“Louis Napoleon and Eugenie Montijo, Emperor and Empress of France! one of whom I have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson; the other, whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Granada.  It seems to cap the climax of the strange dramas of which Paris has been the theatre during my lifetime.  I have repeatedly thought that each grand coup de theatre would be the last that would occur in my time; but each has been succeeded by another equally striking; and what will be the next, who can conjecture?

“The last time I saw Eugenie Montijo she was one of the reigning belles of Madrid; and she and her giddy circle had swept away my charming young friend, the beautiful and accomplished--------, into their career of fashionable dissipation.  Now Eugenie is upon a throne, and a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the most rigorous orders!  Poor——!  Perhaps, however, her fate may ultimately be the happiest of the two.  ‘The storm’ with her ’is o’er, and she’s at rest;’ but the other is launched upon a returnless shore, on a dangerous sea, infamous for its tremendous shipwrecks.  Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her career, and the end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which seems to ’be of such stuff as dreams are made of’?”

As we have seen, the large sums Irving earned by his pen were not spent in selfish indulgence.  His habits and tastes were simple, and little would have sufficed for his individual needs.  He cared not much for money, and seemed to want it only to increase the happiness of those who were confided to his care.  A man less warm-hearted and more selfish, in his circumstances, would have settled down to a life of more ease and less responsibility.

To go back to the period of his return to America.  He was now past middle life, having returned to New York in his fiftieth year.  But he was in the full flow of literary productiveness.  I have noted the dates of his achievements, because his development was somewhat tardy compared that of many of his contemporaries; but he had the “staying” qualities.  The first crop of his mind was of course the most original; time and experience had toned down his exuberant humor; but the spring of his fancy was as free, his vigor was not abated, and his art was more refined.  Some of his best work was yet to be done.

And it is worthy of passing mention, in regard to his later productions, that his admirable sense of literary proportion, which is wanting in many good writers, characterized his work to the end.

High as his position as a man of letters was at this time, the consideration in which he was held was much broader than that,—­it was that of one of the first citizens of the Republic.  His friends, readers, and admirers were not merely the literary class and the general public, but included nearly all the prominent statesmen of the time.  Almost any career in public life would have been open to