CHAPTER XXV. LETTER TO GOUVERNEUR KEMBLE-AWARD OF A GOLD MEDAL BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE-THE OXFORD HONOR-SKETCH OF WILLIAM IV.LETTER TO PETER IRVING-ARTICLE IN THE LONDON QUARTERLY-LETTER TO LOUIS MCLANE FROM PARIS AFTER THE ELEVATION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE -EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO THE SAME-TALLEYRAND-LITERARY CONCERNS-BREVOORT-DOLGOROUKI-PETER POWELL-JOHN RANDOLPH - THE VOYAGES OF THE COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS IN THE PRESS-INTERRUPTIONS OF HIS OFFICIAL SITUATION-DISTRACTIONS OF LONDON LIFE-THE KING AND THE MISSION-NEWTON-LESLIE-KENNEY-PAYNE-RECEIVES NOTES FROM MURRAY FOR THE VOYAGES. I OPEN this chapter with a letter of Mr. Irving to his early friend, Gouverneur Kemble, who was now occupying his bachelor home in the noble solitude of the highlands of the Hudson. It was situated nearly opposite West Point, and a few miles north of the old colonial seat of Captain Philipse, that favorite haunt of Irving, Brevoort, Kemble, and Paulding, in days long gone by. Kemble was now the proprietor of an extensive foundery, from which he occasionally supplied the government with cannon, and to "the forges and fires" of which the letter alludes: MY DEAR KEMBLE: LONDON, Jan. 18, 1830. I am most heartily obliged to you for your letter, which smacks so much of old times and early fellowship; and I take it the more kindly of you, because I believe I was in your debt for one or two previous letters, which from the hurry of various affairs I had suffered to remain unanswered. I had hoped and designed to have been by this time once more among you all in New York, and had trusted to find in you a boon companion, to keep me in company and countenance in my old bachelorhood, and to have philosophized good-humoredly with me. on all we had seen and experienced. This diplomatic appointment, however, has toppled down all my air castles, and has fixed me for a time amidst the smoke and fog of London. I have a most craving desire to visit old friends and old scenes; and there is no place I should feel greater delight in beholding than our ancient nest in the highlands. The poor captain is gone! and I should miss him sadly, but I have an idea that I should relish your stronghold of Cold Spring hugely. I cannot act up to your advice in keeping myself thin, to mount your hill without blowing; I have a villainous propensity to grow round and robustious, and I fear the beef and pudding of England will complete the ruin of my figure. I was surprised a few days since by a visit from our old convive S, whom I have often dined in company with at your house and the captain's. He looks a little the worse for wear; his face has grown to a dusky red, heightened by a very scanty shock of white hair. We had a good deal of talk about old times, and he expresses a resolution to revisit New York immediately, should we be successful in reopening the direct trade with the West Indies; in which case he seems sanguine of making a great deal of money. He introduced to me a young gentleman by the name of Brush, whose father I used likewise to see at your house, and who is on the point of sailing for Spain, for which country I shall give him some letters. I often see a lady who boasts of having enjoyed your intimacy while in London. I mean Miss —, who now is an ancient spinster, but a very merry and bustling one. Her mother is about eighty years of age, and a relic of the ancient tory times of New York; being one of those who left it, I believe, at the close of the Revolution. Bating her high tory notions, she is a thorough American; that is to say, as far as love for the soil goes; for otherwise, I believe she looks upon the nation as little better than a rebellious race. Why cannot you leave your forges and fires in the highlands for a season, and take a lounge for a few months in London? The crossing of the ocean at present is nothing; and you might be back before your fires had gone out or your irons grown cold; and return too with a whole budget of materials for after thought and after talk. By all accounts you must have made money enough to be able to take the world as you please; and having neither wife nor child to anchor you at home, I do not see why you should not now and then take a cruise. Think of this. I should be delighted to meet you in London, and you and Peter and myself would have some cozy hours together. Give my affectionate regards to James Paulding and his wife, and to such of our old cronies as are within hail. I am, my dear Kemble, Ever very affectionately your old friend, WASHINGTON IRVING. On his birthday, the third of April, the author received verbal intelligence that the Royal Society of Literature had that day voted him one of their fifty guinea gold medals. "What makes this the more gratifying," he writes to Peter at Birmingham "is that the other medal is voted to Hallam, author of the Middle Ages." Two days afterwards, he received the following official announcement of the intended honor: ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, PARLIAMENT STREET, April 5, 1330. SIR-I have the honor to acquaint you that at a meeting of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature, held on Saturday last, for the purpose of awarding the two Royal Medals annually placed by his Majesty at the Society's disposal, to be adjudged to the authors of Literary works of eminent merit, or of important Literary Discoveries, one of the Medals was adjudged to you. You are consequently requested to attend at the anniver sary meeting of the Society, to be held at this place on Thursday the 29th instant, at three o'clock, in order to be presented with the said Medal. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, Secretary. This medal has a figure of Mercury on one side; on the other the head of George IV., with the inscription Georgius IV. Reg: Soc: Litt: Fundator et Patronus: MDCCCXXIII. Round the rim of the medal is inscribed: Washington Irving. Litt: Human: Insigni. It is a curious incident connected with its history, that after his return to America, this medal was once secretly stolen, and as furtively restored; the thief, during the confusion of a fire in the neighborhood, taking it from the safe of his brother's office, where it was deposited, and afterward slyly opening the door of that brother's residence at night and throwing it into the hall; a compunctious restitution to which the inscription no doubt contributed. In less than a month after the presentation of the gold medal, as if honors, like misfortunes, should not come single, the modest author found himself committed for the degree of LL.D., which the University of Oxford proposed to confer on him. Overruling the ultra-modesty of your scruples," writes the Rev. Arthur Matthews, May 19, "I have not hesitated to commit you with the academical authorities of Oxford, where you will be due on the 23d of June, the day fixed for the ceremony of annual commemoration in the theatre, at which it is usual to confer honorary degrees." It was not without great diffidence and reluctance that Mr. Irving yielded to a compliment which so many are found to covet. The reception of the proposed honor, however, was deferred to another year, in consequence of the dangerous illness and impending death of the king, which would throw a gloom over everything, and deprive the ceremony of all éclât. "I have heard nothing further on the subject of the Oxford honor," he writes to Peter, June 6, 1831, |