The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862

The household hearts that were his own,
It is the man of mirth.'

We are glad to know that in time Irving sought a better consolation.

But to return from this digression, or rather anticipation of our subject. At the time of which we now write, New-York was comparatively a small town; true, it was the chief commercial city in America, and yet its limits proper could be described by a line drawn across the island some distance below Canal street. Yet even then New-York was full of life, and seemed to feel the promise of subsequent greatness. Her streets echoed to the footsteps of men whom the present generation, with all its progress, can not surpass. At Number 26 Broadway, might have been daily seen the light-built but martial and elegant form of Alexander Hamilton, while his mortal foe, Aaron Burr, as we have stated, held his office in Partition street. John Jacob Astor was just becoming an established and solid business man, and dwelt at 223 Broadway, the present site of the Astor House, and which was one of the earliest purchases which led to the greatest landed estate in America. Robert Lenox lived in Broadway, near Trinity Church, and was building up that splendid commerce which has made his son one of the chief city capitalists. De Witt Clinton was a young and ambitious lawyer, full of promise, whose office (he was just elected Mayor) was Number 1 Broadway. Cadwallader D. Colden was pursuing his brilliant career, and might be found immersed in law at Number 59 Wall street. Such were the legal and political magnates of the day; while to slake the thirst of their excited followers, Medcef Eden brewed ale in Gold street, and Janeway carried on the same business in Magazine street; and his empty establishment became notorious, in later years, as the 'Old Brewery.'

About this time young Irving was developing as one of the most interesting youth of the city. His manners were soft without being effeminate, his form finely molded, and his countenance singularly beautiful. To this might be added the general opinion that he was considerably gifted in the use of the pen. Yet with all these promising features, the future was clothed with shadows, for his health was failing, and his friends considered him too lovely a flower to last. Little did his brothers and sisters think that that delicate youth would, with one exception, outlive the whole family. It was at this time that he first went abroad; and his experiences of travel are given by Pierre Irving in the sparkling letters which he wrote to his brothers.

In 1807 I used to meet him once more in social gatherings in the city, for he had returned in full restoration of health, his mind expanded, and his manners improved by intercourse with the European world, while Salmagundi had electrified the city and given him the first rank among its satirists. The question of profession crowded on him, and he alternated between the law and the counting-room, in either of which he might find one or more of his brothers. The former of these was a road to distinction, the latter was one to wealth; but feeling the absence of practical business gifts, he shrank from trade, and took refuge in the quiet readings of an office. Josiah Ogden Hoffman, of whose daughter so much has recently been written, was a family friend, as well as a lawyer of high character. He lived first at Number 68 Greenwich street, but afterward moved up-town, his office being in Wall street, first Number 47, and afterward Number 16. Young Irving finished his studies with Mr. Hoffman, and immediately took office with his brother John, at Number 3 Wall street. To these two was soon added the presence of Peter, who was still connected with the press, and thus might have been found for a short time a most interesting and talented, as well as fraternal trio.

Washington was still, to a considerable degree an habitué of Mr. Hoffman's office, and it seems quite amusing that one who was so dull at reading law that he makes merry with his own deficiencies, should have a connection with two offices. But the name of Matilda was the magnet which drew him to one where he vainly struggled to climb Alp on Alp of difficulties in hope of love's fruition, while at the other he might smile at the bewilderments of Coke, brush away the cobwebs from his brain, and recreate himself with the rich humors of Salmagundi.

