William Hickling Prescott Part 3

Actual work upon the _Conquest_ began early in 1839, though not at first with a degree of progress which was satisfactory to the investigator. By May, however, he had warmed to his work. He went back to his old rigorous regime, giving up again all social pleasures outside of his own house, and spending in his library at least five hours each day. His period of rest had done him good, and his eyesight was now better than at any time since it first became impaired. After three months of preliminary reading he was able to sketch out the plan of the entire work, and on October 14, 1839, he began the actual task of composition.

He found the introduction extremely difficult to write, for it dealt with the pre-historic period of Mexico, obscured as it was by the mist of myth and by the contradictory a.s.sertions of conflicting authorities.

"The whole of that part of the story," wrote Prescott, "is in twilight, and I fear I shall at least make only moons.h.i.+ne of it. I must hope that it will be good moons.h.i.+ne. It will go hard with me, however, but that I can fish something new out of my ocean of ma.n.u.scripts." He had hoped to dispose of his introduction in a hundred pages, and to finish it in six months at the most. It actually extended to two hundred and fifty pages, and the writing of it took nearly eighteen months. One interruption occurred which he had not antic.i.p.ated. The success of _Ferdinand and Isabella_ had tempted an unscrupulous publisher to undertake an abridgment of that book. To protect his own interests Prescott decided to make an abridgment of his own, and thus to forestall the pirate. This work disheartened and depressed him, but he finished it with great celerity, only to find that the rival abridgment had been given up. A brief stay upon the sea-coast put him once more into working condition, and from that time he went on steadily with the _Conquest_, which he completed on August 2, 1843, not quite four years from the time when he began the actual composition. His weariness was lightened by the confidence which he felt in his own success. He knew that he had produced a masterpiece.

Naturally, he now had no trouble in securing a publisher and in making very advantageous terms for the production of the book. It was brought out by the Harpers of New York, though, as before, Prescott himself owned the plates. His contract allowed the Harpers to publish five thousand copies for which they paid the author $7500, with the right of publis.h.i.+ng more copies if required within the period of one year and on the same general terms. An English edition was simultaneously brought out by Bentley in London, who purchased the foreign copyright for 650.

Three Spanish translations appeared soon after, one in Madrid in 1847 and two in Mexico in 1844. A French translation was published in Paris, by Didot in 1846, and a German translation, in Leipzig, by Brockhaus in 1845. A French reprint in English appeared in Paris soon after Bentley placed the London edition upon the market.

No historical work written by an American has ever been received with so much enthusiasm alike in America and in Europe. Within a month, four thousand copies were disposed of by the Harpers, and at the end of four months the original edition of five thousand had been sold. The reviewers were unanimous in its praise, and an avalanche of congratulatory letters descended upon Prescott from admirers, known and unknown, all over the civilised world. _Ferdinand and Isabella_ had brought him reputation; the _Conquest of Mexico_ made him famous.

Honours came to him unsought. He was elected a member of the French Inst.i.tute[13] and of the Royal Society of Berlin. He had already accepted members.h.i.+p in the Royal Spanish Academy of History at Madrid and in the Royal Academy of Sciences in Naples. Harvard conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Perhaps nothing pleased him more, however, than a personal letter from Humboldt, for whom Prescott had long entertained a feeling of deep admiration. This eminent scholar, at that time the President of the Royal Society of Berlin, in which body Niebuhr, Von Raumer, and Ranke had been enrolled, wrote in French a letter of which the following sentences form a part:--

"My satisfaction has been very great in studying line by line your excellent work. One judges with severity, with perhaps a bias towards injustice, when he has had a vivid impression of the places, and when the study of ancient history with which I have been occupied from preference has been pursued on the very soil itself where a part of these great events took place. My severity, sir, has been disarmed by the reading of your _Conquest of Mexico_.

You paint with success because you have _seen_ with the eyes of the spirit and of the inner sense. It is a pleasure to me, a citizen of Mexico, to have lived long enough to read you and to speak to you of my appreciation of the kind expressions with which you have done honour to my name.... Were I not wholly occupied with my _Cosmos_, which I have had the imprudence to print, I should have wished to translate your work into the language of my own country."

