turn with delight to Dickens' picture of Tom Pinch's ride to London, or Irving's description of his journey on Christmas Eve. And then what grotesque romance surrounds the idea of the Coachman! Our experience of human nature tells us, that in too many cases he must have been a drunken and insolent vagabond, but we never allow our ideal to be desecrated by the intrusion of any such gross considerations. We prefer the broadly truthful delineation of this extinct race given us by Irving. 'He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels.

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joys great consequence and consideration along the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass.

When off the box his hands are thrust in the pockets of his greatcoat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness.' As we read this, a vision of the immortal Weller Senior rises before our eyes, and we recognise how admirably Irving has hit off the broad characteristics of that class of which Dickens' creation, in spite of its caricature, must for ever remain the most finished type. The humour with which the sayings and doings of the three youngsters, whom the coach is taking home for the Christmas holidays, are recorded, is of that tender sort which provokes tears as readily as laughter. The little rascals, with their unbounded delight at the prospect of the unlimited joys of a six weeks' holiday, with their eager ness to greet their old pony Bantam, who was 'according to their talk pos

sessed of more virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus,' appeal irresistibly to our feelings, reminding us of the time when we had neither known care nor sorrow, and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity.' The charming picture of the meeting of the youngsters with the old family servants, accompanied by Carlo the pointer and the redoubtable Bantam, is inimitable. 'Off they set at last; one on the pony with the dog bounding and barking before him, and the others holding John's hands; both talking at once, and overpowering him by questions about home and with school anecdotes.' The country inn, where the traveller meets with Frank Bracebridge, is admirably sketched. The obliteration of these old coaching houses has been a necessary, but somewhat melancholy, accompaniment of modern progress. No one who has travelled much in England can fail to have come across numerous examples of these old inns, 'whose glory has departed, and whose place knows them no more.' I remember a striking instance in the Feathers' Inn on the Cambridge road, a few miles out of Ware in Hertfordshire, which possessed,and indeed still possesses although mouldering into decay,-stabling for fifty horses, but which, instead of resounding with the bustle of travel, is now deserted, save by the casual ploughman calling in for a pint of beer. It is well for these old houses that they live in the pages of more than one great writer, so that, although deserted and abandoned to decay, they will for long retain their glory as the most perfect embodiments of comfort and cheery hospitality.

The thoroughness with which Irving enters into the spirit of an English Christmas is exemplified by the manner in which he brings his traveller to Bracebridge Hall. When we first meet him in the stage-coach he has no fixed destination, but he comes across an old travelling acquaintance, who, with impulsive good-fellowship,

invites him to accompany him to his home, and spend Christmas there. This at once symbolizes the hospitality peculiar to the season. An Englishman would not wish his worst enemy to dine alone on this all-important feast-day, and would rather risk the company of the most uncongenial guest than endure the thought of another spending in loneliness the day set apart for mutual good-will. Such is the natural introduction of a Christmas guest to the table presided over by the Squire of Bracebridge Hall. He is the central character of Irving's charming sketch, and it would be impossible to imagine a more poetical, and at the same time more truthful portrait of a good old English gentleman, one of the olden time.' I have always thought that in delineating this delightful personage Irving had before him, perhaps unconsciously to himself, that preux chevalier Sir Roger de Coverley. Not only in general characteristics are the two identical, but in many minor points. They both were firmly convinced that there is 'no condition more truly honourable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his paternal lands,' and in spite of the worthy Knight's occasional visits to London, they both thoroughly lived up to this belief. They were both beloved by, and sole arbiters in all the concerns of, their tenants and dependants, and each esteemed every man as a friend, no matter what his station, who showed himself worthy of friendship. We are told by Mr. Spectator that, as Sir Roger was beloved by all about him, 'his servants never care for leaving him by this means his domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his valet de chambre for his brother, his butler is grey-headed, his groom is one of the gravest men I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy counsellor.' The composition of the Bracebridge household was exactly similar; we are told that the servants

'had an old-fashioned look, having for the most part been brought up in the household, and grown into keeping with the antiquated mansion, and the humours of its lord.'*

Indeed, we are continually reminded, in reading Irving's Old Christmas, of the visit of Mr. Spectator to Sir Roger's country-house, and more particularly of those portions of it which are described in papers contributed by Steele, whose essays have a striking affinity, both in style and matter, with the writings of Washington Irving. It would be too much to say that if there had been no Sir Roger de Coverley, there would have been no Squire Bracebridge, but it is hardly too much to say that if 'The Spectator' had not existed, Squire Bracebridge would have been a somewhat different, and perhaps a somewhat less endearing creation. It would be almost impossible, however, to present a perfect type of the old English gentleman without investing him with some of the characteristics of the famous Knight, and perhaps a more remarkable coincidence is the resemblance between Irving's description of Master Simon and Addison's sketch of Mr. Will Wimble. In each of these cases an eccentric personage is portrayed, with curious habits formed by the force of circumstances, and in each case the habits are at least similar, and the circumstances absolutely identical. Irving, it is true, elaborates the picture in his most charming manner, so that the execution is entirely his own, but for the conception it almost seems as if he were indebted to Addison. Old bachelors and poor relations are themes upon which Irving loved to dilate with kindly good nature, and certainly if all old bachelors were like Master Simon marriage would not so generally be deemed the more honourable state. 'He had a chirping buoyant disposition, always enjoying the present moment; and

*This idea is still further worked out in Bracebridge Hall' in the paper on Family Servants.

