. . .New York, and why he liked to linger here and there, sipping the social sweets, like a man born to leisure and seemingly idle observation of life.

It was in the midst of these social successes, and just after his admission to the bar, that Irving gave the first decided evidence of the choice of a career. This was his association with his eldest brother, William, and Paulding in the production of "Salmagundi," a semi-monthly periodical, in small duodecimo sheets, which ran with tolerable regularity through twenty numbers, and stopped in full tide of success, with the whimsical indifference to the public which had characterized its every issue. Its declared purpose was "simply to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." In manner and purpose it was an imitation of the "Spectator" and the "Citizen of the [50]World," and it must share the fate of all imitations; but its wit was not borrowed, and its humor was to some ext. . . Read More