While gathering the materials for the _Conquest of Mexico_, Prescott had felt his way toward still another subject which his Mexican researches naturally suggested. This was the conquest of Peru. Much of his Mexican reading had borne directly upon this other theme, so that the labour of preparation was greatly lightened. Moreover, by this time, he had acquired both an accurate knowledge of sources and also great facility in composition. Hence the only serious work which was necessary for him to undertake as a preliminary to composition was the study of Peruvian antiquities. This occupied him eight months, and proved to be far more troublesome to him and much less satisfactory than the like investigation which he had made with reference to the Aztecs. However, after the work had been commenced it proceeded rapidly,--so rapidly, in fact, as to cause him a feeling of half-comical dismay. He began to write on the 12th of August, 1844, and completed his task on November 7, 1846. During its progress he made a note that he had written two chapters, amounting in all to fifty-one printed pages, in four days, adding the comment, "I never did up so much yarn in the same time. At this rate Peru will not hold out six months. Can I finish it in a year?

Alas for the reader!" No doubt he might have finished it in a year had certain interruptions not occurred. The first of these was the death of his father, which took place on December 8th, not long after he had begun the book. His brother Edward had died shortly before, and this double affliction affected very deeply so sensitive a nature as Prescott's. To his father, indeed, he owed more than he could ever express. The two had been true comrades, and had treated one another with an affectionate familiarity which, between father and son, was as rare in those days as it was beautiful. Judge Prescott's generosity had made it possible for the younger man to break through all the barriers of physical infirmity, and not only to win fame but also the happiness which comes from a creative activity. They understood each other very well, and in many points they were much alike both in their friendliness and in their habits of reserve. One little circ.u.mstance ill.u.s.trates this likeness rather curiously. Fond as both of them were of their fellows, and cordial as they both were to all their friends, each wished at times to be alone, and these times were when they walked or rode. Therefore, each morning when the two men mounted their horses or when they set out for a walk, they always parted company when they reached the road, one turning to the right and the other to the left by a tacit understanding, and neither ever thought of accompanying the other. Sometimes a friend not knowing of this trait would join one of them to share the ride or walk. Whenever such a thing as this took place, that particular route would be abandoned the next day and another and a lonelier one selected.

A further interruption came from the purchase of a house on Beacon Street and the necessity of arranging to leave the old mansion on Bedford Street. The new house was a fine one, overlooking the Mall and the Common; and the new library, which was planned especially for Prescott's needs, was much more commodious than the old one. But the confusion and feeling of unsettlement attendant on the change distracted Prescott more than it would have done a man less habituated to a self-imposed routine. "A month of pandemonium," he wrote; "an unfurnished house coming to order; a library without books; books without time to open them." It took Prescott quite a while to resume his methodical habits. His old-time indolence settled down upon him, and it was some time before his literary momentum had been recovered. Moreover, he presumed upon the fairly satisfactory condition of his eye and used it to excess. The result was that his optic nerve was badly over-taxed, "probably by ma.n.u.script digging," as he said. The strain was one from which his eye never fully recovered; and from this time until the completion of the _Peru_, he could use it in reading for only a few minutes every day, sometimes perhaps for ten or fifteen, but never for more than thirty. As this is the last time that we shall mention this subject, it may be said that for all purposes of literary work Prescott was soon afterward reduced to the position of one who was actually blind. What had before been a merely stationary dimness of vision became a slowly progressive decay of sight, or, to express it in medical language, amblyopia had pa.s.sed into amaurosis. He followed rigorously his oculist's injunctions, but in the end he had to face the facts unflinchingly; and a little later he recorded his determination to give up all use of the eye for the future in his studies, and to be contented with preserving it for the ordinary purposes of life. The necessity disheartened him. "It takes the strength out of me," he said.

