Identifier: portraitgalleryo02duyc (find matches)
Title: Portrait gallery of eminent men and women of Europe and America : embracing history, statesmanship, naval and military life, philosophy, the drama, science, literature and art, with biographies
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors: Duyckinck, Evert A. (Evert Augustus), 1816-1878
Subjects: Biography Portraits
Publisher: New York : Johnson, Wilson
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
e felicity of a poem desired bythe exquisite Roman bard, that itshould be consistent with itself andproceed to the end as it commenced atthe beginning, be a just measure of thehappiness of life, Washington Irvingenjoyed that prosperity in an extraor-dinary degree. The ancestiy of Irving belongs to anancient line in Scotland, which hasbeen traced to the first years of thefourteenth century. It is known asthe knightly family of Drum, froman old castle still occupied by the de-scendants, on the banks of the Dee.An early member of the family settledin the Orkneys, where the race flou-ished and faded, and dwindled, anddwindled, and dwindled, until the lastof them, nearly a hundred years smce,sought a new home in this New Worldof ours. * This Avas William Irving,who arrived in New York in 1760,bringing with him his wife, an Englishlady of Cornwall, whose maiden name * The expression is that of Washington Irvinghimself. We find it in a family sketch in theRichmond Co. Gazette, Dec. 14, 1859.
Text Appearing After Image:
r^ / /, r.3~/y^^€^7^ WASHINGTON lEVmG. 151 was Saunders. These were the parentsof Washington Irvins:. lie was born in William-street, NewYork, April 3, 1783. One of the ear-liest recorded incidents of his life, heprobably shared in common with manychildren of the period; 1 jut it is betterworth remembering in his case thanthe others. His Scotch nurse takinghim out one day—it was the time ofWashingtons inauguration, and thefirst Congress in New York—fell inwith the Father of his Country, andeagerly seizing the opportunity, pre-sented her charge to his notice. Please,your excellency, heres a bairn thatscalled after you ! Washington, whosekind nature was not averse to such so-licitations, laid his hand upon the headof the child and blessed it. Thatblessing, said Irving, in one of his lat-est years, I have reason to believe hasattended me through life. Irvings schooldays were not overrigorous. He was not robust, and thusescaped some of the usual persecutionsof the pedagogues; for th

Note About Images