sarah Sanders, a beautiful girl, the only daughter of John and Anna Sanders, who had the distinction of being the granddaughter of an English curate.  The youthful pair were married in 1761, and two years after embarked for New York, where they landed July 18, 1763.  Upon settling in New York William Irving quit the sea and took to trade, in which he was successful until his business was broken up by the Revolutionary War.  In this contest he was a staunch Whig, and suffered for his opinions at the hands of the British occupants of the city, and both he and his wife did much to alleviate the misery of the American prisoners.  In this charitable ministry his wife, who possessed a rarely generous and sympathetic nature, was especially zealous, supplying the prisoners with food from her own table, visiting those who were ill, and furnishing them with clothing and other necessaries.

Washington was born in a house on William Street, about half-way between Fulton and John; the following year the family moved across the way into one of the quaint structures of the time, its gable end with attic window towards the street, the fashion of which, and very likely the bricks, came from Holland.  In this homestead the lad grew up, and it was not pulled down till 1849, ten years before his death.  The