Nevertheless, neither this nor the fact that his general health was most unsatisfactory, caused him to abandon work. He could not bring himself to use what he called "the coward's word, 'impossible.'" And so, after a little time, he went on as before, studying "by ear-work," and turning off upon his noctograph from ten to fifteen pages every day. He continued also his outdoor exercise, and, in fact, one of the best-written chapters of the _Conquest of Peru_--the last one--was composed while galloping through the woods at Pepperell. On November 7, 1846, the _Conquest of Peru_ was finished. Like the preceding history, it was published by the Harper Brothers, who agreed to pay the author one dollar per copy and to bring out a first edition of seventy-five hundred copies. This, Mr. Ticknor says, was a more liberal arrangement than had ever before been made with an historical writer in the United States. The English copyright was purchased by Bentley for 800.

Prescott's main anxiety about the reception which would be given to the _Conquest of Peru_ was based upon his doubts as to its literary style.

Neither of his other books had been written so rapidly, and he feared that he might incur the charge of over-fluency or even slovenliness.

Yet, as a matter of fact, the chorus of praise which greeted the two volumes was as loud and as spontaneous as it had been over his _Mexico_.

Prescott now stood so firmly on his feet as to look at much of this praise in a somewhat humorous light. The approbation of the _Edinburgh Review_ no longer seemed to him the _summa laus_, though he valued it more highly than the praise given him by American periodicals, of which he wrote very shrewdly:

"I don't know how it is, but our critics, though not pedantic, have not the businesslike air, or the air of the man of the world, which gives manliness and significance to criticism. Their satire, when they attempt it--which cannot be often laid to their door--has neither the fine edge of the _Edinburgh_ nor the sledgehammer stroke of the _Quarterly_. They twaddle out their humour as if they were afraid of its biting too hard, or else they deliver axioms with a sort of smart, dapper conceit, like a little parson laying down the law to his little people.... In England there is a far greater number of men highly cultivated--whether in public life or men of leisure--whose intimacy with affairs and with society, as well as books, affords supplies of a high order for periodical criticism."

As for newspaper eulogies, he remarked: "I am certainly the cause of some wit and much folly in others." His latest work, however, brought him two new honours which he greatly prized,--an election to the Royal English Society of Literature, and the other an invitation to members.h.i.+p in the Royal Society of Antiquaries. The former honour he shared with only one of his fellow-countrymen, Bancroft; the latter had heretofore been given to no American.

Prescott now indulged himself with a long period of "literary loafing,"

as he described it, broken in upon only by the preparation of a short memoir of John Pickering, the antiquarian and scholar, who had been one of Prescott's most devoted friends. This memoir was undertaken at the request of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society. It has no general interest now, but is worthy of note as having been the only one of Prescott's works which he dictated to an amanuensis. Prescott had an aversion to writing in this way, although he had before him the example of his blind contemporary, Thierry. Like Alphonse Daudet, he seems to have felt that what is written by hand comes more directly from the author's inner self, and that it represents most truly the tints and half-tones of his personality. That this is only a fancy is seen clearly enough from several striking instances which the history of literature records. Scott dictated to Lockhart the whole of _The Bride of Lammermoor_. Thackeray dictated a good part of _The Newcomes_ and all of _Pendennis_, and even _Henry Esmond_, of which the artificial style might well have made dictation difficult. Prescott, however, had his own opinion on the subject, and, with the single exception which has just been cited, he used his noctograph for composition down to the very end, dictating only his correspondence to his secretary.

His days of "literary loafing" allowed him to enjoy the pleasures of friends.h.i.+p which during his periods of work were necessarily, to some extent, intermitted. No man ever had more cordially devoted friends than Prescott. He knew every one who was worth knowing, and every one was attracted by the spontaneous charm of his manner and his invincible kindliness. Never was a man more free from petulance or peevishness, though these defects at times might well have been excused in one whose health was such as his. He presented the anomaly of a dyspeptic who was still an optimist and always amiable. Mr. John Foster Kirk, who was one of his secretaries, wrote of him:--

"No annoyance, great or small, the most painful illness or the most intolerable bore, could disturb his equanimity, or render him in the least degree sullen, or fretful, or discourteous. He was always gay, good-humoured, and manly. He carried his kindness of disposition not only into his public, but into his private, writings. In the hundreds of letters, many of them of the most confidential character, treating freely of other authors and of a great variety of persons, which I wrote at his dictation, not a single unkind or harsh or sneering expression occurs. He was totally free from the jealousy and envy so common among authors, and was always eager in conversation, as in print, to point out the merits of the great contemporary historians whom many men in his position would have looked upon as rivals to be dreaded if not detested."

