William Hickling, a famous American historian, born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 4th of May 1796. The first of the family of whom any record remains was John Prescott, an English blacksmith and millwright, who settled at Lancaster, New England, in 1640, and who used to take the field against Indian marauders in a helmet and breast-plate which he had brought with him from home. His grandson Benjamin was a man of influence and consideration in the colony of Massachusetts, and long represented Groton in the colonial legislature. William, the second son of Benjamin, after serving in his youth for a few months in the French war, spent the greater part of his life in farming his paternal estate at Pepperell. On the breaking out of the war of independence, at the age of forty-five, he quitted the plough for the sword, and fought in the republican ranks, where he attained the rank of colonel. He had the honour of leading his countrymen at the battle of Bunker's Hill, and of being called by Washington "Prescott the Brave." His only son William followed the legal profession, and both as an advocate and as a judge was esteemed one of the most eminent lawyers of his day. By his wife Catherine, daughter of Thomas Hickling, long United States consul at the Azores, Judge Prescott became the father of the historian. In 1808, when the boy was in his twelfth year, the family removed from Salem to Boston. In the latter city young William Prescott was placed in the academy of Dr Gardiner, a pupil of the famous Dr Parr. In 1811 he entered Harvard College, and graduated there in 1814. The classical attainments acquired through his university career gave promise of future excellence. His studies were, however, interrupted by what, to many men, would have proved a severe calamity. In the college dining-hall, a playful classmate threw at him a crust of bread, which struck one of his eyes. With that eye he never could afterwards do more than distinguish light from darkness. By the injury, the other eye was also sympathetically affected, and for many months he was shut up at home, suffering great pain, in a dark room. "In all that trying season," said his mother in after years, "I never groped my way across the apartment to take my place by his side, that he did not greet me with some hearty expression of good cheer, as if we were the patients, and it were his place to comfort us." Although the injury to the destroyed organ became in time hardly perceptible, the remaining eye was permanently weakened; and Prescott, finding himself unfit for any pursuit in which strong eyesight was indispensable, relinquished his intention of adopting the law as his profession. His Prescott, father having inherited a sufficient fortune, which his practice at the bar had greatly increased, he was happily in a position of social independence. Soon after leaving college he was recommended to travel for advice, and for the benefit of his health. Crossing the Atlantic, he visited London and Paris, and consulted the best oculists there; but found that his case was one which their art had little power of relieving. From the pleasures and advantages of travel the weak state of his eyes in a great degree debarred him; but he went over a considerable portion of England, France, and Italy; and he resided for several months at Rome and Naples, where he chiefly employed himself in examining the remains of antiquity, and in reviewing the classical reading of his youth. Excepting Belgium, he never beheld with his bodily eye any of the countries, either in Europe or America, which his pen has painted so well, and with which his name will be inseparably connected. After an absence of two years, he returned to Boston in improved general health, but with eyesight, as was now obvious, permanently impaired. He soon after married Susan, daughter of Thomas C. Amory, one of the most eminent merchants of Boston, and settled down in his father's family. From 1817 Judge Prescott inhabited till 1844, when he died, an old-fashioned house in Bedford Street. It was a square edifice of brick, and painted yellow, standing alone amongst some fine elms and chestnut trees. Here the future historian commenced a life of literary labour which was rarely interrupted. "I had early conceived," he said, in a letter to a friend in after years, "a strong passion for historical writing, to which perhaps the reading of Gibbon's autobiography contributed not a little. I proposed to make myself an historian in the best sense of the term, and hoped to produce something which posterity would not willingly let die. In a memorandum-book dated so far back as the year 1819, I find the desire intimated; and I proposed to devote ten years of my life to the study of ancient and modern literature, chiefly the latter; and to give ten years more to some historical work. I have had the good fortune to accomplish this design pretty nearly within the limits assigned." In the pursuance of this plan, he was very methodical in the apportionment of hours as well as years, and rarely allowed his arrangement to be interfered with. He rose early, walked for half an hour before breakfast, and dined at half-past two. Five hours a day he passed at work in his study; three hours, broken by half an hour's walk before dinner, and two in the evening, from six to eight. He took a good deal of exercise on foot and on horseback, generally walking and riding alone; a peculiarity which he shared with his father. Although social in their habits and tenderly attached to each other, it was observed that the judge and his son, in setting out at the same moment for a walk or a ride, generally went different ways.

