William Hickling Prescott

as 1838, only a few months after the publication of Ferdinand and Isabella, he had said: "Should I succeed in my present collections, who knows what facilities I may find for making one relative

some eighty thousand packages. It has been estimated that fully thirty million separate documents of various kinds are included in this remarkably rich collection,-not only state papers of a formal character, but private letters, secret reports, and the confidential correspondence of Spanish ambassadors in foreign countries.[17] Such a treasure-house of historical information scarcely exists elsewhere; and Prescott, therefore, wrote to his friends in Madrid to learn whether he might hope for access to this Spanish Vatican. In 1839, however, he made the following memorandum: "By advices from Madrid this week, I learn that the archives of Simancas are i

wned by Sir Thomas Philips. He also visited Brussels, where he found more valuable material, and later, having been appointed Professor of Arabic in the University of Madrid (1842), he used his influence on behalf of Prescott with very great success. Many noble houses in Spain put at his disposal their family memorials. The National Library and other public institutions offered whatever they possessed in the way of books and papers. Two years later, this indefatigable friend spent some weeks at Simancas, where he unearthed many an interesting trouvaille. Even these sources, however, were not the only ones which contri

, until he had regained a good deal of his old facility. His physical strength, however, was waning, and he could no longer continue to work with his former regularity and method. He lost flesh, and was threatened for a while with deafness, the fear of which was almost too much for even his inveterate cheerfulness. In February, 1850, he wrote: "Increasing interest in the work is hardly to be expected, considering it has to depend so much on the ear. As I shall have to depend more and more on this one of my senses as I grow older, it is to be hoped that Providence will spare

moment when he landed at Liverpool he found himself encircled by friends. The attentions paid to him were never formal or perfunctory. He was admitted to the homes of the greatest Englishmen, and was there made free of that delightful hospitality which Englishmen reserve for the chosen few. No sooner had he reached London than he was showered with cards of invitation to the greatest houses, and with letters couched in terms of personal friendship. Sir Charles Lyell, his old acquaintance, welcomed him to London a few hours after his arrival. The American Minister, Mr. Abbott Lawrence,[18] begged him to be present at a diplomatic dinner. In company of the Lyells he was taken at once to an evening party where he met Lord Palmerston, then Premier, and other members of the Ministry. Lord Carlisle greeted him in a fashion strangely foreign to English reserve, for he threw his arm

to treat him with deference. It was the Duke-the old Iron Duke-and I thought myself lucky in this opportunity of seeing him.... He paid me some pretty compliments on which I g

isters, was the guest of Sir Robert Peel, and was presented at Court-a

little Queen of the mighty Isle and her Consort, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting. She was rather simply dressed, but he was in a Field Marshal's uniform, and covered, I should think, with all the orders of Europe. He is a good-looking person, but by no means so good-looking as the portraits of him. The Queen is better-looking than you might expect. I was presented by our Minister, according to the directions of the Chamberlain, as the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, in due form-and made my profound obeisance to her Majesty, who made a very d

Castle Howard, where the Queen was also entert

ing over beautiful plate and in that superb gallery. I was as near the Queen as at our own family table. She has a good appetite and laughs merrily. She has fine eyes and teeth, but is short. She was dressed in black silk and lace with the blue scarf of the Order

nd. She did me the honour to come and talk with me-asking me about my coming here, my stay in the Castle, what I was doing now in the historic way, how Everett was and where he was-for ten minutes or so; and Prince Albert afterwards a long while, talking about the houses and ruins in England, and the churches in Belgium, and the pictures in the room, and I don't know what. I found myself now and then

to Everett, another Unitarian, some years before in spite of great opposition, was regarded as having established a precedent; and Oxford cherishes the cult of precedent. At the Bishop's house, however, Prescott shocked a lady by telling her of his creed. He wrote to Ticknor: "The term [Unitarian] is absolutely synonymous in a large pa

iversity ceremonial is given

with the Faculty, etc., in their black and red gowns through the public streets.... We were marched up the aisle; Professor Phillimore made a long Latin exposition of our merits, i

ed to him more significant than the like honours which had come to hi

te in the House of Lords. Brougham was denouncing Baron Bunsen for his cour

Bunsen is rather fat as also Madame and his daughter-all of whom at last marched out of the gallery, but not until eyes and glasses had been directed to the spot to make out the unfortunate individuals, while Lord Brougham

purely literary men, Macaulay, Lockhart, Hallam, Thirlwall, Mi

-very unlike Scott's-is absolutely illegible from erasures and corrections.... He tells me he has his moods for writing. When not in the vein, he does not press it.... H-- told me that Lord Jeffrey once told him that, having tripped up Macaulay in a quotation from Paradise Lost, two days after, Macaulay came to him and said, 'You will not catch me ag

xpresses his astonishme

is talk is like the laboured, but still unintermitting, jerks of a pump. But it is anyt

s now a very old man, he records

rd of his late sayings is his reply to Lady--, who at a dinner table, observing him speaking to a lady, said, 'I hope, Mr. Rogers, you

ife, with all its glitter and gayety, suited Prescott wonderfully well, and his health improved daily. He remarked, however: "It is a life which, were I an Englishman, I should not desire a great deal of; two months at most; although I think, on the whole, the knowledge of a very curious state of s

revolve for weeks and not meet a familiar face half a dozen times. Yet there is monotony in

h you could see my gallant costume, gold-laced coat, white inexpressibles, silk hose, gold-b

tering ejaculation. The Bishop of London the other day with his amiable family told me they had settled my age at forty.... So I am convinced there has been some error in the calculatio

umberland, Prescott gave a little instance of his own extreme sensibility.

