place he was honored and welcome.  Every large city has its “Irving House.”  The country takes pride in the fame of its men of letters.  The gate of his own charming little domain on the beautiful Hudson River was for ever swinging before visitors who came to him.  He shut out no one.** I had seen many pictures of his house, and read descriptions of it, in both of which it was treated with a not unusual American exaggeration.  It was but a pretty little cabin of a place; the gentleman of the press who took notes of the place, whilst his kind old host was sleeping, might have visited the whole house in a couple of minutes.

* At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer, which Mr. Filmore and General Pierce, the President and President Elect, were also kind enough to attend together.  “Two Kings of Brentford smelling at one rose,” says Irving, looking up with his good-humored smile.

** Mr. Irving described to me, with that humor and good- humor which he always kept, how, amongst other visitors, a member of the British press who had carried his distinguished pen to America (where he employed it in vilifying his own country) came to Sunnyside, introduced himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in two days described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner of dozing afterwards, in a New York paper.  On another occasion, Irving said, laughing, “Two persons came to me, and one held me in conversation whilst the other miscreant took my portrait!”

And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving’s books were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, when his profits were known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old bachelor were notoriously modest and simple?  He had loved once in his life.  The lady he loved died; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to replace her.  I can’t say how much the thought of that fidelity has touched me.  Does not the very cheerfulness of his after life add to the pathos of that untold story?  To grieve always was not in his nature; or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole with him and bemoan it.  Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and buries it; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due time.

Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, because there was a great number of people to occupy them.  He could only afford to keep one old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once or twice to run away with that careless old horseman).  He could only afford to give plain sherry to that amiable British paragraph-monger from New York, who saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless cup, and fetched the public into his private chamber to look at him.  Irving could only live very modestly, because the wifeless, childless man had a number of children to whom he was as a father.  He had as many as nine nieces, I am told—­I saw two of these ladies at his house—­with all of whom the dear old man had shared the produce of his labor and genius.