s
in all his correspondence relating to this picturesque and eventful
period. During the four years of his residence the country was in a
constant state of excitement and often of panic. Armies were marching
over the kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, expecting an assault
at one time; confusion reigned amid the changing adherents about the
person of the child Queen. The duties of a minister were perplexing
enough, when the Spanish government was changing its character and its
_personnel_ with the rapidity of shifting scenes in a pantomime. "This
consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to Mr. Webster, "is appalling.
To carry on a negotiation with such transient functionaries is like
bargaining at the window of a railroad car: before you can get a reply
to a proposition the other party is out of sight."

Apart from politics, Irving's residence was full of half-melancholy
recollections and associations. In a letter to his old comrade Prince
Dolgorouki, then Russian Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of
their delightful intercourse at the D'Oubrils:--

"Time dispels charms and illusions. You remember how much I was
struck with a beautiful young woman (I will not mention names) who
appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the Assumption? She
was young, recently married, fresh and unhackneyed in society, and
my imagination decked her out with everything that was pure,
lovely, innocent, and angelic in womanhood. She was pointed out to
me in the theatre shortly after my arrival in Madrid. I turned with
eagerness to the original of the picture that had ever remained
hung up in sanctity in my mind. I found her still handsome, though
somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, _with her daughters,_ in
the box of a fashionable nobleman, younger than herself, rich in
purse but poor in intellect, and who was openly and notoriously her
_cavalier servante_. The charm was broken, the picture fell from
the wall. She may have the customs of a depraved country and
licentious state of society to excuse her; but I can never think of
her again in the halo of feminine purity and loveliness that
surrounded the Virgin of Murillo."

During Irving's ministry he was twice absent, briefly in Paris and
London, and was called to the latter place for consultation in regard to
the Oregon boundary dispute, in the settlement of which he rendered
valuable se