The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-30 00:00:00

TER SUN, LONDON, THUIISDAY EVENING, JUNE 20, 1864.

FINE ARTS.

Washington Irving and his Literary Friends,
Designed by F. 0. C. Darley. Engraved by T.
0. Barlow. Published by Moore, Macqueen,
and Co.
Everyone knows, of course, those two delightful
pictures called respectively, " Shakspere and his
Contemporaries," and " Scott and his Contempora-
ries." Here, in this profoundly interesting en-
graving of " Washington Irving and his Literary
Friends," is an American ditto, revealing to view,
in Geoffrey Crayon's charming house-room at
Sunnyside (just the name for Irving's Home!) the
Author of the Sketch-hook and his Contemporaries.
Fifteen celebrated American men of letters are
here, in this most interesting work of art, grouped
together, and revealed each in propria persona, each
a vivid and wonderfully lifelike resemblance. In
the centre of the picture, of course, is the host—

literally a host in himself Geoffrey Crayon,
Diedrich Knickerbockt r, Launcelot Longstsff,
Jonathan Oidstyle, all rolled into see— otherwise
Washington Irving, Novelist, Essayist, Historian,
Biographer, hornine-do-lettres, and Ambassador!
Rather a lackadaisical pose is given to the
head of this delightful writer, as he is here repre-
sented, with that same head of his turned senti-
mentally on one side, while the blandest of smiles, a
smile almost amounting to a simper, is expressed on
the features. Seated near hi,n,with his features shown
in profile, is the author among them all with the
noblest head—a sort of Nipoleonic head—and the
finest thoughtfullest countenance—Williem Henry
Prescott, the luminous historian of "Ferdinand and
Isabella." The glasses he is fingering, suspended
round his neck by a ribbon, remind us of that ter•
rible aftFction of his, embittering his life—an
6 ietion almost amounting to blindness. Leaning
on the back of the chair in which Prescott is seated,
is that noblest of all the American poets, Professor
Longfellow. Behind him is the the mystical face
of the author of the " Scarlet Letter," Nathaniel
Hawthorne, recently deceased. In the background,
between Prescott and Longfellow, appears the
lugubrious, ringletted visage of Mr. N. P. Willis,
looking like that of a handsome roué thoroughly
used up. Yonder on the other side of the picture
is the manly, vigorous, sailor-like face of Fenni-
more Cooper, the sea-navelist, par excellence.
Next to him is the historian of America, George
Barncroft. And, further back, Ralph Waldo
Emerson's shrewd, close-shaven, old-fashioned
looking Yankee visage peers at us incongruously
over a sort or a Byronic turned-down collar! Near
him, grim and ungainly as a Polar bear showing
his teeth through a shock of white hair, is 'William
Cullen Bryant, Poet, and Editor of an Evening
Newspaper. Besides one other celebrity not yet
mentioned, to wit, °dyer Wendell Holmes, there
are five writers, well known probably in their own
country, but little thought of in the old hemisphere
—namely, Halleck, Limms, Paulding, Kennedy,
and Tuckerman. The difficulties in the way of
" arranging" such a picture as this transatlantic
companion to the two famous English prints
already mentioned, viz., " Shakspere and his
Contemporaries," and "Scott and his Con-
temporaries," have been admirably well over-
come by the eminent American artist from whose
hand the original design emanated. And, in
transferring the general effect of that design of Mr.
Darley's to steel, in a style of (the engraver's) art
known as mixed line and stipple, Mr. Barlow, of
London, has done his part, we should conjecture,
to the painter's complete satisfaction. Published
by the Messrs. Moore, McQueen and Co., of Bar

ners-street, this engraving of Washington Irving
and his Literary Friends is likely to vie in popu•
larity—as affording the' public a welcome peep
into Sannyside—with the celebrated pictures,
already yielding that public peeps, respectively,
into the Mermaid and into Abbotsford.