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Page 9
By way of the Netherlands he reached London in October and remained in
England till January. The attraction in London seems to have been the
theatre, where he saw John Kemble, Cooke, and Mrs. Siddons. Kemble's
acting seemed to him too studied and over-labored; he had the
disadvantage of a voice lacking rich, base tones. Whatever he did was
judiciously conceived and perfectly executed; it satisfied the head, but
rarely touched the heart. Only in the part of Zanga was the young critic
completely overpowered by his acting,--Kemble seemed to have forgotten
himself. Cooke, who had less range than Kemble, completely satisfied
Irving as Iago. Of Mrs. Siddons, who was then old, he scarcely dares to
give his impressions lest he should be thought extravagant. "Her looks,"
he says, "her voice, her gestures, delighted me. She penetrated in a
moment to my heart. She froze and melted it by turns; a glance of her
eye, a start, an exclamation, thrilled through my whole frame. The more
I see her the more I admire her. I hardly breathe while she is on the
stage. She works up my feelings till I am like a mere child." Some years
later, after the publication of the "Sketch-Book," in a London assembly
Irving was presented to the tragedy queen, who had left the stage, but
had not laid aside its stately manner. She looked at him a moment, and
then in a deep-toned voice slowly enunciated, "You've made me weep."
The author was so disconcerted that he said not a word, and retreated in
confusion. After the publication of "Bracebridge Hall" he met her in
company again, and was persuaded to go through the ordeal of another
presentation. The stately woman fixed her eyes on him as before, and
slowly said, "You've made me weep again." This time the bashful author
acquitted himself with more honor.
This first sojourn abroad was not immediately fruitful in a literary
way, and need not further detain us. It was the irresolute pilgrimage of
a man who had not yet received his vocation. Everywhere he was received
in the best society, and the charm of his manner and his ingenuous
nature made him everywhere a favorite. He carried that indefinable
passport which society recognizes and which needs no _vis�_. He saw the
people who were famous, the women whose recognition is a social
reputation; he made many valuable friends; he frequented the theatre, he
indulged his passion for the opera; he learned how to dine, and to
appreciate the delights of a brilliant salon; he was picking up
languages; he was observing nature and men, and especially women. That
he profited by his loitering experience is plain enough afterward, but
thus far there is little to prophesy that Irving would be anything more
in life than a charming _fl�neur_.
CHAPTER IV.
SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI."
On Irving's return to America in February, 1806, with re�stablished
health, life did not at first take on a more serious purpose. He was
admitted to the bar, but he still halted.[1] Society more than ever
attracted him and devoured his time. He willingly accepted the office of
"champion at the tea-parties;" he was one of a knot of young fellows of
literary tastes and convivial habits, who delighted to be known as "The
Nine Worthies," or "Lads of Kilkenny." In his letters of this period I
detect a kind of callowness and affectation which is not discernible in
his foreign letters and journal.
[Footnote 1: Irving once illustrated his legal acquirements at
this time by the relation of the following anecdote to his
nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, an effective
and witty advocate, had been appointed to examine students for
admission. One student acquitted himself very lamely, and at
the supper which it was the custom for the candidates to give
to the examiners, when they passed upon their several merits,
Hoffman paused in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins
said, as if in hesitation, though all the while intending to
admit him, "Martin, I think he knows a _little_ law." "Make it
stronger, Jo," was the reply; "_d----d_ little."]
These social worthies had jolly suppers at the humble taverns of the
city, and wilder revelries in an old country house on the Passaic, which
is celebrated in the "Salmagundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. We are
reminded of the change of manners by a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of
his comrades, written twenty years after, who recalls to mind the keeper
of a porter house, "who whilom wore a long coat, in the pockets whereof
he jingled two bushels of sixpenny pieces, and whose daughter played the
piano to the accompaniment of broiled oysters." There was some
affectation of roystering in all this; but it was a time of social
good-fellowship, and easy freedom of manners in both sexes. At the
dinners there was much sentimental and bacchanalian singing; it was
scarcely good manners not to get a little tipsy; and to be laid under
the table by the compulsory bumper was not to the discredit of a guest.
Irving used to like to repeat an anecdote of one of his early friends,
Henry Ogden, who had been at one of these festive meetings. He told
Irving the next day that in going home he had fallen through a grating
which had been carelessly left open, into a vault beneath. The solitude,
he said, was rather dismal at first, but several other of the guests
fell in, in the course of the evening, and they had on the whole a
pleasant night of it.
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