fore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the shoulders. .. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.

Then there was that waspish, pug-nosed old William the Testy, who dried and withered away, and grew tougher in proportion as he dried, and the choleric Peter Stuyvesant, better known as Peter the Headstrong, a sturdy woodenlegged hero, with a voice that sounded as if it had come out of a barrel, and an iron aspect that made the very bowels of his adversaries quake with terror and dismay. Many other admirable pen-portraits enliven the pages of that entertaining history. The proud descendants of the pioneers of New Amsterdam at first resented the facetious treatment accorded such ancestors as the Van Bummels, the Van Corlears, the Van Grolls, the Van Poffenburghs, and the rest of them, but eventually they also yielded and shared in the fun over the beleaguered Fort Goed Hoop and the valorous assault of the Dutch troops on Fort Christina. Such hilarious history had never been written before; even to-day most readers prefer the boisterous pages of Knickerbocker to the more sedate narrative of the real historians of New York.

5. Fame in England.-When Irving went abroad in 1815 on a business mission, he did not realize that he was to remain in Europe for seventeen years and eventually return to America as our most distinguished man of letters. After

the failure of his mercantile enterprise he turned to literature to earn his bread. He recorded his impressions of English life in a series of sketches that were printed serially in New York and afterward published in London as The Sketch Book (1819-1820). Never was an American book received with more acclaim in England. The critics were most cordial in commending his descriptions of English rural life and Christmas customs; they were pleased with his reverent account of Westminster Abbey and of the Shakespeare country. They shed a tear with countless other readers over the sentimentalities of such stories as "The Broken Heart," "The Widow and Her Son," and "The Pride of the Village." They were quick to perceive the superlative merits of those two fine tales, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," with its immortal characterization of Ichabod Crane, and "Rip Van Winkle," the legend of that hapless hero who was foolish enough to play ninepins and drink strong waters with the ghostly crew of Hendrik Hudson in the Kaatskills. Most of all, the critics appreciated Irving's earnest plea for a better understanding between England and America—a plea that was made a few short years after the two countries had been at war for the second time. Not only was The Sketch Book a work of variety and enduring charm, but it was written in a sympathetic style that combined the best graces of England's prose masters of the eighteenth century. Sidney Smith had recently sneered, "Who reads an American book?" and he received a fitting rebuke in the publication of the admirable volume that all England as well as all America was soon reading. The Sketch Book remains to this day the best-known and most widely read of all Irving's works.

6. The Glamour of Spain.-A three years' residence in Spain resulted in several books in which Irving dealt with Spanish history and legend. The best of these is The Alhambra (1832), which is sometimes called Irving's "Spanish Sketch Book," and is replete with the romance and charm of ancient Spain. Vivid descriptions of the luxuriant landscape and the architectural splendors of the Moorish palace are mingled with tales and legends of the days when Boabdil held sway in Granada. "The Arabian Astrologer," "The Moor's Legacy," and "The Three Beautiful Princesses" are but a few of the many excellent stories in which we are transported to the gorgeous days of Moslem rule, and hear the strumming of the guitar and the faint click of the castanets from the lovely Andalusian valleys.

7. The Return to America.-When Irving returned to his native land in 1832 he came with the highest honors that England could bestow upon a distinguished man of letters. He had received the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature and had been made a doctor of laws by Oxford University. Some of his fellow countrymen had criticised him for staying abroad so long and for writing so much on foreign themes. To meet that criticism he took an extensive trip to the Far West and wrote several books as chronicles of his wanderings and adventures. None of those Western narratives added much to his fame. Apart from four years (18421846) of public service as minister to Spain, he spent his declining years in his comfortable home at Sunnyside, near Tarrytown on the Hudson. There he wrote his biographies of Goldsmith, of Mahomet, and of Washington; of these the first alone is still read. He died in 1859, and was buried in the little graveyard at Sleepy Hollow.