WASHINGTON IRVING. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IRVING may be named as the first author in the United States whose writings made a place for themselves in general literature. Franklin, indeed, had preceded him with his autobiography, but Franklin belongs rather to the colo nial period. It was under the influences of that time that his mind and taste were formed, and there was a marked difference between the Boston and Philadelphia of Franklin's youth and the New York of Irving's time. Politics, commerce, and the rise of industries were rapidly changing social relations and manners, while the country was still dependent on England for its higher literature. It had hardly begun to find materials for literature in its own past or in its aspects of nature, yet there was a very positive element in life which resented foreign interference. There were thus two currents crossing each other the common life which was narrowly American, and the cultivated taste which was English, or imitative of England. Irving's first ventures, in company with his brothers and Paulding, were in the attempt to represent New York in literature upon the model of contemporary or recent presentations of London. "The town" in the minds of these young writers was that portion of New York society which might be construed into a miniature reflection of London wit and amusement. His associates never advanced beyond this stage, but with Washington Irving the sketches which he wrote under the signa |