Born, at Dorchester, Mass., 15 April 1814. To Harvard Univ., 1827; B.A., 1831. Studied at Berlin and Göttingen Universities, 1832–33. Married Mary Benjamin, 2 March 1837. Advocate, 1837. Sec. of American Legation, St. Petersburg, winter of 1841–42. Contrib. to “North American Rev.” from 1845. Mem. of Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1849. In Europe, 1851–56. In Boston, 1856–57. Contrib. to first no. of “Atlantic Monthly,” Nov. 1857. Returned to England, 1858. Hon. LL.D., Harvard, 1860; Hon. D.C.L., Oxford, 1860. To America, 1861. U.S.A. Ambassador at Vienna, 1861–67. Returned to Boston, June 1868. To England, 1868; resided there till his death. Ambassador to England, 1869–70. Foreign Assoc. of French Academy, 1876; Dr. Phil., Gröningen; Corresp. Mem. Institute of France; F.S.A., Hon. LL.D., Cambridge; Hon. LL.D., New York; Hon. LL.D., Leyden; Mem. of numerous American and foreign historical societies. Last visit to America, 1875. Died, near Dorchester, Devonshire, 29 May 1877. Buried at Kensal Green. Works: “Morton’s Hope,” 1839; “Merry Mount,” 1849; “History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic,” 1856; “History of the United Netherlands,” vols. i., ii., 1860; vols. iii., iv., 1868; “Causes of the Civil War in America,” 1861; “Historic Progress and American Democracy,” 1869; “The Life and Death of John of Barneveld,” 1874. Posthumous: “Correspondence,” ed. by G. W. Curtis, 1889. Life: by O. W. Holmes, 1878.

Personal

  Allow me to thank you most warmly for your long and interesting letter, which, if it had been twice as long as it was, would only have pleased me more. There are few persons that I have only seen once with whom I so much desire to keep up a communication as with you; and the importance of what I learn from you respecting matters so full of momentous consequences to the world would make such communication most valuable to me, even if I did not wish for it on personal grounds.

  Breakfasted with Layard, to meet Julian Fane, who told us an amusing story about Motley, who is now American Minister at Vienna, and a most furious Northerner; although before the War he said to Layard—“If our Sister of the South wants to leave us, let her part in peace.” He had become, it appears, so excited that he had quite withdrawn from society, being unable to listen with toleration to any opinions hostile to his own. This had gone on for some time, when his friends arranged a little dinner, at which the greatest care was to be taken to keep the conversation quite away from all irritating subjects. Not a word was said about the War, and everything was going on delightfully, when an unlucky Russian, leaning across the table, said—“Mr. Motley, I understand that you have given a great deal of attention to the history of the sixteenth century; I have done so too, and should like to know whether you agree with me in one opinion at which I have arrived. I think the Duke of Alva was one of the greatest and best statesmen who ever lived!” Motley completely lost his temper, and the well-laid plan was overthrown.

  Jack My Dear,—Where the devil are you, and what do you do that you never write a line to me? I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you have nothing to do at all—you might as well tip me a line as well as looking on your feet tilted against the wall of God knows what a dreary colour. I cannot entertain a regular correspondence; it happens to me that during five days I do not find a quarter of an hour for a walk; but you, lazy old chap, what keeps you from thinking of your old friends? When just going to bed in this moment my eye met with yours on your portrait, and I curtailed the sweet restorer, sleep, in order to remind you of Auld Lang Syne. Why do you never come to Berlin? It is not a quarter of an American’s holiday journey from Vienna, and my wife and me should be so happy to see you once more in this sullen life.

  But there is a yet deeper key of harmony that has just been struck within the last week. The hand of death has removed from his dwelling-place amongst us one of the brightest lights of the Western Hemisphere—the high-spirited patriot, the faithful friend of England’s best and purest spirits, the brilliant, the indefatigable historian who told, as none before him had told, the history of the rise and struggle of the Dutch Republic, almost a part of his own. We sometimes ask what room or place is left in the crowded temple of Europe’s fame for one of the Western World to occupy. But a sufficient answer is given in the work which was reserved to be accomplished by him who has just departed. So long as the tale of greatness of the House of Orange, of the siege of Leyden, of the tragedy of Barneveld, interests mankind, so long will Holland be indissolubly connected with the name of Motley, in the union of the ancient culture of Europe, with the aspirations of America which was so remarkable in the ardent, laborious, soaring soul that has passed away.