Bancroft the historian has added his testimony to the greatness of Prescott's personal charm.

"His countenance had something that brought to mind the 'beautiful disdain' that hovers on that of the Apollo. But while he was high-spirited, he was tender and gentle and humane. His voice was like music and one could never hear enough of it. His cheerfulness reached and animated all about him. He could indulge in playfulness and could also speak earnestly and profoundly; but he knew not how to be ungracious or pedantic."

No wonder then that his friends were legion, comprising men and women of the most different types. Dry and formal scholars such as Jared Sparks; men of the world like Lord Carlisle; nice old ladies like Maria Edgeworth and the octogenarian Miss Berry, Walpole's friend; women of fas.h.i.+on like Lady Lyell, Lady Mary Labouchere, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland; Spanish hidalgos like Calderon de la Barca; smooth politicians like Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng; and intense partisans like Charles Sumner,--all agreed in their affectionate admiration for Prescott. His friends.h.i.+p with Sumner was indeed quite notable, since no men could have been more utterly unlike. Sumner was devoid of the slightest gleam of humour, and his self-consciousness was extreme; yet Prescott sometimes poked fun at him with impunity. Thus, writing to Sumner about his Phi Beta Kappa oration (delivered in 1846), he said:--

"Last year you condemned wars _in toto_, making no exception even for the wars of freedom. This year you condemn the _representation_ of war, whether by the pencil or the pen. Marathon, Salamis, Bunker Hill, the retreat from Moscow, Waterloo, great and small, are _all_ to be blotted from memory equally with my own wild skirmishes of barbarians and banditti. Lord deliver us! Where will you bring up?

If the stories are not to be painted or written, such records of them as have been heedlessly made should by the same rule be destroyed. I laugh; but I fear you will make the judicious grieve.

But fare thee well, dear Sumner. Whether thou deportest thyself _sana mente_ or _mente insana_, believe me always truly yours."

But Sumner's arrogance and egoism were always in abeyance where Prescott was concerned, and even their lack of political sympathy never marred the warmth of their intercourse. Prescott, in fact, cared very little about contemporary politics. He had inherited from his fighting ancestors a st.u.r.dy patriotism, but his loyalty was given to the whole country and not to any faction or party. His cast of mind was essentially conservative, and down to 1856 he would no doubt have called himself an old-line Whig. He was always, however, averse to political discussion which, indeed, led easily to personalities that were offensive not only to Prescott's taste but to his amiable disposition.

His friend Parsons said of him: "He never sought or originated political conversation, but he would not decline contributing his share to it; and the contribution he made was always of good sense, of moderation, and of forbearance."

Prescott's detachment with regard to politics was partly due, no doubt, to the nature of the life he led, which kept him isolated from the bustle of the world about him; yet it was probably due still more to a lack of combativeness in his nature. Motley once said of him that he lacked the capacity for _saeva indignatio_. This remark was called forth by Prescott's tolerant view of Philip II. of Spain, who was in Motley's eyes little better than a monster. One might fairly, however, give it a wider application, and we must regard it as an undeniable defect in Prescott that nothing external could strike fire from him. Thus, when his intimate friend Sumner had been brutally a.s.saulted in the Senate chamber by the Southern bully, Brooks, Prescott wrote to him: "You have escaped the crown of martyrdom by a narrow chance, and have got all the honours, which are almost as dangerous to one's head as a gutta-percha cane." There is a tameness about this sentence which one would scarcely notice had Sumner merely received a black eye, but which offends one's sense of fitness when we recall that Sumner had been beaten into insensibility, and that he never fully recovered from the attack. Again, when, in 1854, Boston was all ablaze over the capture of a fugitive slave, when the city was filled with troops and muskets were levelled at the populace, Prescott merely remarked to an English correspondent: "It is a disagreeable business." To be sure, he also said, "It made my blood boil," but the general tone of the letter shows that his blood must have boiled at a very low temperature. Nevertheless, he seems to have been somewhat stirred by the exciting struggle which took place over Kansas between the Free-Soil forces and the partisans of slavery. Hence, in 1856, he cast his vote for Fremont, the first Republican candidate for the Presidency. But, as a rule, the politics of the sixteenth century were his most serious concern, and in the very year in which he voted for Fremont, he wrote: "I belong to the sixteenth century and am quite out of place when I sleep elsewhere." It was this feeling which led him to decline a tempting invitation to write a history of the modern conquest of Mexico by the American army under General Scott. The offer came to him in 1847; and both the theme itself and the terms in which the offer was made might well have attracted one whose face was set less resolutely toward the historic past. His comment was characteristic. "I had rather not meddle with heroes who have not been under ground two centuries at least." It is interesting to note that the subject which Prescott then rejected has never been adequately treated; and that the brilliant exploits of Scott in Mexico still await a worthy chronicler.

