miles. De Tocqueville, the political economist, during a visit to Irving, was conducted to this spot, and pronounced the view one of the finest he had ever seen in any country. Being an artist, Mr. Bierstadt naturally built his house to paint pictures in, and one half of it is given to studio. This room is three stories in height, starting from the second floor; on the same floor is a library, separated by doors twenty feet high, curtained with striped Algerine stuff, one side of which is composed entirely of glass. When thrown together, library and studio embrace a length of seventy feet. The studio is finished in wood, with oiled pine floors. A large, cheerful fireplace, surmounted by a picture, graces one side of the room, while a gallery running across the end enables the artist to obtain distant views of his own work. The furniture is of carved oak, and the decorations chiefly from the owner's own brush. Looking northwest from this studio, Mr. Bierstadt painted "The Home of Irving," one of his choice contributions to art, a picture subsequently purchased by the gentleman who had formerly owned and improved the site of the artist's villa. It is an autumnal scene pervaded by a deep poetic sentiment, and with much tenderness of expression. It embraces the stately trees and the ripe foliage in the near view, gradually receding to the dreamy shades of Sleepy Hollow and other points of legendary and historic interest, no single object receiving undue attention, but all blended with artistic sense, together with the shining waters of the Tappan Zee, while above and below the romantic river winds its quiet way through the narrowing valley to the blue mountains, fading into a soft mist among the Catskills. Over all the buoyant clouds float in a sky of azure, reflected in the placid Hudson with marvelous truth. The glory of the picture is in the perfect balance of its composition, and in the accuracy with which the prospect from the studio-window is transferred to the broad canvas. Above the library, and holding the highest oriel-window, is an artist's bedroom. By an ingenious contrivance this communicates with the gallery over the studio, and a sliding door admits the occupant into the beauties of the room below. The parlors and sleeping-apartments all open upon wide verandas and balconies, from which the cultivated eye may rapturously survey Nature's great landscape-garden. A name which we ever invoke with grateful remembrance is that of Washington Irving. He called the Hudson River his "first love," and, after many wanderings and sojournings in foreign lands, and seeming infidelities, returned to adore it above all the other rivers of the world. His choice of a home was upon the site of his boyhood's haunts, and amid the early inspirations of his muse. Sunnyside lies hidden with jealous foliage, its open, sunlit lawn so affectionately embraced by protecting trees and shrubbery as to deny all vagrant observation. When Irving first took up his abode here, thirty-three years ago, the river-shore was not profaned by a railroad, and he was nearly alone in his picturesque seclusion; now every inch of the adjacent country is gardened and villaed, yet all so charmingly under the rose that it is like the discovering of birds' nests among the forest-leaves to pursue explorations. The absence of dividing walls, and the deceptive, elfish, winding walks and carriage-drives lead you constantly astray; while you think you are roaming over the grounds of one estate, you suddenly bring up among the flower-beds of another. The edifice is delightfully unique, and totally unlike any other home in America. Irving speaks of it as being "one of the oldest edifices for its size" in the country, "and, though of small dimensions, yet, like many small people of mighty spirit, valuing itself greatly upon its antiquity." It was a Dutch cottage which he purchased and remodeled into a captivating abode. It is cut up into odd, snug little rooms and boudoirs, according to the signs of promise from the peak-roofed and gable-ended exterior. The eastern side of the house is overgrown with ivy presented to Irving by Sir Walter Scott, of the famous stock of Melrose Abbey. Sunnyside is like a place bewitched with thrilling memories of great and gallant deeds, and with the enchantment of song and story. The legends so gracefully woven about every striking feature of the lovely scene, overflow with quaint humor, harmless superstition, and pensive sentiment. Irving's penportraiture of the peaceful valley, whether in weird fiction or poetic history, is as singularly truthful as the brush of Albert Bierstadt. The whole bias of Irving's genius was artistic, and the color thrown into his pictures is indelible. When he tells us that Sleepy Hollow won its name from a charm laid by a rival sachem upon its original lords, a charm so potent that the warriors sleep to this day among its rocks and recesses with their bows and arrows beside them, we can hardly resist watching for their waking. As for Ichabod Crane, who has not made his acquaintance, and, becoming interested in the blooming Katrina, been shocked with the sequel-finding it difficult to be persuaded that these personages were only the phantasies of the brain? And where is the reader who has not thirsted for a taste of cool water from the mysterious spring which the wife of one of the first settlers of the region brought from Holland in a churn? Irving says she took it up in the night from beside their house at Rotterdam, unbeknown to her husband, being sure she should find no water equal to it in the new country. The success attending the republication of Irving's writings proves the permanent value of a clear, direct, simple, and natural style. His felicities of theme, thought, and expression have won for him a place in national affection which can never be superseded. Literary composition was usually a slow and laborious process with him. "The Sketch-Book" contains the widest variety of examples, touching every chord of feeling, of any of his famous works. And yet nothing, not even his irresistible drollery, was dashed off with the traditional flow of genius; his was the laborious though unseen art which conceals art. Sunnyside, both in unity and detail, was in its palmy days a striking reflex of Irving's character, and it might almost be said of his physique and manner. Its modest proportions accorded with the figure, erect and healthful, which scarcely reached the middle stature of manhood. Its dignified air, its mischievous hiding-places, its dreamy stillness while apparently full of thought, its pretty fancies and surprises, its unconscious way of observing all things far and near while apparently in remotest seclusion, its reserve without coldness, creating instinctively a respectful deference, and its twists, turns, and vagaries, were in harmony with the freshness and fullness of invention, individuality of conception, honest manliness of thought, and whimsical yet refined and delicate humors of its illustrious master. Napoleon III. was at one time a visitor to Sunnyside, and Daniel Webster was some days a guest in 1842, bearing Irving's appointment and credentials as Minister to Spain. Upon one of the billowy ridges in the mystic precincts of Irvington stands the imposing mansion of John Earle Williams, a picturesque structure by no means discordant with the well-balanced irregularity of the landscape, though of somewhat erratic architecture. It suggests about equally the Elizabethan cottage, the Gothic lodge, and the Swiss chalet. It was built by a gentleman who was killed by lightning while standing in the front door, and was afterward improved by Mr. Williams. An ingenious architect has wrought the combination with excellent effect, and no incongruity appears. The granite con struction has the aspect of great durability and strength. The grounds of the mansion slope from woods in the rear to a wide expanse of field inclosed by a low granite wall, while near the house flowers blossom from tasteful beds, and choice shrubbery is nurtured tenderly. The first impression given by the edifice is a mass of turrets, points, and eaves an old Warwick cottage modernized and Americanized, for instance, with a mild trace of the peaked turrets of Normandy thrown in. The front of the house is highest at the southwest corner, the walls and the roof almost equally dividing the altitude. The outlook from every window and from every point of the grounds includes a series of beautiful landscapes of the river and |