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appeared in a collected form before. They make a good-sized duodecimo, which takes its place with unstinted self-respect in the fine series of Irving's complete works issued by Putnam, of which more directly. In its literary rank it will compare with any of the other fragmentary volumes of the edition. We promise the reader that the attractions, the fascinations of the "Sketch Book," "Bracebridge Hall," "The Tales of a Traveler," &c., will be found richly abundant in these fugitive pictures, and the pleasant recollections of entertainment and tranquil, ever-flowing humor, in the fire-side or Sunnyside" readings of other years-those dear recollections which every reader of Irving finds it impossible for time or change to dissociate from his name will be reproduced with all their old zest by the perusal of

this welcome volume.

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We referred, some time ago, in one of our literary notes, to the homestead of Irving, on the banks of the Hudson, not far from Tarrytown. The summer steamers, crowded with happy travelers, on "the northern tour," never pass it without inclining to the landward as if in homage to his genius, under the feet of the throng who gather at the bulwarks to gaze on Sunnyside" landscape, and its old, comfortable, but odd-looking mansion, the tranquil asylum of the old man of genius. It is this curious and venerable house, ever hereafter to be memorable as so

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many other localities have been made by Irving's pen, that gives title to the new book, "Wolfert's Roost;" and the first paper of the collection is a sort of chronicle of the times which have passed over and have left their weather-beaten traces upon the building. The locale and pretensions of the edifice are thus described in the opening paragraph of the volume:

"About five-and-twenty miles from the ancient and renowned city of Manhattan, formerly called New-Amsterdam, and vulgarly called New-York, on the eastern bank of that expansion of the Hudson, known among Dutch mariners of yore as the Tappan Zee, being in fact the great Mediterranean Sea of the New-Netherlands, stands a little old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable-ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat. It is said, in fact, to have been modeled after the cocked hat of Peter the Headstrong, as the Escurial was modeled after the gridiron of the blessed St. Lawrence. Though but of small dimensions, yet, like many small people, it is of mighty spirit, and values itself greatly on its antiquity, being one of the oldest edifices, for

its size, in the whole country. It claims to be an ancient seat of empire, I may rather say an empire in itself, and like all empires, great and small, has had its grand historical epochs. In speaking of this doughty and valorous little pile, I shall call it by its usual appellation of The Roost;' though that is a name given to it in modern days, since it became the abode of the white man.' ""

The grand history of this monumental mansion is given in similar style through the old Dutch period, the Revolutionary times, and thence to the present day, including in the latter section a full and accurate account of the residence within its venerable walls of the immortal Diedrich Knickerbocker himself. We must insert the Third Chronicle :—

batable ground had once more become a quiet agricultural region; the border chivalry had turned their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and hung up their guns, only to be taken down occasionally in a campaign against wild pigeons on the hills, or wild ducks upon the Hudson. Jacob Van Tassel, whilom carried captive to New-York, a flagitious rebel, had come forth from captivity a hero of seventy-six.' In a little while he

"The Revolutionary War was over. The de

sought the scenes of his former triumphs and mishaps, rebuilt the Roost, restored his goosegun to the hooks over the fireplace, and reared once more on high the glittering weathercocks.

"Years and years passed over the time-honored little mansion. The honeysuckle and the sweetbrier crept up its walls; the wren and the phoebe bird built under the eaves; it gradually became almost hidden among trees, through which it looked forth, as with half-shut eyes, upon the Tappan Sea. The Indian spring, famous in the days of the wizard sachem, still welled up at the bottom of the green bank; and the wild brook, wild as ever, came babbling down the ravine, and threw itself into the little cove where of yore the water-guard harbored their whaleboats.

"Such was the state of the Roost many years since, at the time when Diedrich Knickerbocker came into this neighborhood, in the course of his researches among the Dutch families for materials for his immortal history. The exterior of the eventful little pile seemed to him full of promise. The crow-step gables were of the primitive architecture of the province. The weathercocks which surmounted them had crowed in the glorious days of the New-Netherlands. The one above the porch had actually glittered of yore on the great Vander Heyden palace at Albany!

"The interior of the mansion fulfilled its external promise. Here were records of old times; documents of the Dutch dynasty, rescued from the profane hands of the English, by Wolfert Acker, when he retreated from NewAmsterdam. Here he had treasured them up like buried gold, and here they had been miraculously preserved by St. Nicholas, at the time of the conflagration of the Roost.

"Here then did old Diedrich Knickerbocker take up his abode for a time, and set to work with antiquarian zeal to decipher these precious documents, which, like the lost books of Livy, had baffled the research of former historians; and it is the facts drawn from these sources which give his work the preference, in point of accuracy, over every other history.

