Part third, the ‘Italian Banditti,’ is in a style which no longer interests, though many worse written narratives do. But in the last part, ‘The Money-Diggers,’ Irving comes back to his own. He is again wandering along the shores of the pleasant island of Mannahatta, fishing at Hellegat, lying under the trees at Corlear Hook while a Cape Cod whaler tells the story of ‘The Devil and Tom Walker.’ Ramm Rapelye fills his chair at the club and smokes and grunts, ever maintaining a mastiff-like gravity. Once more we see the little old city which had not entirely lost its picturesque Dutch features. Here stands Wolfert Webber’s house, with its gable end of yellow brick turned toward the street. ‘The gigantic sunflowers loll their broad jolly faces over the fences, seeming to ogle most affectionately the passers-by.’ Dirk Waldron, ‘the son of four fathers,’ sits in Webber’s kitchen, feasting his eyes on the opulent charms of Amy. He says nothing, but at intervals fills the old cabbage-grower’s pipe, strokes the tortoise-shell cat, or replenishes the teapot from the bright copper kettle singing before the fire. ‘All these quiet little offices may seem of trifling import; but when true love is translated into Low Dutch, it is in this way it eloquently expresses itself.’ Had Irving’s reputation depended on the four books just now characterized, it would have been a great reputation and the note of originality precisely what we now find it. But there was need of work in other fields to show the catholicity of his interests and the range of his powers. V HISTORICAL WRITINGS _COLUMBUS_, _CONQUEST OF GRANADA_, _MAHOMET_ The _Life and Voyages of Columbus_ is written in the spirit of tempered hero-worship. It is free from the extravagance of partisans who make a god of Columbus, and from the skeptical cavillings of those who apparently are not unwilling to rob the great explorer of any claim he may possess to virtue or ability. As Irving conceives him, Columbus is a many-sided man, infinitely patient when patience is required, doggedly obstinate if the need be, crafty or open, daring in the highest degree, having that audacity which seems to quell the powers of nature, yet devout, with a touch of the superstition characteristic of his time and his belief.