As the Spaniards drew near the spot where the street opened
on the causeway, and were preparing to lay the portable bridge
across the uncovered breach which now met their eyes, several
Indian sentinels who had been stationed at this, as at the other
approaches to the city, took the alarm and fled, rousing their
countrymen by their cries.
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across the uncovered breach which now met their eyes, several
Indian sentinels who had been stationed at this, as at the other
approaches to the city, took the alarm and fled, rousing their
countrymen by their cries.
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## p. 11766 (#396) ##########################################
4. PRESCOTT
WA
vira
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## p. 11767 (#397) ##########################################
11767
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
(1796-1859)
BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE
RESCOTT had been at work on his 'Ferdinand and Isabella'
about four years when he adopted the plan that distin-
Anguishes all his histories. To this he was led by his confi-
dence in Mably, author of 'Étude de l'Histoire,' of whom he made
this record: "I like particularly his notion of the necessity of giv
ing an interest as well as utility to history, by letting events tend
to some obvious point or moral; in short, by paying such attention
to the development of events tending to this leading result as one
would in the construction of a romance or a drama. » All the world
knows the success of the plan: Prescott is read as freely as the great
novelists and dramatists. A critical, rather than a creative, age has
charged him with being more interesting than accurate. This is
the old charge against Herodotus, and against Thucydides; it is the
charge made against Prescott's great English contemporary, Macaulay.
What critic of either of these has won an equal place in literature?
It would be gratifying, though difficult, to explain why an interest-
ing history provokes suspicion. Each generation revises the record.
Learned specialists who venture to become critics, condemn an entire
work because of a fault in relating an episode. The story of Philip
the Second has been retold by one whose genius Prescott recognized
and encouraged, just as his own had been recognized and encouraged
by Washington Irving. The Spanish-American story has been retold
by Sir Arthur Helps, by Markham, and by John Fiske.
A history is variously judged. One reader estimates it by its
authorities; another by its style. Of literary virtues, style is the
first to be cultivated and the last to be formed.
"With regard to the style of this work," wrote Prescott of his 'Ferdinand
and Isabella,' seven years after its completion, "I will only remark that most
of the defects, such as they are, may be comprehended in the words trop
soigné. At least they may be traced to this source. The only rule is, to
write with freedom and nature, even with homeliness of expression occasion-
ally, and with alternation of long and short sentences; for such variety is essen-
tial to harmony. But after all, it is not the construction of the sentence, but
## p. 11768 (#398) ##########################################
11768
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
the tone of the coloring, which produces the effect. If the sentiment is warm,
lively, forcible, the reader will be carried along without much heed to the
arrangement of the periods, which differs exceedingly in different standard
writers. Put life into the narrative, if you would have it take. Elaborate
and artificial fastidiousness in the form of expression is highly detrimental
to this. A book may be made up of perfect sentences and yet the general
impression be very imperfect. In fine, be engrossed with the thought and not
with the fashion of expressing it. "
His plan and his style harmonize, and are principal causes of the
popularity of his books. There is another cause: the fortunes of the
men and women whose lives are depicted on his pages become of
personal interest to the reader. Emerson would call this making
history subjective,-"doing away with this wild, savage, and prepos-
terous Then or There, and introducing in its place the Here and the
Now;" banishing the not-me and supplying the me. All this Prescott
has done. Children are lost in his 'Mexico' and 'Peru' even more
quickly than in Shakespeare or Scott. The dramatist is suddenly
philosophical; the novelist now and then technical: but the historian
takes them straight on from embarkation through shipwreck, battle,
siege, conquest, and retreat, and all as real as the sights in the street.
Here is a miracle like that Bunyan wrought, and even a greater; for
it is the rare miracle of reality. Few are the historians who let us
forget that their page is a paraphrase; their story, second-hand; their
battles, sieges, and fortunes, only words.
Prescott's life, like his books, was a development of events tending
to a leading result. Yet this result was due to an accident while at
Harvard, a junior in his seventeenth year. A piece of bread thought-
lessly thrown at random by a fellow student instantly destroyed the
sight of one eye. The other speedily became affected, and he was
never again able to use it, except at rare intervals and for a short
time. Till the day of his death, forty-seven years after the accident,
he suffered almost constantly. His life, without warning, became a
strict construction of the law of compensation. He belonged to a dis-
tinguished family. His grandfather was that Captain Prescott who
commanded at Bunker Hill. His father was an eminent lawyer,
among whose closer friends were John Quincy Adams and Daniel
Webster. His mother, from whom he inherited a large share of his
hopeful temperament and generous affection, was a woman possessed
of the qualities of Abigail Adams. He had wealth; he had rare
physical beauty. The mental man was complete. He lacked only
that which he had lost by accident. He completed his college course;
spent some time in search of relief in Europe, and returned to Salem,
his home and his native place. At twenty-four he married; at twenty-
six he decided on a literary life. Other men had eyes. Could he
## p. 11769 (#399) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11769
not accomplish, though slowly, as much as others less persevering?
From the day of his decision his life followed a programme. It
was method. His will made real what his wealth, his powers, made
possible. But all followed resolutions, many of which a strong love
of ease made almost useless. First he must prepare for work, then
choose. He began a critical, exhaustive study of the English lan-
guage and literature. Like studies of the French, the Italian, the
Spanish, followed. He employed capable readers; and at twenty-
eight, with many misgivings respecting his own powers, planned a
history of Ferdinand and Isabella. Ten years of labor followed, and
the three volumes were published at Christmas, 1837. They were
printed at the Cambridge press at his own expense, a method he
adhered to for all his books.
He was long in doubt whether to publish the history. His father's
judgment decided his own. Bentley brought it out in England after
it had been declined by two publishers. Its reception was an event
in English literature, and time has not yet set aside the original ver-
dict. He had found his work: Spain, new and old, at the height of
its power. In 1839 he began reading for his Conquest of Mexico. '
Four years later it was published. It had an unparalleled reception.
Five thousand copies were sold in America in four months. This
was only the beginning of a popularity which has been renewed by
successive generations of readers. No history more perfectly illus-
trates the harmony of subject and style.
Early in 1844 he "broke ground," as he says, on Peru. In twelve
months its Conquest' was written. It was nearly two years in press,
and issued in 1847. Though most quickly done of his works, it sus-
tained his reputation. Editions in French, German, Dutch, and Span-
ish, almost immediately appeared. No American book had before
been so received. The Conquest of Peru' closed his contribution to
American history. He was in his fifty-first year, and the most famed
American scholar. The mantle of Irving had fallen upon him. His
friendships were world-wide, and among the great scholars of the
Age. Through these he was largely enabled to collect his vast mass
of material. As Sismondi wrote him, he had attained rich sources
interdicted to European scholars. No other man, certainly no other
historian of his day, possessed and used such resources. His library
contained the best from the archives of Europe, usually in copy;
often the original. In the summer of 1849 he began reading for his
history of Philip the Second. Frequent and afflicting interruptions,
that would have vanquished a less resolute mind, beset him. Age
was creeping on. Domestic sorrow bowed his spirit. In 1850, after
many urgent requests, he visited England. His reception remained
unique in the annals of society for thirty years. The England he
knew was like that England that received James Russell Lowell in
## p. 11770 (#400) ##########################################
11770
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
after years.
The first volume of 'Philip' was completed in 1852; the
second in 1854, when the two were published; and the third in 1858.
A fourth was begun, but was carried no further than brief notes at
the time of his sudden death at sixty-three.
Prescott never visited the scenes of his histories. For over forty
years- -his literary life - he divided his time between his three
homes, all near his birthplace: the summer at Nahant; the autumn
at Pepperell; the winter and spring in Boston,- for some years at
the house on Bedford Street, but after 1845 at the Beacon Street
home. Here was his great library, and here he died. His infirmity
forbade travel. With his mind's eye he saw Mexico, Peru, and other
regions in the vast Spanish empire, -all from the vantage-ground of
his own library. Of his fidelity to his authorities no doubt has ever
been hinted. He believed in foot-notes, and he spread his vouchers
before the world. In later years some critics have doubted the value
of his authorities, especially for the 'Mexico' and the 'Peru. ' If they
erred he erred. If they, for their own purposes, read European civil-
ization into the institutions of the Aztecs, Prescott had no means of
correcting their vision. He faithfully followed the canons of history,
and trusted the evidence brought forward by the actors themselves.
What he saw in their records, - duly corrected one by the other,-
was that panorama of the New World which was spread before the
eyes of Europe by its conquerors, and which the Old World believed,
and still believes, true. No historian is responsible for not using
undiscovered evidence. Prescott wrote from the archives of Europe,
just as others have written before and after him, confident of the
accuracy of their evidence. If he moved his Aztec world on too
high a plane of civilization, he moved it by authority. Since his
death, the world has turned traveler; men of critical skill have ex-
plored Mexico and Peru, and each has produced his pamphlet. A
mass of ethnological and archæological knowledge has been collected,
much of which corrects the angle of Spanish vision of the sixteenth
century. But all this is from the American side. Prescott wrote
his 'Mexico' and 'Peru' from the European side-of the time of Isa-
bella, Charles, and Philip. If one cares to know how the Old World
first understood the New, he will read Prescott. If he wishes to know
how the New World of to-day interprets that New World of four
centuries ago, he will read Markham and Fiske. Prescott's beautiful
character is reflected in his style, and in his fidelity to his authori-
ties. Archæology and ethnology may correct some of his descrip-
tions; but as literature, his four histories will undoubtedly be read
with pleasure as long as the English remains a living language.
Francis Hurton Thorpe
## p. 11771 (#401) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11771
"THE MELANCHOLY NIGHT»
From the Conquest of Mexico'
(
THER
HERE was no longer any question as to the expediency of
evacuating the capital. The only doubt was as to the time.
of doing so, and the route. The Spanish commander called
a council of officers to deliberate on these matters. It was his
purpose to retreat on Tlascala, and in that capital to decide,
according to circumstances, on his future operations. After some.
discussion, they agreed on the causeway of Tlacopan as the ave-
nue by which to leave the city. It would indeed take them back
by a circuitous route, considerably longer than either of those by
which they had approached the capital. But for that reason it
would be less likely to be guarded, as least suspected; and the
causeway itself, being shorter than either of the other entrances,
would sooner place the army in comparative security on the main.
land.
