Now, Mr. Prescott's narrative of events and delineations of character are characterized by singular objectiveness. By a fine felicity of his nature, he is content to consider his subject as everything, and himself as nothing. Objects stand out on his page in clear light, undiscolored by the hues of his own passions, unmixed with any peculiarities of his own character. This disposition and power to see things as they are in themselves, when joined to a corresponding capacity to convey them to other minds in their true proportions, indicates a finely balanced as well as largely endowed nature, and implies moral as well as intellectual strength. The moral qualities evinced in Mr. Prescott's histories, though they are seen in no ostentation of conscience and parade of noble sentiments, are still of a fine and rare order, and constitute no inconsiderable portion of his excellence as a historian. These are modesty, conscientiousness, candor, toleration, a hatred of wrong, modified by charity for the wrong-doer, a love of truth, expressed not in resounding commonplaces, but in diligence in seeking it out, and a comprehension of heart which noiselessly embraces all degrees of the human family, just and merciful to all, looking at motives as well as actions, and finding its fit expression in a certain indescribable sweetness of tone pervading his style like an invisible essence. It is one of the greatest charms of his compositions, that these qualities are so unostentatiously displayed that they can be best described in negatives. Thus we speak of his absence of egotism, of intolerance, of narrowness, of rancor, of exaggeration, rather than of the positive qualities through which such faults are avoided.

The intellectual power displayed in Mr. Prescott's works has a similar character of unobtrusiveness and

reserve. It would, doubtless, appear to many readers much greater were it asserted with more emphasis, and occasionally allowed to disport itself in the snapping contrasts of antithesis, or the cunning contortions of disputation. A writer may easily gain the reputation of a strong and striking thinker, by sacrificing artistical effect to momentary surprises, or by exhibiting his thoughts in their making, before they have attained precision and definiteness, and taken their place in the general plan of his work. To the generality of readers, depth of thought is confounded with confusion of thoughts. Events and ideas, heaped and huddled together, and lit up here and there with flashes of wit and imagination, are often received in their chaotic state as indications of greater mental power than they would be if reduced to order and connection by the stringent exercise of a patient, penetrating, and comprehensive intellect. Now, pure force of understanding is principally shown in so grappling with the subject as to educe simplicity from complexity, and order from confusion. According to the perfection with which this is done will be the apparent ease of the achievement; and a thinker who follows this method rarely parades its processes. His mind, like that of Mr. Prescott, operates to the reader softly and without noise. Any strain or contortion in thought or expression would indicate imperfect comprehension of his subject, and exhibit the pains of labor instead of its results. Far from desiring to tickle attention by giving undue prominence to single thoughts or incidents, such a thinker would be chiefly solicitous to keep them in subjection to his general purpose; for it is violating the first principle of art to break up the unity of a subject into a series of exaggerated individual parts.

The moment we consider the materials which form the foundation of Mr. Prescott's elaborate histories, we perceive the high degree of intellect they imply in the writer, and are able to estimate that healthiness of mind by which he shunned the numerous temptations to brilliant faults which beset his path. In the collection, of these materials he has displayed all the industry and diligence of an antiquary. With the utmost indifference to labor and expense, he has gathered from every quarter all books and MSS. which could elucidate or illustrate his subjects, and nothing which could cast the minutest thread of light into any unexplored corner of history seems to have escaped his terrible vigilance. With all his taste for large views, which comprehend years in sentences, the most mole-eyed analyst has not a keener sight for the small curiosities of history. No chronicle or personal history, happy in the consciousness of its insignificance, can hide itself from his quick eye, if it chance to contain a single fact which he needs. He has shown more industry and acuteness than almost any other contemporary resurrectionist in the grave-yards of deceased books. Yet he has not one of the faults which cling so obstinately to most antiquaries. He does not estimate the importance of a fact or date by the trouble he experienced in hunting it out. He does not plume himself on the acquisition of what has baffled others. None of the dust of antiquity creeps into his soul. His style glides along with the same unassuming ease in the narration of discoveries as of common facts.

Indeed, it is not so much in the collection as in the use of his materials that Mr. Prescott claims our regard as a historical artist. These materials are, it is true, original and valuable beyond any which have fallen into the hands

of any contemporary historian; but to analyze them, and to compose accurate histories from their conflicting statements, required judgment in its most comprehensive sense. They are the productions of men who looked at persons and events from different points of view. They are vitiated with the worst faults of bad historians. They all reflect their age in its common passions and prejudices, and each is disfigured by some unconscious or wilful misrepresentations, springing from personal bias or imperfect comprehension. They are full of credulity and bigotry, of individual and national prejudices, -sometimes the mere vehicles of private malice, almost always characterized by a bad arrangement of facts and confusion of principles. Together they present so strange a medley of shrewdness and fanaticism, of fact and fiction, and throw over the subject they are intended to illustrate such a variety of cross lights, and entangle it in such perplexing contradictions, that to sift out the truth requires the most cautious consideration and comparison of authorities. The testimony of kings, statesmen, scholars, priests, soldiers, philanthropists, each inaccurate after a fashion of his own, Mr. Prescott was compelled to estimate at its exact worth, disregarding all the exaggerations of pride, interest, and sensibility. To do this, he was necessarily obliged to study the personal history of his authorities, to examine the construction of their minds, and to consider all inducements to false coloring which would result from their position and character. Those who have carefully read the critical notes of his authorities, subjoined to each division of his histories, must admit that Mr. Prescott has shown himself abundantly capable of performing this difficult and delicate task. He analyzes the mental and moral constitution of

his veterans with singular acuteness, laying open to the eye their subtlest excellences and defects, and showing in every sentence that in receiving their statements of facts, he has allowed much for the medium through which they have passed. This portion of his duty, as a historian, demanded a judgment as nice in its tact as it was broad in its grasp. The scales must have been large enough to take in the weightiest masses of details, and perfect enough to show the slightest variation of the balance.

Mr. Prescott's understanding is thus judicial in its character, uniting to a love for truth diligence in its search and judgment in its detection. But this does not comprehend all his merits as a historian of the past; and, indeed, might be compatible with an absence of life in his narrative, and vitality in his conceptions. Among those historians who combine rectitude of purpose with strength of understanding, Mr. Hallam stands preeminent. All his histories have a judicial character. He is almost unexcelled in sifting testimony, in detecting inaccuracies, in reducing swollen reputations to their proper dimensions, in placing facts and principles in their natural order. He has no prepossessions, no preferences, no prejudices, no theories. He passes over a tract of history sacred to partisan fraud and theological rancor, where every event and character is considered in relation to some system still acrimoniously debated, without adopting any of the passions with which he comes in contact. No sophistical apology for convenient crime, no hypocrite or oppressor pranked out in the colors of religion or loyalty, can deceive his cold, calm, austere, remorseless intellect. He sums up each case which comes before him for judgment with a surly impartiality, applying to external events or acts two or three rigid rules,