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and Judy; make an old woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt cork and pocket handkerchief, and cut an orange into such a ludicrous caricature that the young folks were ready to die with laughing.' failure of the village choir in the anthem which Master Simon had so industriously endeavoured to drum into their heads, is conceived in the true spirit of comedy, and the old gentleman's joviality after dinner, when he chirped like a grasshopper filled with dew,' and finally grew maudlin about the widow, is excellently humorous. In his choice of a parson the Squire of Bracebridge Hall differed from Sir Roger de Coverley. The little, driedup black-letter hunter, who even on Christmas Day preached a long erudite sermon on the rites and ceremonies proper to the season, citing as his authorities half a score of the ancient fathers, is in marked contrast with the worthy gentleman to whom Sir Roger presented all the good sermons printed in the English language, making it a condition that he should read one of them in the pulpit every Sunday, and leave to others all attempts at originality. The remaining characters are, in this series of papers, but slightly sketched in, but how charming and how comprehensive Irving makes even his slightest sketches! The young officer who had been wounded at Waterloo, with his dash of natural coxcombery; the blushing beauty of seventeen, the coy victim of his love-making; the Oxonian, who delighted in quizzing his maiden aunts and cousins with exaggerated airs of gallantry; the captivating little hoy

dens still in the school-room, who taxed Master Simon's powers of dancing so sorely; the fat-headed old gentleman, who stuck in the middle of a story, and was the only person in the room who could not remember the end of it; to each of these a vivid personality is given, which could scarcely be increased by any additional elaboration.

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With regard to the antiquated manner in which he describes Christmas as having been spent at Bracebridge Hall, Irving was freely criticised on the first appearance of the 'Sketch Book.' If such a criticism were true in 1820, it would be doubly true in 1878, but I venture to think that its truth cannot be sustained. marking upon these strictures at a later period, Irving said, that since writing the Old Christmas papers he had had opportunities of seeing almost all the rural customs which he describes, in full force in many districts in England. With the exception of the dance, accompanied by cudgel play, which so delighted Squire Bracebridge as being the lineal descendant of the sword dance of the ancients, there is nothing described, the counterpart of which could not be found to-day in some parts of England. Surely no one will allege that blindman's buff, hot cockles, bob-apple, or snap-dragon, are obsolete games; or that the Yule Log, the Wassail Bowl, and the time honoured mistletoe are things of the past? With regard to the Antique Masque which concluded the merry Christmas evening, this only purported to be a 'burlesque imitation,' and Irving half confesses that he borrowed the idea from Ben Johnson's Masque of Christmas. But to refute seriously an allegation against Irving's Old Christmas of want of accuracy, is to fight with shadows. Probably no such exquisite combination of all the sports and merriment belonging to the season, ever found in any one village of England; but how many villages of England have lived under the jovial

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sway of a Squire Bracebridge? A writer attempting to give a general idea of the pastimes peculiar to Christmas, is not compelled to locate his village, and confine himself to the customs of that particular district; had Irving at any time attempted such pedantry, we should not only have lost his Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, but many more of his most delightful essays. It is more profitable, however, to abandon all ideas of probability or improbability, and yield ourselves up to the charm of Irving's writing, and he would be but a churlish reader who could resist this, and who could deny that he would give a year or so of his life, to pass one such Christmas at Bracebridge Hall. Who would not, even on a frosty night, be kept waiting at the door, as were our travellers, if the reason were that the merriment in the servants' hall was too uproarious to allow them to hear the ringing of the bell? To be ushered into such a hall, and to greet such a company, we ourselves would willingly ring from one Christmas Eve to another. To see the old Squire, seated in his ancestral chair beaming like the sun of a system' gladness to every heart; to see the old hall, with the famous portrait of the Crusader; to shake hands with the parson, and to joke with Master Simon; all and any of these would certainly be worth some waiting for. And, after the supper and merry dance of Christmas Eve, how delightful to fall asleep as the music of the waits died away in the distance, and how doubly delightful to wake, to hear the pattering of little feet outside the door, and after a whispered consultation, a choir of small voices chanting a carol! And then the family prayers, and the dear old Squire in his Christmas joy and exaltation, allowing his voice to ramble out of all the bounds of time and tune; and the walk to church through the clear and frosty air, and Master Simon's anthem and the Parson's sermon; and the loving greetings of the peasantry to the Squire all these are sym

