Had you but seen me, happy rogue, up to my ears in "an ocean of peacock's feathers," or rather like a " strawberry smothered in cream "! The mode of living at the Manor is exactly after my own heart. You have every variety of rural amusement within your reach, and are left to yourself to occupy your time as you please. We made several charming excursions, and you may suppose how delightful they were, through such beautiful scenery, with such fine women to accompany you. They surpassed even our Sunday morning rambles among the groves

Literary Associations of the Hudson 251 on the banks of the Hudson, when you and the divine H were so tender and sentimental, and you displayed your horsemanship so gallantly by leaping over a three-barred gate.

THE RIVER AND CATSKILL MOUNTAINS FROM THE LAWN OF THE MONTGOMERY HOUSE -- BARRVTOWN

{From a drawiftg; hy 11'. f. Wilson)

It may Ije remembered that James P.enwick, at nineteen years of age, succeeded Doctor Kemp as Professor of Natural History at Columbia College. Irving was highly tickled and, jumping from one extreme to

252 The Hudson River

the other, addressed him sometimes with exaggerated deference and at others as "my worthy lad." The name of Gouverneur Kemble at once suggests Cockloft Hall, of which he was, by inheritance, the owner. It was near Newark. There the " Lads of Kilkenny" used to hold their informal meetings, as partly told in the Salmagundi papers. Peter Irving and Henry Ogden were both members of that convivial nine, and long afterwards the former alluded in a letter to " the procession in the Chinese saloon, in which we made poor Dick McCall a knight; and I, as the senior of our order, dubbed him by some fatality on the seat of honour instead of the shoulder." There was a sort of general family connection ])etween several of those companions.