xtinguishable laughter. Each delicate
little wail when taken by itself was not so bad, but the united wail of
this band of broken-hearted singers would have produced, instead of
tears, laughter both long and deep. This doleful period lasted long
after Irving had begun to write in a different vein, and has lasted in
too large a measure even to this day; but he began the corrective
process, and has had more influence for good in that direction than any
of our other writers. At a later day Dr. Holmes began to write almost,
if not quite, "as funny as he could." Charles G. Leland, in his
"Sunshine-in-Thought" series, in the old "Knickerbocker," ridiculed the
prevailing weakness so forcibly and effectually that some stopped
groaning through sheer shame. Charles Dudley Warner sent a smile over
the set features of the nation when he wrote of his "Summer in a
Garden;" and Willis told in his "Fun Jottings" about some of the laughs
he had taken a pen to. But none of these had the magic touch of Irving,
although each in his own way was inimitable; and during these later
years, when the professional humorist has become one of our established
institutions, no writer has arisen to wear the mantle which fell from
the shoulders of Washington Irving. Bret Harte, doubtless, made us laugh
more. Irving could by no possibility ever have written the "Heathen
Chinee," or those other bits of compressed humor called Poems; but Bret
Harte is not exactly a lineal descendant of Irving. Mark Twain also can
produce a roar, a thing which Irving never did. But, though it has been
a good thing for the American people to roar with Mark Twain, we are all
desirous to see some writer arise who, with as keen an eye as his for
the humorous side of life, shall have a delicacy of touch which he
lacks, and a refinement of expression to which he is a stranger.

Washington Irving was born in the city of New York in 1783, the youngest
of eleven children born to his parents. At that time New York was a
rural city of twenty-three thousand inhabitants clustered about the
Battery. The Irvings were descendants of the old Scotch Covenanters, and
were strict Presbyterians. The home rule was one of austerity and
repression. The children were brought up on the catechism and the
Thirty-Nine Articles. As they grew older all were repelled from the
church of the father by the severity of its dogmas, and all except one
attached themselves to the Episcopal Church. Washington, we a