eing continued from day to day, lessons and home duties
being considered but tiresome interruptions to the real business
of life. Very often one of these stories begun on Monday would
be continued through the whole week, and the end be celebrated on
Saturday by a visit to the Boston Athenaeum, into whose recesses he
would beguile his fellows, while they buckled on the old armor found
there, and played at joust and tournament, imagining themselves to be
Lancelot, Ronsard, or Bayard, as the case might be.

A life of Gibbon which Prescott read in his teens led to an
enthusiastic study of history and to the resolve to become if possible
a historian himself. While a student at Harvard one of his eyes was so
injured by the carelessness of a fellow pupil that he lost the entire
use of it; but he kept to the resolution to fulfil the task he had set
for himself. His fame began with the publication of the _History of
Ferdinand and Isabella_, which was published almost simultaneously in
Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Russia. It covers the history of
Spain from the Moorish invasion through the period of national glory
which illumined the reign of Isabella. The civil wars, the Jewish
persecutions, the discovery of the New World, the expulsion of the
Moors, the Italian wars, and the social life of the people, their arts
and pursuits, their amusements, and the literature of that age, are
vividly presented.

The recognition of his merits was welcome to Prescott. While doubting
which subject to choose for his labors he had heard several lectures
upon Spanish literature, prepared for delivery at Harvard College, and
at once applied himself to the study of the Spanish language, history,
and romance as a preparation for his life work, and two years after
began his celebrated work. The book was eleven years in preparation,
and is full of enthusiasm for the romance and chivalry of the Old
World. Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ began with a
sketch of the ancient Aztec civilization, proceeded to a description
of the conquest by Cortez, and concluded with an account of the after
career of the great commander, the whole work seeming a brilliant
romance rather than sober history.

The materials for Prescott's work were gathered from every known
available source. The narratives of eye-witnesses were brought
forth from their hiding-places in the royal libraries of Spain, and
patiently transcribed; old letters, unpublished chro