His later writings are: _The Alhambra_, 1832; _The Crayon Miscellany_ (comprising _A Tour on the Prairies_, _Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, and _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_), 1835; _Astoria_ (with Pierre M. Irving), 1836; _Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A._ (edited), 1837; _Life of Goldsmith_, 1849; _Mahomet and his Successors_, 1849–50; _The Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost_, 1855; _The Life of Washington_, 1855–59. Attempts were made to draw Irving into political life. He was offered a nomination for Congress; Tammany Hall ‘unanimously and vociferously’ declared him its candidate for mayor of New York; and President Van Buren would have made him Secretary of the Navy. All these honors he felt himself obliged to refuse. He accepted the Spanish mission (offered by President Tyler at the instance of his Secretary of State, Daniel Webster), because he believed himself not wholly unfitted for the charge, and because it honored in him the profession of letters. Irving’s intellectual powers were at perfect command up to the beginning of the last year of his life. Then his health began to fail markedly, and the final volume of his _Washington_ cost him effort he could ill afford. He died suddenly on November 28, 1859, and was buried in the cemetery at Sleepy Hollow. II IRVING’S CHARACTER Irving was broad-minded, tolerant, amiable, incapable of envy, quick to forget an affront, and always willing to think the best of humanity. His tactfulness was due in part to his large experience of life, but more to the possession of a nature that was sweet, serene, frank, and unsophisticated. For Irving was no courtier; he could as little flatter as practise the more odious forms of deceit. His gifts of irony and ridicule, supplemented with an extraordinary power of humorous delineation, were never abused. It might be said of him, as of another great satirist, that ‘he never inflicted a wound.’ His modesty was excessive. It is impossible to find in his writings or his correspondence any hint that he was inclined to put unusual value on his work. Grateful as he was for praise, it would never have occurred to him that he had a right to it. With all his knowledge of the world he was singularly diffident. Moore hit off this trait when he said that Geoffrey Crayon was ‘not strong as a lion, but delightful as a domestic animal.’ Not his least admirable virtue was a spirit of helpfulness where his brother authors were concerned. Irving was ‘officious’ in the good old sense of the word, glad to be of service to his fellows, untiring in efforts to promote their welfare. He could praise their work, too, without disheartening qualifications. The good he enjoyed, the bad he put to one side. And he never forgot a kindness. A publisher who had once befriended him, though fallen on evil days, found himself still able to command some of Irving’s best manuscripts.