EDITOR’S PREFACE.

The present reprint of the following papers has grown out of the repeated demand, of late years, for an edition of Salmagundi, worthy to accompany the collected volumes of the writings of the distinguished authors. The book would probably have been included by Mr. Irving in the revised edition of his works, had it been wholly his own. It was published some time ago, in the series of the writings of his friend and relative, the joint author of the essays, Mr. Paulding, and though it had been long out of print in that form, Mr. Irving did not seem disposed to break the association. He was accustomed, indeed, to speak of it as a light, trivial publication, the sport of his boyish days; and he certainly showed no eagerness in reviving it; but we cannot suppose him insensible to the many excellences which the work undoubtedly possesses—charms of manner and of thought springing from the fresh joyous period of youth, and lending their grace to the brightest pages of his matured labors. Salmagundi is the literary parent, not only of the “Sketch Book” and the “Alhambra,” but of all the intermediate and subsequent productions of Irving, even of some slight ornaments of the graver offspring of the “Columbus” and “Washington.” There is, for instance, in one of the later numbers, a chapter of “The Chronicles of the renowned viand Ancient City of Gotham,” which anticipates the humor of Knickerbocker; there are traits of tenderness and pathos suggestive of the plaintive sentiment of the “Sketch Book;” and the kindly humors of the Cockloft mansion are an American “Bracebridge Hall.”

The book in fact, is every way in place in company with the series of Mr. Irving’s writings. It was not all of his composition, to be sure, nor did it receive that care of revision at his hands, bestowed upon his other compositions in his latest editions; but, without separating his part from the rest, and making every allowance for inexperience of style, we may readily enough detect throughout its pages the genius of Washington Irving.

Leaving the particular elucidation of the special authorship of the various articles to his literary executor and biographer, if he shall think proper in his forthcoming work to make such an investigation and disclosure, we may here generally state, for the information of the reader, that Salmagundi was the joint production of William Irving, James Kirke Paulding, and Washington Irving. It is well known that the humorous and sentimental poetry of the work was wholly written by William Irving, who was at the time a merchant of New York, and some seventeen years older than his brother Washington. The genial and inventive faculties of William Irving were of a high order. Besides the poetry of Salmagundi, the work is indebted to him for occasional hints and sketches worked up by his brother, among which may be mentioned the amusing picture of the civic militia exercises in the letter of Mustapha, in the fifth number, and the equally humorous sketch, of more serious import, of the political “slang-whangers” in the fourteenth.

viiWilliam Irving married the sister of James Kirke Paulding, who came from his home in Westchester County, to New York, for the first time, on a visit to his new relative. He found the house of his brother-in-law in the city the genial resort of a knot of wits and humorists who graced the Calliopean Society, a literary institution of those days. An intimacy with Washington Irving sprang up, of which in due time came the joint authorship of Salmagundi, which was thus a species of family party. A considerable portion of the book was written by Paulding. We may, perhaps, trace his pen in the oriental papers, a form of writing for which he retained a liking, and which he practiced with great spirit and elegance to the last. Many of the exquisite passages of description of nature were undoubtedly written by him. “Mine Uncle John,” a mellow, fine toned portrait, was his work, and he had a hand in “Autumnal Reflections,” one of the most refined sentimental papers of the volume. It is, perhaps, a common misapprehension of this eminent writer, that his pen was wanting in geniality, and that he took rather a splenetic view of life. This notion has probably arisen from the admission of a controversial element into his productions where, perhaps, it might have been better shut out; but certainly, with this exception, no American writer has spread upon his page more feeling observation, more friendly truths, more genial sympathies. His favorite method of the apologue affords a kindly proof of this, which is not to be mistaken by those skilled in literary physiognomy.

