He was exactly five
feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His
head was a perfect sphere....
"His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated
meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight
hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty."
[Illustration: WOUTER VAN TWILLER]
THE SKETCH BOOK GROUP.--The only one of his productions to which Irving
gave the name of _The Sketch Book_ was finished in 1820, the year in which
Scott's _Ivanhoe_, Keats's _Eve of St. Agnes_, and Shelley's _Prometheus
Unbound_ appeared. Of the same general order as _The Sketch Book_ are
Irving's _Bracebridge Hall_ (1822) and _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824). These
volumes all contain short stories, essays, or sketches, many of which are
suggestive of Addison's _Spectator_. _The Sketch Book_ is the most famous
of Irving's works of this class. While it contains some excellent essays or
descriptions, such as those entitled _Westminster Abbey_ and
_Stratford-on-Avon_, the book lives to-day because of two short stories,
_Rip Van Winkle_ and _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_.
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