In Spain, as elsewhere, Mr. Irving makes a circle of friends about him whom it is hard to leave; but it must be. Accusing comrades at home say he has deserted his country; he turns his face Westward at last, and, full of honors, sails for New York once more, in the year 1832, at the ripe age of forty-nine. There never was a warmer welcome given to a returning citizen. A feast is made for him, at which all the magnates of the city of Manhattan assist; and the author's sensibility is so touched that he can make only stammering acknowledgments,--at which the cheers and the plaudits are heartier than ever. After this comes the opening of that idyllic life at Sunnyside,--the building of the gables, the gilding of the weather-cocks, the planting of the ivies. "Astoria" and "Bonneville" and the "Tour on the Prairies" keep his hand active and his brain in play. Near and dear relatives relieve his bachelor home of all loneliness. Nine years or more have passed after his return, when he is surprised--and not a little shocked--by his appointment, at the instance of Mr. Webster, as Minister to Madrid. He cannot resist the memories of the Alhambra, of Seville, of the Guadalquivir. Many pleasant associations are revived in England, in France, and not a few in the now revolutionary Spain. But it is plain to see that the official visit is not so enjoyable as the old untrammelled life in the Peninsula. No matter how light the duties, routine is a harness that galls him. We can almost hear his cheer of thanksgiving as he breaks away from it, and comes once more to his cherished home of Sunnyside. He is not an old man yet, though he counts well into the sixties. He contrives new additions to his cottage; he dashes off the charming "Life of Goldsmith" at a heat. His older books come pouring from the press, and are met with the cordial welcome of new ones. His brothers, to whom he had been so fondly knit, are all gone save one; Brevoort is gone; Kemble is just above him, at his forge, under the lee of the Highlands. The river by quiet Tarrytown is strung up and down with new "gentlemen's places." He puts himself resolutely at work upon the "Life of Washington." Frequently recurring illness, and a little shakiness in his step, warn him that his time is nearly up. He knows it. There is only one more task to make good. We hear of him at Mount Vernon, at Arlington, at Saratoga. Volume by volume the work comes forward. The public welcome it,--for they love the author, and they love the subject. Three volumes,--four volumes; and there are rumors that the old gentleman is failing. But whoever finds admission to that delightful home of Sunnyside meets the old smile, the old cheer. Seventy years have shaken the frame, but have not shaken the heartiness of the man. The jest leaps from his eye before his lip can clothe it, as it did twenty years before. There is a friendly pat for his little terrier, and a friendly word for his gardener, as in the old days.