t-string.) Mr. Irving said that on
entering the theatre he found in the pit only three or four English
gentleman, who had evidently come early, as he had, to find a good
place. Accordingly, he took his seat near them, when one of them rather
loftily said, "That seat is engaged, sir." He got up and took a seat a
little farther off, when they said, "That, too, is engaged." Again he
meekly rose, and took another place. Pretty soon one of the party said,
"Do you remember Washington Irving's description of a band of music?"
(It is indeed a most amusing caricature. One of the performers had blown
his visnomy to a point. Another blew as if he were blowing his whole
estate, real and personal, through his instrument. I quote from memory.)
Mr. Irving said they went over with the whole description, with much
entertainment and laughter. They little knew that they had thrust aside
[97] the author of their pleasure, who sat there, like the great Caliph,
incognito, and they would have paid him homage enough if they had known
him.

Mrs. S. told me that one evening he strolled up to their piazza, they
lived near to one another in the country, and fell into one of those
easy and unpremeditated talks, in which, to be sure, he was always most
pleasant, when he said, among other things, "Don't be anxious about the
education of your daughters: they will do very well; don't teach them
so many things,--teach them one thing." "What is that, Mr. Irving?" she
asked. "Teach them," he said, "to be easily pleased."

Bryant, too, everybody knows of. Now he is chiefly known as poet; but
when I went to New York-people thought most about him as editor of the
"Evening Post," and that with little enough complacency in the circles
where I moved. How many a fight I had for him with my Whig friends! For
he was my parishioner, and it was known that we were much together. The
"Evening Post" was a thorn in their sides, and every now and then, when
some keen editorial appeared in it, they used to say, "There! What do
you say of that?" I always said the same thing: Whether you and I like
what he says or not, whether we think it fair or not, of one thing be
sure, he is a man of perfect integrity; he is so almost to a fault, if
that be possible, regarding [98] neither feelings nor friendships, nor
anything else, when justice and truth are in question.

Speaking of Bryant brings to mind Audubon, the celebrated naturalist.
I became acquainted with him through his f