The redeeming influence of strong personal sympathy and earnest conviction, both in the choice of a subject and the method of its treatment, has been signally illustrated by a countryman of our own.  The interest of the general reader and the approbation of historical scholars were at once enlisted by Motley’s “Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic.”  That work differs from and is superior to any American historical composition by virtue of a certain fluent animation, a certain decided and sustained tone, such as can be derived only from an absolute relation between the author’s mind and heart and his subject.  Accordingly his record not only seizes upon the attention, but wins the sympathy of the reader, who recognizes a vital and genuine spirit in the work, which gives it unity, completeness, and a living style, whereby its incidents, characters, and philosophy are unfolded, not only with art, but with nature, and so made real, attractive, and significant.  That we are right in ascribing these merits to the affinity between the author and his work is amply evidenced by his own confession in a letter called forth by the death of Prescott, in which he says,—­

“It seems to me but as yesterday, though it must be now twelve years ago, that I was talking with our ever-lamented friend Stackpole about my intention of writing a history upon a subject to which I have since that time been devoting myself.  I had then made already some general studies in reference to it, without being in the least aware that Prescott had the intention of writing the history of Philip II.  Stackpole had heard the fact, and that large preparations had already been made for the work, although ‘Peru’ had not yet been published.  I felt, naturally, much disappointed.  I was conscious of the immense disadvantage to myself of making my appearance, probably at the same time, before the public, with a work not at all similar in plan to ‘Philip II.,’ but which must, of necessity, traverse a portion of the same ground.  My first thought was, inevitably as it were, only of myself.  It seemed to me that I had nothing to do but to abandon at once a cherished dream, and probably to renounce authorship. For I had not first made up my mind to write a history, and then cast about to take up a subject.  My subject had taken up me, drawn me on, and absorbed me into itself.  It was necessary for me, it seemed, to write the book I had been thinking much of,—­even if it were destined to fall dead from the press,—­and I had no inclination or interest to write any other.”

The same inspiration is partially obvious in those portions of every history which come home to the writer’s experience:  as, for instance, some of the military episodes in Colletta’s “History of Naples,” he having been a soldier,—­and the descriptive phases of Parkman’s “History of Pontiac,” the author having been a Prairie traveller, and familiar with the woods and the bivouac.  In like manner, it is the idiosyncrasy of historians which gives original