Among the many incidents of deep interest which are contained in this volume, the episode of Matilda Hoffman stands forth in most striking relief. While lifting the veil which for a half-century covered the most pathetic event in Irving's life, his biographer touches with a scrupulous delicacy a theme so sacredly enshrined in a life-long memory. In referring to this affair, which gave a tender aspect to Irving's subsequent career, and in fact changed its whole tenor, we may remark that the loves of literary men form a most interesting and, in some cases, moving history. Some, like Petrarch, Earl Surrey, Burns, and Byron, have embalmed the objects of their affection in the effusions of their muse, while others have bequeathed that duty to others. Shakspeare says but little about his sweetheart, while Milton, who was decidedly unsuccessful in matters of the heart, seems to have acted on the motto, 'The least said, the soonest mended.' Poor Pope, miserable invalid though he was, nervous, irritable, and full of hate and spleen, was not beyond the power of the tender passion, and confessed the charms of the lonely Martha Blount, who held the wretched genius among her conquests. Swift, although an ogre at heart, had his chapter of love matters, which never fail to give us the horrors when we bring them to mind, and the episodes of Stella and Vanessa are among the minor tragedies in life's great drama. Johnson had a great heart, and was born to love, though, like the lion, he needed to have his claws pared, to fit him for female society. What a tender attachment was that which he bore 'Tetty,' and with what solemn remembrance he preserved her as his own, even after death had robbed him of her presence! The loves of these men exercised the strongest influence on their destinies, while, on the other hand, disappointment and consequent celibacy have done the same to their victims. To the bachelor list of modern days, which can boast of Charles Lamb and Macaulay, America adds the proud name of Washington Irving, whose early disappointment made him an author. My impressions of Irving's boyhood and youth are alive with the freshness of an early memory, which conserves along with him the Crugers, Clintons, Livingstons, Ogdens, and other old and honored names of New-York. The biography which inspires this reminiscence gives a sketch of the early history of the family, and as its author has thus opened the subject, it will not, we presume, be considered an intrusion if I pursue the thread of domestic incident a little farther than he has done.