he
water in the marble basins of its court is lingering on our ears even
yet.

In Spain, as elsewhere, Mr. Irving makes a circle of friends about him
whom it is hard to leave; but it must be. Accusing comrades at home say
he has deserted his country; he turns his face Westward at last, and,
full of honors, sails for New York once more, in the year 1832, at the
ripe age of forty-nine. There never was a warmer welcome given to a
returning citizen. A feast is made for him, at which all the magnates of
the city of Manhattan assist; and the author's sensibility is so touched
that he can make only stammering acknowledgments,--at which the cheers
and the plaudits are heartier than ever.

After this comes the opening of that idyllic life at Sunnyside,--the
building of the gables, the gilding of the weather-cocks, the planting
of the ivies. "Astoria" and "Bonneville" and the "Tour on the Prairies"
keep his hand active and his brain in play. Near and dear relatives
relieve his bachelor home of all loneliness. Nine years or more have
passed after his return, when he is surprised--and not a little
shocked--by his appointment, at the instance of Mr. Webster, as Minister
to Madrid.

He cannot resist the memories of the Alhambra, of Seville, of the
Guadalquivir. Many pleasant associations are revived in England, in
France, and not a few in the now revolutionary Spain. But it is plain to
see that the official visit is not so enjoyable as the old untrammelled
life in the Peninsula. No matter how light the duties, routine is a
harness that galls him. We can almost hear his cheer of thanksgiving as
he breaks away from it, and comes once more to his cherished home of
Sunnyside. He is not an old man yet, though he counts well into the
sixties. He contrives new additions to his cottage; he dashes off the
charming "Life of Goldsmith" at a heat. His older books come pouring
from the press, and are met with the cordial welcome of new ones.

His brothers, to whom he had been so fondly knit, are all gone save one;
Brevoort is gone; Kemble is just above him, at his forge, under the lee
of the Highlands. The river by quiet Tarrytown is strung up and down
with new "gentlemen's places."

He puts himself resolutely at work upon the "Life of Washington."
Frequently recurring illness, and a little shakiness in his step, warn
him that his time is nearly up. He knows it. There is only one more task
to make good. We hear of him at Mount Vernon, at Ar