ners. In this charitable ministry his wife, who possessed a rarely
generous and sympathetic nature, was especially zealous, supplying the
prisoners with food from her own table, visiting those who were ill, and
furnishing them with clothing and other necessaries.

Washington was born in a house on William Street, about half-way between
Fulton and John; the following year the family moved across the way
into one of the quaint structures of the time, its gable end with attic
window towards the street; the fashion of which, and very likely the
bricks, came from Holland. In this homestead the lad grew up, and it was
not pulled down till 1849, ten years before his death. The patriot army
occupied the city. "Washington's work is ended," said the mother, "and
the child shall be named after him." When the first President was again
in New York, the first seat of the new government, a Scotch maid-servant
of the family, catching the popular enthusiasm, one day followed the
hero into a shop and presented the lad to him. "Please, your honor,"
said Lizzie, all aglow, "here's a bairn was named after you." And the
grave Virginian placed his hand on the boy's head and gave him his
blessing. The touch could not have been more efficacious, though it
might have lingered longer, if he had known he was propitiating his
future biographer.

New York at the time of our author's birth was a rural city of about
twenty-three thousand inhabitants, clustered about the Battery. It did
not extend northward to the site of the present City Hall Park; and
beyond, then and for several years afterwards, were only country
residences, orchards, and corn-fields. The city was half burned down
during the war, and had emerged from it in a dilapidated condition.
There was still a marked separation between the Dutch and the English
residents, though the Irvings seem to have been on terms of intimacy
with the best of both nationalities. The habits of living were
primitive; the manners were agreeably free; conviviality at the table
was the fashion, and strong expletives had not gone out of use in
conversation. Society was the reverse of intellectual: the aristocracy
were the merchants and traders; what literary culture found expression
was formed on English models, dignified and plentifully garnished
with Latin and Greek allusions; the commercial spirit ruled, and the
relaxations and amusements partook of its hurry and excitement. In their
gay, hospitable, and merc