in his most elaborate productions the uniform music of his cadences approaches monotony. He is an accurate observer, and his descriptions are correct, animated, and beautiful. In his biographical and historical works his style is flowing, easy, and transparent. His personal character was affectionate and amiable, and these traits penetrate his writings, and constitute no small portion of their charm. Few writers have ever awakened in their readers a stronger personal interest than Irving; and the sternest critic could not deal harshly with an author who showed himself to be so gentle and kindly a man. The following extract is from "Rip Van Winkle," one of the papers in "The Sketch Book." Rip is an indolent, good-humored fellow, living in a village on the Hudson River. While shooting among the Catskill Mountains, he meets with a mysterious party engaged in rolling ninepins, drinks deeply of the liquor they furnish him, and falls into a sleep which lasts twenty years, during which our Revolutionary War takes place. After waking, he returns to the village, which he finds busied with an election.]

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He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn- but it too was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and mended with 5 old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red nightcap, and 10 from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes-all this was strange and incomprehensible.

He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a 15 peaceful pipe; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large, characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.

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There was, as usual, a crowd about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity.

He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with

his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches; or VanBummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious look5 ing fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently, about rights of citizens-electionsmembers of congress liberty Bunker's hill — heroes of seventy-six—and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.

10

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. 15 The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?"

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Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, whether he was Federal or Demo20 crat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with 25 one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, " what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the 30 village?

"Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, “I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!"

"A

Here a general shout burst from the by-standers35 tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that the self-impor

tant man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking.

5 The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern.

"Well — who are they?— name them.”

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's 10 Nicholas Vedder?"

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! why, he's dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the church-yard that used to tell all 15 about him, but that's rotten and gone too."

"Where's Brom Dutcher?"

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Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the storming of StonyPoint others say he was drowned in a squall at the 20 foot of Antony's Nose. I don't know - he never came back again."

25

"Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster???

"He went off to the wars too, was a great militia genoral, and is now in Congress."

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war congress Stony-Point; 80 he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"

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Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "Oh, to be sure! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against 35 the tree."

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself

as he went up the mountain, apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewil5 derment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name?

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'God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end; "I'm not myself I'm somebody else that's me yonderno - that's somebody else got into my shoes-I was 10 myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my gun, and every thing's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell what's my name, or who I

am!"

The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, 15 wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some precipitation.

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At this critical moment a fresh comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. Hush, Rip," cried she, “hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name 25 of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. "What is your name, my good woman?” asked he.

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Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name; but it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since.

His dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a 35 little girl."

The honest man could contain himself no longer He

caught his daughter and her child in his arms.

"I am

Does nobody know poor Rip

"young Rip Van Winkle once,

5 All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle it is himself! Welcome home again, old neighbor.—Why, where have you 10 been these twenty long years?"

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and the self-impor15 tant man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head — upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage.

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It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and 25 well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood.

He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the 30 historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this 35 way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city called by