Note (return) — WASHINGTON IRVING, ESQ.

To conclude, we find the literary character of Mr. Irving illustrated in a contemporary journal, with unusual spirit. "There never was a writer," observes the editor, "whose popularity was more matter of feeling, or more intimate than Washington Irving, perhaps, because he appeared at once to our simplest and kindliest emotions. His affections were those of 'hearth and home;' the pictures he delighted to draw were those of natural loveliness, linked with human sympathies; and a too unusual thing with the writers of our time—he looked upon God's works, and 'saw that they were good.' * * * With him the wine of life is not always on the lees. An exquisite vein of poetry runs through every page,—and of poetry, his epithets who does not remember—'the shark, glancing like a spectre through the blue seas.'"8