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nd French horn." The favorable reception of the "Sketch Book" not only failed to remove his diffidence, but left him oppressed by a new sense of obligation to the public which had lauded his work. This feeling is expressed in a letter to Leslie, the painter, with whom he had become very intimate: "I am glad to find the second number pleases more than the first. The sale is very rapid, and, altogether, the success exceeds my most sanguine expectation. Now you suppose I am all on the alert, full of spirit and excitement. No such thing. I am just as good for nothing as ever I was; and indeed I have been flurried and put out of my way by these puffings. I feel something as I suppose you did when your picture met with success--anxious to do something better, and at a loss what to do." Murray, who a little later was eager to publish anything from Irving's hand, declined to undertake the first English edition of the "Sketch Book." Irving was afraid of some incomplete pirated edition, and finally published the first number entirely at his own expense. Murray was glad enough to change his mind and bring out the later numbers. Among the many friends whom the young American had made in England was Walter Scott. A few days spent by Irving at Abbotsford had been enough to attach them strongly to each other. Scott had by no means outgrown his interest in the author of the "Knickerbocker History," and Irving found nothing that was not delightful in the great romancer's character and way of life. "As to Scott," he wrote, "I cannot express my delight at his character and manners. He is a sterling, golden-hearted old worthy, full of the joyousness of youth, with an imagination continually furnishing forth pictures, and a charming simplicity of manner that puts you at ease with him in a moment. It has been a constant source of pleasure to me to remark his deportment towards his family, his neighbors, his domestics, his very dogs and cats; everything that comes within his influence seems to catch a beam of that sunshine that plays round his heart." Now, while the prospects of the "Sketch Book" were still dubious, Scott offered him the editorship of an Anti-Jacobin magazine. Irving declined it, first on the ground of his dislike for politics, and second on account of his irregular habits of mind. "My whole course of life has been desultory, and I am unfitted for any periodically recurring task, or any stipulated labor of body or mind. I
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