Some ten years or more after the conclusion of Salmagundi, Paulding ventured alone upon a second series. Washington Irving was in Europe, and viiithe muse of Pindar Cockloft was silent. It was a dangerous undertaking, for the very essence of a Salmagundi is the combination of divers ingredients—a product of many minds. The new work proved a little too uniform and didactic in parts. Geoffrey Crayon could have pruned and heightened it here and there. Yet it contains many delightful pages. There is, among other things, a charming account of a further visit to the old Cockloft Hall, inviting as the old. One passage in it—the death of old Cæsar—has a genuine touch of pathos. The cherry-tree had fallen which he had assisted his master to plant sixty years before, and the poor negro “seemed smitten with the same blast that leveled it. It was curious,” concludes the little narrative, “to see how the errors of his early impressions—for he was sixteen years old when brought from Africa—had mixed up with the simple ideas implanted subsequently, respecting the Christian religion. His kind mistresses ministered to the wants of his soul, as well as the infirmities of his body, and endeavored to make him comprehend the mysteries of our faith. But they were beyond his reach. He feared, he said, ‘the Lord would not know him’—meaning that, lowly as he was, it might escape the Divinity that such a being had ever existed. His decay was gradual, but the state of his mind was singularly compounded of the mistakes of ignorance and the ramblings of lightheadedness, as it is called. The day before he died I was in to see him. ‘Massa Launcelot,’ said he, ‘think old negro like me ever go to heaven?’ ‘I warrant you, old Cæsar,’ replied I. He seemed comforted with the assurance, but still a doubt hung on his mind—‘What will old negro like me do there?’—Then his eye seemed glad for a moment, and his ixlast words were—‘Never mind—I can wait upon the angels.’”

While we write, the remains of this author, at the venerable age of eighty-two, are being borne to the tomb. It is due to his memory, and to his generous participation in the literature of the day, to express the opinion that when the productions of Paulding, now for some time hidden from the world, shall be revived, the public will again find in them, a freshness and interest, a spirit and humor, unabated since their first appearance. To the inhabitants of New York in particular, they will present strong claims to attention, for the author, though he turned his back upon the city, was a genuine son of Manhattan.

Of the third writer, Washington Irving, it is not necessary here to speak, nor have we occasion, as we have said, further to point out his share in the work. The many graces and excellences of his style are too well known for the reader to need a guide to find them out. He will meet everywhere in these pages the first sprightly efforts of invention, the playful humor, the sportive fancy, the tender sentiment which constituted in youth as in age—Washington Irving.

A word should be said of the publisher of the work, David Longworth, a gentleman as much given to whimwhams as any of the race so pleasantly satirized in the little yellow-covered numbers which he sent forth fortnightly to the public. He was the theatrical publisher of the day, in the neighborhood of the old Park Theatre, then a new building, holding his place of business on the spot now sacred so the good cheer of Windust. Here he displayed, on the outer wall, a huge painting of the crowning of Shakespeare; while within, a distinction for those xtimes in the infant state of the arts, his shop boasted as its attraction a series of the prints of Alderman Boydell’s recently published Shakespeare Gallery. He had been a printer, and had ingrafted on his occupation a taste for elegance in typography, engraving, and binding. His beautiful “Telemachus” and other publications, would, in our day, be simply accounted neat; but in his time they made a sensation, very much as luxuries of furniture and living, now enjoyed by everybody, were then considered somewhat aristocratic, and reserved only for undoubted affluence. But Longworth had a special whim for elegance. He called his shop, by a fine effort of the imagination, “The Sentimental Epicure’s Ordinary;” and as a proof of his judgment, trifled with the English language. In the original edition of some of his books, proper names are spelt with small initial letters. Oddly enough, the man who was so grandiloquent himself would not allow New York its appropriate capitals. It must be written new-york, and portly philadelphia must dwindle in lower-case. The wags of Salmagundi, while they were laughing at the town, must sometimes have been tempted to place a full length of their humorist publisher on his pages.

Salmagundi was quite a success on its first appearance. It did not make a fortune for its authors. That was hardly to be expected of so modest a little pamphlet; but it created its impression. Slight as it was in form, and apparently written off so carelessly, it was really the most formidable incursion which had yet been made in America into the realm of taste in this species of literature. Franklin had written a half dozen agreeable essays for a newspaper, and addressed a few complimentary apologues to the French ladies. Francis Hopkinson xiwas really an elegant author, who, like Belknap in the Foresters, had turned the graces of his pen to the decoration of politics; Dennie wrote some ingenious lay sermons, and was steeped in rhetorical refinements: but none of these were read by the fair. We do not, indeed, recall a single book written in America worthy of Belinda’s toilet-table before Salmagundi.

