Washington Irving

by Brian Jay Jones

  Irving was in no hurry to return to New York. Even as Burr was indicted on June 24 on charges of treason and high misdemeanor, Irving was drinking and ingratiating himself with Virginians on both sides of the issue. “I have been treated in the most polite and hospitable manner by the most distinguished persons of the place—those friendly to Colonel Burr and those opposed to him, and have intimate acquaintances among his bitterest enemies,” he wrote. “The society is polished, sociable, and extremely hospitable, and there is a great variety of distinguished character assembled on this occasion.”51

  Following Burr's indictment, Marshall adjourned the court until Burr's trial on August 3—but Irving wasn't ready to leave. He was so busy socializing that he had nearly worn himself out, and any efforts to sneak away from parties to get to bed at a decent hour earned him playful reprimands from the young ladies. “I find I am declining in popularity from having resolutely and manfully resisted sundry temptations and invitations to tea parties—stew-balls and other infernal orgies which have from time to time been celebrated by the little enchantresses of this place,” he told Kemble. And it was useless to try to think up excuses: “I tried my hand two or three times at an apology for my non attendance, but it would not do, my usual luck followed me; for once when I alleged the writing of letters, it was plainly proved that I was seen smoking a cigar and lolling in the porch of the Eagle, and another time when I plead a severe indisposition, I was pronounced guilty of having sat at a young ladies elbow the whole evening and listened to her piano.”52

  Compounding his problems, he told Mary Fairlie playfully, was that he had earned a reputation in Richmond “of being an interesting young man,” which, he said, was an especially terrible thing to be in the Virginia summer heat. “The tender hearted fair ones think you absolutely at their command—they conclude that you must of course be fond of moonlight walks—and rides at day break, and red hot strolls in the middle of the day (Farenheits Themom. 98½ in the shade) and ‘Melting hot-hissing hot’ tea parties—and what is more they expect you to talk sentiment…. Twas too much for me.” He was likely protesting too much, and it's doubtful that either Mary or Gouverneur Kemble had much sympathy for their young friend when he complained of having to “leave my beloved bed at sunrise to take a romantic walk along the canal.”53

  Exhausted and overheated, Irving was ready to head back to New York in early July. First, however, he wanted to see Burr, who was still lodged in the Richmond penitentiary. In his typical dramatic fashion, Irving reported that Burr was “confined by bolts & bars & massy walls in criminal prison… cut off from all intercourse with society, deprived of all the kind offices of friendship—and made to suffer all the penalties & deprivations of a condemned criminal.” However, Burr's daughter Theodosia remembered things differently. “Since my residence here, of which some days and nights were passed in the penitentiary,” she wrote, “our little family circle has been a scene of uninterrupted gayety.”54

  Despite his defiance in Marshall's courtroom, within the walls of the penitentiary, Burr had the appearance of a beaten man. Irving was never sorrier for the disgraced hero he had defended so rigorously in the pages of the Corrector in 1804:

  Burr seemed in lower spirits than formerly. He was composed and collected as usual; but there was not the same cheerfulness that I have hitherto remarked—He said it was with difficulty his very servant was allowed occasionally to see him…. I bid him farewell with a heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar warmth and feeling, his sense of the interest I had taken in his fate—I never felt in a more melancholy mood than when I rode from his solitary prison—such is the last interview I had with poor Burr—I shall never forget it.55

  He never saw Burr again. Two months later the jury entered a verdict of “not guilty”—or, more accurately, “not proved to be guilty under this indictment by any evidence submitted to us.”56 Burr was also found not guilty of the misdemeanor count in October, but he never recovered his reputation. He retreated to Europe until 1812, then returned to America and ran a moderately successful law practice in New York until his death in 1836. Much later in life, when discussing his abilities as a lawyer, Irving always reminded his critics with a wink that he “was one of the counsel for Burr, and Burr was acquitted!”