It was natural that a writer so popular as Prescott should, in spite of his methodical life, find his time encroached upon by those who wished to meet him. He had an instinct for hospitality; and this made it the more difficult for him to maintain that scholarly seclusion which had been easy to him in the days of his comparative obscurity. His personal friends were numerous, and there were many others who sought him out because of his distinction. Many foreign visitors were entertained by him, and these he received with genuine pleasure. Their number increased as the years went by so that once in a single week he entertained, at Pepperell, Senor Calderon, Stephens the Central American traveller, and the British General Harlan from Afghanistan. Sir Charles Lyell, Lady Lyell, Lord Carlisle, and d.i.c.kens were also visitors of his. It was as the guest of Prescott that Thackeray ate his first dinner in America.[14] Visitors of this sort, of course, he was very glad to see.

Not so much could be said of the strangers who forced themselves upon him at Nahant, where swarms of summer idlers filled the hotels and cottages, and with well-meaning but thoughtless interest sought out the historian in the darkened parlour of his house. "I have lost a clear month here by company," he wrote in 1840, "company which brings the worst of all satieties; for the satiety from study brings the consciousness of improvement. But this dissipation impairs health, spirit, scholars.h.i.+p. Yet how can I escape it, tied like a bear to a stake here?"

Prescott's favourite form of social intercourse was found in little dinners shared with a few chosen friends. These affairs he called "cronyings," and in them he took much delight, even though they often tempted him to an over-indulgence in tobacco and sometimes in wine.[15]

One rule, however, he seldom broke, and that was his resolve never to linger after ten o'clock at any function, however pleasant. An old friend of his has left an account of one especially convivial occasion to which Prescott had invited a number of his friends. The dinner was given at a restaurant, and the guests were mostly young men and fond of good living. The affair went off so well that, as the hour of ten approached, no one thought of leaving. Prescott began to fidget in his chair and even to drop a hint or two, which pa.s.sed unnoticed, for the reason that Prescott's ten o'clock rule was quite unknown to his jovial guests. At last, to the surprise of every one, he rose and made a little speech to the company, in which he said that he was sorry to leave them, but that he must return home.

"But," he added, "I am sure you will be very soon in no condition to miss me,--especially as I leave behind that excellent representative"--pointing to a basket of uncorked bottles which stood in a corner. "Then you know you are just as much at home in this house as I am. You can call for what you like. Don't be alarmed--I mean on _my_ account. I abandon to you, without reserve, all my best wines, my credit with the house, and my reputation to boot. Make free with them all, I beg of you--and if you don't go home till morning, I wish you a merry night of it."