For some years after his return home Mr Prescott employed himself in the study of French and Italian literature. Of Italian literature he became exceedingly fond, and for some time he contemplated undertaking its history; a scheme which, however, he eventually abandoned on account of the great amount of reading which it involved. The valuable papers which he contributed to the North American Review, and which have several times been printed in a collected form, in some degree mark the amount of his studies. The first of these was an essay on "Italian Narrative Poetry," published in October 1824; the last, a review of Mr Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature. He also wrote in 1834, for Sparks' American Biography, a pleasing Life of Charles Brockden Brown, which likewise appears amongst his Critical and Historical Essays.

To the serious study of the language, literature, and history of Spain he did not devote himself until 1825, when he began to lay the foundation of that fine series of historical writings upon which his fame rests. After much reading and deliberation, he fixed upon the reign of the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella as the subject of his first work. These great rulers, under whose wedded sceptres Castile and Aragon became one monarchy, the remarkable group of personages who surrounded their thrones, including Cardinal Ximenes, the great captain, and Columbus, and the spirit-stirring events which made their reign so glorious for Spain and so important in the annals of the world, might at that time have been said almost to have escaped the notice of English writers. The story of Columbus had indeed been told by Robertson with a grace which compensates the defects of a narrative, of which the meagreness and inaccuracy are to be ascribed to the want not of diligence but materials. But the rest of the field was ground almost untrodden by English, French, or German writers. What little had been written on the subject in these languages had been taken almost exclusively from Italian authorities. To the rich materials afforded by the neglected Spanish chronicles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there had been lately added many new and valuable stores, the fruits of the patient toil of several modern Spaniards, who were rather makers of historical collections than writers of history. Mr Prescott's choice was therefore eminently happy, both as regards the interest and the freshness of his subject, and the abundance of choice materials. He commenced his work in 1827. The remarkable difficulties which lay in his way, and the patient resolution with which they were overcome, renders this work memorable in literary history. Its progress may therefore be traced with some minuteness in the language, as far as possible, of a letter written by Mr Prescott himself in later years, when that slow and painful progress had become a portion of his triumph. For some years his eyesight had been sufficiently strong to admit of his using it for several hours a day in reading. He had already accumulated a considerable number of books and manuscripts relating to the period of which he was about to treat. A still larger number purchased for him in Europe were on their way to Boston. "But just before these materials arrived," he wrote, "my eye had experienced so severe a strain that I enjoyed no use of it again for reading for several years. It has indeed never since fully recovered its strength, nor have I ever ventured to use it again by candle-light. I well remember the blank despair which I felt when my literary treasures arrived from Spain, and I saw the mine of wealth lying around me which I was forbidden to explore. I determined to see what could be done with the eyes of another. I remembered that Johnson had said, in reference to Milton, that the great poet had abandoned his projected History of England, finding it scarcely possible for a man without eyes to pursue a historical work requiring reference to various authorities. The remark piqued me to make an attempt.

"I obtained the services of a reader who knew no language but his own. I taught him to pronounce the Castilian in a manner suited, I suspect, much more to my ear than to that of a Spaniard; and we began our wearisome journey through Marians's noble History. I cannot even now call to mind without a smile the tedious hours in which, seated under some old trees in my country residence, we pursued our slow and melancholy way over pages which afforded no glimmering of light to him, and from which the light came dimly struggling to me through a half-intelligible vocabulary. But in a few weeks the light became stronger, and I was cheered by the consciousness of my own improvement; and when we had toiled our way through seven quartos, I found I could understand the book when read about two-thirds as fast as ordinary English. My reader's office required the more patience; he had not even this result to cheer him in his labour.