  Having succeeded Mr. Motley at Vienna some two years after his departure, I had occasion to read most of his despatches, which exhibited a mastery of the subjects of which they treated, with much of the clear perception, the scholarly and philosophic tone and decided judgment, which, supplemented by his picturesque description, full of life and color, have given character to his histories. They are features which might well have served to extend the remark of Madame de Staël that a great historian is almost a statesman.

  I met Motley at Göttingen in 1832. I am not sure if at the beginning of Easter Term or Michaelmas Term. He kept company with German students, though more addicted to study than we members of the fighting clubs (corps). Although not having mastered yet the German language, he exercised a marked attraction by a conversation sparkling with wit, humor, and originality. In autumn of 1833, having both of us migrated from Göttingen to Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we became fellow-lodgers in the house No. 161 Friedrich Strasse. There we lived in the closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor exercise. Motley by that time had arrived at talking German fluently; he occupied himself not only in translating Goethe’s poem “Faust,” but tried his hand even in composing German verses. Enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation abundantly with quotations from these his favorite authors. A pertinacious arguer, so much so that sometimes he watched my awakening in order to continue a discussion on some topic of science, poetry, or practical life, cut short by the chime of the small hours, he never lost his mild and amiable temper…. The most striking feature of his handsome and delicate appearance was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never entered a drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of the ladies.

  He generally rose early, the hour varying somewhat at different parts of his life, according to his work and health. Sometimes, when much absorbed by literary labor, he would rise before seven, often lighting his own fire, and with a cup of tea or coffee writing until the family breakfast hour, after which his work was immediately resumed, and he usually sat over his writing table until late in the afternoon, when he would take a short walk. His dinner hour was late, and he rarely worked at night. During the early years of his literary studies he led a life of great retirement. Later, after the publication of the “Dutch Republic” and during the years of official place, he was much in society in England, Austria, and Holland. He enjoyed social life, and particularly dining out, keenly, but was very moderate and simple in all his personal habits, and for many years before his death had entirely given up smoking. His work, when not in his own library, was in the Archives of the Netherlands, Brussels, Paris, the English State Paper office, and the British Museum, where he made his own researches, patiently and laboriously consulting original manuscripts and reading masses of correspondence, from which he afterwards sometimes caused copies to be made, and where he worked for many consecutive hours a day. After his material had been thus painfully and toilfully amassed, the writing of his own story was always done at home, and his mind, having digested the necessary matter, always poured itself forth in writing so copiously that his revision was chiefly devoted to reducing the over-abundance. He never shrank from any of the drudgery of preparation, but I think his own part of the work was sheer pleasure to him.

  A very serious breach had taken place between the President and Mr. Sumner on the important San Domingo question. It was a quarrel, in short, neither more or less, at least so far as the President was concerned. The proposed San Domingo treaty had just been rejected by the Senate, on the thirtieth day of June, and immediately thereupon,—the very next day,—the letter requesting Mr. Motley’s resignation was issued by the Executive. This fact was interpreted as implying something more than a mere coincidence. It was thought that Sumner’s friend, who had been supported by him as a candidate for high office, who shared many of his political ideas and feelings, who was his intimate associate, his fellow-townsman, his companion in scholarship and cultivation, his sympathetic co-laborer in many ways, had been accounted and dealt with as the ally of an enemy, and that the shaft which struck to the heart of the sensitive Envoy had glanced from the æs triplex of the obdurate Senator…. The ostensible grounds on which Mr. Motley was recalled are plainly insufficient to account for the action of the Government. If it was in great measure a manifestation of personal feeling on the part of the high officials by whom and through whom the act was accomplished, it was a wrong which can never be repaired and never sufficiently regretted.

  When Motley had grown to man’s estate Lady Byron declared that he more resembled her husband than any person she had ever met; but Wendell Phillips, his playmate and classmate, objects to this opinion on the ground that Motley was handsomer than Byron…. The beautiful boy was saved from being spoiled by a combination in his nature of an immense intellectual ambition with a corresponding self-distrust. To the end of his life he was consumed with a desire to perform great things, and to the end of his life he was painfully sensible that he had not come up to his lofty ideal.

Morton’s Hope, 1839

  There is a manliness and a concentration in the author’s style, that at once evinces his power; and he possesses, in an eminent degree, that most rare and difficult art in story-telling, the knowing where to stop: he never launches out into digressions, nor wearies the reader with unnecessary remarks and explanations. His meaning is at once stamped clear and finished, and requires no after touching to render it more complete.