  Back in Hoffman's parlor at the beginning of August, Irving was hard at work on material for the next issue of Salmagundi. No new installments had been published since June 27, the longest break between issues yet. However, if he was worried the public had lost interest in Old Sal, he needn't have. The newest issue of the Monthly Register, Magazine and Review of the United States contained a laudatory review of Salmagundi: “This design is executed with so much spirit, wit, genius, elegance, and humour…. It seems super-fluous to transcribe any passages from a book, which is undoubtedly, in the hands of every lover of merriment and gaiety; neither is it an easy task, to select from such an abundant assemblage of sportive excellence those periods, which might be deemed to stand pre-eminent for their keenness and brilliancy.”57 With the Monthly Register reminding any forgetful readers just how good Salmagundi was, Irving and Paulding released the thirteenth issue on August 14, 1807.

  Two months later, on October 25, 1807, Washington Irving's father died at the age of seventy-six. Whether the Deacon had come to accept, or at least appreciate, the blooming talents and fame of his youngest son remains unknown. Nor did Washington ever write a word regarding his father's death. His passing does not appear to have put a visible crimp in Washington's schedule or style; a new installment of Salmagundi—number seventeen—appeared only two weeks later. Neither Irving nor Paulding could have realized it at the time, but this was the issue of Salmagundi that would earn their publication a permanent place in New York history.

  Appearing in the November 11 issue was a piece Irving had written as Launcelot Langstaff, describing the library at Cockloft Hall. “It consisted of books not to be met with in any other collection, and as the phrase is, entirely out of print.” Among those books was one particular volume—“a literary curiosity”—that gave Will Wizard a great deal of pleasure, and from which Langstaff now reprinted a chapter for his readers:

  CHAP CIX.

  OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE RENOWNED

  AND ANTIENT CITY OF GOTHAM

  Over the next few pages, in a mock history of New York, Irving related how “the thrice renowned and delectable city of GOTHAM did suffer great discomfiture, and was reduced to perilous extremity, by the invasion and assaults of the HOPPINGTOTS.”58 While Paulding and Irving had used the word “Gotham” in the pages of Salmagundi before—Paulding had made a passing reference to a musician, “a gentleman amateur in Gotham,” as far back as issue two—Irving was the first to explicitly attach the name to New York, and to refer to its citizens as “Gothamites.”

  The word, which in Anglo-Saxon means “Goat's Town,” came from a real English town in Nottinghamshire, near Sherwood Forest. According to English fable, the King's Highway would be built wherever the king set foot—and if the king walked through your town, the throne would take the land and construct a highway. To prevent King John from entering Gotham, its citizens pretended to be crazy, behaving so oddly that snickering scouts advised the king to steer clear of the town. “More fools pass through Gotham than remain in it,” the English said, and New York readers grinned in appreciation.59 The name caught on.

  Hardly aware he had just created a brand name, Irving was blissfully carrying on a playful correspondence with seventeen-year-old Ann Hoffman, who was spending the winter with extended family in Montgomery, New York. His letters to Ann are intimate, though not quite as flirty as those he was writing to Mary Fairlie. Irving informed Ann that he had dreamed of her, and teased her about not writing back. “Surely you who can write with so little hesitation to your own family, should at least have kindness enough to believe that your letters would be received with equal pleasure and equal indulgence by one who regards you with the sincere affection of a brother.”
In short, Irving wrote, “The substance of all this preamble is simply I wish you to write me.”60

  Ann and her sister Matilda probably did regard Irving more like a brother than an eligible bachelor, much less one of the most eligible bachelors in New York. In a letter to Ann urging her to return home so more young men will call on the two of them, fifteen-year-old Matilda Hoffman portrays Irving as nothing more than a consolation prize, though her broad brushstroke splattered poor Kemble as well. “If you have any compassion on me do come down. I hardly dare to stir out any longer I meet so many disappointed beaux I believe they think I keep you away that I may make conquests and therefore will not give me a chance, they have deserted our house entirely. Our old stand bys Gouverneur and Washington, and Mr. Bleeker once a week are the only people we see.”61