"It was during his sojourn in this eventful neighborhood, that the historian is supposed to have picked up many of those legends, which have since been given by him to the world, or found among his papers. Such was the legend connected with the old Dutch church of Sleepy Hollow. The church itself was a monument of bygone days. It had been built in the early times of the province. A tablet over the portal bore the names of its founders: Frederick Filipson, a mighty man of yore, patroon of Yonkers; and his wife, Katrina Van Courtland, of the Van Courtlands of Croton-a powerful family connection, with one foot resting on Spiting Devil Creek, and the other on the Croton River.

"Two weathercocks, with the initials of these illustrious personages, graced each end of the church, one perched over the belfry, the other over the chancel. As usual with ecclesiastical weathercocks, each pointed a different way; and there was a perpetual contradiction between them on all points of windy doctrine; emblematic, alas! of the Christian propensity to schism and controversy.

"In the burying-ground adjacent to the church reposed the earliest fathers of a wide rural neighborhood. Here families were garnered together, side by side, in long platoons, in this last gathering-place of kindred. With pious hand would Diedrich Knickerbocker turn down the weeds and brambles which had overgrown the tombstones, to decipher inscriptions in Dutch and English, of the names and virtues of succeeding generations of Van Tassels, Van Warts, and other historical worthies, with their portraitures faithfully carved, all bearing the family likeness to cherubs.

"The congregation in those days was of a truly rural character. City fashions had not as yet stole up to Sleepy Hollow. Dutch sunbonnets and honest homespun still prevailed. Everything was in primitive style, even to the bucket of water and tin cup near the door in summer, to assuage the thirst caused by the heat of the weather or the drought of the sermon.

"The pulpit, with its wide-spreading sounding board, and the communion table, curiously carved, had each come from Holland in the olden time, before the arts had sufficiently advanced in the colony for such achievements. Around these on Sundays would be gathered the elders of the church, gray-headed men who led the psalmody, and in whom it would be difficult to recognize the hard-riding lads of yore, who scoured the debatable land in the time of the Revolution.

"The drowsy influence of Sleepy Hollow was apt to breathe into this sacred edifice; and now and then an elder might be seen with his handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies, and apparently listening to the dominie, but really sunk into a summer slumber, lulled by the sultry notes of the locust from the neighboring trees.

"And now a word or two about Sleepy Hollow, which many have rashly deemed a fanciful creation, like the Lubberland of mariners. It was probably the mystic and dreamy sound of the name which first tempted the historian of the Manhattoes into its spellbound mazes. As he entered, all nature seemed for the moment to awake from its slumbers and break forth in gratulations. The quail whistled a welcome from the corn-field; the loquacious cat-bird flew from bush to bush with restless wing proclaiming his approach, or perked inquisitively into his face, as if to get a knowledge of his physiognomy. The woodpecker tapped a tattoo on the hollow apple-tree, and then peered round the trunk, as if asking how he relished the salutation; while the squirrel scampered along the fence, whisking his tail over his head by way of a huzza.

"Here reigned the golden mean extolled by poets, in which no gold was to be found and very little silver. The inhabitants of the Hollow were of the primitive stock, and had intermarried and bred in and in, from the earliest time of the province, never swarming far from the parent hive, but dividing and subdividing their paternal acres as they swarmed.

"Here were small farms, each having its little portion of meadow and corn-field; its orchard of gnarled and sprawling apple-trees; its garden in which the rose, the marigold and hollyhock, grew sociably with the cabbage, the pea, and the pumpkin: each had its low-eaved mansion redundant with white-headed children; with an old hat nailed against the wall for the housekeeping wren; the coop on the grass-plot, where the motherly hen clucked round with her vagrant brood; each had its stone well, with a moss-covered bucket suspended to the long balancing pole, according to antediluvian hydraulics; while within doors resounded the eternal hum of the spinning-wheel.

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Many were the great historical facts which the worthy Diedrich collected in these lowly mansions, and patiently would he sit by the old Dutch housewives with a child on his knee, or a purring grimalkin on his lap, listening to endless ghost stories spun forth to the humming accompaniment of the wheel.

"The delighted historian pursued his explorations far into the foldings of the hills where the Pocantico winds its wizard stream among the mazes of its old Indian haunts; sometimes running darkly in pieces of woodland beneath balancing sprays of beech and chestnut; sometimes sparkling between grassy borders in fresh green intervals; here and there receiving the tributes of silver rills which came whimpering down the hill-sides from their parent springs.