As for the success out of doors, it must have been a cheerful thing to witness. Dr. Francis, the genial reminiscent, tells us:—

“Ere half a dozen numbers of Salmagundi were issued, quite a commotion arose among the literati and the public concerning the work and its authors. The humble drudges about town, who had lived obscurely, yet fancied themselves members of the literary world by their revision of Dilworth; and the editors of catechisms with explanatory notes, were astounded at that greater eclat which elegant letters secured, and which was denied to their uninventive products; while fashionable coteries everywhere were prodigal of conjectures from what mine the gold dust was brought to light for the commonwealth of letters. Salmagundi was found at almost every tea-table. The sale announced the fact that literary property was both vendible and profitable.”

The “characters” sketched in these pleasant papers were doubtless drawn more or less from the life, and included most of the notabilities of the town, with occasionally a glance beyond it. There are said to be some touches of Dennie, the essayist and critic of Philadelphia, in Launcelot Langstaff. A whole bevy of beaux and belles saw themselves reflected in the Ding Dongs and Sophy Sparkles. The base metal of Brummagem adventurers and spendthrifts was nailed to the counter by the satire of xiiStraddle: theatrical critics were silenced by a glance at themselves in the mirror of ’Sbidlikens; fashionable upstarts shrank from the portraits of the Giblets; the small-beer of the politician soured at the thundering satire of Dabble; the feathers of the carpet soldiers wilted when they were paraded in the regiment of the Fag-rags. Salmagundi was the mild terror of the town when society was not too overgrown an instrument to be played upon by a cunning musician.

New York was a queer place then, as our own New York may be, doubtless, to our descendants fifty years hence, if they have a pair of Salmagundi spectacles to see it with. There were all sorts of humors afloat, small and great, from fashionable nothings, with their idle brains, to the heads of great projectors teeming with national wonders. We see something of all in the book. There is that North River Society which figures on so many pages. Were the wits conscious how much of the future these humorous projectors, the Stevenses, the Livingstons, and Fultons, held in as yet uncrystalized solution in their vagaries? Mr. Ichabod Fungus laughs at that “aquatic mole or water rat,” the “Torpedo,” with which the great inventor entertained the town at the Battery, but we hear nothing of his waggery when the Clermont ascends the Hudson. It was the heyday, too, of the Jeffersonian era, and the reader may get a very good idea of the feelings entertained towards the sage of Monticello, in respect to his “economical” administration of embargos and gun-boats.

How distant it all seems—far removed as the days of the “Spectator” itself, the parent of this fluttering progeny of humors and anticipations of the gentle essayists. There is nothing of New York xiiiof the present time in its pages—of our bustling, driving, busy era. The town seems then to have had an hour or two for a little tea-table chat. The demon of ceaseless work had not then taken such full possession of the world. There was something to laugh over, and sorrow had leisure for a tear. There were actors then; people went to the theatre, and talked over the performance when they came away. Where is the great George Frederick now, and the gentle accents of Cooper? The poor wizened Frenchmen, exiles of Europe and Saint Domingo, whose quaint habits so perplexed My Aunt Charity, where are they? Vanished from earth, but not before their fadeless images were stamped within the leaves of this book.

Well, all have gone, writers and actors. The garments of the beaux would startle us like ghosts if we were to look into the old wardrobes; the beauty of the belles has withered into ashes; good and evil undreamt of have come out of the inventors and politicians; a new generation swarms with a new set of follies, and we write the eulogies and epitaphs of the departed humorists. So runs the world away, will be the reflection of the reader as he lays down these sprightly pages, redolent of youth and vivacity, of the spring-time of life, when satire itself has no bitterness, though it may affect scornful words and frowning emphasis, when hope spreads its gayest hues of promise, and melancholy itself has its tinct of eloquence and pleasure.

The text of this edition is that of the original work as it was first published by Longworth. In the subsequent reprints, several papers of interest xivwere dropped, which are now restored. A few verbal corrections have been made, following the Paris edition of Irving’s works of 1834, which had more or less of the author’s supervision. The notes to that copy, so far as they extended, have been retained, and will be found to be appropriately credited.

The interesting sketch of the Summer-house of Cockloft Hall, which appears as the frontispiece, is a contribution to the volume from Mr. W. A. Whitehead, of Newark.

New York, April 7, 1860.

xv