Harry Thurston Peck

“ In pronouncing Latin words, too much care can not be taken in distinguishing between long vowels and those that are short. Cicero says: Omnium longitudinum et brevitatum in sonis sicut acutarum graviumque vocum indicium, natura in auribus nostris collocavit; and student and teacher alike will find that if from the outset a correct and careful pronunciation of Latin be required, those bugbears of the learner--the rules of prosody--will almost teach themselves, because they will have a consistency and meaning that can never be obvious to the unfortunate victim of the "English system." ”

“ The discovery of America and the opening of new lands teeming with treasures for their conquerors roused and stimulated the consciousness of the lower orders. Before long, the man-at-arms, the musketeer, and the artilleryman attained a consequence which the ordinary fighting man had never had before. After these had gone forth as adventurers into the New World, they brought back with them not only riches wrested from the helpless natives whom they had subdued, but a spirit of freedom verging even upon lawlessness, which leavened the whole stagnant life of Europe. ”

“ Now no grammarian ever mentions more than one sound for Latin c. Again, if Latin c had ever had the sound of s, surely some of the Greeks, ignorant of Latin and spelling by ear, would at least occasionally have represented Latin c by σ,—a thing which none of them has ever done. It is probable that the modification of c which is noticed in the modern languages was a characteristic of the Umbrian and Oscan dialects and so prevailed to some extent in the provinces, but there is absolutely not the slightest evidence to show that it formed a part of the pronunciation of cultivated men at Rome. ”

“ The fault is not the fault of the writer. It is inherent in the subject. Nowhere has Prescott written with greater skill. It is only that no display of literary art can give dignity and distinction to that which in itself is unheroic and sometimes even sordid. The one passage which stands out from all the rest is that which sets before us the famous incident at Panama, when Pizarro, at the head of his little band of followers, mutinous, famished, and half-naked, still boldly scorns all thought of a return. ”

“ Yet in each, one has continually to check the writer, to modify his statements, and to make allowance for his very individual point of view. In reading Prescott, on the other hand, nothing of the sort is necessary. He is free from the passion of politics, his judgment is impartial, and those who read him feel, as an eminent scholar has remarked, that they are listening to a wise and learned judge rather than to a skilful advocate. Even in the sphere of characterisation, Prescott is more sound than Motley, even though he be not half so forceful. ”

“ The author of Walden seemed, indeed, to single out Prescott for special animadversion in this respect, and his rather rasping sentences contain the only jarring notes that were sounded by any contemporary of the historian. Thoreau, writing of the colonial historians of Massachusetts, such as Josselyn, remarked with a sort of perverse appreciation: "They give you one piece of nature at any rate, and that is themselves, smacking their lips like a coach-whip,—none of those emasculated modern histories, such as Prescott's, cursed with a style." ”

“ Prescott's eulogists have so studiously ignored his weaknesses as to leave us with no clear-cut impression of the actual man. They have unwisely smoothed away so much and have extenuated so much in their halting and ambiguous phrases, as to create a picture of which the outlines are far too faint. Apparently, they wish to draw the likeness of a perfect being, and to that extent they have made the subject of their encomiums appear unreal. One cannot understand how truly lovable the actual Prescott was, without reconstructing him in such a way as to let his faults appear beside his virtues. ”

“ In the second place, he wished to make a number of final alterations and corrections; and every writer of experience is aware that the last subtle touches can be given to a book only when it is actually in type, for only then can he see the workmanship as it really is, with its very soul exposed to view, seen as the public will see it, divested of the partial nebulosity which obscures the vision while it still remains in manuscript. ”

“ Charles Brockden Brown first blazed the way in American fiction with six novels, amid whose turgid sentences and strange imaginings one may here and there detect a touch of genuine power and a striving after form. Washington Irving, with his genial humour and well-bred ease, was the very embodiment of the spirit of New York. Even Professor Barrett Wendell, whose critical bias is wholly in favour of New England, declares that Irving was the first of American men of letters, as he was certainly the first American writer to win a hearing outside of his own country. ”

“ Guatemozin's fierce patriotism, his hatred of the Spaniards, his ferocity in battle, and his stubborn unwillingness to yield are displayed with consummate art, yet in such a way as to win one's sympathy for him without estranging it from those who conquered him. A touch of sentiment is delicately infused into the whole narrative of the Conquest by the manner in which Prescott has treated the relations of Cortés and the Indian girl, Marina. ”

