Irving

shrewdness which was so strong a part of his
nature. Most of all, in spite of the complete
sophistication of his twenty-third year in Eu-
rope, there is evidence of that perennial wistful-
ness for the ways of kings and pageantry, befit-
ting a disciple of Sir Walter Scott. He never
ceased, even in the corrupt life of the Madrid
of the forties, to find in the story of Isabella II
the mood of old romance.

When Irving returned to quiet "Sunnyside"
in 1846 thirteen years of life still remained. But
the long holiday from literary effort had done
its work. Writing had lost its zest He finished
his Oliver Goldsmith (1849), but this was but a
tame expansion of an early sketch made for
Galignani years before; Mahomet and His Sue-
cessors (2 vols., 1849-50), though it depended
upon some study of Arabic and original sources,
was a feeble repercussion of standard biogra-
phies of the prophet; and Wolf erfs Roost
(1855) though it contained charming memories
of his youth and his travels, was but a compila-
tion of stray leaves from his notebooks. For
eleven years he worked intermittently but gal-
lantly at the stupendous life of Washington, and
lived to see the fifth and final volume completed
in 1859, but the last vignette of him, broken in
health, fighting against a failing heart and nerv-
ous depression as he strove to fulfil this boyhood
impulse, is pitiful. It is a fairer picture of the
old Washington Irving, revered but now sup-
planted in literature by the bolder geniuses of
Emerson, Hawthorne, and Poe, to see him
ruddy-faced, albeit with the carefully disguised
wig, briskly walking his familiar Broadway, clad
in his Talma cloak, pointed out to strangers as
our first man of letters; or, to behold him peace-
ful in the home life, so essential to his sensitive
nature, which he had built for himself at "Sun-
nyside" despite the disappointments in Matilda
Hoffman, Emily Foster, and, it is said, in Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley, Here he lived, quietly,
pouring out recollections of Scott, Moore, and
Spanish scenes, with occasional visits to such
friends as Kennedy or Kemble, solid men, who,
like himself, and after the belief of his circle,
now thought literature rather a gentleman's avo-
cation than a profession. Here he lived, sur-
rounded by his devoted nieces, and visited rev-
erently by N. P, Willis, by Oliver Wendell
Holmes, by Donald Grant Mitchell, and by hosts
of others, all seeking to pluck, as did the French
from Voltaire's, a hair from his mantle. Here
he died, ending a life which owed its power not
only to marked, if limited, literary talents and
to essential sweetness of character, but also to

Irving
the coincidence of these gifts with the forma-
tive years of nineteenth-century America.
[A life by the author of this article will be published
in the near future. Present sources are P. M. Irving,
The Life and Letters of Washington Irving (4 vols.,
1862-64), rich in source materials but biased,- H. W.
Boyntpn, Washington Irving (1901); C. D. Warner,
Washington Irving (1881) ; G. S. Heilman, Washing-
ton Irving, Esquire; Ambassador at Large (1925);
Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort
(1915), ed. by G. S. Heilman; Letters of Henry Bre-
voort to Washington Irving (1916), ed. by G. S. Heil-
man; The Journals of Washington Irving (1919), ed.
by W. P. Trent and G. S. Heilman; Journal of Wash-
ington Irving, 1823-1824 (1931), ed. by S. T. Wil-
liams; Washington Irving Diary, 1828-1829 (1926),
ed. by C. L. Penney; Notes While Preparing Sketch
Book (19^7), ed. by S. T. Williams; Letters from Sun-
nyside and Spain (1928), ed. by S. T. Williams; Die-
drich Knickerbocker's A History of New York (1927),
ed. by S. T. Williams and Tremaine McDowell; S. T.
Williams, "Washington Irving and Fernan Caballero,"
in Jour, of English and Germanic Philology, July 1930 ;
S. T. Williams, "The First Version of the Writings of
Washington Irving in Spanish/' in Modern Philology,
Nov. 1930; H. A. Pochmann, "Irving's German Sources
in 'The Sketch Book/ " in Studies in Philology, July
1930; H. A. Pochmann, "Irving's German Tour and
Its Influence on His Tales," in Pubs, of the Modern
Language Asso., Dec. 1930. An important collection
of Irving manuscripts is in the N. Y. Pub. Lib.; an-
other is at Yale Univ. Other important documents are
in the possession of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore,
Harvard Univ., the Pa. Hist. Soc.; and Roderick Terry,
Newport, R. I.] S.T.W.
IRVING, WILLIAM (Aug. 15, i766-Nov. 9,
1821), poet, merchant, politician, was the eldest
surviving son of William and Sarah (Sanders)
Irving of New York, and the brother of Wash-
ington Irving [#.z>.], to whose career he was af-
fectionately devoted, as was his son Pierre
Munro Irving [#*#.]. William Irving evinced
an interest in politics, but his avocation, like that
of Peter Irving [$#.], another brother, was lit-
erature. He early declaimed "a piece from
Pope," for example, at the meetings of the "Cal-
liopean Society/' and in 1792 was one of its
vice-presidents. On Nov. 7, 1793 (Duyckinck,
post), he married Julia Padding. After a brief
experiment in business on the frontier he was
engaged for some years in trade at 208 Broad-
way, where his prosperity and that of his broth-
er Ebenezer enabled them to express their love
of the youngest brother, Washington, by send-
ing him abroad for two years. Annoyed by
Washington's dilettante escapades on his jour-
ney, William Irving nevertheless continued to
be guide to the younger brother, who on one
occasion spoke of him as "the man I loved most
on earth."
At the time of Washington Irving's return
from this first journey to Europe (1806), Wil-
liam Irving was forty years old, "a man/' said
James K. Padding [g.z>.], his brother-in-law,
"of great wit, genius, and originality." He joined
at once in the mirth and wit of "The Lads of