  It must be confessed that, as a story, “Morton’s Hope” cannot endure a searching or even a moderately careful analysis. It is wanting in cohesion, in character, even in a proper regard to circumstances of time and place; it is a map of dissected incidents which has been flung out of its box and has arranged itself without the least regard to chronology or geography. It is not difficult to trace in it many of the influences which had helped in forming or deforming the mind of the young man of twenty-five not yet come into possession of his full inheritance of the slowly ripening qualities which were yet to assert their robust independence. How could he help admiring Byron and falling into more or less unconscious imitation of his moods, if not of his special affectations?

  The failure of this book was complete and almost ignominious, in spite of many admirable passages both of reflection and description, the merit of which was apparent amid all the anarchy of the narrative. It exhibited in an exaggerated form a mental defect which is more or less visible in his histories,—namely, a tendency to treat subordinate details with such fulness and richness as somewhat to interfere with a clear perception of the main design. In “Morton’s Hope” this defect was so prominent as to enable scores of people, who were incompetent to write any half-dozen of its brilliant paragraphs, to sneer at the work as a whole. “Have you heard,” said a wit of the family of Morton to his acquaintance, “that our friend Motley’s failure is ‘Morton’s Hope?’” Motley himself came to hate his own book so much that it was dangerous to refer to it in his presence.

Merry Mount, 1849

  The early history of Plymouth and Massachusetts, though it is a record of adventures, perils, and hardships, and many strongly marked characters appear in it, certainly presents few materials for romance. The whole foreground of the canvas is occupied by the grim figures of the Puritans, and in the distance appear only a few Indians flitting about like shadows in the interminable forests. It is a wild and stern scene, but its features are not pliable enough for the imagination to work upon. It does not offer those striking contrasts of situation and character, that variety of costume and scenery, or those rapid alterations of fortune, of light and gloom, in which the writer of fiction delights. The story is even a monotonous recital of exile, labor and suffering, bravely endured from the holiest of all motives. It claims attention and study from the moralist, the philosophical observer of human nature, and even from the statesman; but it hardly arrests the notice of those who crave only a pleasurable excitement of the fancy and the intellect.

  Without rapidity of movement or stirring interest, its quiet style is certainly not dull. Its representations of the grim Puritans and the jovial and aggravating Anglicans of Wollaston Heights, are faithful portraitures; and we feel that we are instructed by an historian who is no special pleader on either side. The old hermit of Boston is a personage whom one remembers long after the book has been laid down. In scene, characterization, and accuracy of historical narration, “Merry Mount” was a fit precursor of the later and more important works of its author, devoted to other and higher subjects. The book has disappeared from notice, and it perhaps hardly deserves reprinting; but it showed the trend of the author’s mind, and proved that a future success was at least possible for him.

History of the Dutch Republic, 1856

  A history … as complete as industry and genius can make it now lies before us, of the first twenty years of the Revolt of the United Provinces; of the period in which those provinces finally conquered their independence and established the Republic of Holland. It has been the result of many years of silent thoughtful, unobtrusive labor, and unless we are strangely mistaken, unless we are ourselves altogether unfit for this office of criticising which we have here undertaken, the book is one which will take its place among the finest histories in this or in any language…. All the essentials of a great writer Mr. Motley eminently possesses. His mind is broad, his industry unwearied. In power of dramatic description no modern historian, except perhaps Mr. Carlyle, surpasses him, and in analysis of character he is elaborate and distinct. His principles are those of honest love for all which is good and admirable in human character wherever he finds it, while he unaffectedly hates oppression, and despises selfishness with all his heart.

