Six weeks later the second part of “The Sketch Book” was reviewed with equal taste by apparently the same hand--that of some one who knew how hard Irving was hit by the death of his fiancée, and his circumstances abroad. At the beginning of 1823 Coleman himself wrote two long articles in praise of the new “Bracebridge Hall,” declaring that he had undertaken the task of rescuing it “from the rude and ill-natured treatment of some of our American critics”; the _Literary Repository_ and two newspapers of Philadelphia and Baltimore having assailed it. One reason for its ill-natured reception, he thought, was the high charge made for the American edition, and another the kindly view it took of British life and manners. He showed no little acquaintance with Irving’s personal affairs, and probably had seen some of his letters home. One epistle, written late in 1819, and telling of the essayist’s acquaintanceships in London, had been copied out by Mrs. Hoffman, mother of Irving’s dead sweetheart, for the _Evening Post_. Those were the days in which Sydney Smith’s taunt, “Who reads an American book?” struck home. In 1820 Coleman recorded with pride that the rage for new publications was so great that “not a day passes but the press is delivered of two or more”; though he referred to magazines as well as books. On Sept. 4, 1823, he boasted that such value was becoming attached to American literature in Great Britain that its republication was profitable. A Scotch publisher had begun issuing selections from Irving, Brooks, Percival, and others in a miscellany circulated from Edinburgh. “Our sun has certainly arisen, and one day, we predict, it will beam as bright as it does, or ever did, in the Old World; and the Americans who may arise in future ages will not have to blush on hearing their classics named with the greatest of antiquity.” More space was consistently given by the _Evening Post_ to reviews of plays than to book notices. In fact, the keen interest of New Yorkers in the theater had produced very competent dramatic criticism before the newspaper was founded. William Dunlap, the famous manager-playwright of the time, tells us that in 1796 there was organized in the city a little group of critics, including Dr. Peter Irving, Charles Adams, son of John Adams, Samuel Jones, William Cutting, and John Wells, the law-partner of Coleman. They would take turns writing a criticism of the evening’s play, and meet next day to discuss and revise it before handing it to one of the newspapers. Their meetings had ended before 1801, but after the _Evening Post_ began publication several of the group, and especially Wells, wrote much for the new journal.