Something of this we recognize in Motley; but none of Botta’s tendency to proverbial sayings, bitter with a sarcasm that wounds most deeply its creator; as, ’To believe that abstract principle will prevail over full purses is the folly of a madman.’  Neither do we find in Motley the occasional terse conciseness of Botta,—­little epics enclosed in a short sentence.  ‘Napoleon had redeemed France; but he had created Italy.’  But the Italian can not be impartial.  Just he is, but it is the accident of his political position, not the deference paid by the historian to his art.  He writes of an age from whose injustice he has suffered, of a country whose miseries he has shared, of a people whose brother he is.  And here Motley stands second only to Thucydides among historians.  In the Greek, impartiality was almost divine, for he wrote in the very smoke of the conflict, wrote as if with his dripping lance upon rocks dyed with the blood of his countrymen.  With Motley impartiality is the product of a nature strictly noble, that aims through its art not only to delight the present, but to instruct the future, and which bases its doctrines of right and wrong upon the principles that govern universal nature.  The temper of Thucydides is lofty and even; though never genial, he is always calm and accessible; though often sublime, he is never pathetic; too grand to be sarcastic, he is also too proud to be selfish.

Motley, if lacking the great and admirable element of sublimity, which Longinus extols, compensates for it by the animation and variety of his style, which changes, as does his mood, with his subject.  He enters with all the vigor of his manhood into the spirit of the scenes which he sketches.  He describes a character, and his strokes are bold, quick, decided; he follows the intricacies of political intrigue, and his movement is slow, continuous, wary, while it still remains firm, confident, and successful.  He can administer the finances with Escovedo, while his wide, keen intelligence, undismayed, masters at a glance the wily policy of Alexander of the ‘fel Gesicht.’  No modern historian has given more comprehensive sketches of character.  No quality escapes his vigilance; he yields every faculty the consideration which is its due.  The portraits of Alva, of Navarre, of Farnese, of Orange, of Don John of Austria, are so many colossal statues, that seem to unite in themselves all the possible features and characteristics of humanity.  He is indeed rather a sculptor than a painter.  His figures are round, perfect, throbbing with life, and their hard and striking outlines, springing sharply from the background of despotism and persecution, are more imposing than any Rubens-like vividness of coloring which could warm them.  He treats of diplomacy as a diplomat, unwinds the reel of protocol and treaty, and binds up with the inflexible cord the rich sheaves of his deep researches.  His reflections are suggestive but short, and his details never weary.