rk of the period.{19} It is fair to say, however, that the critic
of to-day can hardly see in these youthful pages any promise of the
Longfellow of the future. The opening chapter, describing the author as
a country schoolmaster, who plays with his boys in the afternoon, is
only a bit of Irving diluted,--the later papers, "A Walk in Normandy,"
"The Village of Auteuil," etc., carrying the thing somewhat farther, but
always in the same rather thin vein. Their quality of crudeness was
altogether characteristic of the period, and although Holmes and
Whittier tried their 'prentice hands with the best intentions in the
same number of the "New England Magazine," they could not raise its
level. We see in these compositions, as in the "Annuals" of that day,
that although Hawthorne had begun with his style already formed, yet
that of Longfellow was still immature. This remark does not, indeed,
apply to a version of a French drinking song,{20} which exhibits
something of his later knack at such renderings. There was at any rate
some distinct maturity in the first number of "Outre-Mer," which
appeared in 1835. A notice of this book in the London "Spectator" closed
with this expression of judgment: "Either the author of the 'Sketch
Book' has received a warning, or there are two Richmonds in the field."

Literary history hardly affords a better instance of the direct
following of a model by a younger author than one can inspect by laying
side by side a page of the first number of "Outre-Mer" and a page of the
"Sketch Book," taking in each case the first American editions. Irving's
books were printed by C. S. Van Winkle, New York, and Longfellow's by J.
Griffin, Brunswick, Maine; the latter bearing the imprint of Hilliard,
Gray & Co., Boston, and the former of the printer only. Yet the physical
appearance of the two sets of books is almost identical; the typography,
distribution into chapters, the interleaved titles of these chapters,
and the prefix to each chapter of a little motto, often in a foreign
language. It must be remembered that the "Sketch Book," like
"Outre-Mer," was originally published in numbers; and besides all this
the literary style of Longfellow's work was at this time so much like
that of Irving that it is very hard at first to convince the eye that
Irving is not responsible for all. Yet for some reason or other the
early copies of the "Sketch Book" command no high price at auction,
while at the recent sale of Mr. A