WASHINGTON IRVING.
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The Paris Constitutional preludes crltique Oh
the French translation Of Knickerbocker,' as foi4
lows: " Rallery is exiled from the literary world
we have given up joking. Cervantes Rabelais,
Swift, Sterne, lie Sage, and more than all Votaires
have exhausted irony humanity no longer laughs
she bewails her miseries and her fobles. There is
cry Of universal desoation, or rather Of rcvolts
against remediable evils, ant, from which we might
easily be spared. In the accession Of this grave
melancholy, there is also little conventional sad.
ness, habitude which forms the character Of tho
age.


The transatlantic regions are better situated for
making jokes at the world, and irony has found an
asylum there. at least if one may judge from thia
:. History Of New York." the best work Of the best
writer that the new world has as vet produced.


This jesting book, in which the sarcasm mounts
up to the creation of the world. in which under the
pretext of writing the history of Dutch colony. the
author parodies not only the great yanites but also
with scarcely any distinction. all human institutions.
is work more singular than philosophc.


We take it very kindly Of the author that he has
inundated on the same altar all the theposts WIN
have built up the world in their own way Herodo-
tus and his patriarchal romancpgs modern hisori-
ans and their mnutely prolix details, the Scottish
pride of upstarts, who are absolutely determined to
be the descendants of Theseus, OF Hector, or of
Melchisedec Still one would wish that iudicious
dissertation on ancient civilization should not lead
the author to a satire of modern civilization, and
that man who bears the name of Washington
should not use his endeavors to eneeble the esteem
in which Europe holds the country Of Washington
and Franklin.


Lord Byron set high value upon this work on
account of its animated satire upon the manners
and absurdties of of petty democracles this kind
of irony is agreeable to oarisocratic tastes. of which
his genius was never entirely divested. In this re-
spec MIR. Irving is less excusable. and may be just
ly reproached with having too often directed his
sarcasms against virtues, which however simple,
plain, and somewhat odd. are, nevertheless, always
worthy of respect, and which shauld never have
been quzzcd By an ,4mcricaa pen.