fully preserved as a shrine to which thousands of his countrymen annually wend their way. The business with which Irving was connected was closely associated with England. No writer has done more to promote intimate and brotherly relations between the two countries than has Washington Irving. He was the first successful American author that ever visited its shores, and the appeal to the English and American people with which he concludes "Bracebridge Hall" may well find a place here. "With respect to England," he says, we have a warm feeling of the heart, the glow of consanguinity that still lingers in our blood. Interest apart- past differences forgotten we extend the hand of old relationship. We merely ask, do not estrange us from you; do not destroy the ancient tie of blood; do not let scoffers and slanderers drive a kindred nation from your side; we would fain be friends; do not compel us to be enemies. 6 "There needs no better rallying ground for international amity than that furnished by an eminent English writer. 'There is,' says he, a sacred bond between us of blood and of language, which no circumstances can break. Our literature must always be theirs; and though their laws are no longer the same as ours, we have the same Bible, and we address our common Father in the same prayer. Nations are too ready to admit that they have natural enemies; why should they be less willing to believe that they have natural friends?'"'* The text of this edition has been taken from the best edition; and some of the notes, by other hands, have been carefully revised by the editor, whose aim in the elucidation for young readers has been to make Irving his own commentator. GEORGE H. BROWNE. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., October, 1900. * From an article (said to be by Robert Southey, Esq.) published in the Quarterly Review. A Rock overhanging a Small Dell. PAGE Map of the Hudson River Portrait of Henry Hudson Wouter van Twiller 66 Many were the groups collected about the Battery" 47 '49 55 56 58 59 61 63 64 65 66 67 68 73 76 78 83 87 96 97 106 107 108 109 The publishers' acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Putnams for their permission to reprint this work. DOLPH HEYLIGER. "I take the town of Concord, where I dwell, All Kilborn be my witness, if I were not Begot in bashfulness, brought up in shamefacedness: Zay I have beat 'un, and without a vault; In the early time of the province of New York, while it groaned under the tyranny of the English governor, Lord Cornbury, who carried his cruelties towards the Dutch inhabitants so far as to allow no Dominie, or schoolmaster, Lord Cornbury: Note 2. New York: Note 1. |