There was some difference of opinion in respect to the hour
of departure. The daytime, it was argued by some, would be
preferable, since it would enable them to see the nature and
extent of their danger, and to provide against it. Darkness
would be much more likely to embarrass their own movements
than those of the enemy, who were familiar with the ground. A
thousand impediments would occur in the night, which might
prevent their acting in concert, or obeying, or even ascertaining,
the orders of the commander. But on the other hand, it was
urged that the night presented many obvious advantages in deal-
ing with a foe who rarely carried his hostilities beyond the day.
The late active operations of the Spaniards had thrown the Mex-
icans off their guard, and it was improbable they would anticipate
so speedy a departure of their enemies. With celerity and cau-
tion they might succeed, therefore, in making their escape from
the town, possibly over the causeway, before their retreat should
be discovered; and could they once get beyond that pass of peril,
they felt little apprehension for the rest.
These views were fortified, it is said, by the counsels of a
soldier named Botello, who professed the mysterious science of
judicial astrology. He had gained credit with the army by some
predictions which had been verified by the events,—those lucky
hits which make chance pass for calculation with the credulous
## p. 11772 (#402) ##########################################
11772
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
multitude. This man recommended to his countrymen by all
means to evacuate the place in the night, as the hour most pro-
pitious to them, although he should perish in it. The event
proved the astrologer better acquainted with his own horoscope
than with that of others. It is possible Botello's predictions had
some weight in determining the opinion of Cortés. Supersti-
tion was the feature of the age; and the Spanish general, as we
have seen, had a full measure of its bigotry. Seasons of gloom,
moreover, dispose the mind to a ready acquiescence in the marvel-
ous. It is, however, quite as probable that he made use of the
astrologer's opinion, finding it coincided with his own, to influ-
ence that of his men, and inspire them with higher confidence.
At all events, it was decided to abandon the city that very night.
The general's first care was to provide for the safe transport-
ation of the treasure. Many of the common soldiers had con-
verted their share of the prize, as we have seen, into gold chains,
collars, or other ornaments, which they easily carried about their
persons. But the royal fifth, together with that of Cortés him-
self, and much of the rich booty of the principal cavaliers, had
been converted into bars and wedges of solid gold, and deposited
in one of the strong apartments of the palace. Cortés delivered
the share belonging to the Crown to the royal officers; assigning
them one of the strongest horses, and a guard of Castilian sol-
diers, to transport it. Still, much of the treasure, belonging both
to the Crown and to individuals, was necessarily abandoned, from
the want of adequate means of conveyance. The metal lay scat-
tered in shining heaps along the floor, exciting the cupidity of
the soldiers. "Take what you will of it," said Cortés to his
men. "Better you should have it than these Mexican hounds.
But be careful not to overload yourselves. He travels safest in
the dark night who travels lightest. " His own more wary fol-
lowers took heed to his counsel,- helping themselves to a few
articles of least bulk, though it might be of greatest value. But
the troops of Narvaez, pining for riches of which they had heard
so much and hitherto seen so little, showed no such discretion.
To them it seemed as if the very mines of Mexico were turned
up before them; and rushing on the treacherous spoil, they
greedily loaded themselves with as much of it, not merely as
they could accommodate about their persons, but as they could
stow away in wallets, boxes, or any other means of conveyance
at their disposal.
## p. 11773 (#403) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11773
Cortés next arranged the order of march. The van, composed
of two hundred Spanish foot, he placed under the command of
the valiant Gonzalo de Sandoval, supported by Diego de Ordaz,
Francisco de Lujo, and about twenty other cavaliers. The rear-
guard, constituting the strength of the infantry, was intrusted
to Pedro de Alvarado and Velasquez de Leon. The general him-
self took charge of the "battle," or centre, in which went the
baggage, some of the heavy guns,-most of which, however,
remained in the rear, the treasure, and the prisoners. These
consisted of a son and two daughters of Montezuma, Cacama the
deposed lord of Tezcuco, and several other nobles, whom Cortés
retained as important pledges in his future negotiations with the
The Tlascalans were distributed pretty equally among
enemy.
the three divisions; and Cortés had under his immediate com-
mand a hundred picked soldiers, his own veterans most attached
to his service, who, with Cristóval de Olid, Francisco de Morla,
Alonso de Avila, and two or three other cavaliers, formed a
select corps, to act wherever occasion might require.
The general had already superintended the construction of a
portable bridge to be laid over the open canals in the causeway.
This was given in charge to an officer named Magarino, with
forty soldiers under his orders, all pledged to defend the passage
to the last extremity. The bridge was to be taken up when the
entire army had crossed one of the breaches, and transported to
the next. There were three of these openings in the causeway,
and most fortunate would it have been for the expedition if the
foresight of the commander had provided the same number of
bridges. But the labor would have been great, and time was
short.
―――――――
At midnight the troops were under arms, in readiness for
the march. Mass was performed by Father Olmedo, who invoked
the protection of the Almighty through the awful perils of the
night. The gates were thrown open; and on the first of July,
1520, the Spaniards for the last time sallied forth from the walls
of the ancient fortress, the scene of so much suffering and such
indomitable courage.
The night was cloudy; and a drizzling rain, which fell without
intermission, added to the obscurity. The great square before
the palace was deserted, as indeed it had been since the fall of
Montezuma. Steadily, and as noiselessly as possible, the Span-
iards held their way along the great street of Tlacopan, which so
## p. 11774 (#404) ##########################################
11774
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
lately had resounded with the tumult of battle. All was now
hushed in silence; and they were only reminded of the past by
the occasional presence of some solitary corpse, or a dark heap
of the slain, which too plainly told where the strife had been hot-
test. As they passed along the lanes and alleys which opened
into the great street, or looked down the canals, whose polished
surface gleamed with a sort of ebon lustre through the obscur-
ity of night, they easily fancied that they discerned the shadowy
forms of their foe lurking in ambush and ready to spring on
them.
But it was only fancy; and the city slept undisturbed
even by the prolonged echoes of the tramp of the horses and the
hoarse rumbling of the artillery and baggage trains. At length a
lighter space beyond the dusky line of buildings showed the van
of the army that it was emerging on the open causeway. They
might well have congratulated themselves on having thus escaped
the dangers of an assault in the city itself, and that a brief time
would place them in comparative safety on the opposite shore.
But the Mexicans were not all asleep.
As the Spaniards drew near the spot where the street opened
on the causeway, and were preparing to lay the portable bridge
across the uncovered breach which now met their eyes, several
Indian sentinels who had been stationed at this, as at the other
approaches to the city, took the alarm and fled, rousing their
countrymen by their cries. The priests, keeping their night-
watch on the summit of the teocallis, instantly caught the tidings
and sounded their shells, while the huge drum in the desolate
temple of the war-god sent forth those solemn tones, which,
heard only in seasons of calamity, vibrated through every corner
of the capital. The Spaniards saw that no time was to be lost.
The bridge was brought forward and fitted with all possible ex-
pedition. Sandoval was the first to try its strength; and riding
across, was followed by his little body of chivalry,—his infantry
and Tlascalan allies, who formed the first division of the army.
Then came Cortés and his squadrons, with the baggage, ammu-
nition wagons, and a part of the artillery. But before they had
time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound
was heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds.
It grew louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the
lake was heard a plashing noise, as of many oars. Then came
a few stones and arrows striking at random among the hurry-
ing troops. They fell every moment faster and more furious,
## p. 11775 (#405) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11775
till they thickened into a terrible tempest; while the very heav-
ens were rent with the yells and war-cries of myriads of com-
batants, who seemed all at once to be swarming over land and
lake!
The Spaniards pushed steadily on through this arrowy sleet;
though the barbarians, dashing their canoes against the sides of
the causeway, clambered up and broke in upon their ranks. But
the Christians, anxious only to make their escape, declined all
combat except for self-preservation. The cavaliers, spurring for-
ward their steeds, shook off their assailants and rode over their
prostrate bodies; while the men on foot, with their good swords
or the butts of their pieces, drove them headlong again down the
sides of the dike.
But the advance of several thousand men, marching probably
on a front of not more than fifteen or twenty abreast, necessarily
required much time; and the leading files had already reached
the second breach in the causeway before those in the rear had
entirely traversed the first. Here they halted, as they had no
means of effecting a passage; smarting all the while under un-
intermitting volleys from the enemy, who were clustered thick
on the waters around this second opening. Sorely distressed, the
vanguard sent repeated messages to the rear to demand the
portable bridge. At length the last of the army had crossed;
and Margarino and his sturdy followers endeavored to raise the
ponderous framework. But it stuck fast in the sides of the dike.
In vain they strained every nerve. The weight of so many men
and horses, and above all of the heavy artillery, had wedged the
timbers so firmly in the stones and earth that it was beyond
their power to dislodge them. Still they labored amidst a tor-
rent of missiles, until, many of them slain, and all wounded,
they were obliged to abandon the attempt.
The tidings soon spread from man to man; and no sooner
was their dreadful import comprehended than a cry of despair
arose, which for a moment drowned all the noise of conflict. All
means of retreat were cut off. Scarcely hope was left. The
only hope was in such desperate exertions as each could make
for himself. Order and subordination were at an end. Intense
danger produced intense selfishness. Each thought only of his
own life. Pressing forward, he trampled down the weak and the
wounded, heedless whether it were friend or foe. The leading
files, urged on by the rear, were crowded on the brink of the
## p. 11776 (#406) ##########################################
11776
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
gulf. Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other cavaliers dashed into the
water. Some succeeded in swimming their horses across; oth-
ers failed; and some who reached the opposite bank, being over-
turned in the ascent, rolled headlong with their steeds into the
lake. The infantry followed pell-mell, heaped promiscuously on
one another, frequently pierced by the shafts or struck down by
the war-clubs of the Aztecs; while many an unfortunate victim
was dragged half stunned on board their canoes, to be reserved
for a protracted but more dreadful death.
The carnage raged fearfully along the length of the cause-
way. Its shadowy bulk presented a mark of sufficient distinct-
ness for the enemy's missiles, which often prostrated their own.
countrymen in the blind fury of the tempest. Those nearest the
dike, running their canoes alongside with a force that shattered
them to pieces, leaped on the land, and grappled with the Christ-
ians until both came rolling down the side of the causeway
together. But the Aztec fell among his friends, while his antag-
onist was borne away in triumph to the sacrifice. The struggle
was long and deadly. The Mexicans were recognized by their
white cotton tunics, which showed faint through the darkness.
Above the combatants rose a wild and discordant clamor, in
which horrid shouts of vengeance were mingled with groans of
agony, with invocations of the saints and the blessed Virgin, and
with the screams of women; for there were several women, both
natives and Spaniards, who had accompanied the Christian camp.
