tion of an excursion of four days to the Escurial in October, until the 18th of November, when, having completed a rough sketch of the work, he threw it aside to resume his Columbus; and on the 22d of December he wrote to Murray, informing him, rather prematurely, as the sequel shows, of the work being nearly ready for the press.

Six weeks previous to this date, Lieutenant Alexander Slidell (afterwards Mackenzie), of the United States Navy, arrived in Madrid, and during his stay furnished for the appendix of Mr. Irving's work what the author styles, in the revised edition of 1850, "the very masterly paper on the route of Columbus." It was after his departure from Madrid that he met with the robbery, of which he gives such a graphic account in his Year in Spain, an interesting work, of which Mr. Irving wrote a review for the London Quarterly in 1831.

The record of December 30 in the author's notebook is as follows: "All day at Columbus," and the closing record of the year is:

Columbus-go out-return home and write a little, but sleepy and go to bed-and so ends the year 1826, which has been a year of the hardest application and toil of the pen I have ever passed. I feel more satisfied, however, with the manner in which I have passed it than I have been with that of many gayer years, and close this year of my life in better humor with myself than I have often done.

CHAPTER XV.

PASSAGES FROM LETTERS TO PIERRE MUNRO IRVING-LETTER TO BREVOORTALLUSION TO COOPER, HALLECK, BRYANT, PAULDING-LETTER TO MURRAY, OFFERING COLUMBUS-EXTRACTS FROM DIARY-LONGFELLOW-ARRANGEMENT WITH MURRAY FOR COLUMBUS-WILKIE-LITERARY PROJECTS-CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1827.

THE

HE labors of the author on Columbus were by no means so near their completion as he had supposed when he wrote to Murray. A few extracts from his letters to myself, to whom he was thinking of committing the superintendence of its publication in London, when he supposed he was finishing his task, will serve to throw light on this portion of his literary history:

[To Pierre Munro Irving.]

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*

January 18th, 1827. I had hoped by this time to have had Columbus ready for the press, but there are points continually rising to be inquired into and discussed, which cause delay; and I played truant to my main work for two or three months and rambled into another, which is all sketched out in the rough, so that Columbus has yet to receive the finishing touches. I received a letter from Murray the day before yesterday on the subject of Columbus. He is extremely anxious

to receive it as soon as possible, that he may put it immediately to press. I have felt I have felt very much worried and perplexed how to manage, as I should have to get the work copied here to send out to America, and that would cause great delay. Your letter from Paris has arrived in the very critical moment to put me at my ease; I must get you to superintend the publication of my work in London, correcting the proofsheets, &c. As you will be able to decipher my handwriting, and from your knowledge of languages will be able to see the quotations in Spanish, Italian, &c., are printed correctly, I need not lose time in getting it copied here. You will send out proofsheets to E. Irving as fast as they are printed, for the work to be reprinted in America. Thus you see you will really be of vast service to me, and the task I impose on you will give you a curious peep into some departments of literary life in London.

* This arrangement will enable me to forward my work by piecemeal as I get it ready, and will greatly expedite its publication, while it will make me feel easy as to the manner in which it will be brought out in London, which I should not have done had I committed it to the superintendence of strangers. It will probably be a month yet before I have any of it ready to forward, and as there are always preparations to be made with printers, &c., I think that there is no likelihood of its going to press until some time in March, if so soon. I will write to you again, however, shortly, and wish you not to leave Paris until you hear from me.

MADRID, Feb. 22, 1827.

In my last I wished you to attend to the correcting of the proofsheets of my work on Columbus while printing in England, and expected by this time to have had a considerable.

part of the manuscript in the printers' hands. I have been disappointed. I have been obliged to wait for a sight of documents, and then to make considerable alterations. I find the finishing off of a work of the kind involving so many points foreign to my usual course of reading and pursuits, requires time and care; and above all, I find it next to impossible to procure copiers in this place. I have been for four or five weeks past endeavoring to get manuscript copied, and have not yet succeeded in getting twenty pages. This delay is ex tremely irksome to me, as I wish to get the work off of my hands and leave Madrid, and indeed to make a rapid tour and leave Spain as soon as possible.

While these obstacles occur to delay the forwarding my manuscript to England, I do not wish, in case you should have. received my previous letter, to interfere with any of your trav elling plans. Follow your own inclinations. Let me hear from you, where you are and what are your plans, and if I can get my work copied and sent off soon, I may yet require your aid while in England; but that must depend entirely upon your movements and convenience.

* *

I have been working very hard at the History of Columbus, and have had to re-write many parts that I had thought finished, in consequence of procuring better sources of informa tion, which threw new light upon various points. It is a kind of work that will not bear hurrying; many questions have been started connected with it which have been perplexed by tedious controversies, and which must all be looked into. I had no idea of what a complete labyrinth I had entangled my. self in when I took hold of the work.

VOL. II.-(17)

In a subsequent letter, March 20th, he gives up all idea of forwarding the manuscript to me:

* *

I have repeatedly [he says] made efforts to hurry forward, but have every time lost ground by making errors or omis sions, which obliged me afterwards to go over the same ground again. I have now got a copying machine, and will be able to strike off copies of the remainder of my work as fast as I make corrected transcripts of the chapters. Still I find time runs away insensibly, and week slips after week without my bringing my labors to a close.

It was at a period when he had given up all thoughts of expediting the publication of his Life of Columbus that Mr. Irving addressed the following letter to Brevoort, from whom he had just heard in explanation of a long and to him unaccountable silence. The American reader may be interested in its mention of Cooper, Halleck, Bryant, and Paulding-names, all but the last, which had grown into fame since he left his native land:

MY DEAR BRevoort:

MADRID, April 4, 1827.

Your letter of the 1st January was one of the most acceptable that I ever received. The letter you sent to

*

*

me to the care of Mr. Welles never reached me, and for upwards of two years I had no reply to the letters and messages which I sent you. *

*

Various circumstances had contributed to render my mind morbid and susceptible on this point [Brevoort's long silence];