He was a perfectly normal, healthy boy. Fortunately there are no brilliant sayings to record; he did not lisp in periods. Genius was not written upon his brow, nor tied upon his sleeve. He had none of the pale fervor of precocity, or the shyness of premature conceit. He was absorbed in childish things, loved play, shirked his studies, dreamed of a life on the ocean wave, and regarded "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad the Sailor" as the end of all literary things. The savagery of boyhood he lacked. He was fond of playing battle, but could not bear to see his schoolfellows publicly thrashed, according to the amiable custom of that day. Otherwise he was all that a mother might deplore or an uncle delight in. Altogether the most interesting story of his schooldays has a dramatic setting. Addison's "Cato" was to be spouted in public by the schoolchildren. Irving, in the part of Juba, was called a little sooner than he expected, and came on the boards with his mouth full of honey-cake. Speech was out of the question--_vox haesit_--there was a momentary deadlock in his throat. The audience began to laugh, but the prince was not to be counted out. With a skillful rotary finger he removed the viand, and brought down the house by calmly taking up his lines as if nothing had happened. He was then ten years old, and deep in love with the leading lady. A year or two later he had decided to follow the sea; but a short experiment of sleeping on the floor and eating salt pork was too much for his enthusiasm, and at fourteen he gave up the ship. By this time he had begun to fancy that he could write, but there is nothing preserved which shows the least promise.