knew it, to present a rather forlorn appearance. Mr. Irving made good dra- matic use of this tree in his Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but it is likely enough he had not seen it when he wrote the story. . . . While I was at school at Tarrytown, Mr. Irving was living on his little Sabine farm of Wolfert's Roost, which afterward was so widely known as Sunnyside. The place, which originally con- tained ten acres, afterward increased first to fifteen and finally Digitized by Microsoft® In the Land of Irving 245 to eighteen acres, lay on the river-bank a few miles below the village, in a neighbourhood vaguely known as "Dearman's." There was no distinct settlement at this point in my time, but in 1854, the place, having secreted enough population to warrant it, was set off from Tarrytown and incorporated as a village, to which, out of compliment to Mr. Irving, the name of Irvington was given. . . . Mr. Irving had never been a man of means, and at the time I speak of his early fame as a writer had almost died away. Had I been at school in any other place than Tarry- town, I suspect I should have heard very little about him. But our schoolmaster had named his school the Irving Institute, and had persuaded Mr. Irving, out of his abounding good nature and liking for young folks, to visit the school occasionally at "com- mencement" time and give out the prizes. This, of course, made it necessary to keep us acquainted with Irving's writings, and there were some of us who found this no ungrateful task. The History of New York and The Sketch Book we knew by heart. Mr. Irving first heard the story of the headless horseman from his brother-in-law, Mr. Van Wart, in Birmingham, at the time of his visit to England in 1819. The two homesick friends fell to talking about old times and scenes, and among the stories that Mr. Van Wart recalled was this one, which so tickled Ir- ving's fancy that he sat down at once — such was his happy, off- hand way — and rapidly sketched the outline of his story, which he afterward finished in London and sent home to America, to be published, with other stories, as the sixth number of The Sketch Book. Digitized by Microsoft® Chapter XVI The Literary Associations of the Hudson NO review of the literary associations of the Hudson would be complete that did not have written large at the very head of it the name of Washington Irving. We might copy a fashion much in vogue among art publishers of a generation ago and style our picture Irving and his Friends ; for it is certain that the names that pre- sent themselves most pronlinently in this connection are those of his intimate associates. Irving may almost be said to have discovered the Hudson. He found a stream that was wonderful in beauty and already rich in material for history, but the beauty was uncelebrated and the history unre- corded. It is principally to his pen that we owe the romantic interest of " the river that he loved and glorified." His own acquaintance with the Hudson began dur- ing the impressionable yesLrs of boyhood, when, in com- pany with his madcap associate, James K. Paulding, he explored the bays and coves along the Tappan Zee, and haunted the woods that covered its shores, drawing 246 Digitized by Microsoft® Literary Associations of the Hudson 247 his boat into the shade of the willows that hung over the little brook at the place that has since become IDLEWILD GLEN one of the important literary landmarks of the world. There, with a book, under the trees, he may have Digitized by Microsoft® 248 The Hudson River dreamed that enchanting mythology of the Wizard Sachem and Wolfert's Roost, that formed the legend- ary background for the quaint crow-step gables and clustering ivy of Sunnyside. Irving loved the allure- ments of nature; they were the inducements held out with invitations to his friends. "Come and see me," he wrote, years afterward, from Sunnyside, "and I will give you a book and a tree." A whimsical picture he drew of his first reading of Scott's Lady of the Lake, while he was at the Hoffmans' home on the Hudson in 18 10: " Seated leaning against a rock, with a wild-cherry tree over my head, reading Scott's Lady of the Lake ; the busy ant hurrying over the page — crickets skipping into my bosom — ^wind rustling among the top branches of the trees. Broad masses of shade darken the Hudson and cast the oppo- site shore in black." With the eminent lawyer, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, he