“Give my love to all my dear little friends of the round table, from the discreet princess down to the little blue-eyed boy.  Tell la petite Marie that I still remain true to her, though surrounded by all the beauties of Seville; and that I swear (but this she must keep between ourselves) that there is not a little woman to compare with her in all Andalusia.”

The publication of “The Life of Columbus,” which had been delayed by Irving’s anxiety to secure historical accuracy in every detail, did not take place till February, 1828.  For the English copyright Mr. Murray paid him L3,150.  He wrote an abridgment of it, which he presented to his generous publisher, and which was a very profitable book (the first edition of ten thousand copies sold immediately).  This was followed by the “Companions,” and by “The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada,” for which he received two thousand guineas.  “The Alhambra” was not published till just before Irving’s return to America, in 1832, and was brought out by Mr. Bentley, who bought it for one thousand guineas.

“The Conquest of Granada,” which I am told Irving in his latter years regarded as the best of all his works, was declared by Coleridge “a chef-d’oeuvre of its kind.”  I think it bears re-reading as well as any of the Spanish books.  Of the reception of the “Columbus” the author was very doubtful.  Before it was finished he wrote:—­

“I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition of my countrymen, and look forward to cold scrutiny and stern criticism, and this is a line of writing in which I have not hitherto ascertained my own powers.  Could I afford it, I should like to write, and to lay my writings aside when finished.  There is an independent delight in study and in the creative exercise of the pen; we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets in the noisy rabble of the world, and there is an end of our dreaming.”

In a letter to Brevoort, February 23, 1828, he fears that he can never regain

“That delightful confidence which I once enjoyed of not the good opinion, but the good will, of my countrymen.  To me it is always ten times more gratifying to be liked than to be admired; and I confess to you, though I am a little too proud to confess it to the world, the idea that the kindness of my countrymen toward me was withering caused me for a long time the most weary depression of spirits, and disheartened me from making any literary exertions.”

It has been a popular notion that Irving’s career was uniformly one of ease.  In this same letter he exclaims:  “With all my exertions, I seem always to keep about up to my chin in troubled water, while the world, I suppose, thinks I am sailing smoothly, with wind and tide in my favor.”

In a subsequent letter to Brevoort, dated at Seville, December 26, 1828, occurs almost the only piece of impatience and sarcasm that this long correspondence affords.  “Columbus” had succeeded beyond his expectation, and its popularity was so great that some enterprising American had projected an abridgment, which it seems would not be protected by the copyright of the original.  Irving writes:—­