The place and time where this remarkable attachment had its inception, are not known; but like all such affairs, it arose, no doubt, from felicitous accident. In one of his sketches, Irving speaks of a mysterious footprint seen on the sward of the Battery, which awoke a romantic interest in his breast. This youthful incident comes to our mind when we remember that Mr. Hoffman lived at Number 68 Greenwich street, not a stone's throw from the Battery, and we have sometimes thought that the mysterious footprint might have been Matilda's. At any rate, the Battery was at that day a place of fashionable resort, and hence the fair but fragile form of Matilda Hoffman could almost any day have been seen tripping among bevies of city girls in pursuit of health or pleasure. But whatever be the history of its origin, the attachment became one of mutual strength; and while young Irving was surrounded by piles of lawbooks and red tape, his hope of success was identified with the name of Matilda. My remembrance of Matilda (her name was Sarah Matilda, but the first was dropped in common intercourse) revives a countenance of great sweetness, and an indescribable beauty of expression. Her auburn hair played carelessly in the wind, and her features, though not of classic outline, were radiant with life. Her eye was one of the finest I have ever seen—rich, deep-toned, and eloquent, speaking volumes in each varying expression, and generally suggestive of pensive emotion. Irving was about eight years her senior, and this difference was just sufficient to draw out that fond reliance of female character which he has so beautifully set forth in the sketch of 'The Wife.' The brief period of this courtship was the sunny hour of his life, for his tender and sensitive nature forbade any thing but the most ardent attachment. What dreams of future bliss floated before his intoxicated vision, soon to change to the stern realities of grieving sorrow!

In 1809, Mr. Hoffman removed to a suburban residence in Broadway, (corner of Leonard street,) and the frequent walks which the young lover took up that sequestered avenue may have suggested some of the descriptions of the same street in the pages of the History of New-York, and his allusions to the front-gardens so adapted to ancient courtship. While at this mansion, amid all the blandishments of hope, Matilda's health began to fail beyond the power of restoratives, and the anxious eye both of parent and betrothed, marked the advance of relentless disease. The maiden faded away from their affections until both stood by her bed and saw her breathe her last.

The biographer informs us that after Mr. Irving's death, there was found in a repository of which he always kept the key, a memorial of this affair, which had evidently been written to some friend, in explanation of his single life. Of the memorial the following extract is given:

'We saw each other every day, and I became excessively attached to her. Her shyness wore off by degrees. The more I saw of her the more I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold itself leaf by leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her so well as I, for she was generally timid and silent, but I, in a manner, studied her excellence. Never did I meet more intuitive rectitude of mind, more native delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word, thought, or action, than in this young creature. I am not exaggerating; what I say was acknowledged by all who knew her. Her brilliant little sister used to say that people began by admiring her, but ended by loving Matilda. For my part, I idolized her. I felt at times rebuked by her superior delicacy and purity, as if I was a coarse, unworthy being, in comparison.

'This passion was terribly against my studies. I felt my own deficiency, and despaired of ever succeeding at the bar. I could study any thing else rather than law, and had a fatal propensity to belles-lettres. I had gone on blindly like a boy in love, but now I began to open my eyes and be miserable. I had nothing in purse or in expectation. I anticipated nothing from my legal pursuits, and had done nothing to make me hope for public employment, or political elevation. I had begun a satirical and humorous work, (The History of New-York,) in company with one of my brothers; but he had gone to Europe shortly after commencing it, and my feelings had run in so different a vein that I could not go on with it. I became low-spirited and disheartened, and did not know what was to become of me. I made frequent attempts to apply myself to the law; but it is a slow and tedious undertaking for a young man to get into practice, and I had, unluckily, no turn for business. The gentleman with whom I studied saw the state of my mind. He had an affectionate regard for me—a paternal one, I may say. He had a better opinion of my legal capacity than it merited. He urged me to return to my studies, to apply myself, to become well acquainted with the law, and that in case I could make myself capable of undertaking legal concerns, he would take me into partnership with him and give me his daughter. Nothing could be more generous. I set to work with zeal to study anew, and I considered myself bound in honor not to make farther advances with the daughter until I should feel satisfied with my proficiency with the law. It was all in vain. I had an insuperable repugnance to the study; my mind would not take hold of it; or rather, by long despondency had become for the time incapable of any application. I was in a wretched state of doubt and self-distrust. I tried to finish the work which I was secretly writing, hoping it would give me reputation and gain me some public employment. In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, and that helped distract me. In the midst of this struggle and anxiety, she was taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first, but she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. I can not tell you what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone in this life have been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away—beautiful and more beautiful, and more angelic to the very last. I was often by her bedside, and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence that was overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious state than I had ever known before. Her malady was rapid in its career, and hurried her off in two months. Her dying-struggles were painful and protracted. For three days and nights I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I was by her when she died. All the family were assembled around her, some praying, others weeping, for she was adored by them all. I was the last one she looked upon. I have told you as briefly as I could, what, if I were to tell with all the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, would fill volumes. She was but seventeen years old when she died.

