James Kirke Paulding, an American author, born at Nine Partners, Dutchess co., N. Y., Aug. 22, 1779, died at Hyde Park in the same county, April 6, 1860. After a village school education and a course of self-instruction he removed about 1800 to New York, residing with his brother-in-law William Irving. In conjunction with him and with Washington Irving he produced the series of " Salmagundi" papers, which terminated with the 20th number, June 25, 1808; and as no division of the contributions was attempted, they were afterward incorporated in Irving's works. In 1814 he was made secretary to the board of navy commissioners; subsequently for 12 years he was navy agent at New York; and he was secretary of the navy from 1837 to 1841. His principal works are: " The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan" and " The Lay of the Scotch Fiddle," a parody of " The Lay of the Last Minstrel" (1813); " The Backwoodsman" (1818), his longest and best poem; "Salmagundi" (1819), a second series wholly by himself; " A Sketch of Old England by a New England Man" (2 vols., 1822); " Koningsmarke, the Long Finne" (2 vols., 1823; 2d ed., 1835); " Old Times in the New World," and " John Bull in America, or the New Munchausen" (1824); "Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham" (1826); " The Book of St. Nicholas, a Series of Stories of the Old Dutch Settlers" (1827), purporting to be translated from the Dutch; " Tales of the Good Woman, by a Doubtful Gentleman" (1829); " Chronicles of the City of Gotham, from the Papers of a Ketired Common Councilman" (1830); "The Dutchman's Fireside" (1831), a tale of the old French war and the most successful of all his works; " Westward Ho ! " (1832); a " Life of GeorgeWashington " (1835); "View of Slavery in the United States " (1836); "A Gift from Fairy Land" (1838), illustrated by Chapman; " Affairs and Men of New Amsterdam in the Times of Governor Peter Stuy-vesant" (1843); " The Old Continental, or the Price of Liberty" (1846); and "The Puritan and his Daughter" (1849). In 1847 he published a volume of "American Comedies" in conjunction with his son, William Irving Paulding, who has published the " Literary Life " of his father (1867), and a posthumous volume entitled " A Book of Vagaries," which is included in an edition of Paulding's " Select Works" (4 vols., 1867-'8).