It is to be hoped that Prescott was not quite accurately reported, and that he did not speak that little sentence, "Don't be alarmed," which may have been characteristic of a New Englander, but which certainly would have induced a different sort of guests to leave the place at once. If he did say it, however, it was somewhat in keeping with the tactlessness which he occasionally showed. The habit of frank speech, which had made him a nuisance as a boy, never quite left him, and he frequently blurted out things which were of the sort that one would rather leave unsaid. His wife would often nod and frown at him on these occasions, and then he would always make the matter worse by asking her, with the greatest innocence, what the matter was. Mr. Ogden records an amusing instance of Prescott's _navete_ during his last visit to England. Conversing about Americanisms with an English lady of rank, she criticised the American use of the word "snarl" in the sense of disorder. "Why, surely," cried Prescott, "you would say that your ladys.h.i.+p's hair is in a snarl!" Which, unfortunately, it was--a fact that by no means soothed the lady's temper at being told so. There was a certain boyishness about Prescott, however, which usually enabled him to carry these things off without offence, because they were obviously so natural and so unpremeditated. His boyishness took other forms which were more generally pleasing. One evidence of it was his fondness for such games as blindman's buff and puss-in-the-corner, in which he used to engage with all the zest of a child, even after he had pa.s.sed his fiftieth year, and in which the whole household took part, together with any distinguished foreigners who might be present. Another youthful trait was his readiness to burst into song on all occasions, even in the midst of his work. In fact, just before beginning any animated bit of descriptive writing he would rouse himself up by shouting out some ballad that had caught his fancy; so that strangers visiting his house would often be amused when, from the grave historian's study, there came forth the sonorous musical appeal, "O give me but my Arab steed!"

Boyish, too, was his racy talk, full of colloquialisms and bits of Yankee dialect, with which also his personal correspondence was peppered. Even though his rather prim biographer, Ticknor, has gone over Prescott's letters with a fine-tooth comb, there still remain enough of these Doric gems to make us wish that all of them had been retained. It is interesting to find the author of so many volumes of stately and ornate narration letting himself go in private life, and dropping into such easy phrases as "whopper-jawed," "cotton to," "quiddle," "book up,"

"crack up," "podder" (a favourite word of his), and "slosh." He retained all of a young man's delight in his own convivial feats, and we find him in one of his letters, after describing a rather prolonged and complicated entertainment, asking gleefully, "Am I not a fast boy?"

His Yankee phrases were the hall-mark of his Yankee nature. Old England, with all its beauty of landscape and its exquisite finish, never drove New England from his head or heart. Thus, on his third visit to England, he wrote to his wife: "I came through the English garden,--lawns of emerald green, winding streams, light arched bridges, long lines stretching between hedges of hawthorn all flowering; rustic cottages, lordly mansions, and sweeping woods--the whole landscape a miracle of beauty." And then he adds: "I would have given something to see a ragged fence, or an old stump, or a bit of rock, or even a stone as big as one's fist, to show that man's hand had not been combing Nature's head so vigorously. I felt I was not in my own dear, wild America." Prescott was a true Yankee also in the carefulness of his attention to matters of business. He did not value money for its own sake. His father had left him a handsome competence. He spent freely both for himself and for his friends; but none the less, he made the most minute notes of all his publis.h.i.+ng ventures and a.n.a.lysed the publishers' returns as carefully as though he were a professional accountant. This was due in part, no doubt, to a natural desire to measure the popularity of his books by the standard of financial success. He certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied. Up to the time of his death, of the _Ferdinand and Isabella_ there had been sold in the United States and England nearly eighteen thousand copies; of the _Conquest of Mexico_, twenty-four thousand copies; and of the _Conquest of Peru_, seventeen thousand copies--a total, for the three works, of nearly sixty thousand copies.

When we remember that each of these histories was in several volumes and was expensively printed and bound, and that the reading public was much smaller in those days than now, this is a very remarkable showing for three serious historical works. Since his death, the sales have grown greater with the increase of general readers and the lapse of the American copyright Prescott made excellent terms with his publishers, as has already been recorded, and if a decision of the House of Lords had been favourable to his copyright in England, his literary gains in that country would have been still larger.[16]

His liking for New England country life led him to maintain in addition to his Boston house, at 55 Beacon Street, two other places of residence.

