though they did not appear until after his return from his absence of four years and a half at the court of Madrid; these are the "Biography of Goldsmith" and "Mahomet and his Successors." At the age of sixtysix, he laid aside the "Life of Washington," on which he was engaged, and rapidly "threw off" these two books. The "Goldsmith" was enlarged from a sketch he had made twenty-five years before. It is an exquisite, sympathetic piece of work, without pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, but on the whole an excellent interpretation of the character. Author and subject. had much in common: Irving had at least a kindly sympathy for the vagabondish inclinations of his predecessor, and with his humorous and cheerful regard of the world; perhaps it is significant of a deeper unity in character that both, at times, fancied they could please an intolerant world by attempting to play the flute. The "Mahomet" is a popular narrative, which throws no new light on the subject; it is pervaded by the author's charm of style and equity of judgment, but it lacks the virility of Gibbon's masterly picture of the Arabian prophet and the Saracenic onset.

We need not dwell longer upon this period. One incident of it, however, cannot be passed in silence: that was the abandonment of his life-long project of writing the History of the Conquest of Mexico to Mr. William H. Prescott. It had been a scheme of his boyhood; he had made collections of materials for it during his first residence in Spain; and he was actually and absorbedly engaged in the composition of the first chapters, when he was sounded by Mr. Cogswell, of the Astor Library, in behalf of Mr. Prescott. Some conversation showed that Mr. Prescott was contemplating the subject upon which Mr. Irving was engaged, and the latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell to say that he abandoned it. Although our author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr. Prescott had not yet collected his materials, Irving renounced the glorious theme in such a manner that Prescott never suspected the pain and loss it cost him, nor the full extent of his own obligation. Some years afterwards Irving wrote to his nephew that in giving it up he in a manner gave up his bread, as he had no other subject to supply its place: "I was," he wrote, "dismounted

from my cheval de bataille, and have never been completely mounted since." But he added that he was not sorry for the warm impulse that induced him to abandon the subject, and that Mr. Prescott's treatment of it had justified his opinion of him. Notwithstanding Prescott's very brilliant work, we cannot but feel some regret that Irving did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His method, as he outlined it, would have been the natural one. Instead of partially satisfying the reader's curiosity in a preliminary essay, in which the Aztec civilization was exposed, Irving would have begun with the entry of the conquerors, and carried his reader step by step onward, letting him share all the excitement and surprise of discovery which the invaders experienced, and learn of the wonders of the country in the manner most likely to impress both the imagination and the memory; and with his artistic sense of the value of the picturesque he would have brought into strong relief the dramatis personae of the story.

In 1842, Irving was tendered the honor of the mission to Madrid. It was an entire

surprise to himself and to his friends. He

came to look upon this as the "crowning honor of his life," and yet when the news first reached him he paced up and down. his room, excited and astonished, revolving in his mind the separation from home and friends, and was heard murmuring, half to himself and half to his nephew, "It is hard,

very hard; yet I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." His acceptance of the position was doubtless influenced by the intended honor to his profession, by the gratifying manner in which it came to him, by his desire to please his friends, and the belief, which was a delusion, that diplomatic life in Madrid would offer no serious interruption to his "Life of Washington," in which he had just become engaged. The nomination, the suggestion of Daniel Webster, Tyler's Secretary of State, was cordially approved by the President and cabinet, and confirmed almost by acclamation in the Senate. "Ah," said Mr. Clay, who was opposing nearly all the President's appointments, "this is a nomination everybody will concur in!” “If a person of more merit and higher qualification," wrote Mr. Webster in his official no

tification, "had presented himself, great as is my personal regard for you, I should have yielded it to higher considerations." No other appointment could have been made so complimentary to Spain, and it remains to this day one of the most honorable to his own country.

In reading Irving's letters written during his third visit abroad, you are conscious that the glamour of life is gone for him, though not his kindliness towards the world, and that he is subject to few illusions; the show and pageantry no longer enchant, — they only weary. The novelty was gone, and he was no longer curious to see great sights and great people. He had declined a public dinner in New York, and he put aside the same hospitality offered by Liverpool and by Glasgow. In London he attended the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed anything he had seen in splendor and picturesque effect. "The personage," he writes, "who appeared least to enjoy the scene seemed to me to be the little Queen herself. She was flushed and heated, and evidently fatigued and oppressed with the state she had to keep up and the regal robes