half to his nephew: "It is hard,--very hard; yet I
must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." His
acceptance of the position was doubtless influenced by the intended honor
to his profession, by the gratifying manner in which it came to him, by
his desire to please his friends, and the belief, which was a delusion,
that diplomatic life in Madrid would offer no serious interruption to his
"Life of Washington," in which he had just become engaged. The
nomination, the suggestion of Daniel Webster, Tyler's Secretary of State,
was cordially approved by the President and cabinet, and confirmed almost
by acclamation in the Senate. "Ah," said Mr. Clay, who was opposing
nearly all the President's appointments, "this is a nomination everybody
will concur in!" "If a person of more merit and higher qualification,"
wrote Mr. Webster in his official notification, "had presented himself,
great as is my personal regard for you, I should have yielded it to
higher considerations."

No other appointment could have been made so complimentary to Spain, and
it remains to this day one of the most honorable to his own country.

In reading Irving's letters written during his third visit abroad, you
are conscious that the glamour of life is gone for him, though not his
kindliness towards the world, and that he is subject to few illusions;
the show and pageantry no longer enchant,--they only weary. The novelty
was gone, and he was no longer curious to see great sights and great
people. He had declined a public dinner in New York, and he put aside
the same hospitality offered by Liverpool and by Glasgow. In London he
attended the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed anything he had
seen in splendor and picturesque effect. "The personage," he writes,
"who appeared least to enjoy the scene seemed to me to be the little
Queen herself. She was flushed and heated, and evidently fatigued and
oppressed with the state she had to keep up and the regal robes in which
she was arrayed, and especially by a crown of gold, which weighed heavy
on her brow, and to which she was continually raising her hand to move it
slightly when it pressed. I hope and trust her real crown sits easier."
The bearing of Prince Albert he found prepossessing, and he adds, "He
speaks English very well;" as if that were a useful accomplishment for an
English Prince Consort. His reception at court and by the ministers and
diplomatic corps was very kind, and he gr