him if he had lent an ear to their solicitations.  But political life was not to his taste, and it would have been fatal to his sensitive spirit.  It did not require much self-denial, perhaps, to decline the candidacy for mayor of New York, or the honor of standing for Congress; but he put aside also the distinction of a seat in Mr. Van Buren’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy.  His main reason for declining it, aside from a diffidence in his own judgment in public matters, was his dislike of the turmoil of political life in Washington, and his sensitiveness to personal attacks which beset the occupants of high offices.  But he also had come to a political divergence with Mr. Van Buren.  He liked the man,—­he liked almost everybody,—­and esteemed him as a friend, but he apprehended trouble from the new direction of the party in power.  Irving was almost devoid of party prejudice, and he never seemed to have strongly marked political opinions.  Perhaps his nearest confession to a creed is contained in a letter he wrote to a member of the House of Representatives, Gouverneur Kemble, a little time before the offer of a position in the cabinet, in which he said that he did not relish some points of Van Buren’s policy, nor believe in the honesty of some of his elbow counselors.  I quote a passage from it:—­

“As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly a republican, and attached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of my country; but I am a republican without gall, and have no bitterness in my creed.  I have no relish for Puritans, either in religion or politics, who are for pushing principles to an extreme, and for overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous career....  Ours is a government of compromise.  We have several great and distinct interests bound up together, which, if not separately consulted and severally accommodated may harass and impair each other....  I always distrust the soundness of political councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens.  Such are those urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and financial classes of our country.”

During the ten years preceding his mission to Spain, Irving kept fagging away at the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous and ephemeral work.  Among his other engagements was that of regular contributor to the “Knickerbocker Magazine,” for a salary of two thousand dollars.  He wrote the editor that he had observed that man, as he advances in life, is subject to a plethora of the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes fond of telling long stories and doling out advice, to the annoyance of his friends.  To avoid becoming the bore of the domestic circle, he proposed to ease off this surcharge of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness on the public through the pages of the periodical.  The arrangement brought reputation to the magazine (which was published in