4 June: Boreham on John Motley

Triumph and Tragedy
It was on June 4, 1877, that under circumstances of special poignancy, John Lothrop Motley was laid to rest at Kensal Green. To spend an hour with the works of Motley, is to become saturated in the essential spirit of medieval chivalry. He would have graced a crusade or adorned the Round Table of King Arthur. There is a knightliness about him which makes the study of his personality and of this work particularly attractive. Lithe in carriage, graceful in movement, cheerful in demeanour, and courtly in bearing, few persons passed him on the street without turning to bestow the homage of a second glance upon so striking and picturesque a figure. His magnetic spell made him the natural centre of any company.

Captivated by the epic story of Pizarro's adventures among the Incas, he determined to make himself the historian of the Spanish conquest of Peru. Having, at infinite pains, gathered his materials and embarked upon his titanic task, he chanced to discover that W. H. Prescott, ignorant of his own dreams and researches, was applying his powers to a portrayal of the self-same period. Prescott was blind, or practically so, and his infirmity appealed to Motley's magnanimity. He immediately abandoned the enterprise, leaving to his afflicted rival the clear field of which he made such excellent use. Motley did this sort of thing, not laboriously or ostentatiously, but automatically and instinctively. He was a knight by nature. The most cultured spirits of his time prized above all things his companionship and confidence.

An Honour That Led To Disaster
It is a thousand pities that Motley ever emerged into the tumult of public life. He would certainly have lived much longer had he restricted himself to the academic seclusion to which his temperament was so perfectly suited. His spirit was too sensitive for the rough and tumble of politics. But America is a law unto herself in literary matters. It has often been said that England rewards her most brilliant writers by starving them. America kills them by kindness. She makes ambassadors of them. The work of Lowell, Bret Harte, and Bancroft was sadly hampered by this doubtful policy; and, in Motley's case, it proved disastrous. Motley was shipped off to Europe on his country's service. He won renown alike by his literary and his diplomatic work, enhancing immeasurably the prestige of the land that he loved. Yet, although he had done nothing worthy of censure, he spent his last days in misery, and died under a cloud.

It is one of those confusing episodes in history that it is difficult to understand. Motley was Ambassador in London at the time, and was in every way adding lustre to the office. A rumour gained ground that his recall was contemplated. When it reached the Ambassador's ears, he scouted the idea as preposterous. When Grant was a candidate for the Presidency, Motley lent him his powerful support, and, naturally enough, he scouted the notion that he had anything to fear from White House. For some reason that has never been satisfactorily set out, however, Grant dismissed him, and did it in such a way that Motley felt himself to be publicly humiliated and disgraced. The blow was a shattering one; Motley never held up his head again. Seeking the seclusion of his study, he wrote his last book; as he finished it, his wife died. Motley's heart was broken.

The Splendour Of A Clouded Sunset
On a beautiful evening in the early Summer of 1877, enfolded by that lovely Wessex country that Thomas Hardy was rapidly endearing to all his readers, Motley passed away at the age of 62. Born at one Dorchester, he died at another; the Atlantic rolling between the two. As he made his lonely way down into the valley of the shadow, one golden text illuminated his mind and he ordered it to be inscribed upon his tomb: "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." Only those who, with sympathetic penetration, have entered into the anguish and heartbreak of his closing days, can appreciate the solace that the glittering words poured into his tortured soul. Earth, to Motley, was enshrouded in a leaden gloom; everything that he had loved, admired, and trusted had disappointed him. Life, in all its ramifications, seemed an insoluble enigma. Death stared him in the face. And beyond? Beyond was a radiant realm in which, he felt the issues that had baffled him would stand crystal clear. He was passing from a tangled maze of inscrutable mystery into a realm of perfect clarity. "God," he exclaimed, as he lay dying, "is light! Write that upon my tomb: just that and nothing else, save, perhaps, the name and date. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all."

His fame is perpetuated by two really splendid monuments. The first is his masterpiece, "The Rise of the Dutch Republic." Printed at his own cost because no publisher would look at it, this stately odyssey has captured a place among our classics from which it can never be ejected. The second of these monuments is the fine apostrophe addressed to his memory by William Cullen Bryant, one of the last verses that trickled from that poet's pen:

Sleep, Motley, with the great of ancient days,
Who wrote for all the years
that yet shall be!
Sleep with Herodotus, whose name and praise
Have
reached the isles of earth's remotest sea!

With these satisfying lines we may very well take leave of one of the most engaging figures that has ever adorned the Western Hemisphere.

F W Boreham

Image: John Motley