to be given to authors of literary works of eminent merit,
the other being voted to the historian Hallam; and this distinction was
followed by the degree of D. C. L. from the University of Oxford,--a
title which the modest author never used.

VIII

RETURN TO AMERICA--SUNNYSIDE--THE MISSION TO MADRID

In 1831 Mr. Irving was thrown, by his diplomatic position, into the thick
of the political and social tumult, when the Reform Bill was pending and
war was expected in Europe. It is interesting to note that for a time he
laid aside his attitude of the dispassionate observer, and caught the
general excitement. He writes in March, expecting that the fate of the
cabinet will be determined in a week, looking daily for decisive news
from Paris, and fearing dismal tidings from Poland. "However," he goes
on to say in a vague way, "the great cause of all the world will go on.
What a stirring moment it is to live in! I never took such intense
interest in newspapers. It seems to me as if life were breaking out anew
with me, or that I were entering upon quite a new and almost unknown
career of existence, and I rejoice to find sensibilities, which were
waning as to many objects of past interest, reviving with all their
freshness and vivacity at the scenes and prospects opening around me."
He expects the breaking of the thraldom of falsehood woven over the human
mind; and, more definitely, hopes that the Reform Bill will prevail.
Yet he is oppressed by the gloom hanging over the booksellers' trade,
which he thinks will continue until reform and cholera have passed away.

During the last months of his residence in England, the author renewed
his impressions of Stratford (the grateful landlady of the Red Horse Inn
showed him a poker which was locked up among the treasures of her house,
on which she had caused to be engraved "Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre"); spent
some time at Newstead Abbey; and had the sorrowful pleasure in London of
seeing Scott once more, and for the last time. The great novelist, in
the sad eclipse of his powers, was staying in the city, on his way to
Italy, and Mr. Lockhart asked Irving to dine with him. It was but a
melancholy repast. "Ah," said Scott, as Irving gave him his arm, after
dinner, "the times are changed, my good fellow, since we went over the
Eildon Hills together. It is all nonsense to tell a man that his mind is
not affected when his body is in this state."

Irving retired from the legation in S