Among these, one named Maria de Estrada is particularly noticed
for the courage she displayed, battling with broadsword and tar-
get like the stanchest of the warriors.
The opening in the causeway, meanwhile, was filled up with
the wreck of matter which had been forced into it,- ammunition
wagons, heavy guns, bales of rich stuffs scattered over the waters,
chests of solid ingots, and bodies of men and horses,-till over
this dismal ruin a passage was gradually formed, by which those
in the rear were enabled to clamber to the other side. Cortés, it
is said, found a place that was fordable; where, halting, with the
water up to his saddle-girths, he endeavored to check the con-
fusion, and lead his followers by a safer path to the opposite
bank. But his voice was lost in the wild uproar; and finally,
hurrying on with the tide, he pressed forwards with a few trusty
cavaliers who remained near his person, to the van; but not be-
fore he had seen his favorite page, Juan de Salazar, struck down
## p. 11777 (#407) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11777
a corpse by his side. Here he found Sandoval and his com-
panions, halting before the third and last breach, endeavoring to
cheer on their followers to surmount it. But their resolution fal-
tered. It was wide and deep; though the passage was not so
closely beset by the enemy as the preceding ones. The cavaliers
again set the example by plunging into the water. Horse and
foot followed as they could, some swimming, others with dying
grasp clinging to the manes and tails of the struggling animals.
Those fared best, as the general had predicted, who traveled
lightest; and many were the unfortunate wretches who, weighed
down by the fatal gold which they loved so well, were buried
with it in the salt floods of the lake. Cortés, with his gallant
comrades Olid, Morla, Sandoval, and some few others, still kept
in the advance, leading his broken remnant off the fatal cause-
way. The din of battle lessened in the distance; when the
rumor reached them that the rear-guard would be wholly over-
whelmed without speedy relief. It seemed almost an act of
desperation; but the generous hearts of the Spanish cavaliers did
not stop to calculate danger when the cry for succor reached
them. Turning their horses' bridles, they galloped back to the
theatre of action, worked their way through the press, swam
the canal, and placed themselves in the thick of the mêlée on the
opposite bank.
waters.
The first gray of the morning was now coming over the
It showed the hideous confusion of the scene which had
been shrouded in the obscurity of night. The dark masses of
combatants, stretching along the dike, were seen struggling for
mastery, until the very causeway on which they stood appeared
to tremble, and reel to and fro, as if shaken by an earthquake;
while the bosom of the lake, as far as the eye could reach, was
darkened by canoes crowded with warriors, whose spears and
bludgeons, armed with blades of "volcanic glass," gleamed in the
morning light.
The cavaliers found Alvarado unhorsed, and defending himself
with a poor handful of followers against an overwhelming tide of
the enemy.
His good steed, which had borne him through many
a hard fight, had fallen under him. He was himself wounded
in several places, and was striving in vain to rally his scattered
column, which was driven to the verge of the canal by the fury
of the enemy, then in possession of the whole rear of the cause-
way, where they were reinforced every hour by fresh combatants
XX-737
## p. 11778 (#408) ##########################################
11778
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
from the city. The artillery in the earlier part of the engage.
ment had not been idle; and its iron shower, sweeping along the
dike, had mowed down the assailants by hundreds. But nothing
could resist their impetuosity. The front ranks, pushed on by
those behind, were at length forced up to the pieces, and pour-
ing over them like a torrent, overthrew men and guns in one
general ruin. The resolute charge of the Spanish cavaliers, who
had now arrived, created a temporary check, and gave time for
their countrymen to make a feeble rally. But they were speedily
borne down by the returning flood. Cortés and his companions
were compelled to plunge again into the lake,- though all did
not escape.
Alvarado stood on the brink for a moment, hesitat-
ing what to do. Unhorsed as he was, to throw himself into the
water, in the face of the hostile canoes that now swarmed around
the opening, afforded but a desperate chance of safety. He had
but a second for thought. He was a man of powerful frame, and
despair gave him unnatural energy. Setting his long lance firmly
on the wreck which strewed the bottom of the lake, he sprung
forward with all his might, and cleared the wide gap at a leap.
Aztecs and Tlascalans gazed in stupid amazement, exclaiming, as
they beheld the incredible feat, "This is truly the Tonatiuh,—
the child of the Sun! " The breadth of the opening is not given.
But it was so great that the valorous captain Diaz, who well
remembered the place, says the leap was impossible to any man.
Other contemporaries, however, do not discredit the story. It
was beyond doubt matter of popular belief at the time; it is to
this day familiarly known to every inhabitant of the capital; and
the name of the Salto de Alvarado, "Alvarado's Leap," given to
the spot, still commemorates an exploit which rivaled those of the
demigods of Grecian fable.
Cortés and his companions now rode forward to the front,
where the troops, in a loose, disorderly manner, were marching
off the fatal causeway. A few only of the enemy hung on their
rear, or annoyed them by occasional flights of arrows from the
lake. The attention of the Aztecs was diverted by the rich spoil
that strewed the battle-ground; fortunately for the Spaniards,
who, had their enemy pursued with the same ferocity with which
he had fought, would in their crippled condition have been cut
off, probably, to a man. But little molested, therefore, they were
allowed to defile through the adjacent village-or suburbs, it
might be called-of Popotla.
## p. 11779 (#409) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11779
The Spanish commander there dismounted from his jaded
steed; and sitting down on the steps of an Indian temple, gazed
mournfully on the broken files as they passed before him. What
a spectacle did they present! The cavalry, most of them dis-
mounted, were mingled with the infantry, who dragged their
feeble limbs along with difficulty; their shattered mail and tat-
tered garments dripping with the salt ooze, showing through
their rents many a bruise and ghastly wound; their bright arms
soiled, their proud crests and banners gone, the baggage, artil-
lery,- all, in short, that constitutes the pride and panoply of glori-
ous war,- forever lost. Cortés, as he looked wistfully on their
thin and disordered ranks, sought in vain for many a familiar
face, and missed more than one dear companion who had stood
side by side with him through all the perils of the conquest.
Though accustomed to control his emotions, or at least to con-
ceal them, the sight was too much for him. He covered his face
with his hands, and the tears which trickled down revealed too
plainly the anguish of his soul.
THE SPANISH ARABS
From Ferdinand and Isabella'
NOT
TWITHSTANDING the high advances made by the Arabians in
almost every branch of learning, and the liberal import of
certain sayings ascribed to Mahomet, the spirit of his reli-
gion was eminently unfavorable to letters. The Koran, whatever
be the merit of its literary execution, does not, we believe, contain
a single precept in favor of general science. Indeed, during the
first century after its promulgation, almost as little attention.
was bestowed upon this by the Saracens as in their "days of
ignorance," as the period is stigmatized which preceded the
advent of their apostle. But after the nation had reposed from
its tumultuous military career, the taste for elegant pleasures,
which naturally results from opulence and leisure, began to flow
in upon it. It entered upon this new field with all its charac-
teristic enthusiasm, and seemed ambitious of attaining the same
pre-eminence in science that it had already reached in arms.
It was at the commencement of this period of intellectual
fermentation that the last of the Omeyades, escaping into Spain,
established there the kingdom of Cordova; and imported along
## p. 11780 (#410) ##########################################
11780
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
with him the fondness for luxury and letters that had begun to
display itself in the capitals of the East. His munificent spirit
descended upon his successors; and on the breaking up of the
empire, the various capitals, Seville, Murcia, Malaga, Granada, and
others, which rose upon its ruins, became the centres of so many
intellectual systems, that continued to emit a steady lustre through
the clouds and darkness of succeeding centuries. The period of
this literary civilization reached far into the fourteenth century,
and thus, embracing an interval of six hundred years, may be said
to have exceeded in duration that of any other literature ancient
or modern.
There were several auspicious circumstances in the condition
of the Spanish Arabs which distinguished them from their Mahom-
etan brethren. The temperate climate of Spain was far more
propitious to robustness and elasticity of intellect than the sultry
regions of Arabia and Africa. Its long line of coast and conven-
ient havens opened to an enlarged commerce. Its numbers of
rival States encouraged a generous emulation, like that which
glowed in ancient Greece and modern Italy; and was infinitely
more favorable to the development of the mental powers than
the far-extended and sluggish empires of Asia. Lastly, a familiar
intercourse with the Europeans served to mitigate in the Spanish
Arabs some of the more degrading superstitions incident to their
religion, and to impart to them nobler ideas of the independence
and moral dignity of man than are to be found in the slaves of
Eastern despotism.
Under these favorable circumstances, provisions for education
were liberally multiplied; colleges, academies, and gymnasiums
springing up spontaneously, as it were, not merely in the principal
cities, but in the most obscure villages of the country. No less
than fifty of these colleges or schools could be discerned scattered
over the suburbs and populous plains of Granada. Seventy pub-
lic libraries are enumerated in Spain by a contemporary, at the
beginning of the fourteenth century. Every place of note seems
to have furnished materials for a literary history. The copious
catalogues of writers still extant in the Escurial show how extens-
ively the cultivation of science was pursued, even through its
minutest subdivisions; while a biographical notice of blind men
eminent for their scholarship in Spain proves how far the gen-
eral avidity for knowledge triumphed over the most discouraging
obstacles of nature.
## p. 11781 (#411) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11781
The Spanish Arabs emulated their countrymen of the East in
their devotion to natural and mathematical science. They pene-
trated into the remotest regions of Africa and Asia, transmitting
an exact account of their proceedings to the national academies.
They contributed to astronomical knowledge by the number and
accuracy of their observations, and by the improvement of instru-
ments and the erection of observatories, of which the noble tower
of Seville is one of the earliest examples. They furnished their
full proportion in the department of history; which, according to
an Arabian author cited by D'Herbelot, could boast of thirteen
hundred writers. The treatises on logic and metaphysics amount
to one ninth of the surviving treasures of the Escurial; and to
conclude this summary of naked details, some of their scholars
appear to have entered upon as various a field of philosophical
inquiry as would be crowded into a modern encyclopædia.
