"Elizabeth Barrett Browning" ("Famous Women.")—Ingram.
"The Brownings; Their Life and Art."—Whiting.
"Florence in the Poetry of the Brownings."—McMahan.
"The Letters of E. B. Browning."—Ed. Kenyon.
WASHINGTON IRVING
(1783–1859)
Washington Irving has the distinction of being the only one of our early writers of eminence born in the metropolis; and, with the exception of Cooper, the only one born outside of New England.
The youngest son of a well-to-do New York merchant, he was born in 1783, just after the close of the Revolutionary War. He was, therefore, very properly christened "Washington." It is said that some years after, he was brought to President Washington, who, on being told that he was a namesake, laid his hand upon him and bestowed his blessing. Little could the Father of His Country have realized that the benediction would bear fruit and that the recipient thereof was to become the Prince of American Letters.
Like many other authors he studied for the bar, but found neither law nor politics congenial. Though well-read, his education was unsystematic. His first literary endeavors appeared in "Salmagundi," a semimonthly periodical in which he collaborated with his brother and James Kirk Paulding. This was followed by his inimitable "Knickerbocker's History of New York," still among the greatest masterpieces of American humor, which established his reputation.