ple in the open courtyard that everybody was touched. Though I had nothing to do with the anthem, some of my opera tears,[1

left A

'I never say what I do not mean,' said the Duke, in an honest way. And when I thanked him for his hospita

of La Bruyère-who somewhere says that the most fortunate husband finds reason to regret his condition at least once in twenty-four hours-I may truly say that I have found no such day in the quarter of a century that P

London, Jun

all find one there this evening, or I shall, after all, h

ng from Antwerp

irring music in the churches-the only place where music does stir my heart-wit

ngland by Bentley in 1845, had succeeded with the public on both sides of the Atlantic. He had the prestige of a very flattering foreign recognition, and his friendships embraced some of the best-known men and women in Great Britain and the United States. It may seem odd that the letters and other writings of his contemporaries seldom contain more than a mere casual mention of him; but the explanation of this is to be found in the disposition of Prescott himself. As a man, and in his social intercourse outside of his own family, he was so thoroughly well-bred, so far

wrote to Miss Ticknor. "Did you ever meet with any novel half so touching? It is the most painful book I ever listened to. I hear it from the children and we all cry over it together. What a little flower of Paradise!" Yet he could accurately criticise his friend's productions.[21] Longfellow was another of Prescott's associates, and his ballads of the sea were favourites. Mr. T. W. Higginson quotes Prescott

of all rules, sometimes of grammar, and even of common sense. When he means to be strong he is often affected, violent, morbid.... But then there is, with all this smoke and fustian, a deep sensibility to the

addressed to Bancroft,[22] who had sent him a copy of Carlyle's French Revolution. The clangour and fur

nature has already over-coloured is, it appears to me, in very bad taste and produces a grotesque and ludicrous effect.... Then such ridiculous affectations of new-fangled words! Carlyle is ever a bungler in his own business; for his creations or rather combinations are the most discordant and awkward possible. As he

English humorists, which, as Thackeray confided to Prescott, caused America to "rain dollars." "I do not think he made much of an impression as a critic, but the Thackeray vein i

ce. The one sword was gallantly drawn in the service of the King; the other was the weapon of a brave and humane republican soldier. The possessor of the

, he seems to have preferred Dickens to Thackeray, being deceived by the very superficial cynicism affected by the latter. But in fiction, his prime favourites were always Scott and Dumas, whose b

the second volume, which appeared in 1854. Prescott himself said that he was "a little nervous" about the success of the book, inasmuch as a long interval had elapsed since the publication of his Peru, and he feared lest the public might have lost its interest in him. The result, however, showed that he need not have felt any apprehension. Within six months after the second volume had been published, more than eight

in 1853. In this fire were consumed several thousand copies of Prescott's earlier books, for which payment had been already made. Prescott, however, with his usual generosity, permitted the Harpers to print for their own account as many copies as had been lost. In England his publishing arrangements were somewhat less favourable than hitherto. When he had made his earlier contracts with Bentley, it was supposed that the English publisher could claim copyright in works written by a foreigner. A decision of the House of Lor

eign journals and those of my own country, it would seem that the work has found quite as much favour as any

ng to Bancro

sold of any of my preceding works in the same time. I have been lucky, too, in getting w

nclusion of Robertson's book-a matter of some hundred and eighty pages. This he began in the spring of 1855, and finished it during the following year. It was published on December 8, 1856, on which day he wrote to Ticknor: "My Charles the Fifth, or rather Robertson's with my C

absolutely clear. Serious work, of course, was out of the question. He listened to a good deal of reading, chiefly fiction. He was put upon a very careful regimen in the matter of diet, and wrote, with a touch of rueful amusement, of the vegetarian meals to which he was restricted: "I have been obliged to exchange my carnivorous propensities for those of a more innocent and primitive nature, picking up my fare as our good parents did before the Fall." Improving somewhat, he completed the third volume of Philip II.; not so fully as he had intended, but mainly putting together so much of it as had already been prepared. The book was printed in April, 1858, and the supervision of the proof-sheets afforded him some occupation, as did also the making of a few additional notes for a new edition of the Conquest of Mexic

urial. Again and again he had demanded of those nearest him that he should be shielded from the possibility of such a fate. Therefore

hed a citizen. The Historical Society was represented among the mourners. His personal friends and those of humble station, whom he had so often befriended, filled the body of the church. Before his burial, his remains, in accordance with a wish of his that was well known, had be