the
midnight attack upon the palace in October last, when an attempt was
made to get possession of the persons of the little queen and her
sister, to carry them off.... The marble casements of the doors had
been shattered in several places, and the double doors themselves
pierced all over with bullet-holes, from the musketry that played upon
them from the staircase during that eventful night. What must have
been the feelings of those poor children, on listening from their
apartment to the horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious multitude,
and the reports of fire-arms, echoing and reverberating through the
vaulted halls and spacious courts of the immense edifice, and dubious
whether their own lives were not the object of the assault!" Such an
appeal to Irving's sympathy and chivalry was enough to deprive the
situation of its quality of opera-bouffe.

Presently an insurrection takes place in Barcelona. The regent hurries
off to quell it, and Irving's letters are full of the pomp and
circumstance of war. The regent is successful, and returns apparently
firmer than ever in power. But a few months later the trouble breaks
out again, more seriously; Madrid is placed in a state of siege, and
martial law declared. The life of the queen is thought to be in
danger, and the diplomatic corps, headed by Irving, offers its
services for her protection. Finally the regent is driven out of
power, and blows are once again succeeded by intrigue. Such, briefly,
was the character of the little drama in which the quiet American
author was to take a significant part, during his whole ministry. This
Spanish experience is fully recorded in his family letters. He was
always a voluminous letter-writer; during this period he is fairly
encyclopedic. A single letter to his sister fills thirteen closely
printed pages of his nephew's biography. His official dispatches, too,
were very full and thorough. Webster valued them particularly, and
remarked that he "always laid aside every other correspondence to read
a diplomatic dispatch from Mr. Irving." He had time, too, for many
charming chatty letters to the nieces at Sunnyside. Here is a
Thackerayish passage from one of them: "You seem to pity the poor
little queen, shut up with her sister like two princesses in a fairy
tale, in a great, grand, dreary palace, and wonder whether she would
not like to change her situation for a nice little cottage on the
Hudson? Perhaps she would, Kate, if she knew anyt