bols of things which never fade into antiquity, but which bloom fresh and green with each recurring Christmas. And the crowning ceremony of all, the Christmas dinner, the feast which Englishmen unanimously exalt to the first place among all feasts, with what a humorous gusto is it described! Irving could praise good cheer enthusiastically, without incurring the slightest suspicion of being himself either a gourmet or a gourmand, and from his description the Squire's must certainly have been a model Christmas dinner. The talk over the wine, which the Squire, 'whose joviality seemed always tempered with a proper love of decorum,' interrupted exactly at the right moment, is full of pleasant humour. The evening games, although themselves no longer necessary accompaniments to Christmas, constitute an admirable example of the uproarious merriment which most households still indulge in on Christmas night.

I have, I hope, said enough to show how thoroughly ideal is the picture Irving draws of Old Christmas, but it may, in addition, be pointed out that all his figures and scenes are, so to speak, types. He makes no attempt at character-painting, except so far as is necessary to present each of his dramatis persona, as an example of a class. The stage-coachman is a type, the country inn is a type, Bracebridge Hall is a type, its inmates and surroundings, the Squire, the Parson, Master Simon, the village Church, the traveller himself, are all typical; and finally, the series of papers as a whole, form a wonderful and unique type of what Christmas, in its most Christian spirit, sometimes is, and always ought to be.

It is impossible to dismiss Washington Irving with a reference merely to his Old Christmas, charming as that is, and peculiarly appropriate at this time of the year; and, therefore, it will hardly be considered out of place to make a few general remarks upon the position he occupies among

English Essayists. Those writers who have achieved the very first excellence in the familiar style of writing, are few in number. Steele, Goldsmith, Washington Irving and Charles Lamb, are the four greatest, and if of these, judged simply as familiar essayists, Charles Lamb must be deemed facilis princeps, it is not so easy to discriminate between the claims of the remaining three for second place. In style, as well as in choice of subject, and natural bent of mind, Washington Irving bears a strong resemblance to Steele. They both possessed the same simplicity of mind, combined with kindliness and comprehensive charity: the same deeply reverential spirit characterized them both, and if Washington Irving was not so prone as Steele, to turn his essays into short sermons, it is in a great measure because the accidents of his life, and the tone and temper of the age in which he lived, forbade it. Essayists in the familiar style appeal directly to their readers as friend to friend; they attempt to engage the heart rather than attract the intellect, and the measure of their success can therefore be gauged better by our affection for them as men, than by our admiration for them as authors. The strong personal feeling which we have for such writers as Lamb, Goldsmith, and Irving, is in some spects a curious phenomenon. It is altogether independent of, and uninfluenced by, their character or the events of their lives, but arises entirely from the effect of their writings upon our emotions and susceptibilities. The reason for this would appear to be that perfection in such writing cannot be approached by any man unless his nature fit him pre-eminently for it, so that the writing is in the truest sense the man. The knowledge of this is unconsciously present to every reader; we know that we are being admitted behind the veil, and that the author's nature, his likes, his dislikes, sometimes his very soul, are laid bare before us, and naturally we love him as we do a

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friend who entrusts us with his every secret. Mere frankness of confession, however, such as Rousseau's or De Quincey's does not necessarily produce such a result; there must not be the slightest intrusion of the tragic,—even our interest must not be too deeply aroused; we must be thoroughly satisfied with our author's nature, and through him with our own, it being delicately insinuated that, as he is, so are all men. Washington Irving rarely does more than confide to us his tastes and sentiments; he does not, like Charles Lamb, entrust us with his most sacred feelings, and his most human weaknesses; but although for this reason he does not lie so near our hearts as the gentle Elia, his graceful bonhommie and genial warmth render him peculiarly endearing. There is one faculty which essayists of Irving's type must possess in an abnormal degree, and that is taste, or tact, call it which you will. The slightest jar upon the feelings of a reader would neutralize their efforts, and it is only by the possession of this faculty, that men of crotchets, as to certain extent all such writers are, manage to write so as to please all readers. I think too, that another reason why we love these authors is, that as boys we revelled in their works. How well I remember the appearance, the very binding of the well-thumbed Washington Irving in the old school library! When I open the Sketch Book, or Bracebridge Hall, visions of hours of keen delight rise up before me, and I recognise anew the fact, that at no period of life is more enjoyment derived from books, than at that delightful age, which accepts all it reads unhesitatingly, and thinks a hint against its favourite authors treason. There are few authors who can claim equal sway over the boy's imagination and the man's intellect, but of these few Washington Irving is one, and his kindly unostentatious nature would have regarded a boy's delight as a more grateful offering than even the praise of critics.