n 1796, and
was graduated from Harvard in 1814. An accident in college destroyed
the sight of one eye, and left him but a precarious use of the other.
Nevertheless he resolved to emulate Gibbon, whose "Autobiography" had
impressed him, and to make himself "an historian in the best sense of
the term." He studied arduously in Europe, with the help of secretaries,
and by 1826, after a long hesitation, decided upon a "History of the
Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella." In ten years the three volumes were
finished. "Pursuing the work in this quiet, leisurely way, without
over-exertion or fatigue," wrote Prescott, "or any sense of obligation
to complete it in a given time, I have found it a continual source of
pleasure." It was published at his own expense on Christmas Day, 1837,
and met with instantaneous success. "My market and my reputation rest
principally with England," he wrote in 1838--a curious footnote, by the
way, to Emerson's Phi Beta Kappa Address of the year before. But America
joined with England, in praising the new book. Then Prescott turned to
the "Conquest of Mexico," the "Conquest of Peru," and finally to his
unfinished "History of the Reign of Philip II." He had, as Dean Milman
wrote him, "the judgment to choose noble subjects." He wrote with
serenity and dignity, with fine balance and proportion. Some of the
Spanish documents upon which he relied have been proved less trustworthy
than he thought, but this unsuspected defect in his materials scarcely
impaired the skill with which this unhasting, unresting painter filled
his great canvases. They need retouching, perhaps, but the younger
historians are incompetent for the task. Prescott died in 1859, in
the same year as Irving, and he already seems quite as remote from the
present hour.

His young friend Motley, of "Dutch Republic" fame, was another Boston
Brahmin, born in the year of Prescott's graduation from college. He
attended George Bancroft's school, went to Harvard in due course, where
he knew Holmes, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips, and at Gottingen became
a warm friend of a dog-lover and duelist named Bismarck. Young Motley
wrote a couple of unsuccessful novels, dabbled in diplomacy, politics,
and review-writing, and finally, encouraged by Prescott, settled down
upon Dutch history, went to Europe to work up his material in 1851, and,
after five years, scored an immense triumph with his "Rise of the Dutch
Republic." He was a brilliant partisan, hating Spa