he belonged to the idealists, and not to the realists, whom our generation affects.  Both writers stimulate the longing for something better.  Their creed was short:  “Love God and honor the King.”  It is a very good one for a literary man, and might do for a Christian.  The supernatural was still a reality in the age in which they wrote.  Irving’s faith in God and his love of humanity were very simple; I do not suppose he was much disturbed by the deep problems that have set us all adrift.  In every age, whatever is astir, literature, theology, all intellectual activity, takes one and the same drift, and approximates in color.  The bent of Irving’s spirit was fixed in his youth, and he escaped the desperate realism of this generation, which has no outcome, and is likely to produce little that is noble.

I do not know how to account, on principles of culture which we recognize, for our author’s style.  His education was exceedingly defective, nor was his want of discipline supplied by subsequent desultory application.  He seems to have been born with a rare sense of literary proportion and form; into this, as into a mold, were run his apparently lazy and really acute observations of life.  That he thoroughly mastered such literature as he fancied there is abundant evidence; that his style was influenced by the purest English models is also apparent.  But there remains a large margin for wonder how, with his want of training, he could have elaborated a style which is distinctively his own, and is as copious, felicitous in the choice of words, flowing, spontaneous, flexible, engaging, clear, and as little wearisome when read continuously in quantity as any in the English tongue.  This is saying a great deal, though it is not claiming for him the compactness, nor the robust vigor, nor the depth of thought, of many other masters in it.  It is sometimes praised for its simplicity.  It is certainly lucid, but its simplicity is not that of Benjamin Franklin’s style; it is often ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, and always exceedingly melodious.  It is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity.  But it was not in the sympathetic nature of the author, to which I just referred, to come sharply to the point.  It is much to have merited the eulogy of Campbell that he had “added clarity to the English tongue.”  This elegance and finish of style (which seems to have been as natural to the man as his amiable manner) is sometimes made his reproach, as if it were his sole merit, and as if he had concealed under this charming form a want of substance.  In literature form is vital.  But his case does not rest upon that.  As an illustration his “Life of Washington” may be put in evidence.  Probably this work lost something in incisiveness and brilliancy by being postponed till the writer’s old age.  But whatever this loss, it is impossible for any biography to be less pretentious in style, or less ambitious in proclamation.  The only pretension of matter is in the early chapters, in which a more