Irving whose customs were partly Scottish, partly Eng- lish, and always religious and literary. Deacon Irving was a Scotch Covenanter, and his last child received Presbyterian baptism, though in the Episcopal Chapel of St. George, where the Presbyterians were temporarily worshiping (Church Records, First Presbyterian Church). He was a precocious, undersized boy, "easily moved to pity and tears by a tale of distress"—a sensibility that later found poignant expression in his essays and tales. His was essentially a healthy nature, however, and his earliest recol- lections of the garden at 128 William St. were of romantic plays and games with his brothers and sisters. At the time of George Washington's in- auguration into the Presidency, the boy's nurse sought out the General and obtained his blessing for the lad. His education, in the various "male seminaries" of the city, was fragmentary. He obtained merely a superficial knowledge of geog- raphy, history, French, and Latin, but a contem- porary noted, even in these apprentice days his "quick foresightedness ... apt seizure of a novelty, a principle, or a fact" The real influ- ences of these formative years were in the genial life of the growing city. As a boy he mingled with the velvet-clad ladies and gentlemen, a so- cial level above his own middle-class family, who promenaded before the City Hall, where Con- gress was in session. He listened to the bookish talk of his brothers, William and Peter, both members of "The Calliopean Society." He stud- ied drawing with Archibald Robertson; he was friendly with the wood-engraver, Alexander An- derson [#.#.], and with the older brother, John Anderson, musician and artist He stole away from the family prayer meetings, over the roofs of the Dutch gabled houses, to attend secretly the little theatre in John Street. Gun on shoulder, he tramped the open country above Broadway and Bridewell, and shot squirrels in the woods along the Hudson. Thus he began what he called in old age his "early companionship with this glorious river." In quieter hours at home he lingered long over Newberry's picture books and the old prints of the Thames and London Bridge in the Gentleman's Magazine. In 1798 he entered the law office of Henry Masterton, and though for a time he was covetous of success, and though Longworth's Almanac of 1808 boasts of: "Irving, Washington, attorney at law 3 Wall," he soon wearied of his chosen profession, seeking every opportunity to diversify its monotony by society, by scribbling, and by travel Thus in 1803, he made his first contact witfa the frontier in a journal with the Hoffmans and Lttdlow Ogden through upper New York Irving State and Canada as far as Montreal. Enduring good-humoredly the hardships of the bumping ox-cart, swollen rivers, and wretched inns, he derived an indelible impression of the fascination of the pioneer's life. Returning to New York, he wrote for Peter Irving's Morning Chronicle and for his anonymous Burrite sheet, The Corrector. In the former for Nov. 15, 1802, he offered the first installment of "The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent," amateurish but lively satire on theatrical and social New York. These juvenilia won him a place in the tea-table gossip of the day. The affectionate brothers now regarded him with pride, not unmixed with anxiety, for he was obviously failing in health. To improve this and to solidify his talents, they sent him abroad; on May 19, 1804, he sailed for Bordeaux, for an ab- sence of nearly two years. His tour led him, reading Sterne and Mrs. Radcliffe, through Montpellier and Marseilles, to Genoa, whence he wrote home exuberant letters on the Italian thea- tres and the beauty of Genoese women. En route from Genoa to Sicily he was captured by pirates, and off Messina he beheld Nelson's fleet on pa- trol in the Mediterranean. Turning homeward, he met in Rome Washington Allston [