No one could be more ready and willing to recognize his own failures than
Motley. He was as honest and manly, perhaps I may say as sympathetic
with the feeling of those about him, on this occasion, as was Charles
Lamb, who, sitting with his sister in the front of the pit, on the night
when his farce was damned at its first representation, gave way to the
common feeling, and hissed and hooted lustily with the others around him.
It was what might be expected from his honest and truthful nature,
sometimes too severe in judging itself.

The commendation bestowed upon Motley's historical essays in "The North
American Review" must have gone far towards compensating him for the ill
success of his earlier venture. It pointed clearly towards the field in
which he was to gather his laurels. And it was in the year following the
publication of the first essay, or about that time (1846), that he began
collecting materials for a history of Holland. Whether to tell the story
of men that have lived and of events that have happened, or to create the
characters and invent the incidents of an imaginary tale be the higher
task, we need not stop to discuss. But the young author was just now
like the great actor in Sir Joshua's picture, between the allurements of
Thalia and Melpomene, still doubtful whether he was to be a romancer or a
historian.

The tale of which the title is given at the beginning of this section had
been written several years before the date of its publication. It is a
great advance in certain respects over the first novel, but wants the
peculiar interest which belonged to that as a partially autobiographical
memoir. The story is no longer disjointed and impossible. It is
carefully studied in regard to its main facts. It has less to remind us
of "Vivian Grey" and "Pelham," and more that recalls "Woodstock" and