ons, and particularly the novels of Cooper and Scott. Not
satisfied with reading about heroes, he must be a hero himself, and
when scarcely eight he bribed a younger brother with sweetmeats to lie
quiet, wrapped in a shawl, while he, mounted upon a stool, delivered
Mark Antony's oration over the dead body of Caesar. At eleven he began
a novel, the scene of which was laid in the Housatonic Valley, because
that name sounded grand and romantic. On Saturday afternoon he and
his playmates, among whom was Wendell Phillips, would assemble in
the garret of the Motley house, and in plumed hats and doublets enact
tragedies or stirring melodramas. Comedy was too frivolous for these
entertainments, in which Motley was always the leading spirit; the
chief bandit, the heavy villain, the deadliest foe.

In the school-room also Motley led by divine right, and expected
others to follow. Thus, in spite of his dislike for rigid rules of
study, he was always before the class as one to be deferred to and
honored wherever honor might be given. While still at college Motley
seems to have had some notion of a literary career. His writing-desk
was constantly crammed with manuscripts of plays, poetry, and sketches
of character, which never found their way to print, and which were
burned to make room for others when the desk became too full. With the
exception of a few verses published in a magazine, this work of
his college days served only for pastime. Graduated from Harvard at
seventeen, Motley spent the next two years at a German university,
where he lived the pleasant, social life of the German student, one of
his friends and classmates being young Bismarck, afterward the great
Chancellor, who was always fond of the handsome young American, whose
wit was the life of the student company and whose powers of argument
surpassed his own.

Coming back to America, Motley studied law until 1841, when, in his
twenty-seventh year, he received the appointment of Secretary of
Legation to St. Petersburg.

His friends now looked forward to a brilliant diplomatic career
for him, but the unfavorable climate soon led him to resign the
appointment and return to America. But the St. Petersburg visit was
not fruitless, for three years afterward he published an essay in the
_North American Review_ which showed a keen appreciation of Russian
political conditions. The article was called "A Memoir of the Life
of Peter the Great," and its appearance surprised the