The results, it must be confessed, do not appear to have cor-
responded with this magnificent apparatus and unrivaled activity
of research. The mind of the Arabians was distinguished by
the most opposite characteristics, which sometimes indeed served.
to neutralize each other. An acute and subtile perception was
often clouded by mysticism and abstraction. They combined a
habit of classification and generalization with a marvelous fond-
ness for detail; a vivacious fancy with a patience of application
that a German of our day might envy; and while in fiction they
launched boldly into originality, indeed extravagance, they were
content in philosophy to tread servilely in the track of their
ancient masters. They derived their science from versions of
the Greek philosophers; but as their previous discipline had not
prepared them for its reception, they were oppressed rather than
stimulated by the weight of the inheritance. They possessed an
indefinite power of accumulation, but they rarely ascended to gen-
eral principles, or struck out new and important truths; at least
this is certain in regard to their metaphysical labors.
Hence Aristotle, who taught them to arrange what they had
already acquired rather than to advance to new discoveries, be-
came the god of their idolatry. They piled commentary on
commentary; and in their blind admiration of his system, may
be almost said to have been more of Peripatetics than the Sta-
girite himself. The Cordovan Averroes was the most eminent
of his Arabian commentators, and undoubtedly contributed more
than any other individual to establish the authority of Aristotle
## p. 11782 (#412) ##########################################
11782
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
over the reason of mankind for so many ages. Yet his various
illustrations have served, in the opinion of European critics, to
darken rather than dissipate the ambiguities of his original, and
have even led to the confident assertion that he was wholly un-
acquainted with the Greek language.
The Saracens gave an entirely new face to pharmacy and
chemistry. They introduced a great variety of salutary medica-
ments into Europe. The Spanish Arabs, in particular, are com-
mended by Sprengel above their brethren for their observations
on the practice of medicine. But whatever real knowledge they
possessed was corrupted by their inveterate propensity for mys-
tical and occult science. They too often exhausted both health
and fortune in fruitless researches after the elixir of life and the
philosopher's stone. Their medical prescriptions were regulated
by the aspect of the stars. Their physics were debased by magic,
their chemistry degenerated into alchemy, their astronomy into
astrology.
In the fruitful field of history their success was even more
equivocal. They seem to have been wholly destitute of the
philosophical spirit, which gives life to this kind of composition.
They were the disciples of fatalism, and the subjects of a despotic
government. Man appeared to them only in the contrasted
aspects of slave and master. What could they know of the finer
moral relations, or of the higher energies of the soul, which
are developed only under free and beneficent institutions? Even
could they have formed conceptions of these, how would the
have dared to express them? Hence their histories are too often
mere barren chronological details, or fulsome panegyrics on their
princes, unenlivened by a single spark of philosophy or criticism.
Although the Spanish Arabs are not entitled to the credit of
having wrought any important revolution in intellectual or moral
science, they are commended by a severe critic as exhibiting
in their writings "the germs of many theories which have been
reproduced as discoveries in later ages," and they silently per-
fected several of those useful arts which have had a sensible
influence on the happiness and improvement of mankind. Al-
gebra and the higher mathematics were taught in their schools,
and thence diffused over Europe. The manufacture of paper,
which, since the invention of printing, has contributed so essen-
tially to the rapid circulation of knowledge, was derived through
them. Casiri has discovered several manuscripts on cotton paper
## p. 11783 (#413) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11783
in the Escurial as early as 1009, and of linen paper of the date
of 1106; the origin of which latter fabric Tiraboschi has ascribed.
to an Italian of Trevigi, in the middle of the fourteenth century.
Lastly, the application of gunpowder to military science, which
has wrought an equally important revolution, though of a more
doubtful complexion, in the condition of society, was derived
through the same channel.
The influence of the Spanish Arabs, however, is discernible
not so much in the amount of knowledge, as in the impulse
which they communicated to
communicated to the long-dormant energies of
Europe. Their invasion was coeval with the commencement
of that night of darkness which divides the modern from the
ancient world. The soil had been impoverished by long, assidu-
ous cultivation. The Arabians came like a torrent, sweeping
down and obliterating even the landmarks of former civilization,
but bringing with it a fertilizing principle, which as the waters
receded gave new life and loveliness to the landscape. The
writings of the Saracens were translated and diffused throughout
Europe. Their schools were visited by disciples, who, roused
from their lethargy, caught somewhat of the generous enthusi
asm of their masters; and a healthful action was given to the
European intellect, which, however ill directed at first, was thus
prepared for the more judicious and successful efforts of later
times.
It is comparatively easy to determine the value of the scien-
tific labors of a people, for truth is the same in all languages;
but the laws of taste differ so widely in different nations, that
it requires a nicer discrimination to pronounce fairly upon such
works as are regulated by them. Nothing is more common than
to see the poetry of the East condemned as tumid, over-refined,
infected with meretricious ornament and conceits, and in short,
as everyway contravening the principles of good taste. Few of
the critics who thus peremptorily condemn are capable of read-
ing a line of the original. The merit of poetry, however, con-
sists so much in its literary execution, that a person, to pronounce
upon it, should be intimately acquainted with the whole import
of the idiom in which it is written. The style of poetry, indeed
of all ornamental writing, whether prose or verse, in order to
produce a proper effect, must be raised or relieved, as it were,
upon the prevailing style of social intercourse. Even where this
is highly figurative and impassioned, as with the Arabians, whose
## p. 11784 (#414) ##########################################
11784
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
ordinary language is made up of metaphor, that of the poet must
be still more so. Hence the tone of elegant literature varies so
widely in different countries, even in those of Europe, which
approach the nearest to each other in their principles of taste,—
that it would be found extremely difficult to effect a close trans-
lation of the most admired specimens of eloquence from the
language of one nation into that of any other. A page of Boc-
caccio or Bembo, for instance, done into literal English, would
have an air of intolerable artifice and verbiage. The choicest
morsels of Massillon, Bossuet, or the rhetorical Thomas, would
savor marvelously of bombast; and how could we in degree
keep pace with the magnificent march of the Castilian! Yet
surely we are not to impugn the taste of all these nations, who
attach much more importance, and have paid (at least this is
true of the French and Italian) much greater attention to the
mere beauties of literary finish than English writers.
Whatever may be the sins of the Arabians on this head, they
are certainly not those of negligence. The Spanish Arabs, in
particular, were noted for the purity and elegance of their idiom;
insomuch that Casiri affects to determine the locality of an
author by the superior refinement of his style. Their copious
philological and rhetorical treatises, their arts of poetry, gram-
mars, and rhyming dictionaries, show to what
an excessive
refinement they elaborated the art of composition. Academies,
far more numerous than those of Italy, to which they subse-
quently served for a model, invited by their premiums frequent
competitions in poetry and eloquence. To poetry, indeed, espe-
cially of the tender kind, the Spanish Arabs seem to have been
as indiscriminately addicted as the Italians in the time of
Petrarch; and there was scarcely a doctor in Church or State but
at some time or other offered up his amorous incense on the
altar of the Muse.
-
With all this poetic feeling, however, the Arabs never availed
themselves of the treasures of Grecian eloquence which lay open
before them. Not a poet or orator of any eminence in that lan-
guage seems to have been translated by them. The temperate
tone of Attic composition appeared tame to the fervid conceptions
of the East. Neither did they venture upon what in Europe are
considered the higher walks of the art, the drama, and the epic.
None of their writers in prose or verse show much attention
to the development or dissection of character. Their inspiration
## p. 11785 (#415) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11785
exhaled in lyrical effusions, in elegies, epigrams, and idyls. They
sometimes, moreover, like the Italians, employed verse as the
vehicle of instruction in the grave and recondite sciences. The
general character of their poetry is bold, florid, impassioned,
richly colored with imagery, sparkling with conceits and meta-
phors, and occasionally breathing a deep tone of moral sensibility,
as in some of the plaintive effusions ascribed by Condé to the
royal poets of Cordova. The compositions of the golden age of
the Abassides, and of the preceding period, do not seem to have
been infected with the taint of exaggeration, so offensive to a
European, which distinguishes the later productions in the decay
of the empire.
In
Whatever be thought of the influence of the Arabic on Euro-
pean literature in general, there can be no reasonable doubt that
it has been considerable on the Provençal and the Castilian.
the latter especially, so far from being confined to the vocabu-
lary, or to external forms of composition, it seems to have pen-
etrated deep into its spirit, and is plainly discernible in that
affectation of stateliness and Oriental hyperbole which charac-
terizes Spanish writers even at the present day; in the subtilties
and conceits with which the ancient Castilian verse is so liberally
bespangled; and in the relish for proverbs and prudential maxims,
which is so general that it may be considered national.
A decided effect has been produced on the romantic literature
of Europe by those tales of fairy enchantment so characteristic
of Oriental genius, and in which it seems to have reveled with
uncontrolled delight. These tales, which furnished the principal
diversion of the East, were imported by the Saracens into Spain;
and we find the monarchs of Cordova solacing their leisure hours
with listening to their rawis, or novelists, who sang to them
"Of ladye-love and war, romance, and knightly worth. »
The same spirit, penetrating into France, stimulated the more
sluggish inventions of the trouvère; and at a later and more pol-
ished period called forth the imperishable creations of the Italian
Muse.
It is unfortunate for the Arabians, that their literature should
be locked up in a character and idiom so difficult of access to
European scholars. Their wild, imaginative poetry, scarcely capa-
ble of transfusion into a foreign tongue, is made known to us
only through the medium of bald prose translation; while their
scientific treatises have been done into Latin with an inaccuracy
## p. 11786 (#416) ##########################################
11786
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
which, to make use of a pun of Casiri's, merits the name of per-
versions rather than versions of the originals. How obviously
inadequate, then, are our means of forming any just estimate
of their merits! It is unfortunate for them, moreover, that the
Turks, the only nation which, from an identity of religion and
government with the Arabs, as well as from its political conse-
quence, would seem to represent them on the theatre of modern
Europe, should be a race so degraded; one which, during the
five centuries that it has been in possession of the finest climate
and monuments of antiquity, has so seldom been quickened into
a display of genius, or added so little of positive value to the
literary treasures descended from its ancient masters. Yet this
people, so sensual and sluggish, we are apt to confound in imagi-
nation with the sprightly, intellectual Arab. Both indeed have
been subjected to the influence of the same degrading political
and religious institutions, which on the Turks have produced the
results naturally to have been expected; while the Arabians, on
the other hand, exhibit the extraordinary phenomenon of a nation,
under all these embarrassments, rising to a high degree of ele-
gance and intellectual culture.
The empire which once embraced more than half of the
ancient world has now shrunk within its original limits; and the
Bedouin wanders over his native desert as free, and almost as
uncivilized, as before the coming of his apostle. The language
which was once spoken along the southern shores of the Mediter-
ranean, and the whole extent of the Indian Ocean, is broken up
into a variety of discordant dialects. Darkness has again settled
over those regions of Africa which were illumined by the light
of learning. The elegant dialect of the Koran is studied as a
dead language, even in the birthplace of the prophet. Not a
printing-press at this day is to be found throughout the whole
Arabian peninsula.
