We might copy a fashion much in vogue among art publishers of a generation ago and style our picture Irving and his Friends; for it is certain that the names that present themselves most prominently in this connection are those of his intimate associates. Irving may almost be said to have discovered the Hudson. He found a stream that was wonderful in beauty and already rich in material for history, but the beauty was uncelebrated and the history unrecorded. It is princii)ally to his pen that we owe the romantic interest of "the river that he loved and

glorified." His own acquaintance with the Hudson began during the impressional)le years of boyhood, when, in company with his madcap associate, James K. Paulding, he explored the bays and coves along the Tappan Zee, and haunted the woods that covered its shores, drawing

Literary Associations of the Hudson 247

his boat into the shade of the willows that hung over the little brook at the place that has since become

IDLEWII.I) GLEN

one of the im]3ortant literary landmarks of the world. There, with a book, under the trees, he mav have

248 The Hudson River

dreamed that enchanting mythology of the Wizard Sachem and Woh'ert's Roost, that formed the legendary background for the quaint crow-step gables and clustering ivy of Sunnyside. Irving loved the allurements of nature; they were the inducements held out with invitations to his friends. "Come and see me." he wrote, years afterward, from Sunnyside, " and I will give you a book and a tree." A whimsical picture he drew of his first reading of Scott's Lady of the Lake, while he was at the Hoffmans' home on the Hudson in 18 10: " Seated leaning against a rock, with a wild-cherry tree over my head, reading Scott's Lady of the Lake ; the busy ant hurrying over the page -- crickets skipping into my bosom -- ^wind rustling among the top branches of the trees.