That Irving might have been a successful historian is evinced by his “Life of Columbus” and “Life of Washington,” in which his exhaustive inquiry into details and his treatment of the same leave nothing new in the lives of these great men to be told; but it is on his descriptive essays, such as we find in his “Sketch Book,” “The Alhambra” and “Knickerbocker’s History,” that his title to enduring fame most securely rests.
The poet, Lowell, in his “Fable for Critics,” thus happily characterizes Washington Irving:
“What! Irving? thrice welcome warm heart and fine brain,
You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain,
And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there
Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair;
Nay, don’t be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching,
I shan’t run directly against my own preaching,
And having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes,
Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes;