“To the author of the ‘Slingsby Papers,’” he wrote, “It is, perhaps, flattering to hear that his ‘Lunatic,’ his ‘Incidents on the Hudson,’ ‘Adventures on the Green Mountains,’[5] his ‘Niagara and So Forth,’ etc., etc., which I had translated into a little periodical of mine, or, rather, a choice collection of interesting articles from English periodicals and annuals, have been read with much interest, and repeatedly been reprinted in Germany.… I could wish to be favored by you with some biographical notices _of your own_ in token, as it were, of your consentment to my translatory attempt.” CHAPTER VI. 1836-1845. GLENMARY--THE CORSAIR--THE NEW MIRROR. Willis was now fully committed to the profession of letters, but he wished to connect it with foreign residence, if possible. His sojourn abroad had been pleasant and successful, and when he sailed for home it was with a strong expectation of returning before long to the Old World in some diplomatic capacity. This hope he did not cease to entertain for several years. In a letter to Mrs. Skinner, written from Niagara October 12, 1836, he said that he had missed the secretaryship to France by a hand’s-breadth, and that he wanted the next diplomatic mission that turned up; that the climate of the United States did not agree either with him or with Mrs. Willis; that he was constantly subject to the rheumatism, etc. During the winter of 1836-37, while in Washington, he made interest to secure the post of secretary of legation at St. Petersburg, with the view of writing a book on Russia, but Mr. Dallas, the newly-appointed minister to that country, had promised the place to a kinsman. Later, in a letter to Mrs. Willis at Glenmary, written from Boston, where he had just met Sumner and Longfellow and was about to dine with the latter, he speaks of a letter from a friend who says that the President had told him that “no young man in Washington had impressed him so favorably. It _looks_ like going abroad,” he adds, “and not for six or nine months merely.” This letter is dated simply “February,” but was written, probably, in 1842, during Tyler’s administration. To the same year, doubtless, may be referred another, dated at New York, July 9th, in which he speaks of having made the rounds of the men-of-war in the harbor with John Tyler, the President’s son, “who seems very much my friend,” and of being invited to dinner by Dakin, to meet Tyler, Halleck, and Bryant. “A politician,” he says, tells him that he will be appointed abroad soon. These hopes were all doomed to disappointment, and to the end of his career his pen was destined to be his best reliance.