"In a remote part of the Hollow, where the Pocantico forced its way down rugged rocks, stood Carl's mill, the haunted house of the neighborhood. It was indeed a goblin-looking pile; shattered and time-worn; dismal with clanking wheels and rushing streams, and all kinds of uncouth noises. A horse-shoe nailed to the door to keep off witches, seemed to have lost its power; for as Diedrich approached, an old negro thrust his head, all dabbled with flour, out of a hole above the water-wheel, and grinned and rolled his eyes, and appeared to be the very hobgoblin of the place. Yet this

proved to be the great historic genius of the Hollow, abounding in that valuable information never to be acquired from books. Diedrich Knickerbocker soon discovered his merit. They had long talks together, seated on a broken millstone, heedless of the water and the clatter of the mill; and to his conference with that African sage, many attribute the surprising, though true story of Ichabod Crane, and the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. We refrain, however, from giving further researches of the historian of the Manhattoes, during his sojourn at the Roost; but may return to them in future pages.

"Reader, the Roost still exists. Time, which changes all things, is slow in its operations on a Dutchman's dwelling. The stout Jacob Van Tassel, it is true, sleeps with his fathers; and his great goose-gun with him; yet his stronghold still bears the impress of its Dutch origin. Odd rumors have gathered about it, as they are apt to do about old mansions, like moss and weather stains. The shade of Wolfert Acker still walks his unquiet rounds at night in the orchards; and a white figure has now and then been seen seated at a window and gazing at the moon, from a room in which a young lady is said to have died of love and green apples.

"Mementoes of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker are still cherished at the Roost. His elbow-chair and antique writing-desk maintain their place in the room he occupied, and his old cocked hat still hangs on a peg against the wall."

One of the pleasantest pieces in the book is on The Birds of Spring; it is seasonable to our present number, and we feel tempted to quote from it largely. It opens with some pleasant autobiographical allusions:

"My quiet residence in the country, aloof from fashion, politics, and the money-raarket, leaves me rather at a loss for occupation, and drives me occasionally to the study of nature, and other low pursuits. Having few neighbors, also, on whom to keep a watch, and exercise my habits of observation, I am fain to amuse myself with prying into the domestic concerns and peculiarities of the animals around me; and, during the present season, have derived considerable entertainment from certain sociable little birds, almost the only visitors we have, during this early part of the year.

"Those who have passed the winter in the country are sensible of the delightful influences that accompany the earliest indications of spring; and of these, none are more delightful than the first notes of the birds. There is one modest little sad-colored bird, much resembling a wren, which came about the house just on the skirts of winter, when not a blade of grass was to be seen, and when a few prematurely warm days had given flattering foretaste of soft weather. He sang early in the dawning, long before sunrise, and late in the evening, just before the closing in of night, his matin and his vesper hymns. It is true, he sang occasionally throughout the day; but at these still hours, his song was more remarked. He sat

on a leafless tree, just before the window, and warbled forth his notes, few and simple, but singularly sweet, with something of a plaintive tone, that heightened their effect.

"The first morning that he was heard, was a joyous one among the young folks of my household. The long, death-like sleep of winter was at an end; nature was once more awakening; they now promised themselves the immediate appearance of buds and blossoms. I was reminded of the tempest-tossed crew of Columbus, when, after their long dubious voyage, the field birds came singing round the ship, though still far at sea, rejoicing them with the belief of the immediate proximity of land. A sharp return of winter almost silenced my little songster, and dashed the hilarity of the household; yet still he poured forth, now and then, a few plaintive notes, between the frosty pipings of the breeze, like gleams of sunshine between wintry clouds.

"I have consulted my book of ornithology in vain, to find out the name of this kindly little bird, who certainly deserves honor and favor far beyond his modest pretensions. He comes like the lowly violet, the most unpretending, but welcomest of flowers, breathing the sweet promise of the early year.

"Another of our feathered visitors, who follow close upon the steps of the winter, is the pe-wit, or pe-wee, or phobe-bird; for he is called by each of these names, from a fancied resemblance to the sound of his monotonous note. He is a sociable little being, and seeks the habitation of man. A pair of them have built beneath my porch, and have reared several broods there, for two years past, their nest being never disturbed. They arrive early in the spring, just when the crocus and the snowdrop begin to peep forth. Their first chirp spreads gladness through the house. The Phœbe-birds have come!' is heard on all sides; they are welcomed back like members of the family; and speculations are made upon where they have been, and what countries they have seen, during their long absence. Their arrival is the more cheering, as it is pronounced, by the old weather-wise people of the country, the sure sign that the severe frosts are at an end, and that the gardener may resume his labors with confidence."

