. He swore to me the other
day that he had not told anybody what his opinion was,--whether the bank
ought to have a charter or not. Nobody in Washington knew what his
opinion was--not one--nobody; he defied any one to say what it
was--'anybody--damn the one! No, sir, nobody knows;' and if he had added
nobody cares, I believe honest ---- would have been exactly in the
right. Then there's his brother George: 'Damn that fellow,--knows eight
or nine languages; yes, sir, nine languages,--Arabic, Spanish, Greek,
Ital--And there's his wife, now,--she and Mrs. Madison are always
together. Mrs. Madison has taken a great fancy to her little daughter.
Only think, sir, that child is only six years old, and talks the Italian
like a book, by ----; little devil learnt it from an Italian
servant,--damned clever fellow; lived with my brother George ten years.
George says he would not part with him for all Tripoli,'" etc.

It was always difficult for Irving, in those days, to escape from the
genial blandishments of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Writing to Brevoort
from Philadelphia, March 16, 1811, he says: "The people of Baltimore are
exceedingly social and hospitable to strangers, and I saw that if I once
let myself get into the stream I should not be able to get out under a
fortnight at least; so, being resolved to push home as expeditiously as
was honorably possible, I resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil
at Baltimore; and after three days' and nights' stout carousal, and a
fourth's sickness, sorrow, and repentance, I hurried off from that
sensual city."

Jarvis, the artist, was at that time the eccentric and elegant lion of
society in Baltimore. "Jack Randolph" had recently sat to him for his
portrait. "By the bye [the letter continues] that little 'hydra and
chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious circulation at Baltimore. The
gentlemen have all voted him a rare wag and most brilliant wit; and the
ladies pronounce him one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable little
creatures in the world. The consequence is there is not a ball,
tea-party, concert, supper, or other private regale but that Jarvis is
the most conspicuous personage; and as to a dinner, they can no more do
without him than they could without Friar John at the roystering revels
of the renowned Pantagruel." Irving gives one of his _bon mots_ which
was industriously repeated at all the dinner tables, a profane sally,
which seemed to tickle the Baltimoreans excee