This was followed by
the "Companions," and by "The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada," for
which he received two thousand guineas. "The Alhambra" was not
published till just before Irving's return to America, in 1832, and was
brought out by Mr. Bentley, who bought it for one thousand guineas.
"The Conquest of Granada," which I am told Irving in his latter years
regarded as the best of all his works, was declared by Coleridge
"a chef-d'oeuvre of its kind." I think it bears rereading as well as any
of the Spanish books. Of the reception of the "Columbus" the author was
very doubtful. Before it was finished he wrote:
"I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition of my
countrymen, and look forward to cold scrutiny and stern criticism,
and this is a line of writing in which I have not hitherto
ascertained my own powers. Could I afford it, I should like to
write, and to lay my writings aside when finished. There is an
independent delight in study and in the creative exercise of the
pen; we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets in the noisy
rabble of the world, and there is an end of our dreaming."
In a letter to Brevoort, February 23, 1828, he fears that he can never
regain:
"that delightful confidence which I once enjoyed of not the good
opinion, but the good will, of my countrymen.
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