Then follows a description of the bluebird, with Wilson, the ornithologist's poem upon him, and finally the following sketch of our favorite boblink :

"The happiest bird of our spring, however, and one that rivals the European lark in my estimation, is the boblincon, or boblink, as he is commonly called. He arrives at that choice portion of our year which, in this latitude, asswers to the description of the month of May so often given by the poets. With us, it begins about the middle of May, and lasts until nearly the middle of June. Earlier than this, winter is apt to return on its traces, and to blight the opening beauties of the year; and later than this begin the parching and panting, and dissolving heats of summer. But in this genial interval, nature is in all her freshness and fragrance: the rains are over and gone, the

flowers appear upon the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.' The trees are now in their fullest foliage and brightest verdure; the woods are gay with the clustered flowers of the laurel; the air is perfumed by the sweetbrier and the wild rose; the meadows are enameled with clover-blossoms; while the young apple, the peach, and the plum, begin to swell, and the cherry to glow, among the green leaves.

"This is the chosen season of revelry of the boblink. He comes amid the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows; and is most in song when the clover is in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long flaunting weed, and as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing the same rapturous character. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously down to the earth, as if overcome with ecstasy at his own music. Sometimes he is in pursuit of his paramour; always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight.

"Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the boblink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the year when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up, during the livelong day, in that purgatory of boyhood, a school-room. It seemed as if the little varlet mocked at me, as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. O, how I envied him! No lessons, no task, no hatefui school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo :

"Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy note,

No winter in thy year.

"O! could I fly, I'd fly with thee;
We'd make, on joyful wing,
Our annual visit round the globe,
Companion of the spring!"

"Further observation and experience have given me a different idea of this little feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart, for the benefit of my schoolboy readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admiration which I once indulged. I have shown him only as I saw him at first, in what I may call the poetical part of his career, when he in a manner devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. While this lasted, he was sacred from injury; the very schoolboy would not fling a stone at him, and the merest rustic would pause to listen to his strain. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover blossoms dis

appear, and the spring fades into summer, he gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a russet dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyments of common vulgar birds. His notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is stuffing himself with the seeds of the tall weeds on which he lately swung and chanted so melodiously. He has become a bon vivant,' a 'gourmand;' with him now there is nothing like the 'joys of the table.' In a little while he grows tired of plain homely fare, and is off on a gastronomical tour in quest of foreign luxuries. We next hear of him with myriads of his kind, banqueting among the reeds of the Delaware; and grown corpulent with good feeding. He has changed his name in traveling. Boblincon no more he is the reed-bird now, the muchsought for titbit of Pennsylvania epicures; the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan! Whereever he goes, pop! pop! pop! every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him.

"Does he take warning and reform ?-Alas, not he! Incorrigible epicure! again he wings his flight. The rice-swamps of the south invite him. He gorges himself among them almost to bursting; he can scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once more changed his name, and is now the famous rice-bird of the Carolinas.

"Last stage of his career; behold him spitted, with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on the table of some southern gastronome.

"Such is the story of the boblink; once spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; finally, a gross little sensualist who expiates his sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral, worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the early part of his career, but to eschew all tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence which brought this mistaken little bird to an untimely end."

The venerable Diedrich made, it seems, a visit to the "Faderland," actuated thereto by that curious spirit of antiquarian inquiry and admiration for Dutch traditions and manners, which have given his illustrious history such unparalleled accuracy and interest. He found himself quite is his faithful description of it, true to all "imparadised" in Broek, Holland. Here the traits of good sense and good style which shine on the pages of his "History :"—

"What renders Broek so perfect an elysium in the eyes of all true Hollanders, is, the matchless height to which the spirit of cleanliness is carried there. It amounts almost to a religion among the inhabitants, who pass the greater part of their time rubbing and scrubbing, and painting, and varnishing: each housewife vies with her neighbor in her devotion to the scrub

bing brush, as zealous Catholics do in their devotion to the cross; and it is said, a notable housewife of the place in days of yore is held in pious remembrance, and almost canonized as a saint, for having died of pure exhaustion and chagrin, in an ineffectual attempt to scour a black man white.

"These particulars awakened my ardent curiosity to see a place which I pictured to myself the very fountain-head of certain hereditary habits and customs prevalent among the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of my native state. I accordingly lost no time in performing a pilgrimage to Broek.

