k as if it had been an electioneering
hand-bill. But the third day--ah! then came the tug of war. My
patriotism then blazed forth, and I determined to save my country!
Oh, my friend, I have been in such holes and corners; such filthy
nooks and filthy corners; sweep offices and oyster cellars! 'I have
sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can drink with any tinker
in his own language during my life,'--faugh! I shall not be able to
bear the smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to come....
Truly this saving one's country is a nauseous piece of business,
and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue,--prythee, no more of it."

He unsuccessfully solicited some civil appointment at Albany, a very
modest solicitation, which was never renewed, and which did not last
long, for he was no sooner there than he was "disgusted by the servility
and duplicity and rascality witnessed among the swarm of scrub
politicians." There was a promising young artist at that time in Albany,
and Irving wishes he were a man of wealth, to give him a helping hand; a
few acts of munificence of this kind by rich nabobs, he breaks out,
"would be more pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and more to the glory
and advantage of their country, than building a dozen shingle church
steeples, or buying a thousand venal votes at an election." This was in
the "good old times!"

Although a Federalist, and, as he described himself, "an admirer of
General Hamilton, and a partisan with him in politics," he accepted a
retainer from Burr's friends in 1807, and attended his trial in
Richmond, but more in the capacity of an observer of the scene than a
lawyer. He did not share the prevalent opinion of Burr's treason, and
regarded him as a man so fallen as to be shorn of the power to injure
the country, one for whom he could feel nothing but compassion. That
compassion, however, he received only from the ladies of the city, and
the traits of female goodness manifested then sunk deep into Irving's
heart. Without pretending, he says, to decide on Burr's innocence or
guilt, "his situation is such as should appeal eloquently to the
feelings of every generous bosom. Sorry am I to say the reverse has been
the fact: fallen, proscribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness has been
administered to him with an unsparing hand. It has almost been
considered as culpable to evince toward him the least sympathy or
support; and many a hollow-h