* * *

Turning to the eastern shore, we see "Nuits," the Cottinet residence,
Italian in style, built of Caen stone, "Nevis," home of the late Col.
James Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton, the George L. Schuyler
mansion, the late Cyrus W. Field's, and many pleasant places about
Abbotsford, and come to

=Irvington=, on the east bank, 24 miles from New York, once known as
Dearman's, but changed in compliment to the great writer and lover of
the Hudson, who after a long sojourn in foreign lands, returned to
live by the tranquil waters of Tappan Zee. In a letter to his brother
he refers to Sleepy Hollow as the favorite resort of his boyhood, and
says: "The Hudson is in a manner my first and last love, and after
all my wanderings and seeming infidelities, I return to it with
a heartfelt preference over all the rivers of the world." As at
Stratford-on-Avon every flower is redolent of Shakespeare, and at
Melrose every stone speaks of Walter Scott, so here on every breeze
floats the spirit of Washington Irving. A short walk of half a mile
north from the station brings us to his much-loved

="Sunnyside."= Irving aptly describes it in one of his stories as
"made up of gable-ends, and full of angles and corners as an old
cocked hat. It is said, in fact, to have been modeled after the hat of
Peter the Headstrong, as the Escurial of Spain was fashioned after the
gridiron of the blessed St. Lawrence." Wolfert's Roost, as it was once
styled (Roost signifying Rest), took its name from Wolfert Acker, a
former owner. It consisted originally of ten acres when purchased by
Irving in 1835, but eight acres were afterwards added. With great
humor Irving put above the porch entrance "George Harvey, Boum'r,"
Boumeister being an old Dutch word for architect. A storm-worn
weather-cock, "which once battled with the wind on the top of the
Stadt House of New Amsterdam in the time of Peter Stuyvesant, erects
his crest on the gable, and a gilded horse in full gallop, once the
weather-cock of the great Van der Heyden palace of Albany, glitters in
the sunshine, veering with every breeze, on the peaked turret over the
portal."

* * *

Irving chose his residence in the valley, not amid
the mountains; by the fields and meadows of the broad
Tappan Zee, rather than the Highlands; in a congenial
region suited to his temperament.

_Dr. Bethune._

* * *

About fifty years ago a cutting of Walter Scott's favori