A LITTLE ABOUT WASHINGTON IRVING by GEORGE A. ZABRISKIE NOW THAT the excitement attending the publication of Van Wyck Brooks' The World of Washington Irving, his grand talk before the Society, and our presently showing exhibit of Irving material, has subsided, it might not be amiss to say just a little about Washington Irving himself. His father was a Scotchman who, after a brief career as a sailor in British waters, married an English girl and emigrated to this country to try his luck in business. Washington was born in a modest two-story house at 131 William Street, New York City, on the 3rd day of April, 1783, the youngest of eleven children, and his name came naturally enough, as that was the year that saw the end of our War for Independence, the evacuation of New York by the British and General Washington's triumphant entry into the city. It is even said that the youngster was presented to the General who, with characteristic delicacy of feel-