Prescott, however, had his own very definite opinions concerning his contemporaries, though they were always expressed in kindly words. To Irving he was especially attracted because of a certain likeness of temperament between them. His sensitive nature felt all the nuances of Irving's delicate style, especially when it was used for pathetic effects. "You have read Irving's Memoirs of Miss Davidson," he once wrote to Miss Ticknor. "Did you ever meet with any novel half so touching? It is the most painful book I ever listened to. I hear it from the children and we all cry over it together. What a little flower of Paradise!" Yet he could accurately criticise his friend's productions.[21] Longfellow was another of Prescott's associates, and his ballads of the sea were favourites. Mr. T. W. Higginson quotes Prescott as saying that The Skeleton in Armor and The Wreck of the Hesperus were the best imaginative poetry since Coleridge. Of Byron he wrote, in 1840, some sentences to a friend which condense very happily the opinion that has finally come to be accepted. Indeed, Prescott shows in his private letters a critical gift which one seldom finds in his published essays—a judgment at once shrewd, clear-sighted, and sensible.
"I think one is apt to talk very extravagantly of his [Byron's] poetry; for it is the poetry of passion and carries away the sober judgment. It defies criticism from its very nature, being lawless, independent of all rules, sometimes of grammar, and even of common sense. When he means to be strong he is often affected, violent, morbid.... But then there is, with all this smoke and fustian, a deep sensibility to the sublime and beautiful in nature, a wonderful melody, or rather harmony, of language, consisting ... in a variety—the variety of nature—in which startling ruggedness is relieved by soft and cultivated graces."
Probably the most pungent bit of literary comment that Prescott ever wrote is found in a letter of his addressed to Bancroft,[22] who had sent him a copy of Carlyle's French Revolution. The clangour and fury of this book could hardly fail to jar upon the nerves of so decorously classical a writer as Prescott.
"I return you Carlyle with my thanks. I have read as much of him as I could stand. After a very candid desire to relish him, I must say I do not at all. The French Revolution is a most lamentable comedy and requires nothing but the simplest statement of facts to freeze one's blood. To attempt to colour so highly what nature has already over-coloured is, it appears to me, in very bad taste and produces a grotesque and ludicrous effect.... Then such ridiculous affectations of new-fangled words! Carlyle is ever a bungler in his own business; for his creations or rather combinations are the most discordant and awkward possible. As he runs altogether for dramatic or rather picturesque effect, he is not to be challenged, I suppose, for want of refined views. This forms no part of his plan. His views, certainly, so far as I can estimate them, are trite enough. And, in short, the whole thing ... both as to forme and to fond, is perfectly contemptible."
Of Thackeray, Prescott saw quite a little during the novelist's visit to America in 1852-1853, and several times entertained him. He did not greatly care for the lectures on the English humorists, which, as Thackeray confided to Prescott, caused America to "rain dollars." "I do not think he made much of an impression as a critic, but the Thackeray vein is rich in what is better than cold criticism." Thackeray on his side expresses his admiration for Prescott in the opening sentences of The Virginians, though without naming him:—
"On the library wall of one of the most famous writers of America, there hang two crossed swords, which his relatives wore in the great war of Independence. The one sword was gallantly drawn in the service of the King; the other was the weapon of a brave and humane republican soldier. The possessor of the harmless trophy has earned for himself a name alike honoured in his ancestor's country and his own, where genius like his has always a peaceful welcome."
This little tribute pleased Prescott very much, and he wrote to Lady Lyell asking her to get The Virginians and read the passage, which, as he says, "was very prettily done." On the whole, however, he seems to have preferred Dickens to Thackeray, being deceived by the very superficial cynicism affected by the latter. But in fiction, his prime favourites were always Scott and Dumas, whose books he never tired of hearing read. Thus, in mature age, the tastes of his boyhood continued to declare themselves; and few days ever passed without an hour or two devoted to the magic of romance.
During the winter following his return from Europe, which he spent in Boston, he found it difficult to settle down to work again, and not until the autumn did he wholly resume his life of literary activity. After doing so, however, he worked rapidly, so that the first volume of Philip II. was completed in April, 1852. It was very well received, in fact, as warmly as any of his earlier work, and the same was true of the second volume, which appeared in 1854. Prescott himself said that he was "a little nervous" about the success of the book, inasmuch as a long interval had elapsed since the publication of his Peru, and he feared lest the public might have lost its interest in him. The result, however, showed that he need not have felt any apprehension. Within six months after the second volume had been published, more than eight thousand copies were sold in the United States, and probably an equal number in England. Moreover, interest was revived in Prescott's preceding histories, so that nearly thirty thousand volumes of them were taken by the public within a year or two. There was the same favourable consensus of critical opinion regarding Philip II., and it received the honour of a notice from the pen of M. Guizot in the Edinburgh Review.
In bringing out this last work Prescott had changed his publishers,—not, however, because of any disagreement with the Messrs. Harper, with whom his relations had always been most satisfactory, and of whom he always spoke in terms of high regard. But a Boston firm, Messrs. Sampson, Phillips and Company, had made him an offer more advantageous than the Harpers felt themselves justified in doing. In another sense the change might have been fortunate for Prescott, inasmuch as the warehouse of the Harpers was destroyed by fire in 1853. In this fire were consumed several thousand copies of Prescott's earlier books, for which payment had been already made. Prescott, however, with his usual generosity, permitted the Harpers to print for their own account as many copies as had been lost. In England his publishing arrangements were somewhat less favourable than hitherto. When he had made his earlier contracts with Bentley, it was supposed that the English publisher could claim copyright in works written by a foreigner. A decision of the House of Lords adverse to such a view had now been rendered, and therefore Mr. Bentley could receive no advantage through an arrangement with Prescott other than such as might come to him from securing the advance sheets and from thus being first in the field. As a matter of fact, Philip II. was brought out in four separate editions in Great Britain. In Germany it was twice reprinted in the original and once in a German translation. A French version was brought out in Paris by Didot, and a Spanish one in Madrid. Prescott himself wrote:—