  For twenty years I have been in the habit of urging the students to study the history of the Netherlands, as next in importance among modern states to the history of our own country, to that of England; repeatedly I have advised them to take solitary “William of Orange” as a great theme for addresses or essays; and you may readily judge with what satisfaction I can now direct them to Motley’s work. One or two things I could have wished differently; but the merits of the book are so great and of such general and public character that all of us owe thanks to the patient, diligent, skilful, right-minded, and truthful author. It is a wholesome and nutritious book. It is a good pabulum for commonwealth-men and commonwealth-lads. I know that it is but too often injurious to become acquainted with crime and vice, even when exhibited to be loathed; but it is a stern necessity for reflecting men of action to know how deep humanity can sink and what fearful capacity of relapse there is in every one of us in bewildering circumstances. Besides, the baseness of Philip and the crime of Alva are so stupendous that they lose the power of familiarizing the souls of men, when plainly represented, with baseness and crime; while side by side with these hideous pictures is exhibited the full-length image of a William—the greatest of that worshipful band of exalted citizens to which Thrasybulus, Timoleon, Andrea Doria, and Washington belong. Congress and Parliament decree thanks for military exploits,—rarely for diplomatic achievements. If they ever voted their thanks for books,—and what deeds have influenced the course of human events more than some books?—Motley ought to have the thanks of our Congress; but I doubt not that he has already the thanks of every American who has read the work.

  Mr. Motley’s “History of the Dutch Republic” is, in my judgment, a work of the highest merit. Unwearying research for years in the libraries of Europe, patience and judgment in arranging and digesting his materials, a fine historical tact, much skill in characterization, the perspective of narration, as it may be called, and a vigorous style, unite to make it a very capital work, and place the name of Motley by the side of those of our great American historical trio—Bancroft, Irving and Prescott. I name them alphabetically, for I know not how to arrange them on any other principle.

  Alluding to a prediction which I had ventured in regard to Motley’s “Rise of the Dutch Republic” a little while before its publication, you ask me if the results have corresponded with my expectations. I will answer you with much pleasure, though the opinion of any individual seems superfluous in respect to a work on the merits of which the public, both at home and abroad, have pronounced so unanimous a verdict. As Motley’s path crosses my own historic field, I may be thought to possess some advantage over most critics in my familiarity with the ground. However this may be, I can honestly bear my testimony to the extent of his researches and to the accuracy with which he has given the results of them to the public. Far from making his book a mere register of events, he has penetrated deep below the surface and explored the causes of these events. He has carefully studied the physiognomy of the times and given finished portraits of the great men who conducted the march of the revolution. Every page is instinct with the love of freedom and with that personal knowledge of the working of free institutions which could alone enable him to do justice to his subject. We may congratulate ourselves that it was reserved for one of our countrymen to tell the story—better than it had yet been told—of this memorable revolution, which in so many of its features bears a striking resemblance to our own.

  The labor of ten years was at last finished. Carrying his formidable manuscript with him,—and how formidable the manuscript which melts down in three solid octavo volumes, is, only writers and publishers know,—he knocked at the gate of that terrible fortress from which Lintot and Curll and Tonson looked down on the authors of an older generation. So large a work as the “History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic,” offered for the press by an author as yet unknown to the British public, could hardly expect a warm welcome from the great dealers in literature as in merchandise. Mr. Murray civilly declined the manuscript which was offered to him, and it was published at its author’s expense by Mr. John Chapman. The time came when the positions of the first-named celebrated publisher and the unknown writer were reversed. Mr. Murray wrote to Mr. Motley asking to be allowed to publish his second great work, the “History of the United Netherlands,” expressing at the same time his regret at what he candidly called his mistake in the first instance, and thus they were at length brought into business connection as well as the most agreeable and friendly relations.

  The “Dutch Republic,” precluded by the overture of a masterly and vivid historical survey, is a drama, which facts have made highly sensational, of the fiercest struggle against temporal and spiritual despotism that, within the same space of years, Europe has seen. It is divided, not inappropriately, though perhaps with some regard for effect, into a prologue and five acts, to each of which, in succession, the name of the Spanish governor for the time is attached. The portraits of the great emissaries—particularly those of Granvelle of Arras and Duchess Margaret of Alva, Don John of Lepanto, and Alexander of Parma—are drawn with bold strokes and in lasting colours. Behind the scenes, director of the assailing forces, is the evil genius, Philip himself, to whose ghastly figure, writing letters in the Escurial, our attention is called with a wearisome if not affected iteration of phrase; while the presence of the great champion, William the Silent, is felt at every crisis retrieving the retreat and urging on the victory. The most horrible chapter of modern times, that of the Inquisition, is set forth with a power that brands its records into the memory of the reader; amid a throng of scenes of pageantry and pathos, we may refer to those of Egmont’s triumph at St. Quentin, of his execution, of the misery of Mook Heath, the siege of Leyden, and the hero’s end.