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## p. 11766 (#396) ##########################################
4. PRESCOTT
WA
vira
1
## p. 11767 (#397) ##########################################
11767
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
(1796-1859)
BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE
RESCOTT had been at work on his 'Ferdinand and Isabella'
about four years when he adopted the plan that distin-
Anguishes all his histories. To this he was led by his confi-
dence in Mably, author of 'Étude de l'Histoire,' of whom he made
this record: "I like particularly his notion of the necessity of giv
ing an interest as well as utility to history, by letting events tend
to some obvious point or moral; in short, by paying such attention
to the development of events tending to this leading result as one
would in the construction of a romance or a drama. » All the world
knows the success of the plan: Prescott is read as freely as the great
novelists and dramatists. A critical, rather than a creative, age has
charged him with being more interesting than accurate. This is
the old charge against Herodotus, and against Thucydides; it is the
charge made against Prescott's great English contemporary, Macaulay.
What critic of either of these has won an equal place in literature?
It would be gratifying, though difficult, to explain why an interest-
ing history provokes suspicion. Each generation revises the record.
Learned specialists who venture to become critics, condemn an entire
work because of a fault in relating an episode. The story of Philip
the Second has been retold by one whose genius Prescott recognized
and encouraged, just as his own had been recognized and encouraged
by Washington Irving. The Spanish-American story has been retold
by Sir Arthur Helps, by Markham, and by John Fiske.
A history is variously judged. One reader estimates it by its
authorities; another by its style. Of literary virtues, style is the
first to be cultivated and the last to be formed.
"With regard to the style of this work," wrote Prescott of his 'Ferdinand
and Isabella,' seven years after its completion, "I will only remark that most
of the defects, such as they are, may be comprehended in the words trop
soigné. At least they may be traced to this source. The only rule is, to
write with freedom and nature, even with homeliness of expression occasion-
ally, and with alternation of long and short sentences; for such variety is essen-
tial to harmony. But after all, it is not the construction of the sentence, but
## p. 11768 (#398) ##########################################
11768
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
the tone of the coloring, which produces the effect. If the sentiment is warm,
lively, forcible, the reader will be carried along without much heed to the
arrangement of the periods, which differs exceedingly in different standard
writers. Put life into the narrative, if you would have it take. Elaborate
and artificial fastidiousness in the form of expression is highly detrimental
to this. A book may be made up of perfect sentences and yet the general
impression be very imperfect. In fine, be engrossed with the thought and not
with the fashion of expressing it. "
His plan and his style harmonize, and are principal causes of the
popularity of his books. There is another cause: the fortunes of the
men and women whose lives are depicted on his pages become of
personal interest to the reader. Emerson would call this making
history subjective,-"doing away with this wild, savage, and prepos-
terous Then or There, and introducing in its place the Here and the
Now;" banishing the not-me and supplying the me. All this Prescott
has done. Children are lost in his 'Mexico' and 'Peru' even more
quickly than in Shakespeare or Scott. The dramatist is suddenly
philosophical; the novelist now and then technical: but the historian
takes them straight on from embarkation through shipwreck, battle,
siege, conquest, and retreat, and all as real as the sights in the street.
Here is a miracle like that Bunyan wrought, and even a greater; for
it is the rare miracle of reality. Few are the historians who let us
forget that their page is a paraphrase; their story, second-hand; their
battles, sieges, and fortunes, only words.
Prescott's life, like his books, was a development of events tending
to a leading result. Yet this result was due to an accident while at
Harvard, a junior in his seventeenth year. A piece of bread thought-
lessly thrown at random by a fellow student instantly destroyed the
sight of one eye. The other speedily became affected, and he was
never again able to use it, except at rare intervals and for a short
time. Till the day of his death, forty-seven years after the accident,
he suffered almost constantly. His life, without warning, became a
strict construction of the law of compensation. He belonged to a dis-
tinguished family. His grandfather was that Captain Prescott who
commanded at Bunker Hill. His father was an eminent lawyer,
among whose closer friends were John Quincy Adams and Daniel
Webster. His mother, from whom he inherited a large share of his
hopeful temperament and generous affection, was a woman possessed
of the qualities of Abigail Adams. He had wealth; he had rare
physical beauty. The mental man was complete. He lacked only
that which he had lost by accident. He completed his college course;
spent some time in search of relief in Europe, and returned to Salem,
his home and his native place. At twenty-four he married; at twenty-
six he decided on a literary life. Other men had eyes. Could he
## p. 11769 (#399) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11769
not accomplish, though slowly, as much as others less persevering?
From the day of his decision his life followed a programme. It
was method. His will made real what his wealth, his powers, made
possible. But all followed resolutions, many of which a strong love
of ease made almost useless. First he must prepare for work, then
choose. He began a critical, exhaustive study of the English lan-
guage and literature. Like studies of the French, the Italian, the
Spanish, followed. He employed capable readers; and at twenty-
eight, with many misgivings respecting his own powers, planned a
history of Ferdinand and Isabella. Ten years of labor followed, and
the three volumes were published at Christmas, 1837. They were
printed at the Cambridge press at his own expense, a method he
adhered to for all his books.
He was long in doubt whether to publish the history. His father's
judgment decided his own. Bentley brought it out in England after
it had been declined by two publishers. Its reception was an event
in English literature, and time has not yet set aside the original ver-
dict. He had found his work: Spain, new and old, at the height of
its power. In 1839 he began reading for his Conquest of Mexico. '
Four years later it was published. It had an unparalleled reception.
Five thousand copies were sold in America in four months. This
was only the beginning of a popularity which has been renewed by
successive generations of readers. No history more perfectly illus-
trates the harmony of subject and style.
Early in 1844 he "broke ground," as he says, on Peru. In twelve
months its Conquest' was written. It was nearly two years in press,
and issued in 1847. Though most quickly done of his works, it sus-
tained his reputation. Editions in French, German, Dutch, and Span-
ish, almost immediately appeared. No American book had before
been so received. The Conquest of Peru' closed his contribution to
American history. He was in his fifty-first year, and the most famed
American scholar. The mantle of Irving had fallen upon him. His
friendships were world-wide, and among the great scholars of the
Age. Through these he was largely enabled to collect his vast mass
of material. As Sismondi wrote him, he had attained rich sources
interdicted to European scholars. No other man, certainly no other
historian of his day, possessed and used such resources. His library
contained the best from the archives of Europe, usually in copy;
often the original. In the summer of 1849 he began reading for his
history of Philip the Second. Frequent and afflicting interruptions,
that would have vanquished a less resolute mind, beset him. Age
was creeping on. Domestic sorrow bowed his spirit. In 1850, after
many urgent requests, he visited England. His reception remained
unique in the annals of society for thirty years. The England he
knew was like that England that received James Russell Lowell in
## p. 11770 (#400) ##########################################
11770
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
after years.
The first volume of 'Philip' was completed in 1852; the
second in 1854, when the two were published; and the third in 1858.
A fourth was begun, but was carried no further than brief notes at
the time of his sudden death at sixty-three.
Prescott never visited the scenes of his histories. For over forty
years- -his literary life - he divided his time between his three
homes, all near his birthplace: the summer at Nahant; the autumn
at Pepperell; the winter and spring in Boston,- for some years at
the house on Bedford Street, but after 1845 at the Beacon Street
home. Here was his great library, and here he died. His infirmity
forbade travel. With his mind's eye he saw Mexico, Peru, and other
regions in the vast Spanish empire, -all from the vantage-ground of
his own library. Of his fidelity to his authorities no doubt has ever
been hinted. He believed in foot-notes, and he spread his vouchers
before the world. In later years some critics have doubted the value
of his authorities, especially for the 'Mexico' and the 'Peru. ' If they
erred he erred. If they, for their own purposes, read European civil-
ization into the institutions of the Aztecs, Prescott had no means of
correcting their vision. He faithfully followed the canons of history,
and trusted the evidence brought forward by the actors themselves.
What he saw in their records, - duly corrected one by the other,-
was that panorama of the New World which was spread before the
eyes of Europe by its conquerors, and which the Old World believed,
and still believes, true. No historian is responsible for not using
undiscovered evidence. Prescott wrote from the archives of Europe,
just as others have written before and after him, confident of the
accuracy of their evidence. If he moved his Aztec world on too
high a plane of civilization, he moved it by authority. Since his
death, the world has turned traveler; men of critical skill have ex-
plored Mexico and Peru, and each has produced his pamphlet. A
mass of ethnological and archæological knowledge has been collected,
much of which corrects the angle of Spanish vision of the sixteenth
century. But all this is from the American side. Prescott wrote
his 'Mexico' and 'Peru' from the European side-of the time of Isa-
bella, Charles, and Philip. If one cares to know how the Old World
first understood the New, he will read Prescott. If he wishes to know
how the New World of to-day interprets that New World of four
centuries ago, he will read Markham and Fiske. Prescott's beautiful
character is reflected in his style, and in his fidelity to his authori-
ties. Archæology and ethnology may correct some of his descrip-
tions; but as literature, his four histories will undoubtedly be read
with pleasure as long as the English remains a living language.
Francis Hurton Thorpe
## p. 11771 (#401) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11771
"THE MELANCHOLY NIGHT»
From the Conquest of Mexico'
(
THER
HERE was no longer any question as to the expediency of
evacuating the capital. The only doubt was as to the time.
of doing so, and the route. The Spanish commander called
a council of officers to deliberate on these matters. It was his
purpose to retreat on Tlascala, and in that capital to decide,
according to circumstances, on his future operations. After some.
discussion, they agreed on the causeway of Tlacopan as the ave-
nue by which to leave the city. It would indeed take them back
by a circuitous route, considerably longer than either of those by
which they had approached the capital. But for that reason it
would be less likely to be guarded, as least suspected; and the
causeway itself, being shorter than either of the other entrances,
would sooner place the army in comparative security on the main.
land.
There was some difference of opinion in respect to the hour
of departure. The daytime, it was argued by some, would be
preferable, since it would enable them to see the nature and
extent of their danger, and to provide against it. Darkness
would be much more likely to embarrass their own movements
than those of the enemy, who were familiar with the ground. A
thousand impediments would occur in the night, which might
prevent their acting in concert, or obeying, or even ascertaining,
the orders of the commander. But on the other hand, it was
urged that the night presented many obvious advantages in deal-
ing with a foe who rarely carried his hostilities beyond the day.
