on the conclusion of peace.  “This place [writes Irving] swarms with Americans.  You never saw a more motley race of beings.  Some seem as if just from the woods, and yet stalk about the streets and public places with all the easy nonchalance that they would about their own villages.  Nothing can surpass the dauntless independence of all form, ceremony, fashion, or reputation of a downright, unsophisticated American.  Since the war, too, particularly, our lads seem to think they are ‘the salt of the earth’ and the legitimate lords of creation.  It would delight you to see some of them playing Indian when surrounded by the wonders and improvements of the Old World.  It is impossible to match these fellows by anything this side the water.  Let an Englishman talk of the battle of Waterloo, and they will immediately bring up New Orleans and Plattsburg.

“A thoroughbred, thoroughly appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky rifleman,” etc., etc.  In contrast to this sort of American was Charles King, who was then abroad:  “Charles is exactly what an American should be abroad:  frank, manly, and unaffected in his habits and manners, liberal and independent in his opinions, generous and unprejudiced in his sentiments towards other nations, but most loyally attached to his own.”  There was a provincial narrowness at that date and long after in America, which deprecated the open-minded patriotism of King and of Irving as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of Fenimore Cooper.

The most anxious time of Irving’s life was the winter of 1815-16.  The business worry increased.  He was too jaded with the din of pounds, shillings, and pence to permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn realities.  Nevertheless, he occasionally escapes from the treadmill.  In December he is in London, and entranced with the acting of Miss O’Neil.  He thinks that Brevoort, if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love with this “divine perfection of a woman.”  He writes:  “She is, to my eyes, the most soul-subduing actress I ever saw; I do not mean from her personal charms, which are great, but from the truth, force, and pathos of her acting.  I have never been so completely melted, moved, and overcome at a theatre as by her performances . . . .  Kean, the prodigy, is to me insufferable.  He is vulgar, full of trick, and a complete mannerist.  This is merely my opinion.  He is cried up as a second Garrick, as a reformer of the stage, etc.  It may be so.  He may be right, and all the other actors wrong.  This is certain:  he is either very good or very bad.  I think decidedly the latter; and I find no medium opinions concerning him.  I am delighted with Young, who acts with great judgment, discrimination, and feeling.  I think him much the best actor at present on the English stage . . . .  In certain characters, such as may be classed with Macbeth, I do not think that Cooper has his equal in England.  Young is the only actor I have seen who can compare with him.”  Later, Irving somewhat modified his opinion of Kean.  He wrote to Brevoort:  “Kean is a strange compound of merits and defects.  His excellence consists in sudden and brilliant touches, in vivid exhibitions of passion and emotion.  I do not think him a discriminating actor, or critical either at understanding or delineating character; but he produces effects which no other actor does.”