ot trouble themselves about native works, when they could
pick up every day successful books from the British press, for which
they had to pay no copyright. Irving's advocacy of the proposed law was
entirely unselfish, for his own market was secure.

His chief works in these ten years were, "A Tour on the Prairies,"
"Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "The Legends of the
Conquest of Spain," "Astoria" (the heavy part of the work of it was done
by his nephew Pierre), "Captain Bonneville," and a number of graceful
occasional papers, collected afterwards under the title of "Wolfert's
Roost." Two other books may properly be mentioned here, although they
did not appear until after his return from his absence of four years and
a half at the court of Madrid; these are the "Biography of Goldsmith"
and "Mahomet and his Successors." At the age of sixty-six, he laid aside
the "Life of Washington," on which he was engaged, and rapidly "threw
off" these two books. The "Goldsmith" was enlarged from a sketch he had
made twenty-five years before. It is an exquisite, sympathetic piece of
work, without pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, but on the whole
an excellent interpretation of the character. Author and subject had
much in common: Irving had at least a kindly sympathy for the
vagabondish inclinations of his predecessor, and with his humorous and
cheerful regard of the world; perhaps it is significant of a deeper
unity in character that both, at times, fancied they could please an
intolerant world by attempting to play the flute. The "Mahomet" is a
popular narrative, which throws no new light on the subject; it is
pervaded by the author's charm of style and equity of judgment, but it
lacks the virility of Gibbon's masterly picture of the Arabian prophet
and the Saracenic onset.

We need not dwell longer upon this period. One incident of it, however,
cannot be passed in silence: that was the abandonment of his life-long
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 insta