voyage. He leaves law and his jolly
companions,--Brevoort, Kemble, Paulding, and the rest,--and sails for
Bordeaux. He wanders through Southern Europe delightedly,--meets
Washington Allston at Rome, and is half tempted to turn painter,--sees
Humboldt, De Stael, Cooke, Siddons; and while all England is jubilant
over Nelson's victory, and all England mourning over Nelson's death, he
sails, in 1806, for home.

Arrived in New York a sound man, he goes through a process of cramming
for admission to the bar, and is presently instated--attorney-at-law.
But at the very time of his examination he is concocting with James
Paulding the project of "Salmagundi," which presently enlivens and
perplexes people with the vagaries of Launcelot Langstaff. A little
after, he plans and commences the Knickerbocker History.

But meantime an interesting episode of his life is developing, which by
its unfortunate issue is to give a certain color to all after-expression
of his sentiment. While in the family of Mr. Hoffman, as law-student, he
has conceived a strong attachment for his daughter; in certain
memoranda, marked "private," which come under the eyes of the biographer
only after Mr. Irving's death, he says,--"I idolized her. I felt at
times rebuked by her superior delicacy and purity, and as if I was a
coarse, unworthy being in comparison.... I saw her fade rapidly away,
beautiful, and more beautiful, and more angelical to the very last.... I
was by her when she died.... I was the last one she looked upon." The
memorandum from which this extract is taken had been originally written,
it appeared, for the eye of an intimate lady-friend abroad, to whom we
shall have occasion to refer.

In 1809, at the age of twenty-six, is published his "History of New
York." There were a few punctilious Dutch families who were offended at
its sallies; but cultivated people generally welcomed its fun, its
spirit, its quiet satire, with heartiness and applause.

Shortly after he entered into a commercial partnership with his
brothers, Peter and Ebenezer, of whom one was established in England,
the other in New York. In the War of 1812 we find him acting as military
aid to Governor Tompkins; and in 1815 he embarks again for Europe. He
passes many years in England, in the course of which time the commercial
firm, of which he is a member goes into bankruptcy. Upon this, he is of
course thrown adrift. But through the influence of his friends at home
he is offe