William Hickling Prescott

ten have been forced upon his mind, especially during those weary weeks when the darkness of his sick-room and the lack of any mental diversion threw hi

nd his years as a recluse, shut out from any real share in the active duties of life? Little as he was wont to dwell upon his own anxieties, he could not remain wholly silent concerning a subject so

recommended by such favourable opportunities, and adopting one for which I am ill qualified and have but little inclination. It is some consolation that this latter alternati

l career, even though the practice of the law were closed to him. But after the discouraging ve

. God knows how poorly I am qualified and how little inclined to be a merchant. I

nt, yet not in idleness. His love of books and of good literature became the more intense in proportion as physical activity was impossible; and he managed to get through a good many books, thanks to the kindness of his sister and of his former school companion, William Gardiner, both of whom devoted a part of each day to reading aloud to Prescott,-Gardiner the classics, and Miss Prescott the standard English authors in history, poetry, and belles-lettres in general. These readings often occupied many consecut

utious experimenting, which apparently did no harm, he resumed the old life from which, for three years, he had been self-banished. The effect upon him mentally was admirable, and he was now safe from any possible danger of becoming morbidly introspective from the narrowness of his environment. He went about freely all through the year 1818, indulging in social pleasures with the keenest zest. His bent for literature, however, asserted itself in the foundation of a little society or club, whose members gathered informally, from time to time, for the reading of papers and for genial yet frank criticism of one another's productions. This club never numbered more than twenty-four persons, but they were all cultivated men, appreciative and yet discriminating, and the list of them contains some names, such as those of Franklin Dexter, Theophilus Par

o filled his life with a radiant happiness which delighted all who knew and loved him. His naturally buoyant spirits rose to exuberance after his engagement. He forgot his affliction. He let his reading go by the board. He was, in fact, too happy for anything but happiness, a

amor et nos

a very different Miss Amory. It is of interest to recall the description given by Mr. Ticknor of Prescott as he ap

brown hair that was hardly changed or diminished by years, with a clear complexion and a ruddy flash on his cheek that kept for him to the last an appearance of comparative youth, but above all with a smile that was the most absolutely contagious I ever looked on.... Even in the l

classics he was perhaps best equipped; but of English literature his knowledge was superficial because he had read only here and there, and rather for the pleasure of the moment than for intellectual discipline. He had a slight smattering of French, sufficient for the purposes of a traveller, but nothing more. Of Italian, Spanish, and German he was wholly ignorant, and with the literatures of these three languages he had never made even the slightest acquaintance. Conning

o be acquainted with the classical and useful authors, prose and poetry, in Latin, French, and Italian, and especially in history-I do not mean a critical or profound acqu

Cicero. His reading seems to have been directed less to the subject-matter than to the understanding and appreciation of style as a revelation of the writer's essential characteristics. It was, in fact, a study of psychology quite as much as a study of literature. Passing on to French, he found the literature of that language comparatively unsympathetic, and he contrasted it unfavourably with the English. He derived some pleasure from the prose of Montaigne and Bossuet, and from Corneille and Molière; but, on the whole, French poetry always seemed to him too rigid in its formal classicism to be enjoyable. Side by side with

ffered to the English Quarterly Review through Jared Sparks, and was accepted by the editor; but Prescott, growing impatient over the delay in its appearance, recalled the manuscript and gave it to the North American. These essays of Prescott were not rated very highly by their author, and we can accept his own estimate as, on the whole, a just one. They are written in

me of these lectures to Prescott, merely to amuse him and to divert his mind. The immediate result was that Prescott resolved to give up his German studies and to substitute a course in Spanish. On the first day of December, 1824, he employed a teacher of that language, and commenced a course of study which was to prove wonderfully fruitful, and which ended only with his life. He seems to have begun the reading of Spanish from the very moment that he took up the study of its grammar, and there is an odd significance in a remark which he wrote down only

rt for it as I had for the Italians. I doubt whether there are many v

t last laid his hand upon that for which he has long been groping. He

angle where the light breaks upon you all at once? The knack seems to have come to me within the last fortnight in

comments upon the Castilian authors in whom he revelled were now written not in English but in Spanish-naturally the Spanish of a beginner, yet with a feeling for idiom which greatly surprised Ticknor. Even in af

Looking back over all the memoranda that he has left behind, it is easy now to see that his drift had always been toward historical investigation. His boyish tastes, already described, declared his interest in the lives of men of action. His maturer preferences pointed in the same direction. It has heretofore been noted that, in 1821, when he marked out for himself his first formal plan of study, he included "the compendious history of North America" as one of the subjects. While reading French he had dwelt especially upon the chroniclers and historians from Froissart down.

ubject on which I was one day to exercise my pen. It is not rash, in the dearth of well-writte

ng and reflecting upon what I shall do, that I have in fact done nothing." And five days later, he set down the following: "I have passed the last fortnight in examination of a suitable subject for historical composition." In his case there was no need

ch transformed the republic of ancient Rome into an empire. Again, still with Italy in mind, he debated with himself the preparation of a work on Italian literature,-a work (to use his own words) "which, without giving a chronological and minute analysis of authors, should exhibit in masses the most important periods, revolutions, and characters in the history of Italian letters." Further reflection, however, led him to reject this, p

taken up the study of the Spanish language. In a letter already quoted as having been

s to the consolidation of the monarchy under Charles V., or a history of the revolution of ancient Rome which convert

he Roman subject; and after having done so, the mists began to clear away and a great purpose to take shape before his mental

nd dissolution? Then I have the Inquisition with its bloody persecutions; the conquest of Granada, a brilliant passage; the exploits of the Great Captain in Italy; ... the discovery of a new world, my own country.... A biography will make me responsible for a limited space only; will require much less reading; will offer the deeper interest which always attaches to minute developments

inand and Isabella." On January 19th, after some further wavering, he wrote down definitely: "I subscribe to the History of t

an historical survey of English literature. But on the whole he held fast to his original resolution, and soon entered upon that elaborate preparation which was to give to American literature a masterpiece. In his final selection of a theme we can, indeed, discern the blending of several currents of reflection and the combination of several of his earlier purposes. Though his