merits that will bear the closest examination. They occupy a field in
which they have no compeers. They are the products of a fertile soil
and of laborious cultivation. The mere literary critic, accustomed to
dwell with even more attention on the form than on the substance of a
work, commends above all the admirable skill shown in the selection and
grouping of the incidents, the facile hand with which an obscure and
entangled theme is divested of its embarrassments, the frequent
brilliancy and picturesqueness of the narrative, the judicious mixture
of anecdote and reflection, and the harmony and clearness of the style.
These are the qualities which make Mr. Prescott's histories, with all
their solid learning and minute research, as pleasant reading as the
airiest of novels. And yet not these alone. A charm is felt in many a
sentence that has a deeper origin than in the intellect. No egotism
obtrudes itself upon our notice; but the subtile outflow of a generous
and candid spirit, of a genial and singularly healthy nature, wins for
the author a secure place in the affections of his readers.

The third volume of the "History of Philip the Second" is, we think,
superior to its predecessors. It contains, perhaps, no single scene
equal in elaborate and careful painting to the death of Count Egmont.
It has no chapter devoted to the elucidation of the darker passages in
Philip's personal history, like that which in a former volume traced to
a still doubtful end the unhappy career of Don Carlos, or such as will
doubtless, in a future volume, shed new light on that of Antonio Perez.
But there is a more continuous interest, arising from a greater unity
of subject. With the exception of the two chapters already referred to,
the narrative is taken up with the contest waged by the Spaniards
against those Moslem foes whom they hated with the hereditary hate of
centuries, the mingled hate that had grown out of diversity of
religion, an alien blood, and long arrears of vengeance. When that