While Navarrete’s great work was in progress at Madrid, Mr. Alexander H. Everett, the American Minister at that Court, urged upon Washington Irving, then at Bordeaux, the translation into English of the new material which Navarrete was preparing, together with his Commentary. Upon this incentive Irving went to Madrid and inspected the work, which was soon published. His sense of the popular demand easily convinced him that a continuous narrative, based upon Navarrete’s material,—but leaving himself free to use all other helps,—would afford him better opportunities to display his own graceful literary skill, and more readily to engage the favor of the general reader. Irving’s judgment was well founded; and Navarrete never quite forgave him for making a name more popularly associated with that of the great discoverer than his own.[31] Navarrete afforded Irving at this time much personal help and encouragement. Obadiah Rich, the American Consul at Valencia, under whose roof Irving lived, furnished him, however, his chief resource in a curious and extensive library. To the Royal Library, and to that of the Jesuit College of San Isidro, Irving also occasionally resorted. The Duke of Veraguas took pleasure in laying before him his own family archives.[32] The result was the _Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus_; and in the Preface, dated at Madrid in 1827,[33] Irving made full acknowledgment of the services which had been rendered to him. This work was followed, not long after, by the _Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus_; and ever since, in English and other languages, the two books have kept constant company.[34] Irving proved an amiable hero-worshipper, and Columbus was pictured with few questionable traits. The writer’s literary canons did not call for the scrutiny which destroys a world’s exemplar. “One of the most salutary purposes of history,” he says, “is to furnish examples of what human genius and laudable enterprise may accomplish,”—and such brilliant examples must be rescued from the “pernicious erudition” of the investigator. Irving’s method at least had the effect to conciliate the upholders of the saintly character of the discoverer; and the modern school of the De Lorgues, who have been urging the canonization of Columbus, find Irving’s ideas of him higher and juster than those of Navarrete. * * * * *