only mental powers of a high order, but a general healthiness of moral and intellectual constitution which is uncommon, even among historians who evince no lack of forcible thought and intense conception. History is false not only when the historian willfully lies, but also when facts, true in themselves, are forced out of their proper relations through the unconscious operation of the historian's feelings, prejudices, or modes of thought. He thus represents, not his subject, but his subject as modified by his own character. Certain facts and persons are exaggerated into undue importance, while others are unduly depressed, in order that they may more readily fall within the range of his generalizations, or harmonize with his preconceived opinions. He may have a system so fixed in his mind, or a passion so lodged in his heart, as to see facts in relation to it, instead of seeing them in relation to each other. An honest sectarian or partisan, an admirable moralist or philanthropist, might make his history a tissue of fallacies and falsehoods, without being justly chargeable with intentional untruth. This is done by confounding individual impressions with objective facts and principles.

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 an 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 admirable 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 annalist has not a keener sight for the small curiosities of history. From his quiet room in Boston he sends forth directions across the Atlantic which are felt at Madrid, Naples, and London; and rare MSS., buried in libraries or private collections, are stirred unwillingly up from the sleep and dust of centuries to serve his purpose. 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 an 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 willful 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; an obstinate resistance of evidence honestly put in; the utmost sagacity, penetration, and knowledge of the subtler movements of the human heart. 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 notices 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 an 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 an 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 pre-eminent. 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, and then fixing on them the brand of his condemnation. The shrieks of their partisans he deems but the last tribute to the justice of his judgment. This method of writing history has, doubtless, its advantages; and, in regard to Mr. Hallam, it must be admitted that he has corrected many pernicious

errors of fact, and overthrown many absurd estimates of character. But, valuable as his histories are in many important respects, they generally want grace, lightness, sympathy, picturesqueness, glow. From his deficiency of sensibility and imagination, and from his habit of bringing everything to the tribunal of the understanding, he rarely grasps character or incidents in the concrete. Both are interesting to him only as they illustrate certain practical or abstract principles. He looks at external acts without being able to discern inward motives. He cannot see things with the same eyes, and from the same position, as did the persons whom he judges; and, consequently, all those extenuations and explanations of conduct which are revealed in an insight into character, are of little account with him. He does not realize a past age to his imagination, and will not come down from his pinnacle of judgment to mingle with its living realities. As he coldly dissects some statesman, warrior, or patriot, who at least had a living heart and brain, we are inclined to exclaim with Hamlet,-"Has this fellow no feeling of his business?" It is the same in his literary criticisms. He gives the truth as it is about the author, not as it is in the author. He describes his genius in general terms, not in characteristic epithets. Everything that is peculiar to a particular writer slips through his analysis. That subtil interpenetration of personality with feelings and powers, which distinguishes one man's genius from another's, escapes the processes of his understanding. Persons, in Mr. Hallam's hands, commonly subside into general ideas, events into generalizations. He does not appear to think that persons and events have any value in themselves apart from the principles they illustrate; and, consequently, he conceives neither with sufficient intensity to bring out always the principles they really contain.

We have already said that this mode of writing history has its advantages, but it is still so over-informed with understanding as to sink representation in reflection. Now the historian should address the eye and heart as well as the understanding, to enable the reader really to understand his work. Mr. Prescott possesses the qualities by which this object is attained, and he possesses them in fine harmony with the qualities of his understanding. He has a quick sensibility and a high degree of historical imaginationan imagination which, though it cannot create character and events which never existed, can still conceive facts in the concrete, and represent them instinct with their peculiar life. In studying a past age he is not content with appending to a rigid digest of facts certain appropriate reflections, but he brings the age up to his mind.