The very
last volume of his works (the fifth of "Washington") was thus timidly
permitted to be launched; and I remember well his expression of relief
and satisfaction, when he said that Mr. Bancroft, Professor Felton, and
Mr. Duyckinck had been the first to assure him the volume was all that
it should be. His task on this volume had perhaps extended beyond the
period of his robust health,--it had _fagged_ him,--but he had been
spared to write every line of it with his own hand, and my own copy is
enriched by the autograph of his valedictory.
To refer, however briefly, to Mr. Irving's politics or religion, even if
I had intimate knowledge of both, (which assuredly I had not,) would
be, perhaps, to overstep decorous limits. It may, however, properly be
mentioned, that, in the face of all inherent probabilities as to
his comfortable conservatism, and his earnest instincts in favor of
fraternal conciliation and _justice_, (which was as marked a quality in
him as in the great man whom be so faithfully portrayed,) in spite of
all the considerations urged by timid gentlemen of the old school in
favor of Fillmore and the _status quo_, he voted in 1856, as he told me,
for Fremont. In speaking of the candidates then in the field, he said of
Fremont, that his comparative youth and inexperience in party-politics
were points in his favor; for he thought the condition of the country
called for a man of nerve and energy, one in his prime, and unfettered
by party-traditions and bargains for "the spoils.
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