27 January: Boreham on W H Prescott

A Handicapped Historian
Few men have attained literary distinction in defiance of more formidable handicaps than those that hampered W. H. Prescott, the anniversary of whose passing occurs tomorrow. Although, in his modesty, he emphatically disclaimed the credit of having surmounted the cruel obstacles which lie in the path of the blind man, the fact is that he was nearly sightless. As a boy he was full of life and vivacity; as a youth, of fine face and handsome figure, he was the centre of every frolic; and it was one of those innocent revels that almost disqualified him for his life. Standing one day in the Commons Hall of the University, he turned suddenly to receive, full in the eye, a hard and sharp-edged crust of bread. From that moment he was totally blind in the injured eye, whilst a sympathetic nervous inflammation made it exceedingly difficult for him to see with the other. This was the first and greatest of his impediments.

The second was that, the son of parents well able to support him in comfort, there was really no need for him to work at all. His disposition was naturally lethargic. He was always lamenting his tendency to loll and lounge and loiter. Yet, although he had the best possible excuse for an idle life, he has left the world a series of voluminous histories that bear eloquent testimony to his painstaking research and tireless industry. Even in the days in which he was confined in a dark room, he conceived the idea of becoming the historian of the golden age of Spain. He learned Spanish, mastering that language so thoroughly that he could read it, write it, and even think in it. Buying big boxes of Spanish records, he engaged a secretary to read to him. In the process he made copious notes in hieroglyphics of his own invention. Later on, he travelled extensively in England, France and Italy; but never, strange to say, in Spain. One of the wonders of our literature is the fact that he who has described the natural and architectural glories of the Peninsula with so delicate and confident a touch, never even with his dim vision, gazed upon the scenes that he portrays.

The High Chivalries Of Literary History
Success pounced upon him almost instantly. The demand for his "Ferdinand and Isabella" was immediate and overwhelming. Alike in England and in America, it was acclaimed as a classic; the reviewers were unstinted in their praise; the volumes were swiftly translated into French, Spanish, and German and their author was honoured with the membership of the Royal Academy of Madrid. He resolved to follow up his initial triumph by making himself the historian of the Spanish conquests in Mexico and Peru. His invasion of these romantic fields of research will always be memorable because of the acts of chivalry which it elicited. While Prescott was delving into the archives of the Aztec Empire, it came to his knowledge that Washington Irving, who had already covered himself with glory by his "Life of Columbus" and his "Conquest of Granada," was exploiting the same rich vein. When Irving grasped the situation, he at once insisted on withdrawing from the field. Prescott urged him to go ahead; but Irving protested that he was only at the preliminary stage of the work; it was, he explained, little more than a nebulous idea floating in his mind; and, thus assured, Prescott proceeded. It transpired, however, that Irving's statement of the position was a white lie of his own manufacture; his work was, in reality, well advanced when he abandoned it in Prescott's favour.

Strangely enough, the same dilemma confronted Prescott when he embarked on his "Conquest of Peru." He discovered that John Lothrop Motley was similarly engaged. Each man begged the other to continue. Motley, however, assured Prescott that his mind had been captivated by a totally different theme. Having matched Irving's white lie with this one, he bent all his energies to "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," leaving Prescott to unfold to the world the stirring story of the Incas. Such courtesies intensified Prescott's sense of responsibility. He had deprived the ages of Irving's Mexico and of Motley's Peru. What could he give by way of compensation? He braced himself for a supreme endeavour.

Painting Fair Landscapes He Had Never Seen
Fired by these stimulating reflections, he has given us a couple of histories so colourful, so gripping and so picturesque that they read rather like epics of adventure written for the delectation of schoolboys, than like the carefully-compiled annals of fallen empires. Who that has once read them can ever forget the burning of the galleons, the loading of the argosies, the fabulous hoards of glittering gold, the martyrdom of Montezuma or the tears of Cortes as he gazed upon the tragic heaps of his gallant dead? Just as, in his earlier ventures, he had painted with dramatic effect the glories of the Alhambra and the beauties that envelop the Escurial, so, in his subsequent writings, he depicted the tropical scenery of the Western world with a vividness and precision that have never been surpassed.

At the age of sixty-two he was visited by an apoplectic stroke. A year later, after laughing and chatting with his wife, he went up to his library, apparently in the best of health, and was found there, dead, a few minutes later. He had given instructions that his body, while awaiting burial, should lie in that very room, surrounded by the books that, notwithstanding his difficulty in digging out their precious contents, had been his constant and treasured companions. He was followed to the tomb by the greatest concourse of celebrities that, on such an occasion, America had ever seen; and, at the graveside, George Bancroft, the author of the "History of the United States," said that, in reviewing the character, the endowments and the conduct of Prescott, he could recall no detail that he could wish otherwise. It was exalted eulogy; but it was endorsed by everybody who, in any way, had been brought into touch with the purity of Prescott's mind and the charm of his personality.

F W Boreham

Image: W H Prescott