30 MARCH 1867, Page 22

Spanish Papers and Other Miscellanies, hitherto Unpublished or Uncol- lected.

By Washington Irving. (Sampson Low.)—Mr. Pierre Irving, Washington Irving's nephew, and biographer of "the Goldsmith of our time," tells us in his preface to these two volumes that they contain scat- tered papers, which his uncle had intended to include in the collective edi- tion of his works. "These old Morisco-Spanish subjects," wrote Washing- ton Irving, "have a charm that makes me content to write about them ab half-price. They have so much that is high-minded and chivalrous, and quaint and picturesque, and at times half comic, about them." The present age will scarcely endorse this verdict. With all the grace of Washington Irving's style, the Spanish legends of the first volume hang on our hands, and the scattered papers of the second volume are too fragmentary.