stupidity, and seems almost incompatible with his fiery valor. Famine, fatigue, pestilence, defeat, every extreme of mental and physical wretchedness, could present no arguments sufficiently strong to shake his purpose of conquest. What depressed his followers only called forth his courage in its most splendid light. When he himself had most cause for despondency, his serene valor not only mounted above his own miseries, but enabled him to use all the resources of his fertile mind in cheering his followers. Wounded, bleeding, wasted by famine, broken down by disease and despair, there was always one voice whose magical tones could make their hearts leap with their old daring, and send them again on their old enterprise of peril and death.

We cannot follow the genius of Cortés as it was developed in the events of the conquest, and attempt an abstract of what Mr. Prescott has performed with such fulness, richness, and power. Rarely has so splendid a theme been treated by a historian so fortunate at once in the possession of requisite materials and requisite capacity. Among the many characteristics of the work, that which will be most likely to strike and charm the general reader is its picturesqueness of description, both as regards incidents and scenery. The freshness and vividness with which everything is presented is a continual stimulant to attention; and there is a nerve in the movement of the style which gives to the narrative a continual vitality. Among these descriptions we would particularize the account of the retreat from Mexico, in the second volume, and the battles which preceded its final conquest and destruction, in the third, as being especially pervaded by intense life. The critical reader, also, will not fail to perceive that the interest of particu

lar passages is subservient to the general effect of the whole, and that the author has produced a work of art as well as a history. That quality of objectiveness, which we have mentioned as characterizing the mind of Mr. Prescott, and favorably distinguishing him from many eminent historians, is especially obvious when we contrast the representations in "Ferdinand and Isabella" with those in the "Conquest of Mexico." The objects are different, and in each case they are presented in their own form, life, and character. We can conceive of the two histories as the production of separate minds. But few historians are thus capable of representing objects in white light. To see anything through the medium of another mind, is too often to see it caricatured. Objects, to the egotist, whether he be called thinker or coxcomb, are commonly mirrors which more or less reflect himself. Nature, events, and persons, are considered as deriving their chief importance from their relation to him. This relation, and not their relation to each other, he is prone to call the philosophy of history.

PRESCOTT'S CONQUEST OF PERU.*

THIS work has probably been the most extensively popular of Mr. Prescott's histories, though the subject would not seem to admit so many elements of interest as the others. In "Ferdinand and Isabella” he had a period of time crowded with important events and striking characters, a period which witnessed the organization of a powerful nation out of seemingly discordant elements, and which opened to the historian the whole field of European politics during one of the most important epochs of modern civilization. In the "Conquest of Mexico" he had an epic story, capable of the strictest artistic treatment, with that strangeness in incidents and scenery which fastens most readily on the attention. If he has made the present work more interesting than the others, it must be owing to greater felicity in its treatment. This felicity does not arise from a departure from his historical method, or from the adoption of a new form of composition, but is the result of a more complete development of his method and his style. In the "Conquest of Peru" his characteristic merits are displayed in their best aspect, exhibiting the effects of time and experience in giving more intensity to his conceptions, and

*History of the Conquest of Peru, with a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas. By William H. Prescott. 8vo. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers. - Methodist Quarterly Review, April, 1848.

more certainty to his language. Accordingly, we have not here to chronicle a decay of power, but its freer and more vigorous expression.

Mr. Prescott's leading excellence is that healthy objectiveness of mind which enables him to represent persons and events in their just relations. Of all his histories, we think that the present, while it illustrates this characteristic merit, approaches nearest to the truth of things, and presents them with the most clearness and vividness. The scenery, characters, incidents, with which his history deals, are all conceived with singular intensity, and appear on his page instinct with their peculiar life. The book, on this very account, has been charged in some quarters with exaggeration, with giving more importance to the subject than its relative position in history will warrant. This objection we consider as implying its greatest praise. We admit that the Conquest of Peru does not take that place in the history of the world, as commonly written, which it assumes in Mr. Prescott's narrative; but we think that history, as commonly written, conveys but a feeble notion of persons and events. Undoubtedly the wars between Charles V. and Francis I. were more important than the skirmishes of the Spaniards with the Peruvians: but we by no means acknowledge that this is indicated in Robertson; and we think it a strange blunder of criticism to demand that the historian shall place his work in relation to other histories, instead of making it a mirror of his subject; and, because the usual description of the battle of Pavia conveys no idea of an engagement, require that the account of the capture of Atahualpa shall convey no idea of a massacre. The truth is, Mr. Prescott has done, in this matter, all that criticism can sensibly de

sire, in observing the natural relations of the characters and events with which he deals, and in varying the intensity of his representation with the varying importance of the different parts of his History. If he had capriciously given prominence to some things which would naturally fall in the background, or exaggerated others out of their proper connections, his work would have been inconsistent with the truth, and justly amenable to criticism; but, instead of this, he has reproduced, with vivid accuracy, the whole course of the conquest, solicitous only to convey clear impressions of actual things, and to print them on the mind in their true character and vital relations. If in doing this he has shown more force of conception and felicity of narration than the class of dignified historians; if he has avoided all verbal forms and barren generalities in the surrender of his mind to the objects which impressed it; if, in short, he has been more desirous to exhibit his subject than to make a show of himself, we protest against his being judged by rules which he does not pretend to follow, and having his excellence tested by principles drawn from the defects of other historians.

Indeed, the great merit of the work consists in its representing a portion of universal history as a living, appreciable reality. The comparative narrowness of the subject, and fewness of the characters, enabled him to perform this with the greater completeness. There was less room for generalization, and more for individualization; more space for pictures, and less for propositions. Accordingly, everything is realized; everything stands out in its distinct shape and dimensions, and moves on with the general movement of the narration. We become acquainted, not only with the leaders, but with their