d of the war he left the sea, and entered trade in New
York.

William Irving and his wife were very different in up-bringing and in
temperament. He was a stern man, a strict Presbyterian, with the cold
fire of Calvin in his bones. She had been bred an Episcopalian, and
was genial and sympathetic by nature. The husband was the
master-spirit, and the children grew up under the rigid exactions of
his sect. Sunday was a long day of penance, and one of their two
half-holidays was consecrated to the cheerful uses of the catechism.
To New England ears it all has a familiar sound. When the children
grew old enough they promptly left the fold and resigned themselves
to her of Babylon and England. There were eleven of them, and
Washington was the youngest, born in New York, April 3, 1783. As a
very little child he had the honor of a pat on the head from his great
namesake, for whom he was to do an important service many years later.

He was a perfectly normal, healthy boy. Fortunately there are no
brilliant sayings to record; he did not lisp in periods. Genius was
not written upon his brow, nor tied upon his sleeve. He had none of
the pale fervor of precocity, or the shyness of premature conceit. He
was absorbed in childish things, loved play, shirked his studies,
dreamed of a life on the ocean wave, and regarded "Robinson Crusoe"
and "Sinbad the Sailor" as the end of all literary things. The
savagery of boyhood he lacked. He was fond of playing battle, but
could not bear to see his schoolfellows publicly thrashed, according
to the amiable custom of that day. Otherwise he was all that a mother
might deplore or an uncle delight in.

Altogether the most interesting story of his schooldays has a
dramatic setting. Addison's "Cato" was to be spouted in public by the
schoolchildren. Irving, in the part of Juba, was called a little
sooner than he expected, and came on the boards with his mouth full of
honey-cake. Speech was out of the question--_vox haesit_--there was a
momentary deadlock in his throat. The audience began to laugh, but the
prince was not to be counted out. With a skillful rotary finger he
removed the viand, and brought down the house by calmly taking up his
lines as if nothing had happened. He was then ten years old, and deep
in love with the leading lady. A year or two later he had decided to
follow the sea; but a short experiment of sleeping on the floor and
eating salt pork was too much for his enthusiasm, and at