"Before I reached the place, I beheld symptoms of the tranquil character of its inhabitants. A little clump-built boat was in full sail along the lazy bosom of a canal; but its sail consisted of the blades of two paddles set on end, while the navigator sat steering with a third paddle in the stern, crouched down like a toad, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes. I presumed him to be some nautical lover, on the way to his mistress. After proceeding a little further, I came in sight of the harbor or port of destination of this drowsy navigator. This was the Broeken-Meer-an artificial basin, or sheet of olive-green water, tranquil as a millpond. On this the village of Broek is situated, and the borders are laboriously decorated with flower-beds, box-trees clipped into all kinds of ingenious shapes and fancies, and little lust' houses or pavilions.

"I alighted outside of the village, for no horse or vehicle is permitted to enter its precincts, lest it should cause defilement of the well-scoured pavements. Shaking the dust off my feet, therefore, I prepared to enter, with due reverence and circumspection, this sanctum sanctorum of Dutch cleanliness. I entered by a narrow street, paved with yellow bricks, laid edgewise, and so clean that one might eat from them. Indeed, they were actually worn deep, not by the tread of feet, but by the friction of the scrubbing-brush.

"The houses were built of wood, and all appeared to have been freshly painted, of green, yellow, and other bright colors. They were separated from each other by gardens and orchards, and stood at some little distance from the street, with wide areas or court-yards, paved in mosaic, with variegated stones, polished by frequent rubbing. The areas were divided from the street by curiously-wrought railings or balustrades of iron, surmounted with brass and copper balls, scoured into dazzling effulgence. The very trunks of the trees in front of the houses were by the same process made to look as if they had been varnished. The porches, doors, and window-frames of the houses were of exotic woods, curiously carved, and polished like costly furniture. The front doors are never opened, excepting on christenings, marriages, or funerals on all ordinary occasions, visitors enter by the back door. In former times, persons when admitted had to put on slippers, but this Oriental ceremony is no longer insisted on. . . . "To attempt to gain admission to any of these stately abodes was out of the question, having no company of soldiers to enforce a solicitation. I was fortunate enough, however, through the aid of my guide, to make my way

into the kitchen of the illustrious Ditmus, and I question whether the parlor would have proved more worthy of observation. The cook, a little wiry, hook-nosed woman, worn thin by incessant action and friction, was bustling about among her kettles and saucepans, with the scullion at her heels, both clattering in wooden shoes, which were as clean and white as the milk-pails; rows of vessels, of brass and copper, regiments of pewter dishes, and portly porringers, gave resplendent evidence of the intensity of their cleanliness; the very trammels and hangers in the fire-places were highly scoured, and the burnished face of the good St. Nicholas shone forth from the iron plate of the chimney-back.

"Among the decorations of the kitchen was a printed sheet of wood-cuts, representing the various holyday customs of Holland, with explanatory rhymes. Here I was delighted to recognize the jollities of New-Year's day; the festivities of Paäs and Pinkster, and all the other merrymakings handed down in my native place from the earliest times of New-Amsterdam, and which had been such bright spots in the year, in my childhood. I eagerly made myself master of this precious document for a trifling consideration, and bore it off as a memento of the place; though I question if, in so doing, I did not carry off with me the whole current literature of Broek.

"I must not omit to mention, that this village is the paradise of cows as well as men; indeed, you would almost suppose the cow to be as much an object of worship here, as the bull was among the ancient Egyptians; and well does she merit it, for she is, in fact, the patroness of the place. The same scrupulous cleanliness, however, which pervades everything else, is manifested in the treatment of this venerated animal. She is not permitted to perambulate the place; but in winter, when she forsakes the rich pasture, a well-built house is provided for her, well painted, and maintained in the most perfect order. Her stall is of ample dimensions; the floor is scrubbed and polished; her hide is daily curried and brushed, and sponged to her heart's content, and her tail is daintily tucked up to the ceiling, and decorated with a ribbon!

"On my way back through the village, I passed the house of the prediger, or preachera very comfortable mansion, which led me to augur well of the state of religion in the village. On inquiry, I was told that for a long time the inhabitants lived in a state of great indifference as to religious matters: it was in vain that their preachers endeavored to arouse their thoughts to a future state; the joys of heaven, as commonly depicted, were but little to their taste. At length a dominie appeared among them, who struck out in a different vein. He depicted the New Jerusalem as a place all smooth and level; with beautiful dykes, and ditches, and canals; and houses all shining with paint and varnish, and glazed tiles; and where there should never come horse, or ass, or cat, or dog, or anything that could make noise or dirt; but there should be nothing but rubbing and scrubbing, and washing and painting, and gilding and varnishing, forever and ever! Since that time, the good housewives of Broek have all turned their faces thither."

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