The late active operations of the Spaniards had thrown the Mex-
icans off their guard, and it was improbable they would anticipate
so speedy a departure of their enemies. With celerity and cau-
tion they might succeed, therefore, in making their escape from
the town, possibly over the causeway, before their retreat should
be discovered; and could they once get beyond that pass of peril,
they felt little apprehension for the rest.
These views were fortified, it is said, by the counsels of a
soldier named Botello, who professed the mysterious science of
judicial astrology. He had gained credit with the army by some
predictions which had been verified by the events,—those lucky
hits which make chance pass for calculation with the credulous
## p. 11772 (#402) ##########################################
11772
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
multitude. This man recommended to his countrymen by all
means to evacuate the place in the night, as the hour most pro-
pitious to them, although he should perish in it. The event
proved the astrologer better acquainted with his own horoscope
than with that of others. It is possible Botello's predictions had
some weight in determining the opinion of Cortés. Supersti-
tion was the feature of the age; and the Spanish general, as we
have seen, had a full measure of its bigotry. Seasons of gloom,
moreover, dispose the mind to a ready acquiescence in the marvel-
ous. It is, however, quite as probable that he made use of the
astrologer's opinion, finding it coincided with his own, to influ-
ence that of his men, and inspire them with higher confidence.
At all events, it was decided to abandon the city that very night.
The general's first care was to provide for the safe transport-
ation of the treasure. Many of the common soldiers had con-
verted their share of the prize, as we have seen, into gold chains,
collars, or other ornaments, which they easily carried about their
persons. But the royal fifth, together with that of Cortés him-
self, and much of the rich booty of the principal cavaliers, had
been converted into bars and wedges of solid gold, and deposited
in one of the strong apartments of the palace. Cortés delivered
the share belonging to the Crown to the royal officers; assigning
them one of the strongest horses, and a guard of Castilian sol-
diers, to transport it. Still, much of the treasure, belonging both
to the Crown and to individuals, was necessarily abandoned, from
the want of adequate means of conveyance. The metal lay scat-
tered in shining heaps along the floor, exciting the cupidity of
the soldiers. "Take what you will of it," said Cortés to his
men. "Better you should have it than these Mexican hounds.
But be careful not to overload yourselves. He travels safest in
the dark night who travels lightest. " His own more wary fol-
lowers took heed to his counsel,- helping themselves to a few
articles of least bulk, though it might be of greatest value. But
the troops of Narvaez, pining for riches of which they had heard
so much and hitherto seen so little, showed no such discretion.
To them it seemed as if the very mines of Mexico were turned
up before them; and rushing on the treacherous spoil, they
greedily loaded themselves with as much of it, not merely as
they could accommodate about their persons, but as they could
stow away in wallets, boxes, or any other means of conveyance
at their disposal.
## p. 11773 (#403) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11773
Cortés next arranged the order of march. The van, composed
of two hundred Spanish foot, he placed under the command of
the valiant Gonzalo de Sandoval, supported by Diego de Ordaz,
Francisco de Lujo, and about twenty other cavaliers. The rear-
guard, constituting the strength of the infantry, was intrusted
to Pedro de Alvarado and Velasquez de Leon. The general him-
self took charge of the "battle," or centre, in which went the
baggage, some of the heavy guns,-most of which, however,
remained in the rear, the treasure, and the prisoners. These
consisted of a son and two daughters of Montezuma, Cacama the
deposed lord of Tezcuco, and several other nobles, whom Cortés
retained as important pledges in his future negotiations with the
The Tlascalans were distributed pretty equally among
enemy.
the three divisions; and Cortés had under his immediate com-
mand a hundred picked soldiers, his own veterans most attached
to his service, who, with Cristóval de Olid, Francisco de Morla,
Alonso de Avila, and two or three other cavaliers, formed a
select corps, to act wherever occasion might require.
The general had already superintended the construction of a
portable bridge to be laid over the open canals in the causeway.
This was given in charge to an officer named Magarino, with
forty soldiers under his orders, all pledged to defend the passage
to the last extremity. The bridge was to be taken up when the
entire army had crossed one of the breaches, and transported to
the next. There were three of these openings in the causeway,
and most fortunate would it have been for the expedition if the
foresight of the commander had provided the same number of
bridges. But the labor would have been great, and time was
short.
―――――――
At midnight the troops were under arms, in readiness for
the march. Mass was performed by Father Olmedo, who invoked
the protection of the Almighty through the awful perils of the
night. The gates were thrown open; and on the first of July,
1520, the Spaniards for the last time sallied forth from the walls
of the ancient fortress, the scene of so much suffering and such
indomitable courage.
The night was cloudy; and a drizzling rain, which fell without
intermission, added to the obscurity. The great square before
the palace was deserted, as indeed it had been since the fall of
Montezuma. Steadily, and as noiselessly as possible, the Span-
iards held their way along the great street of Tlacopan, which so
## p. 11774 (#404) ##########################################
11774
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
lately had resounded with the tumult of battle. All was now
hushed in silence; and they were only reminded of the past by
the occasional presence of some solitary corpse, or a dark heap
of the slain, which too plainly told where the strife had been hot-
test. As they passed along the lanes and alleys which opened
into the great street, or looked down the canals, whose polished
surface gleamed with a sort of ebon lustre through the obscur-
ity of night, they easily fancied that they discerned the shadowy
forms of their foe lurking in ambush and ready to spring on
them.
But it was only fancy; and the city slept undisturbed
even by the prolonged echoes of the tramp of the horses and the
hoarse rumbling of the artillery and baggage trains. At length a
lighter space beyond the dusky line of buildings showed the van
of the army that it was emerging on the open causeway. They
might well have congratulated themselves on having thus escaped
the dangers of an assault in the city itself, and that a brief time
would place them in comparative safety on the opposite shore.
But the Mexicans were not all asleep.
As the Spaniards drew near the spot where the street opened
on the causeway, and were preparing to lay the portable bridge
across the uncovered breach which now met their eyes, several
Indian sentinels who had been stationed at this, as at the other
approaches to the city, took the alarm and fled, rousing their
countrymen by their cries. The priests, keeping their night-
watch on the summit of the teocallis, instantly caught the tidings
and sounded their shells, while the huge drum in the desolate
temple of the war-god sent forth those solemn tones, which,
heard only in seasons of calamity, vibrated through every corner
of the capital. The Spaniards saw that no time was to be lost.
The bridge was brought forward and fitted with all possible ex-
pedition. Sandoval was the first to try its strength; and riding
across, was followed by his little body of chivalry,—his infantry
and Tlascalan allies, who formed the first division of the army.
Then came Cortés and his squadrons, with the baggage, ammu-
nition wagons, and a part of the artillery. But before they had
time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound
was heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds.
It grew louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the
lake was heard a plashing noise, as of many oars. Then came
a few stones and arrows striking at random among the hurry-
ing troops. They fell every moment faster and more furious,
## p. 11775 (#405) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11775
till they thickened into a terrible tempest; while the very heav-
ens were rent with the yells and war-cries of myriads of com-
batants, who seemed all at once to be swarming over land and
lake!
The Spaniards pushed steadily on through this arrowy sleet;
though the barbarians, dashing their canoes against the sides of
the causeway, clambered up and broke in upon their ranks. But
the Christians, anxious only to make their escape, declined all
combat except for self-preservation. The cavaliers, spurring for-
ward their steeds, shook off their assailants and rode over their
prostrate bodies; while the men on foot, with their good swords
or the butts of their pieces, drove them headlong again down the
sides of the dike.
But the advance of several thousand men, marching probably
on a front of not more than fifteen or twenty abreast, necessarily
required much time; and the leading files had already reached
the second breach in the causeway before those in the rear had
entirely traversed the first. Here they halted, as they had no
means of effecting a passage; smarting all the while under un-
intermitting volleys from the enemy, who were clustered thick
on the waters around this second opening. Sorely distressed, the
vanguard sent repeated messages to the rear to demand the
portable bridge. At length the last of the army had crossed;
and Margarino and his sturdy followers endeavored to raise the
ponderous framework. But it stuck fast in the sides of the dike.
In vain they strained every nerve. The weight of so many men
and horses, and above all of the heavy artillery, had wedged the
timbers so firmly in the stones and earth that it was beyond
their power to dislodge them. Still they labored amidst a tor-
rent of missiles, until, many of them slain, and all wounded,
they were obliged to abandon the attempt.
The tidings soon spread from man to man; and no sooner
was their dreadful import comprehended than a cry of despair
arose, which for a moment drowned all the noise of conflict. All
means of retreat were cut off. Scarcely hope was left. The
only hope was in such desperate exertions as each could make
for himself. Order and subordination were at an end. Intense
danger produced intense selfishness. Each thought only of his
own life. Pressing forward, he trampled down the weak and the
wounded, heedless whether it were friend or foe. The leading
files, urged on by the rear, were crowded on the brink of the
## p. 11776 (#406) ##########################################
11776
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
gulf. Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other cavaliers dashed into the
water. Some succeeded in swimming their horses across; oth-
ers failed; and some who reached the opposite bank, being over-
turned in the ascent, rolled headlong with their steeds into the
lake. The infantry followed pell-mell, heaped promiscuously on
one another, frequently pierced by the shafts or struck down by
the war-clubs of the Aztecs; while many an unfortunate victim
was dragged half stunned on board their canoes, to be reserved
for a protracted but more dreadful death.
The carnage raged fearfully along the length of the cause-
way. Its shadowy bulk presented a mark of sufficient distinct-
ness for the enemy's missiles, which often prostrated their own.
countrymen in the blind fury of the tempest. Those nearest the
dike, running their canoes alongside with a force that shattered
them to pieces, leaped on the land, and grappled with the Christ-
ians until both came rolling down the side of the causeway
together. But the Aztec fell among his friends, while his antag-
onist was borne away in triumph to the sacrifice. The struggle
was long and deadly. The Mexicans were recognized by their
white cotton tunics, which showed faint through the darkness.
Above the combatants rose a wild and discordant clamor, in
which horrid shouts of vengeance were mingled with groans of
agony, with invocations of the saints and the blessed Virgin, and
with the screams of women; for there were several women, both
natives and Spaniards, who had accompanied the Christian camp.
Among these, one named Maria de Estrada is particularly noticed
for the courage she displayed, battling with broadsword and tar-
get like the stanchest of the warriors.
