ture of his friend so life-like and so true in detail, and yet in
never overstepping the line of that inner circle into which the public
has no right to enter. We have in these pages a record of Mr. Prescott's
life from his cradle to his grave, sufficiently minute to show what
manner of man he was, and what influences went to make up his mind and
character; and it is a record of more than common value, as well as
interest.

For the last twenty years of his life Mr. Prescott was one of the most
eminent and widely known of the residents of Boston. He was universally
beloved, esteemed, and admired. He was one of the first persons whom a
stranger coming among us wished to see. His person and countenance were
familiar to many who had no further acquaintance with him; and as he
walked about our streets, many a glance of interest was turned upon him
of which he himself was unconscious. The general knowledge that his
literary honors had been won under no common difficulties, owing to his
defective sight, invested his name and presence with a peculiar feeling
of admiration and regard. The public at large, including those persons
who had but a slight acquaintance with him, saw in him a man very
attractive in personal appearance, and of manners singularly frank and
engaging. There was the same charm in his conversation, his aspect, the
expression of his countenance, that was felt in his writings. Everything
that he did seemed to have been done easily, spontaneously, and without
effort. There were no marks of toil and endurance, of temptations
resisted and seductions overcome. His graceful and limpid style seemed
to flow along with the natural movement of a running stream, and to
those who saw his winning smile and listened to his gay and animated
talk he appeared like one who had basked in sunshine all his days and
never known the iron discipline of life.

But this was not true; at least, it was not the whole truth. Besides
this external, superficial aspect, there was an inner life which was
known only to the few who knew him intimately, and which his biography
has now revealed to the world. This memoir sets the author of "Ferdinand
and Isabella" before the public, as Mr. Ticknor says in his preface, "as
a man whose life for more than forty years was one of almost constant
struggle,--of an almost constant sacrifice of impulse to duty, of the
present to the future." Take Mr. Prescott as he was at the age of
twenty-five, and see wh