Excerpt from The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, Vol. 1 Launch in the world. I yielded my scruples to this as surance and not long after, he placed in my possession a mass of material, consisting of journals, note-books, diaries at scattered intervals, and a large collection of family letters with files of others from various cor respondents, which, as he said, he had neither time nor spirit to examine or arrange. He afterwards procured for me his numerous letters to his friend, Henry Bre voort, which were furnished through the kindness of his son, Carson Brevoort, Esq. And shortly before his death indicated to me others, both in this country and in Europe, which, if still in existence, might be of interest in a narrative of the shifting scenes of his life. Of these I have been able to obtain, since his death, the originals or copies of such as had been preserved and to them have been added numerous letters, both of his early and later life, which have been contributed by various friends, to whom I here offer my acknowledg ments. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.