'I can not tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long time. I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but could not bear solitude, yet could not enjoy society. There was a dismal horror continually on my mind that made me fear to be alone. I had often to get up in the night and seek the bedroom of my brother, as if the having of a human being by me would relieve me from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts.

'Months elapsed before my mind would resume any tone, but the despondency I had suffered for a long time in the course of this attachment, and the anguish that attended its final catastrophe, seemed to give a turn to my whole character, and threw some clouds into my disposition, which have ever since hung about it. When I became more calm and collected, I applied myself, by way of occupation, to the finishing of my work. I brought it to a close as well as I could, and published it; but the time and circumstances in which it was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with satisfaction. Still, it took with the public, and gave me celebrity, as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in America. I was noticed, caressed, and for a time elevated by the popularity I had gained. Wherever I went, I was overwhelmed with attentions. I was full of youth and animation, far different from the being I now am, and I was quite flushed with this early taste of public favor. Still, however, the career of gayety and notoriety soon palled upon me. I seemed to drift about without aim or object, at the mercy of every breeze; my heart wanted anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried to form other attachments, but my heart would not hold on. It would continually revert to what it had lost; and whenever there was a pause in the hurry of novelty and excitement, I would sink into dismal dejection. For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamed of her incessantly.'

The fragment of which the above is an extract, is doubly interesting as not only clearing up a mystery which the world has long desired to penetrate, but also as giving Irving's experience in his own words. It proves how deeply he felt the pangs of a rooted sorrow, and how impossible it was, amid all the attractions of society, for him to escape the power of one who had bidden to all earthly societies an everlasting farewell. That his regrets over his early bereavement did not arise from overwrought dreams of excellence in the departed, is evident from the character she bore with others; and this is illustrated by the following extract from a faded copy of the Commercial Advertiser, which reads as follows:

'OBITUARY,

'Died, on the 26th instant, in the eighteenth year of her age, Miss Sarah Matilda Hoffman, daughter of Josiah Ogden Hoffman. Thus another youthful and lovely victim is added to the ravages of that relentless and invincible enemy to earthly happiness, the consumption. In the month of January we beheld this amiable and interesting girl in the glow of health and spirits, the delight of her friends, the joy and pride of her family; she is now cold and lifeless as the clod of the valley. So falls the tender flower of spring as it expands its bosom to the chilling blight of the morning frost. Endowed by nature with a mind unusually discriminating, and a docility of temper and disposition admirably calculated to reap profit from instruction, Miss Hoffman very early became an object of anxious care and solicitude to the fondest of fathers. That care and solicitude he soon found richly rewarded by the progress she made in her learning, and by every evidence of a grateful and feeling heart. After completing the course of her education in a highly respectable seminary in Philadelphia, she returned to her father's house, where she diligently sought every opportunity to improve her mind by various and useful reading. She charmed the circle of her friends by the suavity of her disposition and the most gentle and engaging manners. She delighted and blessed her own family by her uniformly correct and Though not formed to mingle and shine in the noisy haunts of dissipation, she was eminently fitted to increase the store of domestic happiness, to bring pleasure and tranquillity to the fireside, and to gladden the fond heart of a parent.

'Religion, so necessary to our peace in this world and to our happiness in the next, and which gives so high a lustre to the charms and to the virtues of woman, constantly shed her benign influence over the conduct of Miss Hoffman, nor could the insidious attempts of the infidel for a moment weaken her confidence in its heavenly doctrines. With a form rather slender and fragile was united a beauty of face, which, though not dazzling, had so much softness, such a touching sweetness in it, that the expression which mantled over her features was in a high degree lovely and interesting. Her countenance was indeed the faithful image of a mind that was purity itself, and of a heart where compassion and goodness had fixed their abode. To the sweetest disposition that ever graced a woman, was joined a sensibility, not the fictitious creature of the imagination, but the glowing offspring of a pure and affectionate soul.

