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Literary and Social Essays by Curtis, George William, 1824-1892
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A word from our supporters: File extension SOL | In the midst of this frolicking life, and growing out of it, Irving's real literary career began. With his brother William, and his friend James K. Paulding, who afterwards wrote the _Dutchman's Fireside_, and was one of the recognized American authors of fifty years ago, he issued every fortnight a periodical, which ran for twenty numbers, and stopped in the midst of its success. It was modelled upon the _Spectator_ and Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_, describing and criticising the manners and morals of the town with extravagant humor and pungency, and a rollicking independence which must have been both startling and stimulating. Perhaps, also, the town was secretly pleased to discover that it was sufficiently important to be worthy of such bright raillery and humorous reproof. _Salmagundi_ was only a lively _jeu d'esprit_, and Irving was never proud of it. "I know," said Paulding, writing to him in later life, "you consider old Sal as a sort of saucy, flippant trollope, belonging to nobody, and not worth fathering." But, nevertheless, Irving's genius was trying its wings in it, and pluming itself for flight. _Salmagundi_ undoubtedly, to a later taste, is rather crude and cumbrous fun, but it is interesting as the immediate forerunner of our earliest work of sustained humor, and of the wit of Holmes and Lowell at a later date. When it was discontinued, at the beginning of 1808, Irving and his brother began the _History of New York_, which was originally designed to be a parody of a particular book. But the work was interrupted by the business difficulties of the brother, and at last Irving resumed it alone, recast it entirely, and as he finished it the engagement with Matilda Hoffman ended with her death, and the long arid secret romance of his life began. Knickerbocker's _History_ was published just before Christmas, 1809, and made a merry Christmas for our grandfathers and grandmothers eighty years ago. The fun began before the book was published. In October the curiosity of the town of eighty thousand inhabitants was awakened by a series of skilful paragraphs in the _Evening Post_. The art of advertising was never more ingeniously illustrated. Mr. Fulkerson himself would have paid homage to the artist. One day the quid-nuncs found this paragraph in the paper, It was headed, "DISTRESSING.of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing that he is not entirely in his right mind, and, as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received. by giving an insertion to the above. This was followed within a fortnight by another ingenious lure: |