“ And when we compare the native period of Roman literature with the early years of New England's literary history, the parallel becomes more striking still. In New England, as in Rome, beneath all the forms of a self-governing and republican State, there existed a genuine aristocracy whose prestige was based on public service of some sort; and in New England, as in Rome, public service had in it a theocratic element. In civil life, the most honourable occupation for a free citizen was to share in this public service. ”

“ When we compare these easy-going methods with the scientific thoroughness of Prescott, his ransacking, by agents, of every important library in Europe, his great collection of original documents, the many years which he gave to the study of them, and the conscientious judgment with which he weighed and balanced them, we cannot fail to see how much the world has gained by Irving's act of generous self-abnegation. ”

“ Although Ford's characterisation of Prescott's style had some basis of truth, it was, of course, grossly exaggerated. Throughout the whole of the Ferdinand and Isabella, one is conscious of a strong tendency toward simplicity of expression. Many passages are as easy and unaffected as any that we find in an historical writer of to-day. Reading the pages over now, one can see the true Prescott under all the starch and stiffness which at the time he mistakenly regarded as essential to the dignity of historical writing. ”

“ Unlike Prescott, he understands the philosophy of history and delves beneath the surface to search out and reveal the hidden causes of events. Yet first and last and all the time, he is a partisan. He is pleading for a cause far more than he is seeking for impartial truth. In this respect he resembles Mommsen, whose Römische Geschichte is likewise in its later books a splendid piece of partisanship. Motley is an American and a Protestant, and therefore he is eloquent for liberty and harsh toward what he views as superstition. ”

“ His widely recognised ability brought him wealth, so that he lived in liberal fashion, in a home whose generous appointments and cultivated ease created an atmosphere that was rare indeed in those early days, when narrow means and a crude provincialism combined to make New England life unlovely. Prescott was not only an able lawyer, the worthy compeer of Dexter, Otis, and Webster—he was a scholar by instinct, widely read, thoughtful, and liberal-minded in the best sense of the word. ”

“ The labour of research, the comparison of authorities, the long months of hard reading and steady note-taking, were not congenial to his nature. He moved less freely in the heavy armour of the historian than in the easy-fitting modern garb of the essayist and story-teller. The best that one can say of the style of his Granada, his Columbus, and his Washington is that it is smooth, well-worded, and correct. ”

“ Indeed, Ferdinand and Isabella and Philip II. can better stand the test of searching criticism than Motley's Dutch Republic.
Motley is, indeed, the most "literary" of all the so-called "literary historians". In the glow and fervour of his narrative he is unsurpassed. He feels all the passion of the times whereof he writes, and he makes the reader feel it too. He has, moreover, a power of drawing character which Prescott seldom shows and which, when he shows it, he shows in less degree. Motley writes with the magnetism of a great pleader and with something also of the imagination of a poet. ”

“ It is not unfair, however, to assume that, for a time, Prescott's diversions were such as even a lenient moralist would think it necessary to condemn. The fondness for wine, which remained with him throughout his life, makes it likely that convival excess was one of his undergraduate follies; while the flutter of a petticoat may at times have stirred his senses. No doubt many a young man in his college days has plunged far deeper into dissipation than ever Prescott did and has emerged unscathed to lead a useful life. ”

“ As a girl, and indeed all through her long and happy life, she was the very spirit of healthful, normal womanhood,—full of an irrepressible and infectious gayety, a miracle of buoyant life, charming in manner, unselfish, helpful, and showing in her every act and thought the promptings of a beautiful and spotless soul.
It was of this admirably mated pair that William Hickling Prescott, their second son, was born, at Salem, on the 4th of May, 1796. The elder Prescott had not yet acquired the ample fortune which he afterward possessed ”

“ This is a bit of very accurate criticism; and the plan which Prescott formed was executed in a manner absolutely faultless. Never for a moment is there a break in the continuity of its narrative. Never for a moment do we lose sight of the central and inspiring figure of Cortés fighting his way, as it were, single-handed against the intrigues of his own countrymen, the half-heartedness of his followers, the obstacles of nature, and the overwhelming forces of his Indian foes, to a superb and almost incredible success. Everything in the narrative is subordinated to this. ”