  This is a remarkable book. It is a vivid portrayal of one of the most dramatic portions of modern European history. Motley possessed nearly all the essentials of a great historical writer. His industry was unwearied, and his opportunities were all that could be desired. He penetrated deep below the surface of things, and explored their hidden causes. His pages are instinct with the love of freedom and hatred of tyranny. His style is clear, vivid, and eloquent. His analysis of character is remarkably distinct, and his power of dramatic narrative has not often been excelled. But the work, with all these excellent characteristics, has its drawbacks. The judicious reader constantly labors under the impression that there is another story to be told. The author’s aversions are so strong and his predilections so extreme that they seem often to have taken absolute possession of his judgment. At times he almost appears to be apprehensive that his words will not adequately express the energy of his thoughts, and consequently his language sometimes becomes so emphatic as to appear stilted and declamatory.

  It is the enthusiasm and warmth of feeling which have given the “Dutch Republic,” to most minds, its chief charm; which have done more than anything else to make it, in the estimation of the world at large, one of the most interesting historical books ever written in any language. But it has also many elements of technical perfection. It is written with great care. Many of the sentences are exquisite in felicity and finish. The style is dignified, yet rich with the evidences of literary cultivation and fertile fancy. The larger matters of composition are managed with taste and power. Rarely has any historian in the whole history of literature so united laborious scholarship with dramatic intensity.

History of the United Netherlands, 1860–68

  It is gratifying to learn that before long such a history [on the Netherlands] may be expected,—if, indeed, it should not appear before the publication of this work,—from the pen of our accomplished countryman, Mr. J. Lothrop Motley, who, during the last few years, for the better prosecution of his labors, has established his residence in the neighborhood of the scenes of his narrative. No one acquainted with the fine powers of mind possessed by this scholar, and the earnestness with which he has devoted himself to his task, can doubt that he will do full justice to his important, but difficult subject.

  His investigations into the manuscript records of the time have been so laborious, and he has brought to light so much curious and novel information, that it seems almost ungrateful to hint that we have somewhat too much of it. But the readers of this generation are an impatient race; and Mr. Motley does tell us of intrigues, and abortive negotiations, and diplomatic nothings with a painful minuteness…. The “History of the United Netherlands” is far less disfigured with uncouth expressions, meant to be effective, than was the “Rise of the Dutch Republic.” Yet, even in the latter work, a very superficial search will detect many eccentricities of language…. In addition to the other excellencies which we have already mentioned, Mr. Motley possesses the rare merit of being able to sympathise with all the various characteristics of the era of which he writes. Nor is this a slight matter; for he has selected an era which presents, perhaps, more varied characteristics than any other in the history of the world.

  The history of Holland during the period treated by Mr. Motley is the history of European liberty. Every nation was in some way concerned in the great struggle between Spain and the Netherlands. The characters of Philip II., of his great minister, Cardinal Granvelle, of his sister, Margaret of Parma, and of his great general, the infamous Duke of Alva, as well as the principles and policies of the Spanish government, are painted in the strongest colors. English history also has a new illumination from this work, and the reader will probably get a more vivid and accurate conception of the vain and vacillating Queen Elizabeth, of the unprincipled Earl of Leicester, of Lord Burghley, Walsingham, Drake, and other prominent persons of the period than can be gained from any other source. Of famous Hollanders and Flemings the historian has made a national portrait gallery.

  If the “History of the United Netherlands” is not so great a book as the “Rise of the Dutch Republic,” the fault lies partly in the nature of the subject. The interest is more divided. The greater hero is at the head of the worst cause. Alexander of Parma is, as a man, a head and shoulders taller than Maurice of Nassau. But the fault was also in some degree Mr. Motley’s. As long as he had to tell of the sieges of Antwerp and Ostend the reader felt no weariness, and the English reader of candid mind would feel special pleasure in being rescued from the delusion which had so long blinded his eyes to the share taken by the brave Dutch in causing the failure of the Armada, and in the victorious onslaught on Cadiz. But the fields of diplomacy were a sad temptation to Mr. Motley. An historian who neglects to study the countless despatches in which diplomacy has been wont to spin its airy web, will be certain to be ignorant of much that he ought to know. But the historian who will not resolutely content himself to omit entirely about three-quarters of what he has learned, and to boil down the remainder to a highly concentrated essence, will weary his readers. This is precisely what Mr. Motley too often did. His pages were crowded with move and countermove, with argument and rejoiner, till the thread of the negotiation could be seized with difficulty by the most attentive reader.

