Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Tayl | Page 5

lads, "that we should ever have lived to be two
such respectable old gentlemen!"

About this time Irving and a friend named James K. Paulding proposed
to start a paper, to be called "Salmagundi." It was an imitation of
Addison's Spectator, and consisted of light, humorous essays, most of
them making fun of the fads and fancies of New York life in those days.
The numbers were published from a week to a month apart, and were
continued for about a year.
The young men had no idea of making money by the venture, for they
were then well-to-do; but to their surprise it proved a great success, and
the publisher is said to have made ten or fifteen thousand dollars out of
it. He afterwards paid the editors four hundred dollars each.
Irving now visited Philadelphia, Boston, and other places. He thought
of trying for a government office, and was tempted into politics. His
description of his experience is amusing enough.
"Before the third day was expired, I was as deep in mud and politics as
ever a moderate gentleman would wish to be; and I drank beer with the
multitude; and I talked handbill-fashion with the demagogues, and I
shook hands with the mob--whom my heart abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the
two first days I maintained my coolness and indifference.... But the
third day--ah! then came the tug of war. My patriotism all at once
blazed forth, and I determined to save my country! O, my friend, I have
been in such holes and corners; such filthy nooks, sweep offices, and
oyster cellars!"
He closes by saying that this saving one's country is such a sickening
business that he wants no more of it.

CHAPTER VI
"DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER"
On October 26, 1809, there appeared in the New York Evening Post the
following paragraph:

"DISTRESSING.
"Left his lodgings, some time since, and has not since been heard of, a
small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat,
by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing
he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained
about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian
Hotel, Mulberry street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully
received.
"P.S. Printers of newspapers will be aiding the cause of humanity in
giving an insertion to the above."
Two weeks later a letter was printed in the Evening Post, signed "A
Traveler," saying that such a gentleman as the one described had been
seen a little above King's Bridge, north of New York, "resting himself
by the side of the road."
Ten days after this the following letter was printed:
"_To the Editor of the Evening Post_:
"Sir,--You have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph
about Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was missing so strangely some
time since; but a very curious kind of a written book has been found in
his room, in his own handwriting. Now I wish to notice[+] him, if he is
still alive, that if he does not return and pay off his bill for boarding and
lodging, I shall have to dispose of his book to satisfy me for the same.
[Footnote +: Legal term, meaning "to give notice to."]
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"Seth Handaside,
"Landlord of the Independent Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street."
On November 28th there appeared in the advertising columns the
announcement of "A History of New York," in two volumes, price

three dollars.
The advertisement says, "This work was found in the chamber of Mr.
Diedrich Knickerbocker, the old gentleman whose sudden and
mysterious disappearance has been noticed. It is published in order to
discharge certain debts he has left behind."
When the book was published the people took it up, expecting to find a
grave and learned history of New York. It was dedicated to the New
York Historical Society, and began with an account of the supposed
author, Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker. "He was a small, brisk-looking
old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of olive velvet
breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few gray hairs plaited and
clubbed behind.... The only piece of finery which he bore about him
was a bright pair of square silver shoe-buckles." The landlord of the inn,
who writes this description, adds: "My wife at once set him down for
some eminent country schoolmaster."
Imagine for yourself the astonishment, and then the amusement--in
some cases even the anger--of those who read, to find a most ludicrous
description of the old Dutch settlers of New York, the ancestors of the
most aristocratic families of the metropolis of America. The people that
laughed got the best of it, however, and the book was