T MAY well be doubted whether any other historian was ever so loved both by those who knew him personally and by those who counted themselves fortunate in knowing him through his books as was William H. Prescott. Indeed that love promises to be perennial, for “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru” continue to be the delight of the intelligent schoolboy and bid fair to maintain their hold upon public interest in succeeding generations.
Prescott was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, having been born in that city on the 4th of May, 1796. His father was a lawyer, and he inherited from him literary tastes, love of learning and great mental vigor. He was accidentally struck, while a Junior at Harvard, by a piece of hard bread, thrown by a fellow student, and the blow deprived him forever of the use of his left eye, gave him many months of tedious suffering in darkened rooms, and resulted in such serious damage to the other eye as to make it of little and constantly decreasing use to him. He had intended to be a lawyer, but this accident made another choice necessary. He deliberately resolved upon a literary career and prepared himself for it in the most thorough and painstaking way imaginable. A memorandum dated October, 1821, lays out a course of study which one might think unnecessary for a graduate of Harvard College, but which he undertook for the purpose of perfecting his style, and with what degree of success the universal admiration of his works well testifies. It was as follows:
“1. Principles of Grammar, correct writing, etc.
2. Compendious history of North America.
3. Fine prose-writers of English.
4. Latin classics one hour a day.”
This course, omitting the American history, he faithfully pursued for about a year, when he took up the study of French and, later, of German. His study of Spanish and consequently his choice of the topics of his great works came about almost accidentally. He had found the study of German very difficult, so much so that he was in despair. His friend George Ticknor had delivered to the Senior Class at Harvard a series of lectures on Spanish literature, and, to divert and entertain him during a period of discouragement and of suffering from his eyes, proposed to read the lectures to him. He was so delighted with the subject that he immediately began the study of the language with the result that the remainder of his life was devoted to Spanish subjects. Prescott had married, in 1820, to Miss Susan Amory, the daughter of a cultivated and successful Boston merchant, and of the marriage he said, near the close of his life, “contrary to the assertion of a French philosopher who says that the most fortunate husband finds reason to regret his condition at least once in twenty-four hours,—I may truly say that I have found no such day in the quarter of a century that Providence has spared us to each other.” Mrs. Prescott was devoted to her husband, and until his death in 1859, was his continual support, adviser and assistant.
MR. PRESCOTT’S HOUSE AT PEPPERETT, MASS.