"I now felt that the great difficulty could be overcome, and I obtained the services of a reader whose acquaintance with modern and ancient tongues supplied, so far as it could be supplied, the deficiency of eyesight on my part. But though in this way I could examine various authorities, it was not easy to arrange in my mind the results of my reading, drawn from different and often contradictory accounts. To do this, I dictated copious notes as I went along; and when I had read enough for a chapter,—from thirty to forty, and sometimes fifty pages in length,—I had a mass of memoranda in my own language which would easily bring before me at one view the fruits of my researches. Those notes were carefully read to me; and while my recent studies were fresh in my recollection, I ran over the whole of my intended chapter in my mind. This process I repeated at least half-a-dozen times; so that when I finally put my pen to paper it ran off pretty glibly, for it was an effort of memory rather than creation. This method had the advantage of saving me from the perplexity of frequently referring to the scattered passages in the originals, and it enabled me to make the corrections in my own mind which are usually made in the manuscript, and which with my mode of writing, as I shall explain, would have much embarrassed me. Yet I must admit that this method of composition, when the chapter was very long, was somewhat too heavy a strain on the memory to be altogether recommended.

"Writing presented me a difficulty even greater than reading. Thierry, the famous blind historian of the Norman Conquest, advised me to cultivate dictation; but I have usually preferred a substitute that I found in a writing-case made for the blind, which I procured in London forty years since. It is a simple apparatus, often described by me for the benefit of persons whose vision is imperfect. It consists of a frame of the size of a piece of paper, traversed by brass wires as many as lines are wanted on the page, and with a sheet of carbonated paper, such as is used for getting duplicates, pasted on the reverse side. With an ivory or agate stylus the writer traces his characters between the wires on the carbonated sheet, making indelible marks, which he cannot see, on the white page below. This treadmill operation has its defects; and I have repeatedly supposed I had accomplished a good page, and was proceeding in all the glow of composition to go ahead, when I found I had forgotten to insert a sheet of my writing-paper below, that my labour had been all thrown away, and that the leaf looked as blank as myself. Notwithstanding these and other whimsical distresses of the kind, I have found my writing-case my best friend in my lonely hours, and with it have written nearly all that I have sent out into the world the last forty years.

"The manuscript thus written and deciphered—for it was in the nature of hieroglyphics—by my secretary was then read to me for correction, and copied off in a fair hand for the printer. All this, it may be thought, was rather a slow process, requiring the virtue of patience in all the parties concerned. But in time my eyes improved again. Before I had finished Ferdinand and Isabella I could use them some hours every day; and thus they have continued till within a few years, though subject to occasional interruptions, sometimes of weeks and sometimes of months, when I could not look at a book. And this circumstance, as well as habit (second nature), has led me to adhere still to my early method of composition. Of late years I have suffered not so much from inability of the eye as dimness of the vision; and the warning comes that the time is not far distant when I must rely exclusively on the eyes of another for the prosecution of my studies. Perhaps it should be received as a warning that it is time to close them altogether."

Thus ten busy years rolled away. During that time appeared the Life of Columbus and the Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada, the brilliant works of Washington Irving; and it is probable that Mr Prescott felt a natural pang at thus finding himself forestalled by a formidable and already popular rival in two of the most attractive passages of his History. After ten years of toil, however, the History was completed. Of the work, as it proceeded, four copies were printed in a large type, to enable the author to refer to it with ease, and with ample margins for annotation. It was submitted to the judgment of his father, Mr Ticknor, Mr Sparks, and other friends, and received their cordial approbation. For some time, however, Mr Prescott hesitated to publish it; and it was eventually given to the world in consequence of the urgency of his literary advisers. It appeared (in 3 vols. 8vo) towards the end of 1837, both in Boston and in London. On both sides of the Atlantic its success was great. An article in the Edinburgh Review (No. ccxxxviii., 1839), written by Don Pascual de Gayangos, than whom no man was better qualified to judge of its merits, and whose English is no less elegant than his Castilian, pronounced it "one of the most successful historical productions of our time." In the Quarterly Review (No. cxxvii., 1839), Mr Ford also expressed his high admiration of a work on which no Englishman was better fitted to pass a judgment than himself; and bade Mr Prescott welcome to the high place which he had at once achieved in English letters. He characterized the book as "by much the first historical work which America has yet produced, and one that need not fear comparison with any that has issued from the European press since this century began." Germany, France, and Spain acknowledged the merits of the new historian by transplanting his work into their respective languages; and the Spanish Royal Academy of History did him and itself honour by enrolling him amongst its members.