  Neither Kemble nor any of the other Lads had time for ladies at the moment. As the days turned colder, the Lads reunited and returned to their usual habits of excess. One evening Irving reported that the Lads descended on Kemble's house where they “remained two or three days, committed great devastation, & absolutely [ate] him out of doors.” Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Kemble's younger brother was keeping up the Lads’ reputation by drinking so heavily, Irving said, that they were prepared to “send orders in case his nose should catch fire to have it extinguished in the Delaware.”62

  Amid the winter frivolity, Paulding and the Irvings produced two more issues of Salmagundi, sending issue eighteen out on November 24—which contained one of Irving's finest pieces to date, “The Little Man in Black”—and issue nineteen on December 31, 1807. Though Salmagundi had lost none of its punch, and its authors remained as committed as ever to the project, they were growing increasingly frustrated with “Dusky” David Longworth. As is often the case with art, their disagreements weren't about the integrity of their mutual project, but about money.

  According to Pierre Irving, the alleged source of the conflict between the authors and their publisher was not only over the one-shilling price Dusky had slapped on each issue, but also the limits on length that Longworth was now dictating.63 While there is merit to that complaint, that was probably only part of it.

  Despite their staggering refusal to secure Salmagundi’s copy-right—at Longworth's behest, no less—once it was clear Old Sal was doing well, both Irving and Paulding wanted a piece of the profits that Longworth had legitimately secured. Paulding later complained that Dusky had bilked him and Irving out of as much as $15,000, about $250,000 in today's money. That was likely an exaggeration, but Paulding never admitted that the lost profits were due more to his and Irving's failure to secure their own copyright than to any duplicity on Longworth's part. “The publisher, with that liberality so characteristic of these modern Maecenases,” Paulding grumbled, oozing sarcasm, “declined to concede to us a share of the profits which had become very considerable.”64

  Issue twenty of Salmagundi rolled off Longworth's presses on January 15, 1808. It was the final issue.

  4

  Hoax

  1808–1810

  Left his lodgings some time since and has not been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker.

  —Notice in the New York Evening Post, October 26, 1809

  THE DEMISE OF SALMAGUNDI in January 1808, while disappointing to New York readers, was of little concern to Irving—“I was in hopes it would gradually have gone down in oblivion,” he said with a shrug. He missed the regular outlet for the exercise of his pen, but for one of the few times in his life, inspiration wasn't a problem. Paulding, speaking as Launcelot Langstaff, had admitted as much in Salmagundi’s final issue: “It is not for want of subjects that we stop our career. We are not in the situation of poor Alexander the Great, who wept, as well indeed he might, because there were no more worlds to conquer; for, to do justice to this queer, odd, rantipole city, and this whimsical country, there is matter enough in them, to keep our risible muscles, and our pens going until doomsday.” It was, in fact, the “queer, odd, rantipole city” that kept Irving's pen going for the next two years, though in ways no one could have anticipated.1

  That New York would serve both as the muse and the subject of Irving's first real book and first national success was not surprising; that it was written at all, however, was remarkable. It was born of a grand idea that quickly groaned under its own weight and resulted in a series of frustrating false starts. It nearly sputtered out altogether when Irving made a critical decision about his future, before the literary prank was presented to the public—a lightning bolt of comedy and political satire written during his blackest hours.

  The initial spark of inspiration came from an unlikely source—a rather turgid New York travel guide with the impressive title of The Picture of New York; or, The Traveller's Guide through the Commercial Metropolis of the United States. Published a year earlier by Dr. Samuel Mitchell, a well-known and admired professor of chemistry and zoology at Columbia University, the guide's practical value couldn't be denied. But the pompous nature of Mitchell's book, and the mundane topics he covered—topography, insurance companies, public health—was cause for much snickering among Irving and the Lads. It was a target ripe for parody—the Lads had already hooted at it in the pages of Old Sal—and Peter, newly returned from his European tour, approached his youngest brother about writing their own spoof of Mitchell's book.