  There were no names that sounded to our ears like those of Sir Philip Sidney and Leicester and Amy Robsart. But the main course of this narrative flowed on with the same breadth and depth of learning and the same brilliancy of expression. The monumental work continued as nobly as it had begun. The facts had been slowly, quietly gathered one by one, like pebbles from the empty channel of a brook. The style was fluent, impetuous, abundant, impatient, as it were at times, and leaping the sober boundaries prescribed to it, like the torrent which rushes through the same channel when the rains have filled it. Thus there was matter for criticism in his use of language. He was not always careful in the construction of his sentences. He introduced expressions now and then into his vocabulary which reminded one of his earlier literary efforts. He used stronger language at times than was necessary, coloring too highly, shading too deeply in his pictorial delineations. To come to the matter of his narrative, it must be granted that not every reader will care to follow him through all the details of diplomatic intrigues which he has with such industry and sagacity extricated from the old manuscripts in which they had long lain hidden. But we turn a few pages and we come to one of those descriptions which arrest us at once and show him in his power and brilliancy as a literary artist. His characters move before us with the features of life; we can see Elizabeth, or Philip, or Maurice, not as a name connected with events, but as a breathing and acting human being, to be loved or hated, admired or despised as if he or she were our contemporary.

  With all the merits of the work, and these are many and conspicuous, it must be conceded that it is too controversial in its character to be accepted as the final judgment of mankind. Though these faults detract from the value of the history, they will not diminish in the least the interest of the reader in its pages.

The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, 1874

  Mr. Motley … would appear qualified beyond most men to write the life of the greatest of Dutch statesmen, and readers who take up his last work will naturally expect to find in it a thoroughly satisfactory life of “John of Barneveld.” This expectation will be disappointed. The book has great merits. Mr. Motley’s industry has collected together a large amount of information, all of which is new to his mass of readers, and a great deal of which he may be fairly said to have for the first time exhumed or discovered. There are, further, parts of the book … which are admirable specimens of animated narrative; but though the work is filled with materials from which it would be possible to construct a biography of Barneveld, it can hardly claim to be a life of the Advocate. Readers will put down the two volumes with a sense of having read a confused chronicle of perplexed events without being able to form to themselves a clear conception of the course of the narrative, of the character and policy of the man with whom it deals, or of the real causes of his tragic end. The work reads like chapters torn from their places in a larger consecutive history. The chapters are not without interest, but they fail to compose a biography.

  It is with unfeigned regret that all who value Mr. Motley’s work in his own sphere will see that he is despising the difficulties of a subject on which his knowledge is extremely limited. We feel very much towards his projected enterprise, as the engineer felt who reported on the terrible accident on the South-Western Railway last summer, in which a bullock got in the way of the train. Either the train, he said, if possible, should have been brought to a dead stop, or, if that was not possible, it should have pushed on at full speed. We had rather that Mr. Motley should bring his train to a full stop, and return to his old line. But if that is not to be hoped, we trust that he will push on at full speed. The real history of the Thirty Years’ War is one which will probably take the lifetime of men to investigate thoroughly; and it would be a pity if Mr. Motley were to occupy much time in laboriously acquiring knowledge to which he has not as yet found the key. If Mr. Motley can be induced to continue to treat the subject as a mere episode deserving no serious study, he may possibly write a book as full of mistakes as those which we have signalised, and may then, after wasting three or four years of his valuable life, come back to that special work in which he stands alone, and in relation to which even those who venture to criticise him, are aware that they stand in the relation of scholars to a master.

  With all Motley’s efforts to be impartial, to which even his sternest critics bear witness, he could not help becoming a partisan to the cause which for him was that of religious liberty and progress, as against the accepted formula of an old ecclesiastical organization. For the quarrel which came near being a civil war, which convulsed the State, and cost Barneveld his head, was on certain points, and more especially on a single point, of religious doctrine.

  Valuable and interesting as the work is, it may be said that if he had shortened Barneveld’s life by a half, he might have lengthened his own; for the materials were more intractable than any he had before encountered,—the handwriting especially of the great Advocate of Holland being so bad as almost to be undecipherable even by the aid of the microscope. On the last day of the year in which this noble work appeared, Mrs. Motley died. This blow, coming as it did in the midst of bodily illness and mental distress, broke his heart.

