, the hangers-on and encumbrances of society, have all at
once risen to importance, and been the only useful men of the day." The
exploits of our young navy kept up the spirits of the country. There was
great rejoicing when the captured frigate Macedonian was brought into
New York, and was visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound above
Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was given to the naval heroes, at which all
the great eaters and drinkers of the city were present. It was the
noblest entertainment of the kind I ever witnessed. On New Year's Eve a
grand ball was likewise given, where there was a vast display of great
and little people. The Livingstons were there in all their glory. Little
Rule Britannia made a gallant appearance at the head of a train of
beauties, among whom were the divine H----, who looked very inviting,
and the little Taylor, who looked still more so. Britannia was
gorgeously dressed in a queer kind of hat of stiff purple and silver
stuff, that had marvelously the appearance of copper, and made us
suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was
trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in
honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that
it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent
furrier had been there to wonder and admire!"

With a little business and a good deal of loitering, waiting upon the
whim of his pen, Irving passed the weary months of the war. As late as
August, 1814, he is still giving Brevoort, who has returned, and is at
Rockaway Beach, the light gossip of the town. It was reported that
Brevoort and Dennis had kept a journal of their foreign travel, "which
is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. Cooper, on only looking at the
first word, fell into a fit of laughing that lasted half an hour."
Irving is glad that he cannot find Brevoort's flute, which the latter
requested should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent
amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the
expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on,
affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of
September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that
had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly
after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe
patriotic indignation at the insulting proposals of the Britis