been publicly recognized by his successive appointments as Secretary of
the Navy, Minister to England, and Minister to Germany.

The greatest, on the whole, of American historians was John Lothrop
Motley (1814-1877), who, like Bancroft, was a student at Goettingen and
United States Minister to England. His _Rise of the Dutch Republic_,
1856, and _History of the United Netherlands_, published in
installments from 1861 to {506} 1868, equaled Bancroft's work in
scientific thoroughness and philosophic grasp, and Prescott's in the
picturesque brilliancy of the narrative, while it excelled them both in
its masterly analysis of great historic characters, reminding the
reader, in this particular, of Macaulay's figure painting. The
episodes of the siege of Antwerp and the sack of the cathedral, and of
the defeat and wreck of the Spanish Armada, are as graphic as
Prescott's famous description of Cortez's capture of the city of
Mexico; while the elder historian has nothing to compare with Motley's
vivid personal sketches of Queen Elizabeth, Philip the Second, Henry of
Navarre, and William the Silent. The _Life of John of Barneveld_,
1874, completed this series of studies upon the history of the
Netherlands, a theme to which Motley was attracted because the heroic
struggle of the Dutch for liberty offered, in some respects, a parallel
to the growth of political independence in Anglo-Saxon communities, and
especially in his own America.

The last of these Massachusetts historical writers whom we shall
mention is Francis Parkman (1823- ), whose subject has the advantage of
being thoroughly American. His _Oregon Trail_, 1847, a series of
sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life, originally contributed to
the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, displays his early interest in the
American Indians. In 1851 appeared his first historical work, the
_Conspiracy of Pontiac_. This has been followed by the series entitled
_France and England {507} in North America_, the six successive parts
of which are as follows: the _Pioneers of France in the New World_; the
_Jesuits in North America_; _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great
West_; the _Old Regime in Canada_; _Count Frontenac and New France_;
and _Montcalm and Wolfe_. These narratives have a wonderful vividness,
and a romantic interest not inferior to Cooper's novels. Parkman made
himself personally familiar with the scenes which he described, and
some of the best descriptions of America