Six years later, in 1843, The Conquest of Mexico (in 3 vols. 8vo), and in four years more, in 1847, The Conquest of Peru (in 2 vols. 8vo), proved that the industry of Mr Prescott was stimulated by success, and that his skill was considerably heightened by practice and experience. In these histories Mr Prescott had not been forestalled by any popular writer; and he led not only his English readers, but the readers of the various European countries into whose languages the works were almost immediately translated, into what were to most of them fresh fields and pastures new. Both Mexico and Peru were received with immense applause. Like Ferdinand and Isabella, they have been frequently reprinted; and they bid fair to remain, for many an age to come, the standard histories of some of the most interesting and eventful periods of human action and enterprise. Their merit obtained for the author unsolicited election into many of the chief literary societies in Europe and America. Amongst other learned bodies, the Institute of France placed his name in 1845 on the list of its corresponding members. The sale of his writings became a source of income, of which the author's share has been estimated at from L4000 to L5000 a year.

Peru accomplished, Mr Prescott turned to collect materials, or rather to complete the large stock of materials already collected, for the History of Philip II., the work which he intended to be the great achievement of his later life, and the crown of his historical labours. While preparing for this extensive work, embracing the world's history during the last forty-five years of the sixteenth century, Mr Prescott indulged himself with a short visit to England. He arrived here in the summer of 1850. Many years before, he had passed through England as a young and comparatively unknown traveller; he now returned to it the American whom, of all others perhaps, intelligent Englishmen were most desirous to see and converse with. During his sojourn in London Mr Prescott was one of the most observed and popular personages in a society ever "to famous wits native or hospitable." In truth, he did not need his fame to aid his social success. His fine presence and countenance, his pleasing conversation, and his perfect manners, would have ensured him a welcome even as a nameless stranger. He had the happy gift of at once adapting himself to his company, and catching its best tone; and his varied stores of knowledge, his wide acquaintance with men, quick observation of character, and his even and genial flow of spirits, enabled him, without pause or effort, to find some common ground of thought and sympathy with every one with whom he was brought into brief and casual contact. In the course of a few weeks he became the friend of all the most distinguished members of London society. The university of Oxford conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. In the early autumn he also visited some of his friends at their country houses, and made a brief tour in Scotland. He also crossed the Channel, for the purpose of consulting some of the libraries in Belgium, and of examining some of the more remarkable historical monuments and sites of that interesting country.

Four years afterwards, in 1854, two volumes of Philip II. were ready for the press. Mr Prescott had made an arrangement with an English publisher, by which he was to receive L1,000 for each volume of the work, which it was supposed would extend to six volumes. This bargain was, however, subject to the decision of the House of Lords in a case then pending, which involved the question of international protection to literary enterprise. That decision, affirming a previous judgment of the Barons of Exchequer, declared that no American, not domiciled in England at the time of the publication of his book, could claim the benefit of our copyright law, and therefore put an end to the transaction. The letter containing this unpleasant news reached Mr Prescott while he and an English guest, Mr C. R. Weld (who has recorded the circumstance in his Vacation Tour, Svo, London, 1853), were deep in argument on the copyright question. The historian mentioned the new illustration of the hardships to which the state of our international law exposed authors—the annulment of a bargain by which he lost L6,000—with perfect equanimity. If Mr Prescott had thought proper to have resided in England during, and for a certain time before and after, the publication of the book, he might have reaped the full benefit of its great success on both sides of the Atlantic. But he would not take this course. At a great pecuniary sacrifice, he preferred to present the world with one signal example more of the injustice to which the writers of England and America are exposed by the want of a reasonable system of international copyright,—a want for which the American legislature appears to be wholly responsible.

Two volumes of Philip II. appeared in 1855. The year following, Mr Prescott supplied to an edition of Robertson's Charles V. a sequel, in which he related, in his usual agreeable style, the true history of the emperor's retirement and death; events upon which recently-discovered documents have thrown so much light. In the same year, 1856, he contributed to an American periodical called the National Portrait Gallery, a graceful biographical sketch of his old friend Abbott Lawrence, one of the most successful merchants, ablest statesmen, and worthiest citizens of the United States; a sketch which was afterwards published in a separate quarto form.

