At the age of fifteen he was allowed to take his gun and explore the Sleepy
Hollow region, which became the scene of one of his world-famous stories.
When he was seventeen, he sailed slowly up the Hudson River on his own
voyage of discovery. Hendrick Hudson's exploration of this river gave it
temporarily to the Dutch; but Irving annexed it for all time to the realm
of the romantic imagination. The singers and weavers of legends were more
than a thousand years in giving to the Rhine its high position in that
realm; but Irving in a little more than a decade made the Hudson almost its
peer.
[Illustration: IRVING AT THE AGE OF TWENTY TWO]
In such unique environment, Irving passed his boyhood. Unlike his brothers,
he did not go to Columbia College, but like Charles Brockden Brown studied
law, and like him never seriously practiced the profession. Under the pen
name of "Jonathan Oldstyle," he was writing, at the age of nineteen,
newspaper letters, modeled closely after Addison's _Spectator_. Ill health
drove Irving at twenty-one to take a European trip, which lasted two years.
His next appearance in literature after his return was in connection with
his brother, William Irving, and James K.
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