national
unity had disappeared: France clung to the friendship of England, Spain
trembled beneath its blows."

With the wide range of years of his subject, with a grasp of an extended
period akin to Gibbon's, complete accuracy was, of course, not
attainable, but Samuel R. Gardiner once told me that Green, although
sometimes inaccurate in details, gave a general impression that was
justifiable and correct; and that is in substance the published opinion
of Stubbs.

Goethe said that in reading Moliere you perceive that he possessed the
charm of an amiable nature in habitual contact with good society. So we,
who had not the advantage of personal intercourse, divined was the case
of Green; and when the volume of Letters appeared, we saw that we had
guessed correctly. But not until then did we know of his devotion to his
work, and his heroic struggle, which renders the story of his short and
brilliant career a touching and fascinating biography of a historian who
made his mark upon his time.

EDWARD L. PIERCE

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the October
meeting of 1897.

EDWARD L. PIERCE

I shall first speak of Mr. Pierce as an author. His Life of Sumner it
seems to me is an excellent biography, and the third and fourth volumes
of it are an important contribution to the history of our country. Any
one who has gone through the original material of the period he embraces
must be struck not only with the picture of Sumner, but with the skill
of the biographer in the use of his data to present a general historical
view. The injunction of Cicero, "Choose with discretion out of the
plenty that lies before you," Mr. Pierce observed. To those who know how
extensive was his reading of books, letters, newspaper files, how much
he had conversed with the actors in those stirring scenes--and who will
take into account the mass of memories that crowd upon the mind of one
who has lived through such an era--this biography will seem not too long
but rather admirable in its relative brevity. In a talk that I had with
Mr. Pierce I referred to the notice in an English literary weekly of his
third and fourth volumes which maintained that the biography was twice
too long, and I took occasion to say that in comparison with other
American works of the kind the criticism seemed unjust. "Moreover," I
went on, "I think you showed restraint in not making use of much of your
valuable material,--of the in