flects the average character of his acquaintance, the circle of living men he moves in, or of the departed men whose books he reads. Such an historian makes a particular country his special study, but can pass thereon with only the general judgment of his class. This is true of all similar men: the water in the pipe rises as high as in the fountain, capillary attraction aiding what friction hindered; you know beforehand what an average party-man will think of any national measure, because his "thought" does not represent any individual action of his own, but the general average of his class. So it is with an ordinary clergyman; his opinion is not individual but professional. A strong

man must have his own style, his own mode of sketching the outline, filling up the details, and colouring his picture; if he have a mannerism, it must be one that is his own, growing out of himself, and not merely on him, while in all this the small man represents only the character of his class even his style, his figures of speech, will have a family mark on them; his mannerism will not be detected at first, because it is that of all his friends. Perhaps it would make little difference whether Michael Angelo was born and bred amid the rugged Alps or in the loveliest garden of Valombrosa-his genius seeming superior to circumstances; but with an artist who has little original and creative power, local peculiarities affect his style and appear in all his works.

Now within a thousand years a great change has come over the spirit of history. The historical writings of Venerable Bede and of Louis Blanc, the Speculum Hystoriale of Vincencius Bellovacensis, so eagerly printed once and scattered all over Europe, and the work of Mr Macaulay, bear marks of their respective ages, and are monuments which attest the progress of mankind in the historic art.

In the middle ages Chivalry prevailed: a great respect was felt for certain prescribed rules; a great veneration for certain eminent persons. Those rules were not always or necessarily rules of nature, but only of convention; nor were the persons always or necessarily those most meet for respect, but men accidentally eminent oftener than marked for any substantial and personal excellence. spirit of chivalry appears in the writers of that time,—in

The

arms.

the song and the romance, in history and annals, in homilies, and in prayers and creeds. Little interest is taken in the people, only for their chiefs; little concern is felt by great men for industry, commerce, art; much for Primogeniture extended from law into literature; history was that of elder brothers, and men accidentally eminent seemed to monopolize distinction in letters, and to hold possession of history by perpetual entail. History was aristocratic; rank alone was respected, and it was thought there were but a few hundred persons in the world worth writing of, or caring for; the mass were thought only the sand on which the mighty walked, and useful only for that end; their lives were vulgar lives, their blood was puddle blood, and their deaths were vulgar deaths.

Of late years a very different spirit has appeared; slowly has it arisen, very slow, but it is real and visible,—the spirit of humanity. This manifests itself in a respect for certain rules, but they must be laws of nature-rules of justice and truth; and in respect for all mankind. Arms yield not to the gown only, but to the frock; and the aproned smith with his creative hand beckons destructive soldiers to an humbler seat, aud they begin with shame to take the lower place, not always to be allowed them. This spirit of humanity appears in legislation, where we will not now follow it; but it appears also in literature. Therein primogeniture is abolished; the entail is broken; the monopoly at an end; the elder sons are not neglected, but the younger brothers are also brought into notice. In history, as in trade, the course is open to talent. History is becoming democratic. The life of the people is looked after; men write of the ground whereon the mighty walk. While the coins, the charters, and the capitularies -which are the monuments of kings-are carefully sought after, men look also for the songs, the legends, the ballads, which are the medals of the people, stamped with their image and superscription, and in these find materials for the biography of a nation. The manners and customs of the great mass of men are now investigated, and civil and military transactions are thought no longer the one thing most needful to record. This spirit of humanity consti

tutes the charm in the writings of Niebuhr, Schlosser, Sismondi, Michelet, Bancroft, Grote, Macaulay, the greatest historians of the age; they write in the interest of mankind. The absence of this spirit is a sad defect in the writings of Mr Carlyle ;-himself a giant, he writes history in the interest only of giants.

Since this change has taken place, a new demand is made of an historian of our times. We have a right to insist that he shall give us the philosophy of history, and report the lessons thereof, as well as record the facts. He must share the spirit of humanity which begins to pervade the age; he must not write in the interest of a class, but of mankind, in the interest of natural right and justice. Sometimes, however, a man may be excused for lacking the philosophy of history; no one could expect it of a Turk; if a Russian were to write the history of France, it would be easy to forgive him if he wrote in the interest of tyrants. But when a man of New-England undertakes to write a history, there is less excuse if his book should be wanting in philosophy and in humanity; less merit if it abound therewith.

