His friend had informed him that he could now at any time take the railroad at New York at four P. M., and dine with him at Cold Spring at six; from which it would appear that the cars were passing his door. We hear no complaint from him, however, until he became for the first subjected to the annoyance of the steam whistle during a severe fit of illness from which he was just recovering, when he breaks forth as follows, in a letter to Gouverneur Kemble, one of the directors of the company:

MY DEAR KEMBLE:

SUNNYSIDE, August 7, 1850.

Excuse my not answering sooner your kind letter. It found me in a terrible state of shattered nerves; having been startled out of my first sleep at midnight, on Saturday night last, by the infernal alarum of your railroad steam trumpet. It left me in a deplorable state of nervous agitation for upward of an hour. I remained sleepless until daybreak, and miserable all the following day. It seemed to me almost as if done on purpose, for the trains had ceased for several days to make their diabolical blasts opposite my house. They have not molested me in this way since, and have clearly shown, by the cautious and tempered management of their whistle, that these unearthly yells, and howls, and screams, indulged in for a mile on a stretch, and destructive to the quiet of whole neighborhoods, are carried to an unnecessary and unwarrantable excess. They form one of the greatest nuisances attending railroads, and I am surprised that, in the present state of mechanical art, some signal less coarse and brutal could not be devised.

You will laugh at all of this; but to have one's family disturbed all day, and startled from sleep at night, by such horrific sounds, amounts to a constant calamity. I feel obliged to the company for the attention that has been paid to the complaints made in this instance, and I trust to their continuing to protect my homestead from the recurrence of such an evil.

It would give me great pleasure, my dear Kemble, to come at once to you; but I am advised, as soon as I have sufficient strength to leave home, to go where I may have the benefit of a complete change of air. I intend, therefore, to pay a visit to my niece, Mrs. Gabriel Irving, at her place at Oyster Bay, where I shall have the benefit of salt air and sea breezes. My visit to you I shall defer until I feel in more companionable

trim.

Ever, my dear Kemble, yours, affectionately,

WASHINGTON IRVING.

The following letter is addressed to the eminent scholar, George Ticknor, who had sent him, a considerable time previous to its date, his "History of Spanish Literature," a work in three octavo volumes, which he had early meditated, and upon which he had been long engaged. Mr. Ticknor, in the autumn of 1818, had come, from a residence of some months in Spain, to London, and here he formed the acquaintance of Mr. Irving, Leslie, and Newton, all of whom made the excursion together from London to Windsor, "which resulted," says Mr. Ticknor, in a letter to myself, "in the beautiful paper in the 'Sketch Book.' " "He read to me," he continues in the same letter, "some of the other papers, and I brought out for him the first number for publication, and delivered it to Mr. Brevoort."

MY DEAR TICKNOR:

[To George Ticknor.]

SUNNYSIDE, February 15, 1850.

I ought long since to have thanked you for the copy of your work which you had the kindness to send me, but I thought it best to read it first.

!

This the pressure of various affairs has permitted me to do only at intervals, so that I have not yet got farther than the threshold of the third volume; but I will delay an acknowledgment no longer. I have read enough to enable me to praise it heartily and honestly. It is capitalcapital! It takes me back into dear old Spain; into its libraries, its theatres; among its chronicles, its plays; among all those scenes, and characters, and customs that for years were my study and delight. No one that has not been in Spain can feel half the merit of your work; but to those who have, it is a perpetual banquet. I am glad you have brought it out during my lifetime, for it will be a vade mecum for the rest of my days. When I have once read it through, I shall keep it by me, like a Stilton cheese, to give a dig into whenever I want a relishing morsel. I began to fear it would never see the light in my day, or that it might fare with you as with that good lady who went thirteen years with child, and then brought forth a little old man, who died in the course of a month of extreme old age. But you have produced three strapping volumes, full of life, and freshness, and vigor, and that will live forever. You have laid the foundations of your work so deep that nothing can shake it; you have built it up with a care that renders it reliable in all its parts; and you have finished it off with a grace and beauty that leave nothing to be desired. It is well worth a lifetime to achieve such a work.

By the way, as you appear to have an extensive collection of the old Spanish plays, there is one which Captain Medwin mentioned to me, the story of which had made a great impression on Lord Byron. It was called "El Embozado de Cordova" (or perhaps "Encapotado"). I have sought for it in vain in all the libraries and collections in Spain. If you should have a copy of it, let me know; though I apprehend Captain Medwin has given me a wrong name, as I could find none of the dramatic antiquaries that knew anything about it.

I regret that you did not fall into the hands of my worthy publisher, Mr. Putnam, who is altogether the most satisfactory man in his line that I ever had dealings with. But I trust you have made a good arrangement with the Harpers, who command a vast circulation.

When you see Prescott, give him my cordial remembrances. You two are shelved together for immortality.

Ever, my dear Ticknor, yours very faithfully,

WASHINGTON IRVING.

The "old Spanish play" here alluded to as having been mentioned to him by Captain Medwin, and which had eluded his researches in Spain, is spoken of in his diary as a play by Calderon. In the following extract of a letter to his brother Peter, written from Paris in March, 1825, I furnish a glimpse of the curious plot, and all the light I can throw upon the subject of this mysterious drama, here, too, spoken of as a production of Calderon:

Medwin is in Paris, but returns almost immediately to his nest. I find he is well acquainted with Calderon in the original, and has talked to me of a play of Calderon's which is rarely to be found in the edition of his works, but of which he once obtained a copy. It is called sometimes "El Embozado," and sometimes "El Capitado" (i. e., The man muffled or disguised). The story is of a young man who has been dogged through life by a mysterious masked man; who thwarts all his plans, and continually crosses his path, and blasts his hopes at the moment of fruition. At length he is in love with a lady, and on the point of entering her house to be made happy. The "Embozado" issues out of it. They fight. The mask of the unknown falls off, and he discovers the very counterpart of himself! He dies with horror at the sight. Such is Medwin's mere recollection of the plot. Lord Byron was so much struck with it, that he intended to make something of it, and repeatedly mentioned the way he thought of treating it. Medwin wrote a sketch of the subject and Lord Byron's ideas about it, which he had intended to append to a new edition of his Memoirs, but he has promised to hand it to me. It is certainly very striking, and something fine might be struck out from the mere idea. The "Embozado" is supposed to be a personification of the young man's passions. I mean to search for the play.

On the 4th of April, 1825, he writes again to Peter :I have just purchased an edition of Calderon, the same with that in the King's Library. It is in seventeen volumes. I had to give one hundred and eighty francs for it. I do not find the "Embozado" in it. I mean to get my Spanish master to write to Spain for that and any other plays of Calderon that may not be in this edition.

In less than a year after this, Mr. Irving went to Spain, where, it seems by his letter to Mr. Ticknor, he sought in vain for "The Embozado" in all the libraries and collections of the country. It is singular that a play of Calderon, of which Medwin had once obtained a copy, the story of which came near engaging the pen of Byron, should have eluded research. It could hardly have been a production of Calderon, and Medwin probably erred in characterizing it as such.

The niece to whom the following is addressed, had returned to Paris in May, 1850, from a visit of some months in New York:

MY DEAR SARAH:

[To Mrs. Storrow.]

SUNNYSIDE, July 18, 1850.

Your letter could not have arrived at a more welcome moment; for it has found me in a state of languor and debility, and somewhat depressed in spirits, the effects of an intermittent fever, from which I am but imperfectly recovered. I find I do not rally from any attack of the kind so speedily as I used to do; and this one has pulled me down so much, that I think I shall make an excursion for change of air.