CHAPTER VI.

LETTER TO ALEXANDER H. EVERETT.-A TRANSLATION OF NAVARRETE SUGGESTED TO HIM BY MR. EVERETT.-LETTER THEREUPON.-ARRIVAL AT MADRID. THE AMERICAN CONSUL, O. RICH.-DETERMINES UPON A REGULAR LIFE OF COLUMBUS.-LITERARY ACTIVITY.-DIVERTED FROM COLUMBUS TO "CONQUEST OF GRANADA."—LIEUTENANT ALEXANDER SLIDELL.-CLOSE OF 1826.-PASSAGES FROM LETTER TO P. M. IRVING.-LETTER TO BREVOORT. -COOPER.-HALLECK.-BRYANT.-PAULDING. — OFFERS "COLUMBUS ΤΟ MURRAY.-LONGFELLOW.-WILKIE.-CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1827.

T was during this period, while busying himself on these "American Essays," none of which have ever appeared in print or been preserved, that he addressed a letter to Mr. Alexander H. Everett, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at Madrid, whom he had met in Paris in the summer of 1825, in which he says:

You mentioned last summer that should you come to Spain, you would attach me to the embassy, by way of a protection. Now being so near Spain, and having a strong inclination to visit it, I may be induced to do so in the course of the spring, should circumstances permit. This will depend entirely upon letters which I am waiting here to receive, and which will determine my movements. Could I come into Spain at once I would do so, but it is out of my power. As I may enter Spain by the Mediterranean Sea, and make a tour before visiting Madrid, it would be

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perhaps an advantage and protection to me in the present state of the country, to be able at any time to announce myself as attached to the embassy. May I therefore consider myself as an attaché, and can I be so attached while at a distance, and before coming to Madrid? I am quite ignorant whether there are any forms necessary, or whether it does not rest with the minister by his mere word, expressed or written, to attach whom he pleases to his mission. At any rate, as this is a mere matter of travelling accommodation, I do not wish any trouble to be taken about it, nor that it should cause any departure from common usage and etiquette. So, as I said before, if there is the least shadow of objection, do not hesitate to say so, and there let the matter end.

On the 30th of January he received a reply from Mr. Everett, attaching him to the Legation, inclosing passport, and proposing his translating "Navarrete's Voyages of Columbus," which were about to appear, suggesting also the probability of his receiving £1,500 or £1,000 for it. The allusion to Murray at the close of the letter I now give, will be understood when the reader is told that Murray was about setting up a newspaper, for which, as Mr. Irving was informed by one of his correspondents, he had already deposited £40,000 in the Bank of England.

[To Alexander H. Everett, U. S. Minister at Madrid.]

MY DEAR SIR :

BORDEAUX, January 31, 1826.

I feel very much obliged to you for the passport you have been so prompt in forwarding to me, and am highly gratified in being attached to a legation that is so ably and creditably filled. I must return you my thanks also for the literary undertaking you have suggested to me. The

very idea of it animates me; it is just the kind of employment I would wish at present for my spare hours. I will thank you, therefore, to secure it for me. I shall write immediately to London to have propositions made to Murray, and, in case he does not accept them, to some other eminent publisher. I doubt whether I shall be able to get as much as you suppose for a translation, as there is always a chance for competition and piracy; but, be that as it may, there is something in the job itself that interests and pleases me, and will assist to compensate me for my trouble. I feel the more emboldened to take hold of the thing from my brother's having promised to assist me in it, so as to enable me to execute it speedily and yet not negligently, and at the same time without suffering it to interfere entirely with other pursuits. My brother is but slightly acquainted with the Spanish language, sufficiently, however, to render me great service occasionally, and he will improve in the language if he exercises it. We shall leave this for Madrid as soon as possible, and shall come on by diligence.

You will perceive by the papers the failure of Constable and Co., at Edinburgh, and Hurst, Robinson and Co., at London. These are severe shocks in the trading world of literature. Pray heaven Murray may stand unmoved and not go into the "Gazette," instead of publishing one.

The invocation with which this letter concludes, was well-nigh prophetic. A year later, Murray explains some remissness to Mr. Irving as follows:—

"One cause of my not writing to you during one whole year was my 'entanglement,' as Lady G

says, with a newspaper, which absorbed my money, and distracted and depressed my mind; but I have cut the knot of evil, which I could not remedy, and am now, 'by the blessing of God,' again returned to reason and the shop.'

999

Three days after the date of this letter to Mr. Everett,

Mr. Irving finished an "Essay on the Education of Youth," on which he was engaged at the time, and which, like the others recorded in his diary, was "water spilt upon the ground," and soon after he set off with his brother for Madrid, which he reached about the middle of February.

Two days after his arrival he had hired apartments under the roof of the American consul, O. Rich, Esq., to use the language of his preface to "Columbus," "one of the most indefatigable bibliographers in Europe, who, for several years, had made particular researches after every document relative to the early history of America. In his extensive and curious library," continues the preface, "I found one of the best collections extant of Spanish colonial history, containing many documents for which I might search elsewhere in vain." Such was his situation when, soon after his arrival, the publication of M. Navarrete made its appearance, which he found, to quote again his own words, "to contain many documents hitherto unknown, which threw additional light on the discovery of the New World; " but "the whole" presenting "rather a mass of rich materials for history than a history itself. And, invaluable as such stores" might be "to the laborious inquirer," the sight of "disconnected papers and official documents" had the effect to make him hesitate in his intended translation; and on the 25th of the following month, I find by his note-book that he had abandoned the idea, and was already engaged

in making researches, examining manuscripts, and taking notes for a regular life, which he trusted would be more acceptable to others, as it was undoubtedly a more satisfactory occupation to himself.

From this date until the 1st of September, laying aside his "American Essays," which he never resumed, he labored unremittingly at his task, with the exception of an excursion of a few days in August to Segovia. Sometimes he would write all day and until twelve at night; in one instance his note-book shows him to have written from five in the morning until eight at night, stopping only for meals.

It was during this interval of intense literary activity that, in passing through Madrid in a youthful tour in Europe, the writer of the present memoir came unexpectedly upon Mr. Irving, whom he had supposed to be still in France. I found him in the midst of books and manuscripts, full of the subject on which he was engaged, and in excellent spirits, though once, in a long walk which we took together on the Prado, he adverted with deep feeling to the cloud which had been thrown over him by the persevering malignity with which all sort of disagreeable things had been forwarded to him from America by some secret enemy. He felt this the more keenly, perhaps, from the total absence of everything of the kind in his own nature. He could not, I am satisfied, have harbored malice toward his worst enemy. Alluding to this inexplicable persecution, one of his corre