ABSTRACT
In the midst of a pleasant society of smallclothes and tie-wigs, of feudalism and Federalism, appeared young Washington Irving at the precise moment when Sansculottism was beginning to make a stir in the land. Irving lacked a month of being forty-nine when he wrote this confession of interest in matters political. He was in want of new literary materials, and as he took his bearings, his creative interest was stirred to write on American themes. His long absence from his native land had completely alienated him from the fierce partisanship of contemporary America and he could view matters political with calm detachment. The persuasive presentation of the philosophy of compromise, with its implicit defense of capitalism, marks Irving's drift back to the middle class with which he had long before broken. The most distinguished of our early romantics, Irving in the end was immolated on the altar of romanticism.
