door, constructed of oak timber and plank, with holes through the latter for firing upon assailants. The door opened upon a stone-paved hall or entry, leading into the huge single room of the basement, which was lighted by two small windows; the ceiling black with the smoke of a century and a half—a huge fire-place, calculated for eight-foot wood, occupying one entire side while overhead, suspended from the timbers, or on shelves fastened to them, were household stores, farming utensils, fishing rods, guns, bunches of herbs, gathered perhaps a century ago, strings of dried apples and pumpkins, links of mottled sausages, spare-ribs, and flitches of bacon; the firelight of an evening dimly revealing the checked woollen coverlet of the bed in one far-off corner-and in another,

"the pewter plates on the dresser

Caught and reflected the flame as shields of armies the sunshine.'

“Tradition has preserved many incidents of life in the garrisons. In times of unusual peril, the settlers generally resorted at night to the fortified houses, taking thither their flocks and herds, and such household valuables as were most likely to strike the fancy or minister to the comfort or vanity of the heathen marauders. False alarms were frequent. The smoke of a distant fire, the bark of a dog in the deep woods, a stump or bush, taken in the uncertain light of stars and moon for the appearance of a man, were sufficient to spread alarm through the entire settlement, and to cause the armed men of the garrison to pass whole nights in sleepless watching.

“It is said that at Haseltine's garrison-house, the sentinel on

duty saw, as he thought, an Indian inside of the paling which surrounded the building, and apparently seeking to gain an entrance. He promptly raised his musket and fired at the intruder, alarming thereby the entire garrison. The women and children left their beds, and the men seized their guns, and commenced firing on the suspicious object, but it seemed to bear a charmed life and remained unharmed. As the morning dawned, however, the mystery was solved by the discovery of a black quilted petticoat hanging on the clothes line, completely riddled with balls."

WASHINGTON IRVING.

It is really surprising that a country so young as America, can count so many men of extraordinary talent and true genius. I know that unappreciating asses and conceited ascetics, who glory in denouncing the land they disgrace, tell us, with all the gravity of ignorant and impertinent assurance, that there are no great men (of course they except themselves) in the United States, as though intellect was bounded by state lines, or blighted by the atmosphere on this side the Atlantic. To such an extent have the unthinking masses caught this infection of contempt for their own countrymen, that poets and preachers, actors and authors, of all degrees of talent, are, comparatively, unrecognised until they have been endorsed by an European reputation. Indeed, this remark applies to persons who are not devoted to literary pursuits. If a man would succeed in sailing a boat, or picking a lock, or mowing a field of grain, his fortune is made when England acknowledges the superiority of his skill, and it is much to the credit of the mother country, that she is ever ready to acknowledge the peculiar gifts and graces of her transatlantic rival.

We are indebted to famous old England for the discovery that Cooper and Irving were men of true genius, and that the latter could write in a style which would be no discredit to Goldsmith. When Dickens was in this country, he paid a

very handsome and merited compliment to the celebrated author of the "Alhambra" and "Knickerbocker." I began by alluding to men and women of genius, with the intention of glancing at a few of them, but I must postpone that pleasant task for the present, and proceed at once with my sketch of the American Goldsmith. I know not among his own countrymen, any author with whom to compare him. He has more polish and less wit than Paulding; he is not so much given to detail, and has greater wealth of imagery than Cooper; he has a smoother style, and a more fascinating manner than Hawthorne; and is no more like Emerson, than a candle is like a comet. In many points he is unlike the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Goldsmith was bashful, awkward, and of ordinary personal appearance; Irving has the assurance of a well-bred gentleman, is graceful in his manners and movements, and his form of perfect proportion is surmounted by a magnificent head and handsome face. Notwithstanding these and other dissimilarities, their style is alike. There is the same glowing rhetoric, the same opulence of illustration, the same perfection of finish. This is not the result of education; there has been no effort to imitate the conversational ease, the tender shiftings, the pleasant pathos, the gentle sportiveness, the splendid raillery of Goldsmith.

Irving excels in "literary light horsemanship;" he never stops to argue his case, and yet there is a meaning and a depth in his philosophy, which answers the purpose of the most elaborate logic; and here I may be permitted to say, that not a few of our writers who are now in active service, and

who make no pretensions whatever to prove their positions by mathematical demonstration, give the appreciative reader that proof which sinks lower and weighs heavier than the profoundest argument. Read some of the best things by N. P. Willis, and he has written some of the best things in the English language, and you will find sermons in a sentence, poems in parentheses, scattered with princely profusion over the works which come from his prolific pen. Yet, Mr. Willis is not a metaphysician, he is not a sermonizer, not a discussionist, but he has the genius to invent, and the pluck to print what he discovers, without waiting to hunt up mouldy precedents to sustain him. I have noticed more originality often in a single page of the "Home Journal," than I have found in the next octavo that I perseveringly waded through. This is but a single instance to show that conviction does not always depend on solid argument, and that sound philosophy is not necessarily excluded from the works of those who write, because they cannot help it; men, whose impulses are often more reliable than the intellect of those who weigh every word, and use square and compass on every sentence, before they venture to feed those who are hungering and thirsting after knowledge.

The popularity of Irving arises principally from the fact, that while his style is elegant, and his thoughts are full of suggestions, he does not soar above the comprehension of the mass of readers, while he never fails to gratify the refined taste of the most fastidious, and satisfy the demand of the best thinkers.