SOURCE: “Irving as a Writer,” Ladies' Repository, Vol. 8, July, 1848, pp. 217-20.

In the following essay, the critic praises Irving as a writer of the highest quality, forever to be remembered and revered.

The name of Washington Irving will be for ever associated with American literature. He has attained the very highest eminence as a writer. Both in England and the United States his works have been universally read with pleasure. Perhaps they have been more generally admired, than the production of any living author on this side of the Atlantic. They are not confined to any class of readers. To nearly every mental condition, they have proved equally acceptable. Though dealing somewhat in fiction, it is evident that he employs it only as the garb in which he arrays real characters. He gives us lively sketches of human nature, concealing only dates, names, and places. But all these...