In this quiet retreat the next five uneventful years were passed, with occasional excursions to New York or farther, which only served to make the seclusion of the country home more inviting. Peter Irving spent his last days at the Roost; and Ebenezer Irving and his family gave up their New York house to make their home with the now famous brother. While this arrangement greatly increased Irving's satisfaction in life, it made heavy demands upon his purse. One cannot be a country gentleman for nothing. The cottage had to be enlarged repeatedly, the grounds cared for; and the mere running expenses were a considerable matter for a man without dependable income. Irving had by this time received a great deal of money for his books, but an unfortunate "knack of hoping" had locked up most of it in unprofitable land speculations.
In 1835 the three volumes of the "Crayon Miscellanies," were published. The "Tour on the Prairies" was especially palatable to Americans. Edward Everett said of it, in the highly colored style of the period: "We are proud of Mr. Irving's sketches of English life, proud of the gorgeous canvas upon which he has gathered in so much of the glowing imagery of Moorish times. We behold with delight his easy and triumphant march over these beaten fields; but we glow with rapture as we see him coming back, laden with the poetical treasures of the primitive wilderness, rich with spoil from the uninhabited desert."
The second volume, containing "Abbotsford" and "Newstead Abbey," naturally gained special praise in England; the third, "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," had comparatively little success.
Of "Astoria" (1836) it is hard to know what to say; on the whole, it seems the most doubtful of his works in motive and quality. John Jacob Astor, now an old man, was anxious to perpetuate the fame of his commercial exploits, and was lucky enough to subsidize for this purpose the most prominent American writer of the day. The adventures of the various expeditions sent out to found an American trading company on the Pacific coast are interesting; but one puts down Irving's account of them with the feeling that it reflects rather more credit on Mr. Astor than on the writer. The truth is, Irving, like many less successful literary men, was constantly in need of money; and he had begun to be in some difficulty for subjects upon which to exercise his craft. The "Adventures of Captain Bonneville" (1837) was also a piece of skillful book-making rather than an original creative work; and after that nearly two years passed without his writing anything.