" He wrote with serenity and dignity, with fine balance
and proportion. Some of the Spanish documents upon which he
relied have been proved less trustworthy than he thought, but
this unsuspected defect in his materials scarcely impaired the
skill with which this unhasting, unresting painter filled his
great canvases. They need retouching, perhaps, but the younger
historians are incompetent for the task. Prescott died in 1859,
in the same year as Irving, and he already seems quite as remote
from the present hour.
His young friend Motley, of "Dutch Republic" fame, was another
Boston Brahmin, born in the year of Prescott's graduation from
college. He attended George Bancroft's school, went to Harvard in
due course, where he knew Holmes, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips,
and at Gottingen became a warm friend of a dog-lover and duelist
named Bismarck. Young Motley wrote a couple of unsuccessful
novels, dabbled in diplomacy, politics, and review-writing, and
finally, encouraged by Prescott, settled down upon Dutch history,
went to Europe to work up his material in 1851, and, after five
years, scored an immense triumph with his "Rise of the Dutch
Republic.
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