'Tenderness, that quality of the heart which gives such a charm to every female virtue, was hers in an eminent degree. It diffused itself over every action of her life. Sometimes blended with a delicate and happy humor, characteristic of her nature, it would delight the social circle; again, with the most assiduous offices of affection, it would show itself at the sick couch of a parent, a relative, or a friend. In this manner the writer of this brief memorial witnessed those soothing acts of kindness which, under peculiar circumstances, will ever be dear to his memory. Alas! little did she then dream that in one short year she herself would fall a sacrifice to the same disease under which the friend to whom she so kindly ministered, sunk to the grave.'

This testimony to departed worth bears the impress of deep sincerity, and its freedom from the fulsome praise, which so often varnishes the dead, seems to add to its force. Peter Irving, also, pays a tribute to her character in the following utterance, in a letter to his bereaved brother: 'May her gentle spirit have found that heaven to which it ever seemed to appertain. She was too spotless for this contaminated world.'

The biographer states that 'Mr. Irving never alluded to this event, nor did any of his relatives ever venture in his presence to introduce the name of Matilda,' 'I have heard,' he adds, 'of but one instance in which it was ever obtruded upon him, and that was by her father, nearly thirty years after her death, and at his own house. A granddaughter had been requested to play for him some favorite piece on the piano, and in extricating her music from the drawer, she accidentally brought forth a piece of embroidery with it. 'Washington,' said Mr. Hoffman, picking up the faded relic, 'this is a piece of poor Matilda's workmanship.' The effect was electric. He had been conversing in the sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at once into utter silence, and in a few moments got up and left the house. It is evidence with what romantic tenderness Irving cherished the memory of this early love, that he kept by him through life the Bible and Prayer-Book of Matilda. He lay with them under his pillow in the first days of keen and vivid anguish that followed her loss, and they were ever afterward, in all changes of climate and country, his inseparable companions.'

The scene at the house of Mr. Hoffman, to which the biographer alludes, took place after Irving's second return from Europe, and after an absence of nearly twenty years from his native land. During this time he had become famous as an author, and had been conceded the position of the first American gentleman in Europe. He had been received at Courts as in his official position (Secretary of Legation) and had received the admiration of the social and intellectual aristocracy of England. Returning full of honors, he became at once the lion of New-York, and was greeted by a public dinner at the City Hotel. How little could it have been imagined, that amid all this harvest of honors, while he stood the cynosure of a general admiration, he should still be under the power of a youthful attachment, and that outliving all the glories of his splendid success, a maiden, dead thirty years, held him with undying power. While others thought him the happy object of a nation's popularity, his heart was stealing away from noise and notice to the hallowed ground where Matilda lay.

'Oh! what are thousand living loves
To that which can not quit the dead?'

The biographer observes that 'it is in the light of this event that we must interpret portions of 'Rural Funerals,' in the Sketch-Book, and 'Saint Mark's Eve,' in Bracebridge Hull.' From the former of these, we therefore make an extract, which is now so powerfully illustrated by the experience of its author:

'The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal; every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother that would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who in the hour of agony would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed, in the closing of its portal, would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No; the love that survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry? No; there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song; there is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.... But the grave of those we love, what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and goodness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the dying scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling—oh! how thrilling—pressure of the hand! The last fond look of the glazing eye turned upon us even from the threshold of existence! The faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection!'

How truly is this passage 'to be interpreted in the light of the event in Irving's history', when it is evident from a comparison of it with the memoranda, that it is a sketch of that scene which wrecked his brightest hopes, and that here he is renewing in this unequaled description of a dying-bed, the last hours of Matilda Hoffman. The highly-wrought picture presents a complete detail to the eye, and yet still more powerful is that simple utterance in the memoranda: 'I was the last one she looked upon.'