  Washington jumped at the project with relish, and he and Peter began compiling notes from all the appropriately obscure and suitably pretentious sources they needed to properly lampoon Mitchell and his book. “We laid all kinds of works under contribution for trite citations, relevant or irrelevant, to give it the proper air of learned research,”2 Washington recalled. They scribbled outlines of possible chapters—Mitchell had begun his book with an account of the Aborigines, so the brothers were determined to trump the good doctor by beginning their book with a history of the world—but the joke was quickly smothered beneath the sheer weight of their research.

  As the book swelled, Washington felt that they were writing the satire without any direction. Peter, meanwhile, seemed to think their burlesque, which he called esta obra—“that work”—was nearly complete. He was already counting on its certain profits. “I presume you must be aware esta obra must terminate for the present at the point at which I left it,” Peter wrote. “It should, therefore, be completed without loss of time, and I entreat you either to whip your imagination into a gallop, or to leave it for an uncomplying jade, and saddle your judgment. If you do not, I shall have to give the thing such a hasty finish as circumstances may permit, immediately on my return—for my pocket calls aloud and will not brook delay.”3

  However, neither Washington nor Peter was in any rush to actually do the work when there were so many distractions worthy of their attention. Washington made side trips to visit friends in Philadelphia, and danced and drank too much at yet another “crazy party” thrown by Mary Fairlie, with whom he was still carrying on an arm's-length flirtation. To meet his many “drawing room demands,” he ordered a new black coat and purchased a new horse. His pen essentially motionless, his legal practice neglected, he was once more falling back into his “gentlemanlike habits.”4

  Meanwhile, the Jefferson administration's recently passed Non-Importation Act and Embargo, which prohibited the importation of certain goods from Britain, was causing severe heartburn among New York merchants. Profits in the family hardware business were down, and Ebenezer's speculation in land grants had failed to pan out the way the family had hoped. The Irving brothers had always prided themselves on running a clean business—their father, the good Deacon, had made sure of that—but that didn't mean they were above a bit of subterfuge now and then. In late April 1808 Washington—with $9,000 in silver in his trunks—was dispatched by the family firm to conduct some business in Montreal.

  The trip was designed to skirt the restrictions of the embargo. The Irvings hoped to convert their silver at a mu
ch more favorable rate than could be had in the United States. They weren't alone in adopting such tactics; illegal trade with Canada had become a constant source of frustration for President Jefferson. In fact, Brevoort, who was working for his brother-in-law John Jacob Astor in Montreal, seemed to have been openly involved in a covert business scheme. Washington laughingly referred to Brevoort as “our friend the smuggler.”5

  Typically, Irving took his time getting to Montreal; he made a side trip to Schenectady to visit a sick relative of the Hoffman family. There, he unexpectedly ran into Peter, on his way to visit their sister Ann Dodge, who was ill up in Johnstown. He asked Peter not to go to Johnstown, but to join him instead on his illicit adventure to Canada. Peter, never one to pass up an opportunity that might lead to a quick buck, agreed. By May 9 the brothers were at Whitehall, near the southern tip of Lake Champlain. Drinking with other smugglers at their hotel, they waited for a favorable wind that would take their boat up the lake into Canada.6

  This close to the border, Washington had a case of nerves, petrified he might get caught with his pockets full of smuggled silver. He wrote in a barely controlled panic to Brevoort, begging him to wait for him in Montreal and wailing that the “good folks at the line are so excessively strict that I dare not risk my silver across.” He even considered abandoning the trip and getting what he could for his silver on the safer shores of Vermont. “I am afraid this will turn out but a lame business all round,” he fretted.7