PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGENTS. 107 



most decided proofs that nature had endowed him with the richest 

 gifts of genius. His early writings, especially his contributions to 

 Salmagundi, and Knickerbocker's History of New York, exhibit the 

 keenest power of observation, the most brilliant wit, and an English 

 style at once pure, copious, and expressive. But when he resolved to 

 devote himself to letters as the business of his life, instead of the 

 amusement of his leisure hours, he gave to the culture of style the 

 thought, care, and labor that the painter and the sculptor expend in 

 acquiring a mastery over the materials, principles, and processes of 

 their respective arts. In the choice of his words and the structure of 

 his sentences he exercised a refined taste and a delicate discrimination, 

 allowing nothing to escape him which was not justified by the most 

 fastidious judgment. He studied the best authors of the best ages in 

 English literature, and disciplined his genius by a strict conformity to 

 the established idiom of the mother tongue. Oddity and extravagance 

 of expression, which some writers of our age mistake for originality of 

 genius, found no favor with him. His genial nature, his sensibility to 

 all that is beautiful in the works of God, his ready sympathy with the 

 best affections of the human heart, were thus embodied in a style of 

 marvellous grace, purity, and harmony. His imagination, gentle yet 

 powerful, brightened everything it fell upon; his wit exhilarated and 

 gladdened; his humor charmed by its sparkling play; his pathos, so 

 true, so tender, colored with the unforgotten sorrow of his own early 

 bereavement, touched the chords of sympathy in every heart. He 

 was an elegant essayist, a delightful biographer, a profound and 

 brilliant historian, and his whole life was loyal to the highest interests 

 of humanity. In private friendships he was faithful and generous. 

 He had all the excellencies of the literary character, with none of its 

 defects. He had no rivalries to disturb the serenity of his days, no 

 jealousies to irritate his temper. While enjoying his own brilliant 

 success, with a modest appreciation of its value, he rejoiced in the 

 successes of others, and delighted to aid them with his powerful influ- 

 ence. He never had an enemy, for all men were his friends. He 

 never uttered a word that could wound the feelings of the most sensi- 

 tive; he never wrote a sentence that could offend the most delicate; 

 he never printed a line which, dying, he could wish to blot. His genius 

 has been recognized throughout the civilized world; his works are read 

 and his name revered wherever a cultivated language has been the 

 organ of a national literature. The legends of Spain and Italy have 

 furnished congenial subjects for his pen. The manners and life of 

 England have been more brilliantly illustrated by him than by any 

 English writer of our time. His native land, however, has been 

 crowned by the richer and mature products of his genius. The 

 picturesque banks of the Hudson have been made classical by the 

 charm with which his creations — poetical in all but the form — have 

 invested them. It is his peculiar felicity to have built the most 

 enduring monument to the discoverer of America and to the Father 

 of his Country, with the latter of whom he was associated by his 

 baptismal name. 



Mr. Irving took a lively interest in all that concerned the intellectual 

 progress of the country; in all that concerned humanity, beyond the 