St. Mark's Eve,' to which reference is also made, was written several years subsequently, and as may be gathered from its tone, under circumstances of peculiar loneliness. It was while a solitary occupant of his lodgings, a stranger in a foreign city, that he felt the inspiration of precious memories, and improved his lonely hours by this exquisite production. 'I am alone,' he writes, 'in my chamber; but these themes have taken such hold upon me that I can not sleep. The room in which I sit is just fitted to foster such a state of mind. The walls are hung with tapestry, the figures of which are faded and look like unsubstantial shapes melting away from sight.... The murmur of voices and the peal of remote laughter no longer reach the ear. The clock from the church, in which so many of the former inhabitants of this house lie buried, has chimed the awful hour of midnight.' It was a fitting time to yield to the power of that undying affection which abode with him under all changes, and the serene presence of one snatched from him years ago must at such times have invested him as with a spell. Thus he writes:

'Even the doctrines of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings which were dear to them during the body's existence, though it has been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is awfully solemn and sublime.... Raise it above the frivolous purposes to which it has been applied; strip it of the gloom and horror with which it has been surrounded; and there is none of the whole circle of visionary creeds that could more delightfully elevate the imagination or more tenderly affect the heart.... What could be more consoling than the idea that the souls of those we once loved were permitted to return and watch over our welfare?—that affectionate and guardian spirits sat by our pillows while we slept, keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours?—that beauty and innocence which had languished in the tomb yet smiled unseen around us, revealing themselves in those blest dreams wherein they live over again the hours of past endearments?.... There are departed beings that I have loved as I never shall love again in this world—that have loved me as I never again shall be loved. If such beings do ever retain in their blessed spheres the attachments they felt on earth; if they take an interest in the poor concerns of transient mortality, and are permitted to hold communion with those they have loved on earth, I feel as if now, at this deep hour of night, in this silence and solitude, I could receive their visitation with the most solemn but unalloyed delight.'

The use of the plural in the above extract obviated that publicity of his especial bereavement which would have arisen from a reference to one, and it is to be explained by the deaths of three persons to whom he sustained the most endearing though varied relations of which man is capable: his mother, his sister Nancy, and his betrothed. The first two had become sacred memories, and were enshrined in the sanctuary of his soul; but the latter was a thing of life, whose existence had become identified with his own, and was made sure beyond the power of disease and mortality. Who, indeed, would have been so welcome to the solitary tourist on that weird midnight as she whose Bible and Prayer-Book accompanied his wanderings, whose miniature was his treasure, and of whom he could say: 'She died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory she will ever be young and beautiful.'

That a reünion with all the beloved of earth was a controlling thought in his mind, and one bearing an especial reference to this supreme bereavement, is manifest from the following, from the same sketch:

'We take each other by the hand, and we exchange a few words and looks of kindness, and we rejoice together for a few moments, and then days, months, years intervene, and we see and know nothing of each other. Or granting that we dwell together for the full season of this mortal life, the grave soon closes its gates between us, and then our spirits are doomed to remain in separation and widowhood until they meet again in that more perfect state of being, where soul will dwell with soul in blissful communion, and there will be neither death, nor absence, nor any thing else to interrupt our felicity.'

Such was the view which cheered the life of one thus early stripped of promised and expected happiness, and to which he dung during all changes of time and place. Amid the infirmities of advancing years, while surrounded by an endearing circle of relatives, who ministered to him with the most watchful affection, there was one that abode in still closer communion with his heart. While writing in his study at Sunnyside, or pacing, in quiet solitude, the streets of New-York, at all times, a fair young form hovered over him and beckoned him heavenward. Years passed on, until a half-century had been told. All things had changed, the scenes and characters of early life had passed away. The lover had become a kindly old man. The young essayist had become a great author and an heir of fame. The story of life was complete. The hour of his departure was at hand, when suddenly the same hand which had separated the lovers reünited them forever. Who shall say that the last image which flitted across his mind at the awful moment of dissolution, was not that fresh and lovely form which he had cherished in unchanging affection for fifty years?

