ople of New York." In
one of the last entries of the Diary, a few months before Hone's death,
allusion is made to a personal attack on the editor by the defeated
candidate of the Locofoco party for the District-Attorneyship. "I should
be well pleased to hear of this fellow being punished in this way, and
once a week for the remainder of his life, so that new wounds might be
inflicted before the old ones were healed, or until the fellow left off
lying; but I fear that the editorial miscreant in this case will be more
benefited than injured by this attack."

A man of literary tastes, or at least a man who wished to be regarded as
one of bookish inclinations, Hone seems never to have had any great
liking for men of letters as such. All of the gifted and unhappy Poe's
life in New York came within the period of the Diary, but in it is to be
found not a single mention of his name. There was no place at the Hone
table for the shabby, impossible genius. There was an impassable gulf
between the well-ordered household facing the City Hall Park, or at the
Broadway and Great Jones Street corner, and the humble Carmine Street
lodging, or the Fordham Cottage. Early references to Fenimore Cooper,
whom Hone first met at an American dinner to Lafayette in Paris in 1831,
are gracious enough, for the creator of Leather-Stocking was a
personage, and it suited Hone to stand well with personages. But when,
seven years later, Cooper returned to the United States after his long
stay abroad, and incurred the displeasure of his fellow-countrymen, Hone
was quite ready to join in the hue and cry.

With Washington Irving it was another matter. But who could have failed
to feel genial towards the quiet, scholarly, altogether charming
gentleman of Sunnyside? Also the legs of Irving fitted well and often
under the Hone mahogany, and the part of the author that was perceptible
above the table gave a flavour and dignity to the board. Somehow we see
Hone's cheeks puffed out with pride as he chronicles: "My old friend,
Washington Irving, who visits his native country after an absence of
seventeen years. I passed half an hour with him very pleasantly." "I
have devoted nearly the whole day to Washington Irving." "Irving and I
left them and came to town to meet friends whom I had engaged to dine
with me." "Washington Irving acquainted me with a circumstance, etc."
"We next visited Washington Irving, who lives with his sister and nieces
on the bank of the ri