" His friendship with
Scott, also, was a delightful addition to the amenities of literature,
and shall remain a goodly and refreshing memory to us always. Yet what
he accomplished in this way for American literature at large, Irving
compensated for with some loss of his own dignity. It cannot be denied
that the success of "The Sketch-Book" led to an overdoing of his part in
"Bracebridge Hall." "Salmagundi" was the first step in the path of
palpable imitation of Addison's "Spectator"; in "The Sketch-Book,"
though taking some charming departures, the writer made a more refined
attempt to produce the same order of effects so perfectly attained by
the suave Queen Anne master; and in "Bracebridge Hall" the recollection
of the Sir Roger de Coverley papers becomes positively annoying. It is
not that the style of Addison is precisely reproduced, of course, but
the general resemblance in manner is as close as it could well have been
without direct and conscious copying, the memory of Addisonian methods
is too apparent. Irving's real genius, which occasionally in his other
writings emits delicious flashes, does not often assert itself in this
work; and though he has the knack of using the dry point of Addison's
humor, he doesn't achieve what etchers call "the burr" that ought to
result from its use. Addison, too, stings his lines in with true
aquafortis precision, and Irving's sketches are to his as pen-and-ink
drawing to the real etching. But it was not only this lack of literary
independence that belittled Irving's dignity.
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