annot 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
engaged, and the latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell to say that he
abandoned it. Although our author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr.
Prescott had not yet collected his materials, Irving renounced the
glorious theme in such a manner that Prescott never suspected the pain
and loss it cost him, nor the full extent of his own obligation. Some
years afterwards Irving wrote to his nephew that in giving it up he in a
manner gave up his bread, as he had no other subject to supply its place:
"I was," he wrote, "dismounted from my cheval de bataille, and have never
been completely mounted since." But he added that he was not sorry for
the warm impulse that induced him to abandon the subject, and that Mr.
Prescott's treatment of it had justified his opinion of him.
Notwithstanding Prescott's very brilliant work, we cannot but feel some
regret that Irving did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His method, as he
outlined it, would have been the natural one. Instead of partially
satisfying the reader's curiosity in a preliminary essay, in which the
Aztec civilization was exposed, Irving would have begun with the entry of
the conquerors, and carried his reader step by step onward, letting him
share all the excitement and surprise of discovery which the invaders
experienced, and learn of the wonders of the country in the manner most
likely to impress both the imagination and the memory; and with his
artistic sense of the value of the picturesque he would have brought into
strong relief the dramatis personae of the story.

In 1842 Irving was tendered the honor of the mission to Madrid. It was an
entire surprise to himself and to his friends. He came to look upon this
as the "crowning honor of his life," and yet when the news first reached
him, he paced up and down his room, excited and astonished, revolving in
his mind the separation from home and friends, and was heard murmuring,
half to himself and