the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that it was a
gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent furrier had
been there to wonder and admire!"

With a little business and a good deal of loitering, waiting upon the
whim of his pen, Irving passed the weary months of the war. As late as
August, 1814, he is still giving Brevoort, who has returned, and is at
Rockaway Beach, the light gossip of the town. It was reported that
Brevoort and Dennis had kept a journal of their foreign travel, "which is
so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. Cooper, on only looking at the first
word, fell into a fit of laughing that lasted half an hour." Irving is
glad that he cannot find Brevoort's flute, which the latter requested
should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent amusement
for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the expense of
others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on, affairs every
day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of September 9, 1814,
is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that had failed within
the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly after this, enlisted
in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe patriotic indignation at
the insulting proposals of the British and their rumored attack on New
York, and all his similes, even those having love for their subject, are
martial and bellicose. Item: "The gallant Sam has fairly changed front,
and, instead of laying siege to Douglas castle, has charged sword in
hand, and carried little Cooper's' entrenchments."

As a Federalist and an admirer of England, Irving had deplored the war,
but his sympathies were not doubtful after it began, and the burning of
the national Capitol by General Ross aroused him to an active
participation in the struggle. He was descending the Hudson in a
steamboat when the tidings first reached him. It was night, and the