The opening in the causeway, meanwhile, was filled up with
the wreck of matter which had been forced into it,- ammunition
wagons, heavy guns, bales of rich stuffs scattered over the waters,
chests of solid ingots, and bodies of men and horses,-till over
this dismal ruin a passage was gradually formed, by which those
in the rear were enabled to clamber to the other side. Cortés, it
is said, found a place that was fordable; where, halting, with the
water up to his saddle-girths, he endeavored to check the con-
fusion, and lead his followers by a safer path to the opposite
bank. But his voice was lost in the wild uproar; and finally,
hurrying on with the tide, he pressed forwards with a few trusty
cavaliers who remained near his person, to the van; but not be-
fore he had seen his favorite page, Juan de Salazar, struck down
## p. 11777 (#407) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11777
a corpse by his side. Here he found Sandoval and his com-
panions, halting before the third and last breach, endeavoring to
cheer on their followers to surmount it. But their resolution fal-
tered. It was wide and deep; though the passage was not so
closely beset by the enemy as the preceding ones. The cavaliers
again set the example by plunging into the water. Horse and
foot followed as they could, some swimming, others with dying
grasp clinging to the manes and tails of the struggling animals.
Those fared best, as the general had predicted, who traveled
lightest; and many were the unfortunate wretches who, weighed
down by the fatal gold which they loved so well, were buried
with it in the salt floods of the lake. Cortés, with his gallant
comrades Olid, Morla, Sandoval, and some few others, still kept
in the advance, leading his broken remnant off the fatal cause-
way. The din of battle lessened in the distance; when the
rumor reached them that the rear-guard would be wholly over-
whelmed without speedy relief. It seemed almost an act of
desperation; but the generous hearts of the Spanish cavaliers did
not stop to calculate danger when the cry for succor reached
them. Turning their horses' bridles, they galloped back to the
theatre of action, worked their way through the press, swam
the canal, and placed themselves in the thick of the mêlée on the
opposite bank.
waters.
The first gray of the morning was now coming over the
It showed the hideous confusion of the scene which had
been shrouded in the obscurity of night. The dark masses of
combatants, stretching along the dike, were seen struggling for
mastery, until the very causeway on which they stood appeared
to tremble, and reel to and fro, as if shaken by an earthquake;
while the bosom of the lake, as far as the eye could reach, was
darkened by canoes crowded with warriors, whose spears and
bludgeons, armed with blades of "volcanic glass," gleamed in the
morning light.
The cavaliers found Alvarado unhorsed, and defending himself
with a poor handful of followers against an overwhelming tide of
the enemy.
His good steed, which had borne him through many
a hard fight, had fallen under him. He was himself wounded
in several places, and was striving in vain to rally his scattered
column, which was driven to the verge of the canal by the fury
of the enemy, then in possession of the whole rear of the cause-
way, where they were reinforced every hour by fresh combatants
XX-737
## p. 11778 (#408) ##########################################
11778
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
from the city. The artillery in the earlier part of the engage.
ment had not been idle; and its iron shower, sweeping along the
dike, had mowed down the assailants by hundreds. But nothing
could resist their impetuosity. The front ranks, pushed on by
those behind, were at length forced up to the pieces, and pour-
ing over them like a torrent, overthrew men and guns in one
general ruin. The resolute charge of the Spanish cavaliers, who
had now arrived, created a temporary check, and gave time for
their countrymen to make a feeble rally. But they were speedily
borne down by the returning flood. Cortés and his companions
were compelled to plunge again into the lake,- though all did
not escape.
Alvarado stood on the brink for a moment, hesitat-
ing what to do. Unhorsed as he was, to throw himself into the
water, in the face of the hostile canoes that now swarmed around
the opening, afforded but a desperate chance of safety. He had
but a second for thought. He was a man of powerful frame, and
despair gave him unnatural energy. Setting his long lance firmly
on the wreck which strewed the bottom of the lake, he sprung
forward with all his might, and cleared the wide gap at a leap.
Aztecs and Tlascalans gazed in stupid amazement, exclaiming, as
they beheld the incredible feat, "This is truly the Tonatiuh,—
the child of the Sun! " The breadth of the opening is not given.
But it was so great that the valorous captain Diaz, who well
remembered the place, says the leap was impossible to any man.
Other contemporaries, however, do not discredit the story. It
was beyond doubt matter of popular belief at the time; it is to
this day familiarly known to every inhabitant of the capital; and
the name of the Salto de Alvarado, "Alvarado's Leap," given to
the spot, still commemorates an exploit which rivaled those of the
demigods of Grecian fable.
Cortés and his companions now rode forward to the front,
where the troops, in a loose, disorderly manner, were marching
off the fatal causeway. A few only of the enemy hung on their
rear, or annoyed them by occasional flights of arrows from the
lake. The attention of the Aztecs was diverted by the rich spoil
that strewed the battle-ground; fortunately for the Spaniards,
who, had their enemy pursued with the same ferocity with which
he had fought, would in their crippled condition have been cut
off, probably, to a man. But little molested, therefore, they were
allowed to defile through the adjacent village-or suburbs, it
might be called-of Popotla.
## p. 11779 (#409) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11779
The Spanish commander there dismounted from his jaded
steed; and sitting down on the steps of an Indian temple, gazed
mournfully on the broken files as they passed before him. What
a spectacle did they present! The cavalry, most of them dis-
mounted, were mingled with the infantry, who dragged their
feeble limbs along with difficulty; their shattered mail and tat-
tered garments dripping with the salt ooze, showing through
their rents many a bruise and ghastly wound; their bright arms
soiled, their proud crests and banners gone, the baggage, artil-
lery,- all, in short, that constitutes the pride and panoply of glori-
ous war,- forever lost. Cortés, as he looked wistfully on their
thin and disordered ranks, sought in vain for many a familiar
face, and missed more than one dear companion who had stood
side by side with him through all the perils of the conquest.
Though accustomed to control his emotions, or at least to con-
ceal them, the sight was too much for him. He covered his face
with his hands, and the tears which trickled down revealed too
plainly the anguish of his soul.
THE SPANISH ARABS
From Ferdinand and Isabella'
NOT
TWITHSTANDING the high advances made by the Arabians in
almost every branch of learning, and the liberal import of
certain sayings ascribed to Mahomet, the spirit of his reli-
gion was eminently unfavorable to letters. The Koran, whatever
be the merit of its literary execution, does not, we believe, contain
a single precept in favor of general science. Indeed, during the
first century after its promulgation, almost as little attention.
was bestowed upon this by the Saracens as in their "days of
ignorance," as the period is stigmatized which preceded the
advent of their apostle. But after the nation had reposed from
its tumultuous military career, the taste for elegant pleasures,
which naturally results from opulence and leisure, began to flow
in upon it. It entered upon this new field with all its charac-
teristic enthusiasm, and seemed ambitious of attaining the same
pre-eminence in science that it had already reached in arms.
It was at the commencement of this period of intellectual
fermentation that the last of the Omeyades, escaping into Spain,
established there the kingdom of Cordova; and imported along
## p. 11780 (#410) ##########################################
11780
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
with him the fondness for luxury and letters that had begun to
display itself in the capitals of the East. His munificent spirit
descended upon his successors; and on the breaking up of the
empire, the various capitals, Seville, Murcia, Malaga, Granada, and
others, which rose upon its ruins, became the centres of so many
intellectual systems, that continued to emit a steady lustre through
the clouds and darkness of succeeding centuries. The period of
this literary civilization reached far into the fourteenth century,
and thus, embracing an interval of six hundred years, may be said
to have exceeded in duration that of any other literature ancient
or modern.
There were several auspicious circumstances in the condition
of the Spanish Arabs which distinguished them from their Mahom-
etan brethren. The temperate climate of Spain was far more
propitious to robustness and elasticity of intellect than the sultry
regions of Arabia and Africa. Its long line of coast and conven-
ient havens opened to an enlarged commerce. Its numbers of
rival States encouraged a generous emulation, like that which
glowed in ancient Greece and modern Italy; and was infinitely
more favorable to the development of the mental powers than
the far-extended and sluggish empires of Asia. Lastly, a familiar
intercourse with the Europeans served to mitigate in the Spanish
Arabs some of the more degrading superstitions incident to their
religion, and to impart to them nobler ideas of the independence
and moral dignity of man than are to be found in the slaves of
Eastern despotism.
Under these favorable circumstances, provisions for education
were liberally multiplied; colleges, academies, and gymnasiums
springing up spontaneously, as it were, not merely in the principal
cities, but in the most obscure villages of the country. No less
than fifty of these colleges or schools could be discerned scattered
over the suburbs and populous plains of Granada. Seventy pub-
lic libraries are enumerated in Spain by a contemporary, at the
beginning of the fourteenth century. Every place of note seems
to have furnished materials for a literary history. The copious
catalogues of writers still extant in the Escurial show how extens-
ively the cultivation of science was pursued, even through its
minutest subdivisions; while a biographical notice of blind men
eminent for their scholarship in Spain proves how far the gen-
eral avidity for knowledge triumphed over the most discouraging
obstacles of nature.
## p. 11781 (#411) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11781
The Spanish Arabs emulated their countrymen of the East in
their devotion to natural and mathematical science. They pene-
trated into the remotest regions of Africa and Asia, transmitting
an exact account of their proceedings to the national academies.
They contributed to astronomical knowledge by the number and
accuracy of their observations, and by the improvement of instru-
ments and the erection of observatories, of which the noble tower
of Seville is one of the earliest examples. They furnished their
full proportion in the department of history; which, according to
an Arabian author cited by D'Herbelot, could boast of thirteen
hundred writers. The treatises on logic and metaphysics amount
to one ninth of the surviving treasures of the Escurial; and to
conclude this summary of naked details, some of their scholars
appear to have entered upon as various a field of philosophical
inquiry as would be crowded into a modern encyclopædia.
The results, it must be confessed, do not appear to have cor-
responded with this magnificent apparatus and unrivaled activity
of research. The mind of the Arabians was distinguished by
the most opposite characteristics, which sometimes indeed served.
to neutralize each other. An acute and subtile perception was
often clouded by mysticism and abstraction. They combined a
habit of classification and generalization with a marvelous fond-
ness for detail; a vivacious fancy with a patience of application
that a German of our day might envy; and while in fiction they
launched boldly into originality, indeed extravagance, they were
content in philosophy to tread servilely in the track of their
ancient masters. They derived their science from versions of
the Greek philosophers; but as their previous discipline had not
prepared them for its reception, they were oppressed rather than
stimulated by the weight of the inheritance. They possessed an
indefinite power of accumulation, but they rarely ascended to gen-
eral principles, or struck out new and important truths; at least
this is certain in regard to their metaphysical labors.