One was at Nahant, then, as now, a very popular resort in summer. There he had an unpretentious wooden cottage of two stories, with a broad veranda about it, occupying an elevated position at the extremity of a bold promontory which commanded a wide view of the sea. Nahant is famous for its cool--almost too cool--sea-breeze, which even in August so tempers the heat of the sun as to make a shaded spot almost uncomfortably cold. This bracing air Prescott found admirably tonic, and beneficial both to his eye and to his digestion, which was weak. On the other hand, the dampness of the breeze affected unfavourably his tendency to rheumatism, so that he seldom spent more than eight weeks of the year upon the sea-sh.o.r.e. He found also that the reflection of the sun from the water was a thing to be avoided. Therefore, he most thoroughly enjoyed his other country place at Pepperell, where his grandmother had lived. The plain little house, known as "The Highlands,"

and shaded by great trees, seemed to him his truest home. Here, more than elsewhere, he threw off his cares and gave himself up completely to his drives and rides and walks and social pleasures. The country round about was then well wooded, and Prescott delighted to gallop through the forests and over the rich countryside, every inch of which had been familiar to him since his boyhood days. He felt something of the English landowner's pride in remembering that his modest estate had been in the possession of his family for more than a century and a half--"An uncommon event," he wrote, "among our locomotive people." Behind the house was a lovely shaded walk with a distant view of Mount Monadnock; and here Prescott often strolled while composing portions of his histories before committing them to paper. Beyond the road stood a picturesque cl.u.s.ter of oak trees, making a thick grove which he called "the Fairy Grove," for in it he used to tell his children the stories about elves and gnomes and fairies which delighted them so much.

It was the death of his parents that led him in the last years of his own life to abandon this home which he so dearly loved. The memories which a.s.sociated it with them were painful to him after they had gone.

He missed their faces and their happy converse, and so, in 1853, he purchased a house on Lynn Bay, some five or six miles distant from his cottage at Nahant. Here the sea-breeze was cool but never damp; while, unlike Nahant, the place was surrounded by green meadow-land and pleasant woods. This new house was much more luxurious than the cottages at Nahant and Pepperell, and he spent at Lynn nearly all his summers during his last five years. He added to the place, laying out its grounds and tastefully decorating its interior, having in view not merely his own comfort but that of his children and grandchildren, who now began to gather about him. His daughter Elizabeth, who was married in 1852 to Mr. James Lawrence of Boston, occupied a delightful country house near by.

One memorial of Prescott long remained here to recall alike the owner of the place and the work to which his life had been devoted. This was a large cherry tree, which afforded the only shade about the house when he first took possession of it. The state of his eye made it impossible for him to remain long in the suns.h.i.+ne; and so, in his hours of composition, he paced around the circle of the shade afforded by this tree, carrying in his hand a light umbrella, which he raised for a moment when he pa.s.sed that portion of the circle on which the sunlight fell. He thus trod a deep path in the turf; and for years after his death the path remained still visible,--a touching reminder to those friends of his who saw it.

CHAPTER VI

THE LAST TEN YEARS

While Prescott was still engaged in his Mexican and Peruvian researches, and, in fact, even before he had undertaken them, another fascinating subject had found lodgement in his mind. So far back 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 to Philip the Second's reign--a fruitful theme if discussed under all its relations, civil and literary as well as military." And again, in 1839, he reverted to the same subject in his memoranda. Could he have been sure of obtaining access to the ma.n.u.script and other sources, he might at that time have chosen this theme in preference to the story of the Mexican conquest. He knew, however, that nothing could be done unless he were able to make a free use of the Spanish archives preserved at Simancas. To this ancient town, at the suggestion of Cardinal Ximenes, the most precious historical doc.u.ments relating to Spanish history had been removed, in 1536, by order of Charles V. The old castle of the Admiral of Castile had been prepared to receive them, and there they still remained, as they do to-day, filling some fifty large rooms and contained in some eighty thousand packages. It has been estimated that fully thirty million separate doc.u.ments 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 amba.s.sadors 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 in so disorderly a state that it is next to impossible to gather material for the reign of Philip II." His friend, Arthur Middleton, cited to him the instance of a young scholar who had been permitted to explore these collections for six months, and who had found that the doc.u.ments of a date prior to the year 1700 were "all thrown together without order or index." Furthermore, Prescott's agent in Spain, Dr. Lembke, had incurred the displeasure of the government, which expelled him from the country. Prescott was, therefore, obliged for the time to put aside the project of a history of Philip II., and he turned instead to the study of the Mexican conquest.

