Litchfield enquirer., 1862-04-24

The New York correspondent of the Boston Post writes as follows M
 Much mystery has attached to the celibacy of Washington Irving. While upon every other point of peculiarity of the great writer's charac ter and career his familiar friends have taken pains to inform the wide circle of his admirers, an aggrayating reticence has always met the questionings of those who were curious as to why matrimony made no part of his experience. There were occasional and very vague referen- ces made to lang syne' love-so dimly distant in the past as to have the air of tradition-and the manner of mentioning which made Irving appear the model of constancy, if not the hero of romance But the circumstance of his bachel6rhood remained simple, unexplained fact the theme of many wonderings, the warp and wool of much imagining-naY more, the subsgructure of thousand sweet sympathies outguishing from other hearts whose loves had not been lost but gone before. It is doubtful if secret of the sorts-all things considered was ever before so carefully and completely kept For once the impertinent were held at bay, the prying were baulked, and the sympathetic, even, discouraged. The set time for it's disclosure has net come, and surely, when his intimates and re- 'latives were deberred from theremotest reference to the subject in the halIowed home circle of the literary bachelor, it was but proper that the truth should burst forth upon the world, if at all in Irving's own selected time and in his own pathetic language.
 It was while engaged ia writing his History of New York; that Irving, then young man of twenty-six was called to mourn the somewhat sudden death of Matilda Hoffman whom he had hoped to call his wife. This young lady was the second daughter of Josiah Odgen Hoffman, and the sister of those two talented men, Charles Feno Hoffman, the poet, and Odgen Hoffman, the eloquent jurist. In her fathers office Wash ington Irving had essayed. to study law, and with every prospect, if industrious and studious, of a partnership with Mir. Hoffman as we'll IS a ma trimouial alliance with Matilda. These high hopes were disappointed by the decease of the young lady on the 26th of April, 1909, in the eighteenth year of her age
 "There is pathos about Irving's recital of the circumstances of her death, and of his own feel ings, that is truly painful and tear-impelling.- He says: She was taken i'll with a cold. No thing was thought of it at first but she grew rapidly worse and fell into consumption. cannot tell you what suffered x saw her fade rapidly away-beautiful and more beautiful and more angelical to the very last l was often by her bedside, and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me with sweet. natural and affecting eoquence that was over towering. saw more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious state than l had ever known before. Her malady was rapid in it's ca reer and hurried her off in two months. Her dying struggles were painful and protracted.- For three days and nights I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. was by her when she died all the family were assembled round her, some praying, others weeping, for she was adored by them all. was the last one she look ed upon. x x cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind was in for long time. 1 seemed to care nothing the world was blank to me. abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but could not bear soli- tude, yet could not enjoy society. There was a dismal horror continually in my mind, that made me fear to be alone. l had often to get up in the night and seek the bedroom of my brother as if the having human being by me would re- lieve me from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts. Months elapsed before my mind would resume any tone; but the despondency had suffered for long time in the course of this attachment, and the anguish that attended it's catastrophe, seemed to give Q turn to my whole character, and throw some clouds into my dispo sition, which have ever since hung about it. l seemed to drift about without aim oI object, at the mercy of every breeze; my heart wanted anchorage was naturally susceptible and tried to form other attachments, but my 1 recur to what it had lost and whenever there was pause in the hurry of novelty and excite ment, would sink into dismal dejection. Fol years could not talk on the subject of this hope
 less regret could not even mention her name but her image was continually before me, and dreamt of her incessantly.'
 "Such was the language in which Irving pour ed forth his sorrows and sad memories, in let ter written many years ago to q lady who won- dered at his cellbacy and expressed the wish to know why he had never married. Can words more graphically describe the shipwreck of hope or more tenderly depict the chivalric devotion of faithful lover? How sweetly. too, does IT, wing portray with his artist-pen the lineaments of his loved one. He says, in the same letter
 l. The more I saw of her the more had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold it self leaf by leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her SO well as I, fol she was generally timid and sient but in a manner studied her excellence. Never did l meet with more intuitive rectitude of mind, more native delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word thought and action, than this young creature l am not exaggerating; what say was acknow. ledged by all that knew her. Her brilliant little sister used to say that people began by admiring her. but ended by loving Matilda. For my part idolized her. felt at times rebuked by her superior delicacy and purity, and as if I was a coarse, unworthy being in comparison
 "lrving seldom~or never alluded to this sad event nor was the name of Matilda ever spoken in his presence. Thirty years after her death I Irving was visiting Mr. Hoffman, and grand daughter in drawing out some sheets of music to be performed upon the piano, accidentally brought with them piece of embroidery which dropped upon the floor. Washington sad Mrs Hoffman, this is piece of poor Matilda's workmanship His biographer describes the effect as electric. He had been conversing in the sprightest mood before.' says Pierre Nj. Ir
 wing, and he sunk at once into utter silence, and in few minutes got up and left the house. Dc any of the pages that record the loves of the poets glisten with purer, brighter halo than i, thrown around the name and character ant memory of Matilda Hoffman by the life long constancy and the graceful tributes of one whos' name, destined to a deathless renown, may no hsnceforth be discovered from that of the early lost and dearly loved, whose death made Wash ington Irving what he was and what the work admres? .".~ NoR'wEsrER"
 -Boston Post April 3.
 | A STILL in the Kerosele Oil factory of D. o Ketcham. corner Mill.strest and Hamilton avenue, Brooklyn, exploded "Wednesday evening instantly killing three men and mortally injurins | another The immediate cause of the explosion