Mr Prescott's literary labours were carried on during six winter months at Boston, in summer at his marine villa at Nahant, and in autumn at his country house at Pepperell. Soon after the death of his father, which took place in 1844, he removed his town residence from Bedford Street, where the old mansion was soon afterwards pulled down, to 55 Beacon Street, a spacious house overlooking the common, and commanding a fine view of land and water. To the back of this abode he added a noble room to contain his library. Over its western bay window hung two crossed swords: one of these had been worn at Bunker's Hill by his grandfather, Colonel Prescott; the other had been also drawn in that battle by the grandfather of Mrs Prescott, Captain Linzee, who commanded the British sloop Falcon, one of the naval squadron which severely galled the lines of the republicans. The collection of books was extensive and valuable, and related chiefly to the subjects of Mr Prescott's own writings. His own study was a smaller room above, and communicating with this library. The abode at Nahant, in which, during twenty years, he passed the hotter months, was a cottage of two storeys, with a broad verandah, perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and washed by its stormy spray. "It is," he said, "the coolest spot in New England; it is called the Fifth Head; and Norma's was not wilder." During the last six years of his life his summers were spent at another house in the same neighbourhood, but less romantically situated, at Lynn Beach. His autumnal retreat at Pepperell was 42 miles from Boston, on the border-line of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The estate, consisting of some 250 acres, and called the Highlands, lies in a fine undulating country bordered on the N.W. by a wild mountain range. It has been in the family about a hundred and fifty years; and is wooded with fine avenues and groves of oak, chestnut, walnut, and maple. The mansion, an old-fashioned, rambling, roomy farmhouse, with white walls and green blinds, is seated on a gentle eminence overlooking the clear windings and rich pastures of the beautiful Nissitisset. A garden, an orchard, fish-ponds, and green lawns shaded by some noble butternuts, surround the house; and near it a grove of stately oaks leads into a venerable fragment of the primeval forest. Within the porch, the low ceiling and spacious fireplaces, the old furniture, and a closet full of old books, are relics of the simple, homely habits of the past century.

On the 4th of February 1858 Mr Prescott's labours at Boston were interrupted by a slight paralytic shock; but he soon rallied from the effects of it, and his family and friends were under no apprehension of further consequences. From that time he lived wholly on a vegetable diet, and used wine even more sparingly than before. He took less pleasure also in general society, and spent his leisure hours more constantly at home and with his grandchildren, of whose innocent company he was never weary. His sight was for some time a good deal weakened, but it gradually returned to its usual condition, and he was able to resume his literary pursuits for two or three hours a day. Towards the end of the year the third volume of Philip II. appeared, and was received both in England and America with the applause to which the author had now been long accustomed.

On the 26th of January 1859 he was at home at Boston. On the evening of that day a friend from New York, the Rev. William Milburn, called upon him. They had not met since Mr Prescott's illness. The guest observed that his host entered the library to receive him with a slower and heavier step than had been his wont in former years, and that in speaking his utterance was occasionally somewhat thick and imperfect. His manner, however, had lost nothing of its accustomed warmth; and he spoke of old friends, living and dead, with his usual feeling and cordiality. Of his own stroke of paralysis he likewise talked with perfect calmness, said it had weakened him and affected his sight, but that he was now able again to take exercise and pursue his work for two or three hours a day. Mr Agassiz, and the interruption of his scientific labours by injured eyesight, were mentioned, and led Mr Prescott to express his sympathy, and to speak of an infirmity which was common both to himself and his guest, Mr Milburn being also partially blind. "These men with eyes," said he, "have us at a serious disadvantage. While they run, we can only limp. But I have nothing to complain of, nor have you. Providence has singularly taken care of both, and by compensation keeps the balance even." He spoke also with warm affection of England, which Mr Milburn had lately visited, and of their friends there. On being asked when he was coming to New York, he replied, "I suppose the days of my long journeys are over, and that, like Horace, I must content myself with my three houses. You know I go at the commencement of summer to my cottage by the sea-side at Lynn Beach; and at autumn to my patrimonial acres at Pepperell, to sit under the trees I sat under when a boy; and then with winter come to hibernate in this house. This is the only travelling, I suppose, I shall do until I go to my long home." These words were spoken almost on the threshold of that final abode. On Friday, 28th January, he was so well that, although the morning was wet, he proposed to take a walk at his usual hour, between seven and eight, to inquire after a sick relative. With some difficulty Mrs Prescott prevailed on him to remain within doors. After breakfast she read to him, as was her habit, the morning papers. She then left him with his secretary in his study. Some time afterwards, about half-past twelve, he rose and went into an adjoining apartment. In a few minutes the secretary, hearing a groan, followed, and found him dead to all consciousness, smitten with a second stroke of paralysis. Medical aid proved unavailing; he never spoke again; and about two in the afternoon he expired.

