That gentle heart to wring.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
History of the Conquest of Peru. With a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas. By William H. Prescott. New York: Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 8vo.
It would be impossible in the narrow limits of our magazine to do justice to a work of such labor and ability as this. Mr. Prescott has displayed the same qualities of mind, and the same energy of character, in his History of Peru as of Mexico. Nothing relating to the subject in a printed or manuscript form seems to have escaped his diligent researches, and the facts of his narrative are thus placed on a foundation of authorities which cannot be disputed. Men who investigate with such minute care as Mr. Prescott are not generally those who can compose readable histories. They are commonly but compilers of materials for the use of abler writers. But our countryman is an artist as well as antiquary. He spares no labor, it is true, in collecting his materials, and might claim, if he chose, the highest rank among the disciples of Dr. Dryasdust; but such would be but a small object for his ambition. His glory as a historian comes from his power to collect truth from a mass of perhaps conflicting testimony; to perceive character so accurately as to see just that point in the mind of a contemporary chronicler, where his individual bias casts ominous conjecture on his testimony; to imbue his mind with the very spirit of the age he has chosen for his subject; to look at events from the same position occupied by the actors in them, and thus enable the reader to pass beyond actions to motives; and, above all, to represent the period of time he has selected for his theme in the clearest light, giving to persons and events their natural prominence, and avoiding all interference with their just relations.
The reader of Mr. Prescott’s histories is almost made for the time a contemporary of Ferdinand, Cortez and Pizarro; a contemporary who sees clearly the passions and bigotries which warp their moral judgments, and while uninfluenced himself by the prejudices which blind them, blends charity with justice in deciding upon their actions. There is a healthiness in Mr. Prescott’s intellect which places all objects in “daylight.” They are not discolored in passing through his mind.
His style of composition, a style so flexible as to yield readily to all the changes of his narrative, a style which ever fascinates and never wearies, has drawn forth numberless panegyrics. We think the style of his present book even more pleasant than that of his others. There is hardly a passage, hardly a sentence, of fine writing—of writing, not for the sake of the thought but of the rhetoric—in the whole work. This wise abstinence in one who has such a wide command of the resources of language, and who could, if he pleased, pile up pages of rhetorical sublimities to catch the untrained eye, is a great merit, and is so felt by the reader, when at the end of the book he notices its unity of effect upon his mind.
The subject of Mr. Prescott’s present history may not seem, at first, so good as that of the Conquest of Mexico. It would be difficult to say which work was filled with the most wonderful events. Both are laden with examples of courage, constancy, and endurance, which appear beyond the powers of humanity. Both represent men undaunted not merely in battle with vastly superior forces, but bearing up against the yet fiercer assaults of fatigue, pestilence and famine. In all the hardier qualities of mind and body the Spaniards who conquered Peru do not yield to the followers of Cortez, and in avarice, treachery, and cruelty, in all those qualities which characterize freebooters and pirates, they fairly exceed all other men. Mr. Prescott has done them ample justice, and brought out in bold relief their characters and exploits. His delineations of Pizarro and his brothers are masterly, and his whole view of the country before and after the conquest is marked by uncommon comprehension, and the most extensive erudition. The preliminary essay, on the civilization of the Incas, is of very great value. In clearness of exposition it is almost unmatched. Altogether, the book must add even to Mr. Prescott’s reputation, in all those qualities of mind and style for which he is distinguished.