at a time when death was the penalty for possessing a book not licensed by the Inquisition.  Thus are discarded and disgusting impostures brought up from the literary cesspools of Spain to form for us the history of events that, transpired on this continent hardly more than three hundred years ago!” (pp. 263, 264.) Instead of noticing the blunders and absurdities with which this paragraph is filled, we shall simply call attention to the remarkable good taste displayed in its allusions to a person with whom the writer, as he boasts, had maintained “the most kindly relations,” from whom, as we have seen, he had received friendly offers of aid, and to whom, but a short time before the occurrence of that event which has so lately thrown the whole nation into mourning, he had been indebted, by his own admission, for the warmest encouragement in the prosecution of his inquiries.

But, though Prescott is the principal object of Mr. Wilson’s assaults, he does not fall, for he has not stood, alone.  With the single exception of the Hon. Lewis Cass, every modern writer who has investigated the history and former condition of Spanish America, either with the help of books or of personal observation of the present state of that part of our continent, shares the same fate.  Robertson, Dupaix, Stephens, Humboldt, are all objects of Mr. Wilson’s vituperation or contempt.  To say that Alexander von Humboldt is probably the most learned man in Europe, and that Robert A. Wilson is undoubtedly one of the most ignorant men in America, would give but a slight notion of the contrast between them.  Humboldt is not merely a man of science and a philosopher,—­titles which the adopted Iroquois regards with natural scorn,—­he has been also a great traveller, and knows almost every part of Spanish America from personal examination.  Yet his claims to be considered as an authority on questions which no other living man is so competent to decide are disposed of by his shallow and conceited opponent in a single brief paragraph, which ends with a statement that “the only defect in his work is, that he started from false premises, and of course his conclusions amount to nothing.”

Robertson, however, is the especial butt of Mr. Wilson’s unwieldy sarcasms.  Robertson, he tells us, was the “principal of the University High School of Edinburgh,”—­an institution of which we do not remember ever to have heard before.  He is especially indignant that “Robertson—­a Presbyterian minister!” (the Italics and note of admiration are Mr. Wilson’s own) should have dared even to attempt to write a history of America.  As Roman Catholics are also forbidden to venture on this ground, we should be glad to know the particular sect or sects to whose use it is to be appropriated.  A principal cause of our author’s spite against Dr. Robertson appears to have been a statement made by the latter, that the Iroquois are cannibals.  This allegation evidently touches a sensitive point.