Hence Aristotle, who taught them to arrange what they had
already acquired rather than to advance to new discoveries, be-
came the god of their idolatry. They piled commentary on
commentary; and in their blind admiration of his system, may
be almost said to have been more of Peripatetics than the Sta-
girite himself. The Cordovan Averroes was the most eminent
of his Arabian commentators, and undoubtedly contributed more
than any other individual to establish the authority of Aristotle
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11782
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
over the reason of mankind for so many ages. Yet his various
illustrations have served, in the opinion of European critics, to
darken rather than dissipate the ambiguities of his original, and
have even led to the confident assertion that he was wholly un-
acquainted with the Greek language.
The Saracens gave an entirely new face to pharmacy and
chemistry. They introduced a great variety of salutary medica-
ments into Europe. The Spanish Arabs, in particular, are com-
mended by Sprengel above their brethren for their observations
on the practice of medicine. But whatever real knowledge they
possessed was corrupted by their inveterate propensity for mys-
tical and occult science. They too often exhausted both health
and fortune in fruitless researches after the elixir of life and the
philosopher's stone. Their medical prescriptions were regulated
by the aspect of the stars. Their physics were debased by magic,
their chemistry degenerated into alchemy, their astronomy into
astrology.
In the fruitful field of history their success was even more
equivocal. They seem to have been wholly destitute of the
philosophical spirit, which gives life to this kind of composition.
They were the disciples of fatalism, and the subjects of a despotic
government. Man appeared to them only in the contrasted
aspects of slave and master. What could they know of the finer
moral relations, or of the higher energies of the soul, which
are developed only under free and beneficent institutions? Even
could they have formed conceptions of these, how would the
have dared to express them? Hence their histories are too often
mere barren chronological details, or fulsome panegyrics on their
princes, unenlivened by a single spark of philosophy or criticism.
Although the Spanish Arabs are not entitled to the credit of
having wrought any important revolution in intellectual or moral
science, they are commended by a severe critic as exhibiting
in their writings "the germs of many theories which have been
reproduced as discoveries in later ages," and they silently per-
fected several of those useful arts which have had a sensible
influence on the happiness and improvement of mankind. Al-
gebra and the higher mathematics were taught in their schools,
and thence diffused over Europe. The manufacture of paper,
which, since the invention of printing, has contributed so essen-
tially to the rapid circulation of knowledge, was derived through
them. Casiri has discovered several manuscripts on cotton paper
## p. 11783 (#413) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11783
in the Escurial as early as 1009, and of linen paper of the date
of 1106; the origin of which latter fabric Tiraboschi has ascribed.
to an Italian of Trevigi, in the middle of the fourteenth century.
Lastly, the application of gunpowder to military science, which
has wrought an equally important revolution, though of a more
doubtful complexion, in the condition of society, was derived
through the same channel.
The influence of the Spanish Arabs, however, is discernible
not so much in the amount of knowledge, as in the impulse
which they communicated to
communicated to the long-dormant energies of
Europe. Their invasion was coeval with the commencement
of that night of darkness which divides the modern from the
ancient world. The soil had been impoverished by long, assidu-
ous cultivation. The Arabians came like a torrent, sweeping
down and obliterating even the landmarks of former civilization,
but bringing with it a fertilizing principle, which as the waters
receded gave new life and loveliness to the landscape. The
writings of the Saracens were translated and diffused throughout
Europe. Their schools were visited by disciples, who, roused
from their lethargy, caught somewhat of the generous enthusi
asm of their masters; and a healthful action was given to the
European intellect, which, however ill directed at first, was thus
prepared for the more judicious and successful efforts of later
times.
It is comparatively easy to determine the value of the scien-
tific labors of a people, for truth is the same in all languages;
but the laws of taste differ so widely in different nations, that
it requires a nicer discrimination to pronounce fairly upon such
works as are regulated by them. Nothing is more common than
to see the poetry of the East condemned as tumid, over-refined,
infected with meretricious ornament and conceits, and in short,
as everyway contravening the principles of good taste. Few of
the critics who thus peremptorily condemn are capable of read-
ing a line of the original. The merit of poetry, however, con-
sists so much in its literary execution, that a person, to pronounce
upon it, should be intimately acquainted with the whole import
of the idiom in which it is written. The style of poetry, indeed
of all ornamental writing, whether prose or verse, in order to
produce a proper effect, must be raised or relieved, as it were,
upon the prevailing style of social intercourse. Even where this
is highly figurative and impassioned, as with the Arabians, whose
## p. 11784 (#414) ##########################################
11784
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
ordinary language is made up of metaphor, that of the poet must
be still more so. Hence the tone of elegant literature varies so
widely in different countries, even in those of Europe, which
approach the nearest to each other in their principles of taste,—
that it would be found extremely difficult to effect a close trans-
lation of the most admired specimens of eloquence from the
language of one nation into that of any other. A page of Boc-
caccio or Bembo, for instance, done into literal English, would
have an air of intolerable artifice and verbiage. The choicest
morsels of Massillon, Bossuet, or the rhetorical Thomas, would
savor marvelously of bombast; and how could we in degree
keep pace with the magnificent march of the Castilian! Yet
surely we are not to impugn the taste of all these nations, who
attach much more importance, and have paid (at least this is
true of the French and Italian) much greater attention to the
mere beauties of literary finish than English writers.
Whatever may be the sins of the Arabians on this head, they
are certainly not those of negligence. The Spanish Arabs, in
particular, were noted for the purity and elegance of their idiom;
insomuch that Casiri affects to determine the locality of an
author by the superior refinement of his style. Their copious
philological and rhetorical treatises, their arts of poetry, gram-
mars, and rhyming dictionaries, show to what
an excessive
refinement they elaborated the art of composition. Academies,
far more numerous than those of Italy, to which they subse-
quently served for a model, invited by their premiums frequent
competitions in poetry and eloquence. To poetry, indeed, espe-
cially of the tender kind, the Spanish Arabs seem to have been
as indiscriminately addicted as the Italians in the time of
Petrarch; and there was scarcely a doctor in Church or State but
at some time or other offered up his amorous incense on the
altar of the Muse.
-
With all this poetic feeling, however, the Arabs never availed
themselves of the treasures of Grecian eloquence which lay open
before them. Not a poet or orator of any eminence in that lan-
guage seems to have been translated by them. The temperate
tone of Attic composition appeared tame to the fervid conceptions
of the East. Neither did they venture upon what in Europe are
considered the higher walks of the art, the drama, and the epic.
None of their writers in prose or verse show much attention
to the development or dissection of character. Their inspiration
## p. 11785 (#415) ##########################################
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
11785
exhaled in lyrical effusions, in elegies, epigrams, and idyls. They
sometimes, moreover, like the Italians, employed verse as the
vehicle of instruction in the grave and recondite sciences. The
general character of their poetry is bold, florid, impassioned,
richly colored with imagery, sparkling with conceits and meta-
phors, and occasionally breathing a deep tone of moral sensibility,
as in some of the plaintive effusions ascribed by Condé to the
royal poets of Cordova. The compositions of the golden age of
the Abassides, and of the preceding period, do not seem to have
been infected with the taint of exaggeration, so offensive to a
European, which distinguishes the later productions in the decay
of the empire.
In
Whatever be thought of the influence of the Arabic on Euro-
pean literature in general, there can be no reasonable doubt that
it has been considerable on the Provençal and the Castilian.
the latter especially, so far from being confined to the vocabu-
lary, or to external forms of composition, it seems to have pen-
etrated deep into its spirit, and is plainly discernible in that
affectation of stateliness and Oriental hyperbole which charac-
terizes Spanish writers even at the present day; in the subtilties
and conceits with which the ancient Castilian verse is so liberally
bespangled; and in the relish for proverbs and prudential maxims,
which is so general that it may be considered national.
A decided effect has been produced on the romantic literature
of Europe by those tales of fairy enchantment so characteristic
of Oriental genius, and in which it seems to have reveled with
uncontrolled delight. These tales, which furnished the principal
diversion of the East, were imported by the Saracens into Spain;
and we find the monarchs of Cordova solacing their leisure hours
with listening to their rawis, or novelists, who sang to them
"Of ladye-love and war, romance, and knightly worth. »
The same spirit, penetrating into France, stimulated the more
sluggish inventions of the trouvère; and at a later and more pol-
ished period called forth the imperishable creations of the Italian
Muse.
It is unfortunate for the Arabians, that their literature should
be locked up in a character and idiom so difficult of access to
European scholars. Their wild, imaginative poetry, scarcely capa-
ble of transfusion into a foreign tongue, is made known to us
only through the medium of bald prose translation; while their
scientific treatises have been done into Latin with an inaccuracy
## p. 11786 (#416) ##########################################
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WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
which, to make use of a pun of Casiri's, merits the name of per-
versions rather than versions of the originals. How obviously
inadequate, then, are our means of forming any just estimate
of their merits! It is unfortunate for them, moreover, that the
Turks, the only nation which, from an identity of religion and
government with the Arabs, as well as from its political conse-
quence, would seem to represent them on the theatre of modern
Europe, should be a race so degraded; one which, during the
five centuries that it has been in possession of the finest climate
and monuments of antiquity, has so seldom been quickened into
a display of genius, or added so little of positive value to the
literary treasures descended from its ancient masters. Yet this
people, so sensual and sluggish, we are apt to confound in imagi-
nation with the sprightly, intellectual Arab. Both indeed have
been subjected to the influence of the same degrading political
and religious institutions, which on the Turks have produced the
results naturally to have been expected; while the Arabians, on
the other hand, exhibit the extraordinary phenomenon of a nation,
under all these embarrassments, rising to a high degree of ele-
gance and intellectual culture.
The empire which once embraced more than half of the
ancient world has now shrunk within its original limits; and the
Bedouin wanders over his native desert as free, and almost as
uncivilized, as before the coming of his apostle. The language
which was once spoken along the southern shores of the Mediter-
ranean, and the whole extent of the Indian Ocean, is broken up
into a variety of discordant dialects. Darkness has again settled
over those regions of Africa which were illumined by the light
of learning. The elegant dialect of the Koran is studied as a
dead language, even in the birthplace of the prophet. Not a
printing-press at this day is to be found throughout the whole
Arabian peninsula.