According to his wish, his body was laid for a while in his library, near the hearth of his affections, amongst his well-beloved books, and beneath the portraits of those to whom his pen had given new life. From thence, on the 31st of January, it was borne to the vault of the Prescott family in St Paul's Episcopal church. It was followed to the tomb by a company such as the death of no man of letters had ever before assembled in America, paying to his great name and noble nature a tribute of tears and mourning "which," as one of themselves remarked, "would have been dearer to his heart than all the intellectual triumphs of his life."

Mr Prescott left behind him a widow, two sons, and a daughter. He never, at any period of his life, took any active part in public business or in politics. Born and educated in the Unitarian persuasion, he adhered to it through life; although for many years he attended the services of an Episcopal congregation of which his old tutor and friend Dr Gardiner was the minister. Of his face and person several excellent memorials remain in the portraits executed in America by Mr Ames and Mr Whipple, and in England, in 1850, by Mr H. W. Phillips and Mr Geo. Richmond. There, as well as several photographs, have been engraved. Tall and slender in figure, he had a countenance singularly comely, expressive, and engaging. His fresh complexion and his waving brown hair, scarcely tinged with grey, gave him until the last a very youthful appearance. His eminence as a writer was not more cordially recognised than the remarkable worth and beauty of his character as a man. In the management of his affairs, as in the disposal of his time and the arrangement of his study, book-shelves, and writing-table, he displayed a strong love of method and order. Prudent and considerate in small things as well as great, he was liberal in all his dealings, and open-handed in his unostentatious benevolence. Adored by his family and familiar friends, he was hardly less esteemed by the whole society of his native city. In his successes, literary and social, almost every American with whom his friends in Europe conversed appeared to take a personal interest and to feel an honest pride. Amongst the organs of the press, and at the meetings of various literary societies, his death elicited the most touching expressions of regard and respect from many of the most distinguished of his countrymen. "All who knew him," said Mr Bancroft, "will say that he was greater and better than his writings. Standing as it were by his grave, we cannot recall anything in his manner, his character, his endowments, or his conduct, we could wish changed." Mr Ticknor remarked, "that he was loved of all who knew him for the transparent sincerity of his nature, his open and warm sympathies, and for the faithful affections to which years and the changes of life only added freshness and strength." "Of all men whom I have known," said his classmate, Dr Walker, president of Harvard university, "I have never known one so little changed by the hard trial of success and prosperity. At college and on the morning of the day he died he was the same in his disposition, the same in his outward manners, the same in his habit of thought and feeling, the same, to a remarkable degree, in his attitudes and looks. He was one of that happy few whom all love to hear praised."

