Middletown transcript., 1883-02-02
WASHINGTON IRVING.

London Spectator pays it by saying
g Since the time of Pope more than one
hundred essayists have attempted to
excel or to equal the Taller and Spec
tator. One alone in few of his best
efforts may be said to have rivalled
them, and he is Washington Irving"
The Spectator adds that one only has
surpassed them, " the Incompatible
Eliza IrviDg's temperament, how
ever, was much more eongenial with
that of the early essayists than Charles
Lambs, and his pictures of English
country life in Brdcebridge Hall have
lust the delicate imaginative touch Of
the sketches Of Sir Roger de Coverley.
But in treating distinctively English
topics, however airy and vivid his
touch may be, Irving is manifestly in
thralled by his admiration for the lit
erary masters of the Anne time, and by
the spirit of their writing. 1t is in the
Knickerbocker world that he is char
acteristically at home. Indeed, it is
his humorous and graphic fancy more
than the sober veracity Of history which
has given popular and perpetual form
to the early life of New York, and it is
Irving who has enriched it with ro-
mantle tradition such as suffuses the
story of no other State.
/ The bay, the river, the city, the
Catskill Mountains, as Choate said of
Faneuil Hall and Webster, breathe and
burn Of him. He has charmed the
Hudson with peculiar spell. The
quaint life of its old Dutch villages, the
droll legend Of Sleepy Hollow, the pa
thetic fate of Rip Van Winkle, the
drowsy wisdom of Cummunipaw, the
l-marvellous municipality Of New Am
sterdam, and the nose of Anthony
guarding the Highlands, with the
myriad sly and graphic illusions and
descriptions strewn all through his
books, have made the river Irving's
river, and the State Irving's State, and
the city Irying's city, so that the first
instructive question of every lover of
Irving from beyond the State, as he
enters the Central Park and beholds its
memorial statues, is, Where is the
statue of Washington Irving ?"
Unhappily, Echo and not the Park
guide-book answers. Of course, in a
general sense, +" 81 monumentum" may
serve for a reply. From that point Of
view, indeed, Westminster Abbey, as
the monument of English heroes in
letters and arms, in the Church and the
State, would be superfuous. But the
Abbey is a shrine of pilgrimage because
Of the very fact that it is the burial
place of famous Englishmen. The
Central Park in New York is already
Walhalla Of famous men, and the
statue that would first suggest itself as
peculiarly fitting for the Park is that
of the New Yorker who FIRST made
New York distinctively famousNin lit
erature-the New Yorker whose kindly
genius first made American literature
respected by the world.
There are, indeed, two New Workers,
two sons of the city Of New York, who
especially deserve commemoration in a
great metropolitan pleasure-ground in
which statues~of famous men are
erected. By gift Of private munifi-
cence Webster is there, and no one can
demur. But John Jay is still wanting.
By similar generosity Halleck is ad-
mitted, and stands as the representa-
tive of American literature in the So
ciety Of poets Of other lands Shake
speare and Burns and Goethe and
Schiller. But Irving is not there. Re
versing the question Of Elias story,
"Where be the bad people buried ?'' the
wondering pilgrim asks, Where be r.
wing and Bryant and Cooper? I? They
were not Americans only, but by birth
or choice New Workers, and the three
distinctive figures Of our early litera-
ture. It was very touching to see the
venerable Bryant, in the soft May sun
shine five years ago, standing with bare
head and speaking Of his old friend and
comrade Halleck. But who that lis
tened did not see through tender mists
Of years the grave and reverend form
of the speaker himself transformed to
marble or to bronze, sitting serene for
ever beneath the shadowing trees, side
by side with the poet of the "Faust"
and the worshipper of Highland Mary
But Bryant would have been first to
name Washington Irving as the earliest
and most renowned distinctively Amer
lean man of letters whose figure, repro
duced characteristically and with sim
pie quaintness, should decorate the
Park.
1t is the Dean Of Westminster, we
believe, who decides without appeal
what memorials shall be admitted to
the Abbey, and there was great alarm
three or four years ago lest Dean Stan
ley should admit a monument of the
young son Of Louis Napoleon. In the
management of the Central Park it is
probably the Commissioners who exer-
else the authority Of admitting and ex-
cluding statues of distinguished persons.
They ought certainly to insist vigor-
ously upon the rule, "No rubbish shot
here" They ought not to admit
everything, merely because somebody
will pay for it. A high standard of
artistic merit, indeed, is hardly to be
expected from Board of Commission
ers, nor is it essential. The vote should
be laid not SO much upon the work as
upon the subject of it. But to a statue
of Washington Irving all the gates
should open, as every heart would open,
in welcome. That half-humoroust turn