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 There can be no more fitting close to this volume on the conquest of Mexico than a tribute of esteem to William Hickling Prescott. I have noted in a previous volume his amiable weakness, incident to the times rather than to the man, of intensifying the character of prominent personages so as to present the good better and the bad worse than they truly were, in order to render his narrative stronger and more interesting than it would be otherwise; but this is nothing as compared with his general fairness, united with a magnificent style and philosophic flow of thought. I have noted some inaccuracies and contradictions in his history, but these are nothing as compared with his general care and correctness as a writer. I have mentioned material which he lacked, but this is nothing as compared with the great mass of fresh evidence which he brought to enrich his subject. Words fail to express my admiration of the man, the scholar, the author. Apart from the din and dust of ordinary life, he lived as one in the world but not of it, pure of mind, gentle of heart, and surpassingly eloquent.

Mr Prescott was born at Salem, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796. His father, a lawyer of rising reputation, then thirty-four years of age, removed his family to Boston in 1808. At the age of fifteen William entered Harvard College. While engaged in a boyish frolic one day during his junior year a large hard piece of bread, thrown probably at random, struck full in his left eye, forever depriving him of its use. Pursuing his studies with his wonted cheerfulness, he graduated in 1814, and entered upon the study of law in his father's office. In 1815 a rheumatic inflammation settled in his right eye, now his sole dependence, causing him much pain and anxiety. A change of climate having been determined upon, he embarked for the Azores, on a visit to his grandfather Hickling, then United States consul at Saint Michael. There he remained about six months, confined the greater part of the time to a dark room. In April 1816 he embarked for London, crossed to Paris, made the usual Italian tour, and the following year, his eye becoming worse, he returned home. But hope for the restoration of his sight still lingered, and the marvellous buoyancy of his spirits never deserted him. A devoted sister cheered the long hours of his solitude by readings from his favorite authors. A literary venture made at this time in a contribution to the North American Review failed; his manuscript was returned, and his sister, alone in the secret, was enjoined to silence.

Leaving his darkened chamber and mingling again with society, of which he was ever a bright ornament, he became attached to a daughter of Thomas C. Amory, a Boston merchant, whom he married on his twenty-fourth birthday.

Mr Prescott now abandoned the hope of the entire restoration of his eye. If by restrictions of diet and dieting and by persistent open-air exercise he might preserve a partial use of the organ he would rest content. And thus he passed the remainder of his life. At times he was in almost total darkness, but ordinarily he could read and revise his manuscripts; for the purpose of writing, however, he was obliged to use a noctograph.

Possessing strong literary tastes, and an aversion to law, Mr Prescott determined upon literature as a pursuit, and in 1826, with the aid of a secretary, he began a systematic course of reading for a history of Ferdinand and Isabella. For three years and a half he pursued this preparatory labor; in 1829 he began