Having said thus much with reference to myself, I
shall have the pleasure of saying a few words with reference to
somebody else.
There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of
my books--I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop--wrote to
me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly,
that if I had written the book under every circumstance of
disappointment, of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the
reverse, I should have found in the receipt of that letter my best
and most happy reward. I answered him, {5} and he answered me, and
so we kept shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolled
between us. I came here to this city eager to see him, and [laying
his hand it upon Irving's shoulder] here he sits! I need not tell
you how happy and delighted I am to see him here to-night in this
capacity.
Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don't go upstairs to bed two
nights out of the seven--as a very creditable witness near at hand
can testify--I say I do not go to bed two nights out of the seven
without taking Washington Irving under my arm; and, when I don't
take him, I take his own brother, Oliver Goldsmith. Washington
Irving! Why, of whom but him was I thinking the other day when I
came up by the Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, Hell Gate, and all these
places? Why, when, not long ago, I visited Shakespeare's
birthplace, and went beneath the roof where he first saw light,
whose name but HIS was pointed out to me upon the wall? Washington
Irving--Diedrich Knickerbocker--Geoffrey Crayon--why, where can you
go that they have not been there before? Is there an English farm-
-is there an English stream, an English city, or an English
country-seat, where they have not been? Is there no Bracebridge
Hall in existence? Has it no ancient shades or quiet streets?
In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an
old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar's Head, a little man
with a red nose, and an oilskin hat.
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