PRESCOTT, WILLIAM HICKLING ( 1796-1S59). An American historian. He was the son of a distinguished lawyer and statesman and grandson of Col. William Prescott, and was born at Bos ton, May 4, 1796. He entered Harvard College in 1S11. as a sophomore, and graduated in 1S14. While there he lost the sight of one eye by an accident, and the other was so affected that be had to pass several months in a darkened room. He partly recovered the sight of it, but he could use it only a little each clay and never in any diffi cult work. He entered his father's law office, but in January, 1815, the injured eye be came inflamed and refused to yield to reme dies; so it was determined in the autumn that he should seek health by wintering at Saint Michael's and get medical advice in the spring. At the Azores, where he often had to live in a darkened room, he acquired the accomplishment of learning almost by heart long passages which he had thought out and which he meant to have written. Physicians told him that the sight was hopelessly gone from one eye. and that the preser vation of the other depended on his health. Prescott now returned to Boston and on May 4, 1820, married Miss Susan Amory. A legal career was, of course, out of the question, but Prescott's family were well off; so his half blindness was not made still more cruel by the trammels of poverty. Having at this time decided to devote himself to literature, he set to work on the study of Murray's Grammar, Johnson's Dictionary, Blair's Rhetoric, and the English classics from Elizabethan times to his own. The reading of Gibbon's autobiography increased his passion for historical writing. In 1820 he contributed to the North American. Review a review of Byron's Let ' ters on Pope. He soon turned to French lit erature and made a comparison of French and English tragedy; then took up Italian and Ger man, but Ticknor, his friend and biographer, aroused in him a still greater interest in the literature and history of Spain. lie had begun the study of Italian literature in 1823. In 1824 he wrote all essay on Italian Narratire Poetry, and had thoughts of taking up Roman history, but, in 1826, he chose the Spanish field.
Owing to his bad eyesight, he was obligq1 to have the aid of readers and secretaries, and for his own writing had recourse to a writing frame designed especially for the blind. After ten years of hard labor, he produced the first results of his research, the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (3 vols., 153S). The work at once gained favor, and was soon trans lated into French, Spanish. and German. He then spent six years on what is probably his most brilliant work, a History of the Conquest of Mex ico, with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Con queror, Hernando Cortes (3 vols., 1S43). His
third work in the series was the History of the Conquest of Peru, with a Preliminary View of the Cicilization of the Incas (3 vols., 1847). These greatly added to his reputation. Ile was made corresponding member of the French Institute, and on his visit to Europe in 1850 was received with honor. In 185.3 appeared two volumes of the History of the Reign of Philip the Second, Bing of Spain, and three years later the third volume. but the work was cut short by a stroke of apoplexy which caused Prescott's death. He had, however, added to his series by editing Rob ertson's History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth (3 vols., 18571, adding thereto a supplement em bracing the life of the Emperor after his abdica tion. Aside from his histories, his literary work consists of a preface to Mine. Calderon de la, Barca's Life in Mexico (2 vols., 1S43) ; Biographi cal and Critical Miscellanies (1S45) ; A Memoir of the Honorable John Pickering (1845) ; and a Memoir of the Honorable Abbott Lawrence (IS:36).
Prescott is eminent in American letters as one of the first and most accomplished of the histori ans. Slightly younger than Irving and later in acquiring literary reputation, he excelled him in the extent and system with which he treated his work. To him, with Irving in history and ro mance, Ticknor in Spanish literary research, and Motley, a few years later, in history, belongs the honor of having introduced and made popu lar to the English-speaking and a good part of the foreign world the story of the Spanish na tion. Technically, as an historian, Prescott has been justly criticised for a tendency to color his pictures too highly and to allow his admiration for his heroes to get the better of his juch.t ment ; nor is he altogether successful in deal ing with political complications. His most serious defect is one for which he cannot fairly be held responsible. American archa•ology has been revolutionized since his day by the labors of Morgan, Bandelier. and others, and the more or less romantic and distorted pictures of Mexican and Peruvian development given by the Spanish chroniclers on whom Prescott relied have been corrected. Thus his work needs to he read in the light of modern research and to be corrected at various points, but with the proper allowance and viewed as literature its high rank seems assured. llis style is dignified, refined, and always eminently readable, and his histories have truly become household classics. There is a Life by George Ticknor (Boston, 1864; revised, London. 186). The best edition of Prescott is that by Kirk in 16 vols. (Philadelphia, 1870-74).