disarmed by the absence of all malice in the gigantic humor of the composition.  One of the first foreigners to recognize the power and humor of the book was Walter Scott.  “I have never,” he wrote, “read anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker.  I have been employed these few evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing.  I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me of Sterne.”

The book is indeed an original creation, and one of the few masterpieces of humor.  In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of conception, and joyous vigor, it belongs to the springtime of literature.  It has entered into the popular mind as no other American book ever has, and it may be said to have created a social realm which, with all its whimsical conceit, has almost historical solidity.  The Knickerbocker pantheon is almost as real as that of Olympus.  The introductory chapters are of that elephantine facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, but which is exceedingly tedious to modern taste; and the humor of the book occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate to our apprehension, though it perhaps did not shock our great-grandmothers.  But, notwithstanding these blemishes, I think the work has more enduring qualities than even the generation which it first delighted gave it credit for.  The world, however, it must be owned, has scarcely yet the courage of its humor, and dullness still thinks it necessary to apologize for anything amusing.  There is little doubt that Irving himself supposed that his serious work was of more consequence to the world.

It seems strange that after this success Irving should have hesitated to adopt literature as his profession.  But for two years, and with leisure, he did nothing.  He had again some hope of political employment in a small way; and at length he entered into a mercantile partnership with his brothers, which was to involve little work for him, and a share of the profits that should assure his support, and leave him free to follow his fitful literary inclinations.  Yet he seems to have been mainly intent upon society and the amusements of the passing hour, and, without the spur of necessity to his literary capacity, he yielded to the temptations of indolence, and settled into the unpromising position of a “man about town.”  Occasionally, the business of his firm and that of other importing merchants being imperiled by some threatened action of Congress, Irving was sent to Washington to look after their interests.  The leisurely progress he always made to the capital through the seductive society of Philadelphia and Baltimore did not promise much business dispatch.  At the seat of government he was certain to be involved in a whirl of gayety.  His letters from Washington are more occupied with the odd characters he met than with the measures of legislation.  These visits greatly extended his acquaintance with the leading men of the country; his political leanings did not prevent an intimacy with the President’s family, and Mrs. Madison and he were sworn friends.