One rather curious characteristic of Mr. Irving was excessive, unaffected modesty and distrust of himself and of his own writings.  Considering how many a debutant in letters, not yet out of his teens, is so demonstratively self-confident as to the prospective effect of his genius on an expecting and admiring world, it was always remarkable to hear a veteran, whose fame for half a century had been cosmopolitan, expressing the most timid doubts as to his latest compositions, and fearing they were unequal to their position,—­so unwilling, too, to occupy an inch of ground to which any other writer might properly lay claim.  Mr. Irving had planned and made some progress in a work on the Conquest of Mexico, when he learned of Mr. Prescott’s intentions, and promptly laid his project aside.  His “Life of Washington,” originating more than thirty years ago, was repeatedly abandoned, as the successive works of Mr. Sparks, Mr. Padding, and others, appeared; and though he was subsequently induced to proceed with his long-considered plan of a more dramatic and picturesque narrative from a new point of view, yet he was more than once inclined to put his MSS. into the fire, in the apprehension that the subject had been worn threadbare by the various compilations which were constantly coming out.  When he ventured his first volume, the cordial and appreciative reception promptly accorded to it surprised as much as it cheered and pleased him; for though he despised hollow flattery, no young writer was more warmly sensitive than he to all discriminating, competent, and honest applause or criticism.  When “Wolfert’s Roost” was published, (I had to entice the papers of that volume from his drawers, for I doubt whether he would have collected them himself,) I saw him affected actually to tears, on reading some of the hearty and well-written personal tributes which that volume called forth.  But though every volume was received in this spirit by the press and the public, he was to the last apprehensive of failure, until a reliable verdict should again reassure him.  The very last volume of his works (the fifth of “Washington”) was thus timidly permitted to be launched; and I remember well his expression of relief and satisfaction, when he said that Mr. Bancroft, Professor Felton, and Mr. Duyckinck had been the first to assure him the volume was all that it should be.  His task on this volume had perhaps extended beyond the period of his robust health,—­it had fagged him,—­but he had been spared to write every line of it with his own hand, and my own copy is enriched by the autograph of his valedictory.