Quarterly Bulletin Hollow," have become classics in American literature. Next came Brace bridge Hall in 18 2 2 and in 18 2 4 appeared the Tales of a Traveller, a collection of short stories written in pleasant fashion abroad. Eighteen twenty-six saw Irving in Spain, where he wrote one of the best and most comprehensive lives of Columbus, MATILDA HOFFMAN (179I-1809) Irving's Fiancee Miniature on Ivory by Anson Dickinson . Bequest of Miss Mary Rhinelander King, 1909 which, however, he feared would be ill regarded by those "who suppose, from my having dealt so much in fiction, it must be impossible for me to tell the truth with plausibility." Still, this won for him the highest degree of Oxford and the gold medal from the Royal Society of Literature. That land of indolencia must have appealed to him greatly, for he wrote to a lady friend on March 15, 1828, "We passed a charming evening on the banks of the famous Guadalquivir enjoying the mild and balmy air of a southern evening, and rejoicing in the certainty that we were at length in this land of promise." 11