Nevertheless, with that quiet pertinacity which was one of his conspicuous traits, he still kept the theme in mind, and let it be known to his friends in Paris and London, as well as in Madrid and elsewhere, that all materials bearing upon the career of Philip II. were much desired by him. These friends responded very zealously to his wishes. In Paris, M. Mignet and M. Ternaux-Compans allowed Dr. Lembke to have their important ma.n.u.script collections copied. In London, Prescott's correspondent and former reviewer, Don Pascual de Gayangos, searched the doc.u.ments in the British Museum and a very rich private collection owned 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 n.o.ble houses in Spain put at his disposal their family memorials. The National Library and other public inst.i.tutions 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 contributed to Prescott's store of doc.u.ments. Ferdinand Wolf in Vienna, and Humboldt and Ranke in Berlin, also aided him, and secured additional material, not only in Austria and Prussia, but in Tuscany. His collection grew apace; so that, long before he was ready to take up the subject of Philip II., he possessed over three hundred and seventy volumes bearing directly upon the reign of that monarch, while his ma.n.u.script copies, which he caused to be richly bound, came to number in the end some thirty-eight huge folios. These occupied a position of special honour in his library, and were playfully called by him his Seraglio.

Thus, in 1847, when about to take up his fourth important work, he was already richly doc.u.mented. His health, however, was unsatisfactory. He had now some ailments that had become chronic,--dyspepsia and a urethral complication, which often caused him intense suffering. It was not until July 29, 1849, that he began to write the first chapter of _Philip II._ at Nahant. He makes the laconic note: "Heavy work, this starting. I have been out of harness too long.... The business of fixing thought is incredibly difficult." He continued writing at Pepperell, and at his home in Boston, 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 me my hearing. It would be a fearful thing to doubt it." His depression finally became so great that he suspended for a time his labours and made a short visit to Was.h.i.+ngton, where he was received with abundant hospitality. He was entertained by President Taylor, by Sir Henry Bulwer, the British Minister, by Webster, and by many other distinguished persons; but he became more and more convinced that a complete change was necessary to restore his health and spirits; and so, on May 22d of the same year, he sailed from New York for Liverpool, where he arrived on the 3d of June.

Prescott's stay in England was perhaps the most delightful episode in his life. His biographer, Mr. Ticknor, speaks of it as "the most brilliant visit ever made to England by an American citizen not clothed with the prestige of official station." The a.s.sertion is quite true, since the cordiality which Lowell met with in that country was, in part, at any rate, due to his diplomatic rank, while General Grant was essentially a political personage who was, besides, personally commended to all foreign courts by his successor in office, President Hayes. But Prescott, with no credentials save his reputation as a man of letters and his own charming personality, enjoyed a welcome of boundless cordiality. It was not merely that he was a literary celebrity and was received everywhere by his brothers of the pen,--he became the fas.h.i.+on and was unmistakably the lion of the season. From the 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 fas.h.i.+on strangely foreign to English reserve, for he threw his arms around Prescott, making the historian blush like a great girl. It would be tedious to recount the unbroken series of brilliant entertainments at which Prescott was the guest of honour. His letters written at this time from England are full of interesting and often amusing bits of description, and they show that even his exceptional social honours were very far from turning his head.

In fact, he viewed the whole thing as a diverting show, except when the warmth of the personal welcome touched his heart. Through it all he was the self-poised American, never losing his native sense of humour. He made friends with Sir Robert Peel, who, at their first meeting, addressed him in French, having taken him for the French dramatist M.

Scribe! He chatted often with the Duke of Wellington, and described him in a comparison which makes one smile because it is so Yankee-like and Bostonese.

"In the crowd I saw an old gentleman, very nicely made up, stooping a good deal, very much decorated with orders, and making his way easily along, as all, young and old, seemed 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 grew vain at once, and I did my best to repay him in coin that had no counterfeit in it. He is a striking figure, reminding me a good deal of Colonel Perkins in his general air."

Prescott attended the races at Ascot with the American and Swedish Ministers, was the guest of Sir Robert Peel, and was presented at Court--a ceremony which he described to Mrs. Prescott in a very lively letter.

"I was at Lawrence's, at one, in my costume: a chapeau with gold lace, blue coat, and white trousers, begilded with b.u.t.tons and metal,--a sword and patent leather boots. I was a figure indeed!