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Page 36
During the ten years preceding his mission to Spain, Irving kept fagging
away at the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous and ephemeral work.
Among his other engagements was that of regular contributor to the
"Knickerbocker Magazine," for a salary of two thousand dollars. He wrote
the editor that he had observed that man, as he advances in life, is
subject to a plethora of the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of
wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes fond of telling long stories
and doling out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. To avoid
becoming the bore of the domestic circle, he proposed to ease off this
surcharge of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness on the public
through the pages of the periodical. The arrangement brought reputation
to the magazine (which was published in the days when the honor of
being in print was supposed by the publisher to be ample compensation to
the scribe), but little profit to Mr. Irving. During this period he
interested himself in an international copyright, as a means of
fostering our young literature. He found that a work of merit, written
by an American who had not established a commanding name in the market,
met very cavalier treatment from our publishers, who frankly said that
they need not trouble themselves about native works, when they could
pick up every day successful books from the British press, for which
they had to pay no copyright. Irving's advocacy of the proposed law was
entirely unselfish, for his own market was secure.
His chief works in these ten years were, "A Tour on the Prairies,"
"Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "The Legends of the
Conquest of Spain," "Astoria" (the heavy part of the work of it was done
by his nephew Pierre), "Captain Bonneville," and a number of graceful
occasional papers, collected afterwards under the title of "Wolfert's
Roost." Two other books may properly be mentioned here, although 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 sixty-six, 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 person�_ 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
notification, "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.
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