As a writer, Mr Prescott occupies a distinguished place in the first rank of English historians. His fidelity and industry—qualities which form the foundation of historical merit—are universally acknowledged. It has been doubted, and it is doubtful, whether his powers of philosophical analysis were equal to his skill in synthetical arrangement; whether he could penetrate to vital principles as happily as he could marshal facts and picture events. It is certain that the latter portions of the duty of an historian were those to which he specially applied himself. His practice may be justified on the ground of the subdivision of literary labour which at present obtains, greatly to the advantage of the accuracy of our knowledge. To describe clearly what was done in a particular age, and how it was done, is in itself an important and difficult task; to show why it was done, by discovering the hidden causes which shaped and coloured events, belongs perhaps more properly to writers who take a more comprehensive view of the chart of the world's history. In the art of narrative Mr Prescott has few rivals—very few equals—in our language. So pure and idiomatic is his English that it is rarely indeed that the most critical ear detects, in the use of a word or the construction of a phrase, the transatlantic origin of the writer. The Introduction to the History of Ferdinand and Isabella—a review of the early annals and political constitution of Castile and Aragon—is one of the most comprehensive surveys of a great subject ever presented to the historical student. The condition and relations of the crown, the nobles, the clergy, the cities, and the commons, are painted with a masterly hand, and are presented in a picture at once clear, concise, and complete. The wily, able Ferdinand and the good Isabella, the model of womanly heroism, are portrayed with consummate skill and delicacy; and neither Robertson nor Irving has excelled in easy grace the narratives of the siege of Malaga and the crowning conquest of Granada. In the Conquest of Mexico and the Conquest of Peru, and especially in the chapters on the civilization of the Aztecs and the Incas, Mr Prescott displays great sagacity in assorting the scattered fragments of social edifices, which were destroyed before they could be intelligently delineated, and in recalling to their living forms the dry bones of the extinct races which inhabited them. He also appears to have shaken off the diffidence of a stranger in the historical field. His style betokens more self-confidence, and is bolder and more animated. His descriptions of scenery, in which he is always happy and never redundant, are more full and vivid, and are elaborated with the greater care which was required by the strangeness Prescription of unfamiliar lands. Mexico spreads her matchless valley, her lake, and her imperial city before our eyes; we wander through the royal gardens, beneath the giant cedars of Tezcuco; the golden halls of the Inca and the blazing temples of the sun unfold themselves before us; we follow the silver-shod cavalry of Pizarro through the flowery dales of the Cordilleras; or we ascend through the pastures of the llama or the stern regions where the condor hovers in the tropical sun around the peaks of the Andes. The account of the triste noche, the rueful night, in which, after the death of Montezuma, Cortes and his band retreated across the lake and along the broken causeway, cutting their way through a nation in arms, is one of the finest pieces of modern historical painting. In the Reign of Philip II., unflagging strength and unabated fire are displayed in the treatment of the troubles in the Low Countries, the siege of Malta, the rebellion of the Mexicans, and the battle of Lepanto.

Mr Prescott's chapters on manners and literature are not less lively and picturesque than his record of contemporary events which these chapters illustrate. Of modern historians he was one of the first to acknowledge and to exhibit the importance of this kind of illustration, which his immediate predecessors had been too much in the habit of neglecting. In another respect also his works set an example well worthy of general adoption. Not content with embodying the result of his own researches, he constructed a road to the fountains from whence he had drawn and the mines in which he had toiled, in order, to use his own words, "to put the reader in a position for judging for himself, and thus for revising and, if need be, of reversing, the judgments of the historian." Of all his chief authorities he has left us elaborate biographical notices, showing their means of obtaining a true knowledge of the facts, the circumstances and influences to which they were exposed, the complexion of their minds, and the value of their evidence. Were this method of writing history general, we should lose some ingenious books, but we should also escape the noxious influence of many dishonest ones. On those who read critically Mr Prescott's plan must have already had a wholesome effect. From him many such readers must have learned to distrust even the most brilliant of the writing craft who withhold the grounds of their faith and facts, who cite sparingly and loosely, and impudently tell the world that they have drawn materials, perhaps for caricatures of the past and slanders on the dead, from sources so numerous as to defy specification.

As a critic and essayist, Mr Prescott would have attained great eminence had he pursued that path of letters. His essays on Cervantes, Molière, Scott, and Italian narrative poetry are written with much taste and with a just appreciation of their subjects. His reviews are none of them examples of the slashing style of criticism. When he turned aside from his own chosen course, it was for the purpose of throwing some fresh light upon the old masterpieces, or of bidding an unknown fellow-labourer welcome to the temple of Fame. If a blockhead was to be lashed or a knave exposed, he left them to critics who loved to perform such operations. It was very characteristic of his gentle and genial nature that he prefaced his volume of essays, which most readers will be disposed to regard as eminently calm and candid in tone, with the wish "that some of his critical judgments had been expressed in a more qualified and temperate manner." When those who knew and loved Mr Prescott shall have passed away, his memory will still be cherished by his countrymen, not only for the sake of works which will always rank amongst the chief monuments of American literature, but also for the sake of his pure and graceful life, which did honour to the literary calling.

(w.s.)