Excerpt from The Works of Washington Irving, Vol. 1: The Sketch Book; Legends of the Conquest of Spain; A Life of Washington Irving Washington Irving, the youngest of eleven children, and the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving, was born to ward the close of these troublous times in New York, on April 3, 1783. The house in which he was born, a plain, two-story dwelling in William Street between Fulton and J ohn, has long since disappeared, as well as the house on the opposite side of the same street to which the family moved within a year after his birth. If the boy differed in any respect from the average boy, the particulars have not reached us. The earliest recorded anecdote in which he figures connects him with the illustrious name of Washington, who entered the city with his army not many months after his birth. The enthusiasm which greeted the great man was showed by a young Scotch maid-servant of the family, who followed him one morning into a shop, and showing him the lad, said: Please, your honor, here's a. Bairn was named after you. He placed his hand on the head of his little namesake and blessed him. 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.