I have stated my opinion that it was Irving's disappointment which made him the great American author, and to this opinion I now return with increased confidence. Had the plans of his youth been carried out; had he become a partner of Mr. Hoffman, and had the hands of the lovers been united, the whole tenor of his life would have been changed. He would have published some fine things, in addition to the Knickerbocker history, and would have ranked high as a gentleman of elegant humor; but where would have been his enduring works? We sympathize with the disappointed lover; but we feel thankful that from his sorrow we gather such precious fruit. The death of Matilda led him abroad—to Spain, where he compiled his Columbus and gathered material for his Alhambra—and to England, where the Columbus was finished and published, and where his name became great, in spite of national prejudice. Beside this, the sorrow which cast its sacred shadow upon him gave his writings that endearing charm which fascinates the emotional nature and enabled him to touch the hidden chords of the heart.

If Ogilvie could congratulate him on the bankruptcy which drove him from the details of trade to the richer fruition of literary promise, we may consider it a beneficent working of Providence, which afforded to Irving a still earlier emancipation from the law, cheered as it might have been by the kindness of Mr. Hoffman and the society of Matilda.

Such being the remarkable chain which unites the names of the author and his love, we can not but consider her as a part of his character through the best years of his life and amid all the splendid success of his literary career. Indeed, through coming generations of readers, the names of Irving and Matilda will be united in the loveliest and most romantic of associations.

I have prolonged this reminiscence to an unexpected length, and yet can not close without a few additional thoughts which grow out of the perusal of the biography. Perhaps the chief of these is the nationality of Irving's character, particularly while a resident of Europe. Neither the pungent bitterness of the British press nor the patronage of the aristocracy could abate the firmness with which he upheld the dignity of his country. He was not less her representative when a struggling author in Liverpool or London than when Secretary of Legation at the Court of St. James, or Ambassador at Madrid. His first appearance abroad was at a time of little foreign travel, and an American was an object of remark and observation. His elegant simplicity reflected honor upon his native land, and amid all classes, and in all places, love of country ruled him. This high tone pervaded his views of public duty. A gross defaulter having been mentioned in his presence, he replied, that 'next to robbing one's father it is, to rob one's country.'

It is also worthy of note that while Irving lived to unusual fullness of years, yet he never was considered an old man. We do not so much refer to his erect and vigorous frame as to the freshness of his mind. It is said that Goethe, on being asked the definition of a poet, replied: 'One who preserves to old age the feelings of youth.' Such was a leading feature in Mr. Irving's spirit, which, notwithstanding his shadowed hours, was so buoyant and cheerful. His countenance was penseroso when in repose, and allegro in action, and these graces clung to him even in life's winter, like the flower at the base of the glacier.

Among the varied elements which constituted Irving's popularity, one of them might have been the beauty of his name, whose secret is revealed by the laws of prosody. Washington is a stately dactyl; Irving is a sweet and mellow spondee, and thus we have a combination which poets in ancient and modern days have sought with sedulous care, and which should close every line of hexameter verse. Hence a measure such, as that found in 'Washington Irving' terminates every line in Evangeline, or the works of Virgil, thus:

'Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the mission,
When, over green ways, by long and perilous marches,
She had attained at length the depth of the Michigan forest.'

or

'Supplicia hausorem ecopulis: et nomine Dido,
Et recidiva manu posuissem Pergama vetis.'

It will be readily perceived that the name of the American author can be substituted for the feet italicized above, without injuring the measure, while in some of Moore's finest stansas beautifully alternates the same verse, thus:'Oh! fair as the sea-flower, close to thee growing,

How light was thy heart till love's witchery came!
Like the wind of the South, o'er a summer lute blowing,
And hushed all its music, and withered its flame.'

At the close of his last great work, Mr. Irving sought for rest. He laid aside his pen, even from correspondence, and felt that his work was done. When in New-York, he was often to be found at the Astor Library, of which he was a trustee; but his visits to the city became few, and he seemed to realize that his time was come. To one who kindly remarked, 'I hope you will soon be better,' He calmly replied, in an earnest tone: 'I shall never be better.' The words came true too soon, and amid an unequaled pomp of unaffected sorrow, they bore him to a place of rest, by the side of his parents and all of his kin who had gone before him.

BYRONIC MISANTHROPY

He has a grief he can not speak;
He wears his hat awry;
He blacks his boots but once a week;
And says he wants to die!