  Thorough and conscientious, interesting and valuable as the book is, it is not to be denied that it takes sides with Oldenbarneveld, and that it is written with less freshness and brilliancy than the earlier volumes.

General

  His strong and ardent convictions on the subject of his work have also affected its style and literary character; his narrative sometimes lacks proportion and forbearance; he dwells to excess upon events and scenes of a nature to kindle in the mind of the reader the excitement he himself feels, and he studiously withholds from the opposite side the same amount of space and of colouring. His style is always copious, occasionally familiar, sometimes stilted and declamatory, as if he thought he could never say too much to convey the energy of his own impressions. The consequence is, that the perusal of his work is alternately attractive and fatiguing, persuasive and irritating. An accumulation of facts and details, all originating in the same feeling and directed to the same object, mingles our sympathy with some degree of distrust; and although the cause he defends is beyond all question gained, we are not impressed with the judgment of such an advocate.

  Whose name belongs to no single country, and to no single age. As a statesman and diplomatist and patriot, he belongs to America; as a scholar, to the world of letters; as a historian, all ages will claim him in the future.

  He is especially remarkable for a certain breadth of mind which impels him to take comprehensive and exhaustive views of his subject. His style is a model of vigor and grace, and in dramatic quality it is equaled by that of no other historian of this century.

  My first interview, more than twenty years ago, with Mr. Lothrop Motley, has left an indelible impression on my memory. It was the 8th of August, 1853…. My eagerness to make the acquaintance of such an associate in my sympathies and my labors may be well imagined. But how shall I picture my surprise, in presently discovering that this unknown and indefatigable fellow-worker has really read, I say read and reread our “Quartos,” our “Folios,” the enormous volumes of “Bor,” of “Van Meteren,” besides a multitude of books, of pamphlets, and even of unedited documents. Already he is familiar with the events, the changes of condition, the characteristic details of the life of his and my hero. Not only is he acquainted with my Archives, but it seems as if there was nothing in this voluminous collection of which he was ignorant…. The Archives are a specific collection, and my Manual of National History, written in Dutch, hardly gets beyond the limits of my own country. And here is a stranger, become a compatriot in virtue of the warmth of his sympathies, who has accomplished what was not in my power. By the detail and the charm of his narrative, by the matter and form of a work which the universality of the English language and numerous translations were to render cosmopolitan, Mr. Motley, like that other illustrious historian, Prescott, lost to science by too early death, has popularized in both hemispheres the sublime devotion of the Prince of Orange, the exceptional and providential destinies of my country, and the benedictions of the Eternal for all those who trust in Him and tremble only at His word.

  His histories are, in some degree, epics. As he frequently crosses Prescott’s path in his presentation of the ideas, passions, and persons of the sixteenth century, it is curious to note the serenity of Prescott’s narrative as contrasted with the swift, chivalric impatience of a wrong which animates almost every page of Motley. Both imaginatively reproduce what they have investigated; both have the eye to see and the reason to discriminate; both substantially agree in their judgment as to events and characters; but Prescott quietly allows his readers, as a jury, to render their verdict on the statement of the facts, while Motley somewhat fiercely pushes forward to anticipate it. Prescott calmly represents; Motley intensely feels. Prescott is on a watch-tower surveying the battle; Motley plunges into the thickest of the fight. In temperament no two historians could be more apart; in judgment they are identical. As both historians are equally incapable of lying, Motley finds it necessary to overload his narrative with details which justify his vehemence, while Prescott can afford to omit them, on account of his reputation for a benign impartiality between the opposing parties. A Roman Catholic disputant would find it hard to fasten a quarrel on Prescott; but with Motley he could easily detect an occasion for a duel to the death. It is to be said that Motley’s warmth of feeling never betrays him into intentional injustice to any human being; his histories rest on a basis of facts which no critic has shaken.

  Give evidence of the author’s long and careful research, but are faulty in style and spirit. He neither weighs the meaning of his words, nor combines them skillfully. His misrepresentations of Catholics are so obvious that Protestant critics themselves have condemned his “over-zealous partisanship.”

  I should have liked Stanley to have pointed out the thing which strikes me most in Motley, that alone of all men past and present he knit together not only America and England, but that Older England which we left on Frisian shores, and which grew into the United Netherlands. A child of America, the historian of Holland, he made England his adopted country, and in England his body rests.

