INTRODUCTION

WASHINGTON IRVING was born in the city of New York, on the third of April, 1783; the same year that the British evacuated the city and that England acknowledged the independence of the thirteen colonies. "Washington's work is ended," said the mother, "and the child shall be named after him." One morning a few years later, as a Scotch maid who lived in the Irving family was walking out with her charge, she saw the great man enter a shop; for Washington was then living in New York as President of the United States. Following him in, she pointed to the boy, saying, "Please, your honor, here's a bairn was named for you." Whereupon the President placed his hand on the head of his future biographer and gave him his blessing.

Irving's father, a native of the Orkney Islands, was an upright, conscientious man and a believer in strict family discipline, while the mother, who came from the south of England, was sympathetic and vivacious. The strongest ties of affection united their large family of children, eight of whom lived to mature years.

As a boy Irving was given to roguish pranks. Sometimes after one of his escapades his mother would look at him mournfully and say, "Oh, Washington, if you were only good!" One of his teachers dubbed him "the general," because although constantly in mischief he never sought to shield himself by telling a lie. This

spirit of truthfulness existed in connection with a sensitiveness to suffering so keen that he was allowed to leave school with the girls whenever an unlucky schoolmate was to suffer punishment. At the age of eleven he was revelling in Sindbad the Sailor, Robinson Crusoe, and The World Displayed, the last a collection of voyages that made him long to fly to the ends of the earth. A few years later his desire to become a sailor drove him to a diet of salt pork and a bed on the hard floor; but the preparatory discipline proving too severe, his imagination sought an outlet through other channels.

The New York of Irving's boyhood was a community of varied interests and marked social contrasts; a miniature metropolis where staid Dutch families lived side by side with comers from every quarter of the globe. In 1789, when Irving was six years old, the city had a population of twenty-nine thousand souls, of whom two thousand three hundred were negro slaves. Slave labor was

employed in every household of importance.1

Except in the business sections the houses were scattered and surrounded by gardens. There were a number of the old Dutch dwellings, with peaked roofs and gable ends toward the street, but frame buildings with brick fronts and tiled roofs predominated. The streets were lighted with oil lamps, for gas was not introduced until 1825. Perhaps the most primitive institution of all was the sewerage system, which consisted of negro slaves, a long line of whom might be seen late at night wending their way to the river, each with a tub on his head." The gallows, which was much used in those days on account of the large number of crimes punished with death, was placed in a gaudily painted Chinese pagoda.

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1 For further details consult The Work of Washington Irving, by Charles Dudley Warner (1893).

Near this were the stocks and the whipping post. An hour in the stocks was the penalty for profane swearing if the offender could not pay the fine of three shillings. In 1789 the city could boast of but one bank, one fire insurance company, and one theatre, while it had twentytwo churches representing thirteen denominations. At this time Columbia College had about thirty students.

The costumes of the early New Yorkers must have given to their city a touch of the picturesque. A man was considered simply dressed who wore a long blue riding-coat with steel buttons, a scarlet waistcoat, and yellow kerseymere knee-breeches. John Ramage, the miniature-painter, is described as wearing a scarlet coat with mother-of-pearl buttons, a white silk waistcoat embroidered with colored flowers, black satin breeches with paste knee buckles, white silk stockings, large silver shoe buckles, and, on the upper part of his powdered hair, a small cocked hat which left the curls at his ears displayed. He carried a gold snuff-box and a gold-headed cane. The costumes of the women were as varied and as gay in color as those of the men, and it is interesting to learn that the size and height of their hats called forth frequent remonstrances.

Although there were in the community many persons of intelligence and good breeding, the social customs were not over-refined. Drinking to excess was a common vice, and in their amusements the young men were free, even boisterous. The people were keenly interested in politics but cared little for art, literature, or music.

Travelling by land in Irving's youth was something of a hardship. The lumbering stage coach made slow progress over almost impassable roads and across dangerous streams. The trip from New York to Philadelphia occupied three days; Albany could be reached in three or