Mr Prescott has selected for his theme one of the most important periods of history-from the middle of the fif teenth to the middle of the sixteenth century. The three greatest events of modern times took place during that period: the art of printing was invented, America discovered, the Protestant Reformation was begun. It was a period of intense life and various activity, in forms not easily understood at this day. The revival of letters was going forward; the classic models of Greece and Rome were studied anew; the revival, also, of art; Lionardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Michael Angelo, Raphael, were achieving their miracles of artistic skill. Science began anew; new ideas seemed to dawn upon mankind; modern literature received a fresh impulse. The new thought presently reported itself in all departments of life. Navigation was improved; commerce extended; a new world was discovered, and, baited by the hope of gold or driven by discontent and restless love of change, impelled by desire of new things or constrained by conscience, the Old World rose and poured itself on a new continent, and with new ideas to found empires mightier than the old. In Europe

a revolution advanced with the steps of an earthquake. The Hercules-pillars of authority were shaken; the serf rose against his lord; the great barons everywhere were losing their power; the great kings consolidating their authority. Feudal institutions reeled with the tossings of the ground, and fell-to rise no more. It was the age of the Medici, of Machiavelli, and of Savonarola; of Erasmus and Copernicus; of John Wessel, Reuchlin, Scaliger, and Agricola ; Luther and Loyola lived in that time. The ninety-five theses were posted on the church door; the Utopia was written. There were Chevalier Bayard and Gonsalvo "the Great Captain;" Cardinal Ximenes, and Columbus. Two great works mark this period,-one, the establishment of national unity of action in the great monarchies of Europe, the king conquering the nobles; the other the great insurrection of mind and conscience against arbitrary power in the school, the state, the church,-an insurrection which legions of medieval scholars, no armies, and no Councils of Basil and of Trent could prevent or long hinder from its work.

Writing of this age, Mr Precsott takes for his chief theme one of the most prominent nations of the world. Spain, however, was never prominent for thought; no idea welcomed by other nations was ever born or fostered in her lap; she has no great philosopher-not one who has made a mark on the world; no great poet known to all nations; not a single orator, ecclesiastic or political; she has been mother to few great names in science, arts, or literature. In commerce, Venice and Genoa long before Spain, England and Holland at a later date, have far out-travelled her. Even in arms, save the brief glory shed thereon by the Great Captain, Spain has not been distinguished; surely not as France, England, and even the Low Countries. But her geographical position is an important one -between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. At the time in question her population was great, perhaps nearly twice that of England, and she played an important part in the affairs of Europe, while England had little to do with the continent. Spain was connected with the Arabs, for some centuries the most civilized people in Europe; hence she came in contact with industry, skill, and riches, with letters and with art, and enjoyed opportunities denied to

all the other nations of Europe. For her subsequent rank among nations, Spain is indebted to two events, which, as they did not come from the genius of the people, may be called accidental. One was the connection with the house of Austria, the singular circumstance which placed the united crowns of Castile and Arragon on the same head which bore the imperial diadem of Germany. This accident gave a lustre to Spain in the age of Charles the Fifth and his successor. But the other cause, seemingly more accidental, has given Spain a place in history which nothing else could have done the fact that when the Genoese navigator first crossed the Atlantic, the Spanish flag was at his masthead.

Mr Prescott writes of Spain at her most important period, at the time when the two monarchies of Castile and Arragon were blent into one; when the Moors were conquered and expelled; the Inquisition established; the Jews driven out; the old laws revised; a new world discovered, conquered, settled, its nations put to slavery, Christianty, or death; an age when Negro Slavery, Christianity, and the Inquisition first visited this western world. Not only has the historian a great age to delineate and great events to deal with,—a new continent to describe, a new race to report on, their origin, character, language, literature, art, manners, and religion, but, to enliven his picture, he has great men to portray. We will not speak of Ferdinand, Isabella, and Charles the Fifth, who pass often before us in kingly grandeur; but there are Gonsalvo, Ximenes, and Columbus, here are Cortes and Pizarro.

Few historians have had an age so noble to describe; a theme so rich in events, in ideas, and in men; an opportunity so fortunate to present the lessons of history to ages yet to come. The author has this further advantage : he lives far enough from the age he writes of to be beyond its bigotry and its rage. The noises of a city hardly reach the top of a steeple; all the din of battle is hushed and still far below the top of Mont Blanc; and so in a few years the passions, the heat, the dust, the rage and noises of kings and nations are all silenced and lost in the immeasurable stillness which settles down upon the past. If the thinker pauses from his busy thought, and after a