  But there is a yet deeper key of harmony that has just been struck within the last week. The hand of death has removed from his dwelling place amongst us one of the brightest lights of the Western Hemisphere,—the high-spirited patriot, the faithful friend of England’s best and purest spirits, the brilliant, the indefatigable historian who told as none before him has told the history of the rise and struggle of the Dutch Republic, almost a part of his own. We sometimes ask what room or place is left in the crowded temple of Europe’s fame for one of the Western world to occupy. But a sufficient answer is given in the work which was reserved to be accomplished by him who has just departed. So long as the tale of the greatness of the house of Orange, of the siege of Leyden, of the tragedy of Barneveld, interests mankind, so long will Holland be indissolubly connected with the name of Motley in that union of the ancient culture of Europe with the aspirations of America which was so remarkable in the ardent, laborious, soaring soul that has passed away. He loved that land of his birth with a passionate zeal, he loved the land of his adoption with a surpassing love.

  Since the death of Lord Macaulay no contribution, in our tongue, to historic literature, has been at once so original, solid, and popularly attractive as the nine volumes of Mr. Motley; nor has any event been more justly lamented than the premature close of the career of one, at once a student and an artist, whose often fiery zeal was always restrained by a resolute fairness, and who carried into the politics of his own day the quenchless love of liberty with which he animates the scenes and revivifies the actors of the past.

  Of all the books I have read lately, “Motley’s Letters” are the most delightful. He was a perfect letter-writer. His account of the great struggle of the Northern States has impressed me intensely.

  Motley had the intense zeal of the born investigator, a rare and heroic quality of which the world takes little note in historians. He had likewise in full possession those qualities which engage the reader. No American has ever written a history more brilliant and dramatic. The subject was a noble one. It was full of picturesque incident, of opportunities for glowing description, of thrilling tales of heroism. But it was not simply these that so engaged Motley’s interest that, as he afterwards said, he felt as if he must write upon it. It was a great national conflict for freedom, and as such was profoundly congenial to one who, above all things, loved liberty. The warm heart and enthusiastic, ardent temper of the historian laid him open to dangers of partiality which, it must be confessed, he was far from wholly escaping. The American public little appreciate the extent to which he was influenced by such feelings.

  The greatest of the whole of American historians…. His “Rise of the Dutch Republic,” 1856, and “History of the United Netherlands,” published in installments from 1861 to 1868, equaled Bancroft’s work in scientific thoroughness and philosophic grasp, and Prescott’s in the picturesque brilliancy of the narrative, while it excelled them both in its masterly analysis of great historic characters, reminding the reader, in this particular, of Macaulay’s figure painting.

  Motley’s high rank as an historian is secure. As searching as Bancroft, as graphic as Prescott, he outwent them both in comprehension of character, in dramatic quality, and impassioned force. He was too intense a lover of liberty and virtue to be quite impartial. William the Silent was his hero, and Philip II. his villain, but what prejudice he had was always of a noble sort.

  A born investigator, Motley toiled for years in the libraries and state archives of western Europe, his zest in the pursuit of truth transforming drudgery into delight…. Motley’s style, which suggests that of Carlyle, is notably vigorous and brilliant, and certain passages are filled with sarcastic humor. Prescott excelled in the orderly movement of his narrative, but Motley possessed a dramatic instinct which enables him to seize upon some revealing situation and bring it vividly before us. This same dramatic power shows itself also in his delineation of character; certain figures stand out with life-like distinctness, and we can almost imagine ourselves alongside of those men and women of the past in whose company, Motley himself wrote, he was spending all his days.

  Motley’s historical work is obviously influenced by the vividly picturesque writings of Carlyle. It is clearly influenced, too, by intense sympathy with that liberal spirit which he believed to characterise the people of the Netherlands during their prolonged conflict with Spain. From these traits result several obvious faults. In trying to be vivid, he becomes artificial. In the matter of character, too, his Spaniards are apt to be intensely black, and his Netherlanders ripe for the heavenly rewards to which he sends them as serenely as romantic novelists provide for the earthly happiness of heroes and heroines. Yet, for all his sincerely partisan temper, Motley was so industrious in accumulating material, so untiring in his effort vividly to picture its external aspect, and so heartily in sympathy with his work, that he is almost always interesting. What most deeply stirred him was his belief in the abstract right of man to political liberty; and this he wished to celebrate with epic spirit. Belief and spirit alike were characteristically American; in the history of his own country there was abundant evidence of both.