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 lifelong
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