Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/516

 IRVING

IRVING

induced Murray to publish the book, and this friendly act secured Irviugs success and popu- larity in Great Britain. He entered upon a round of gayety. and he was a welcome guest in the best Lomlon houses and a constant attendant in Murray's ilrawing-rooni. He went to Paris in August, isiO, where his social duties seriously in- terfered with his w.^rk. There he made the ac- quaintance of Thomas Moore, which ripened into friendship. In the meantime " The Sketch Book " was making a great name for him in England. Un\\ Bvron admired the author, and once said to an Anierican : " ' The Sketch Book." I know it by heart." and to Moore: "His writings are my delight." Irving returned to England in 1821, and being something of an Invalid that year, saw little of London society. He published " Bracebridge Hall," in London, in 1822, and in July of that year started on a tour of Germany. At Dresden he was cordially received, not only by the foreign residents, but at the court of King Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. He there became intimate with an English family named Foster, and conceived for their daughter. Miss Emily, something more than friendship. It is believed that had Miss Foster been fancy free Irving would have offered himself as a suitor, but because his case was hopeless he left Dresden in July, 1823, and made his way to Paris. The "Tales of a Traveller" appeared in London in 182-1. In February, 1826, he went to Spain and settled at Madrid, where Longfellow visited him, and where Irving wrote or gathered the material for the " Life of Columbus," which was published in London in 1828, and in that year he visited Granada, Seville and Palos. He then settled in Seville, and on learning that an American abridgment of his " Life of Columbus " was soon to be issued, he resolutely set to work to defeat the plans of the Amer- ican publishers, and in nineteen days completed a condensation of the work into about five hundred pages. This appeared in New York in 1829. He published the " Conquest of Gran- ada" in London in 1829, and received a diploma from the Royal Academy of History at Madrid the same year. He intended to return to New York in that year, but was api)ointed U.S. secretary of legation to the court of St. James, London, by President Jackson in July, 1829, while he was still a resident of the Alhambra. He took up his diplomatic duties in London and resumed his .social intercourse. He re- c<'ived a gold medal from the Royal Society of Literature of London in April, 1S30, was made charge d'affaires at I^mdon in June. 1831, and re- tired from the U.S. legation in Sojitember, 1831, after three years' service. Ho visited liis friends and relatives in Birmingham, SheflSeld, Hardwick

Hall and Newstead Abbey ; obtained a publisher for and edited the English edition of Bryant's " Poems," and set sail for America, arriving in New York in May, 1832, where he received a flat- tering reception. Public dinners were tendered him in his native ctity and in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and were declined at the two latter places. He visited Washington, the White Moun- tains, Springfield, Saratoga and Trenton Falls during the summer, and made a journey to the far west in the fall of 1832. He then returned to New York, but it was two years before be settled down to literary work. He published a series of sketches under the title of " Crayon IVIiscellany," which appeared first in numbers like those of " The Sketci) Book." The first article, " A Tour of the Prairies," appeared in 1835, and was followed in that year by " Abbotsford," " Newstead Ab- bey" and " Legends of the Conquest of Spain." In 183.5 he purchased a home two miles south of Tarrytown, on the east bank of the Hudson, the site of the castle of the Van Tassels, and sit- uated in the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow. This became known as " Sunnyside." Irving called it

f- 'Su/y/MYSiDE.'

Iz iRVI/M<3'S HO/AE.,

"Wolfert's Roost" (or Rest), and transformed the Dutch cottage into a summer residence for his relatives and a home for his old age. In 1836, ■with his brother Peter, he moved into this cot- tage, where he assiduously applied himself to his work. In 1838 Irving was unanimously nomi- nated by the Democratic party, mayor of New York city, and shortly after was invited by Pres- ident Van Buren to a seat in his cabinet as secre- tary of the navy. Both of these offices were declined, as was a nomination for representa- tive in congress by the Jackson party in 1834. After the death of his brothers John and Pete? in 1838, he engaged on " The History of the Con- quest of Mexico," which he abandoned to Wil- liam H. Prescott on learning that he had started on the subject. In March, 1839, he became a contributor to the Knickerbocker Magazine, from which he received the sum of $2000 a year for monthly contributions. He had decided upon writing " The Life of Washington," when he