o make a
dramatic spectacle; a book interesting and notable, but false in
philosophy, and untrue in fact.

When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an English critic said it should have
been first published in England, for Irving was an English writer.
The idea has been more than once echoed here. The truth is, that while
Irving was intensely American in feeling, he was, first of all, a man of
letters, and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; he certainly was not
insular. He had a rare accommodation of tone to his theme. Of England,
whose traditions kindled his susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen
would like to write about it. In Spain he was saturated with the
romantic story of the people and the fascination of the clime; and he was
so true an interpreter of both as to earn from the Spaniards the title of
"the poet Irving." I chanced once, in an inn at Frascati, to take up
"The Tales of a Traveller," which I had not seen for many years.
I expected to revive the somewhat faded humor and fancy of the past
generation. But I found not only a sprightly humor and vivacity which
are modern, but a truth to Italian local color that is very rare in any
writer foreign to the soil. As to America, I do not know what can be
more characteristically American than the Knickerbocker, the Hudson River
tales, the sketches of life and adventure in the far West. But
underneath all this diversity there is one constant quality,--the flavor
of the author. Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of
books,--it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the
Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World
explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent
style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning
excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but
"charm."

The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty
years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed
by any writer. England returned him to America medaled by the king,
honored by the university which is chary of its favors, followed by the
applause of the whole English people. In English households, in
drawing-rooms of the metropolis, in political circles no less than among
the literary coteries, in the best reviews, and in the popular newspapers
the opinion of him was pretty much the same. And even in the lapse of
time and the change of litera