Nor is this honourable moral distinction peculiar to Mr. Prescott; it may be traced in several of the Protestant historical researches which have recently been directed to the Catholic Powers of the sixteenth century, and especially in the dissertations prefixed by M. Groen van Prinsterer to his Archives of 'the House of Nassau.' From a Dutchman and a zealous Protestant, busied in the records of the sufferings and the heroic struggles of his forefathers, this scrupulous and unswerving fairness is even more meritorious.

Considered as a literary work, independently of this high moral appreciation of persons and of events, Mr. Prescott's History of Philip II. has other merits which, rare as they are, are not always remarked. The structure of this book is ingenious and well arranged. Mr. Prescott has not bound himself to follow in strict succession the chronological order of events; he has classed them according to their characters, and divided them into groups, which follow their respective and distinct course, without however losing the thread which connects them, or ceasing to form a whole. Thus the accession of Philip, and his first wars in France and Italy his return to Spain, and his administration of the kingdom the condition, the revolt, and the struggle of the Low Countries under the government of Cardinal Granvelle, Margaret of Parma, and the Duke of Alva- the trials and the death of Egmont, Horn, and Montigny-the story of Don Carlos and Elizabeth of France-form a series of complete pictures at once distinct and well connected together, and the general history of the King's reign may thus be grasped in its grander masses instead of unrolling the incoherent links of a broken chain. This style of writing places the moral succession of causes above the material succession of events, and supersedes, by a loftier chronology, the chronology of the almanac. The master of all historians, Tacitus, has left us in his Annals and in his Histories examples of either method; and although he has in both his works shed the splendour of his genius with equal lustre over the details he relates, their diversity and their unequal beauty as works of art are extremely striking.

Amongst the group of events which fill the two first volumes of Mr. Prescott's book, there is one, interesting enough in itself, but so disproportioned to the rest of the work as to impair its general harmony and effect-we mean the four chapters he has devoted to the Knights of Malta, and to the siege of Malta by the Turks in 1565. This brilliant incident filled too small a space in the history of Philip II., and Philip II. himself filled too small a space in the history of the

siege, for Mr. Prescott to have assigned to it so large a portion of his book. He has evidently been led away by the charm of his subject, and by the pleasure of painting in detail that glorious passage in the long struggle of Christians against the Infidel, the character of the gallant veteran, Jean Parisot de la Valette, who was then Grand Master of the Order, and the impetuous valour of his Knights.

To this merit of a well-arranged history Mr. Prescott adds that of an easy, unaffected, though somewhat frigid, power of narration. He belongs to the historical school of Robertson, judicious rather than profound in its general views, and more remarkable for simplicity than for descriptive power. The pictures Mr. Prescott has given us are never wanting in truth, but they are sometimes wanting in life. History only becomes dramatic on two conditions; it must have either the passion of the politician or the imagination of the poet. Mr. Prescott has neither one nor the other; he is a calm and enlightened philosopher, an accomplished man of letters; he is well read in the history of Philip II., and he relates it with fidelity; but he has studied it after the lapse of three centuries in all the serenity of his own reflections and the tranquillity of a New England study, faithfully, therefore, as these events and these personages are described by him, he leaves them where he finds them, in their tombs..

Mr. Motley has more vehemence: not that of a politician engaged in the struggles of party and the responsibilities of office, but that of a Republican, a Protestant, an honest man, who hates, as if he saw them before his eyes, the outrages and persecutions inflicted on civil and religious liberty, centuries ago, in a far country, and lashes with all his heart the authors of these crimes. His admiration for the champions of the liberal and Protestant cause is not less keen. As much as he execrates Philip and the Duke of Alva, he loves William of Orange; he describes him, he praises him, he defends him as if he were personally interested in his fate and in his fame. William is to Mr. Motley what his illustrious descendant is to Mr. Macaulay not merely a hero, but a hero of his own. Too well-informed to overlook the imputations which rest upon the memory of that great Prince, and too conscientious to conceal them, Mr. Motley scrutinises every detail, and argues the cause of his client with unbounded confidence. Thus, his account of the marriage of William, in 1561, with the Princess Anne of Saxony, a daughter of the great Elector Maurice, and of the religious equivocations of the Prince in the negotiation of this alliance, is a model of obstinate and skilful pleading to screen

Thus excited

the weak side of a good cause and a great man. by alternations of extreme aversion and strong predilection -which, however reasonable in themselves, have obtained absolute possession of Mr. Motley's mind - this writer does not handle his subject with the perfect fairness and comprehensive grasp of Mr. Prescott; nor does he, like his eminent contemporary, descend into the ranks or search the hearts of his enemies, to understand and to describe their conduct with strict impartiality.

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. With these merits and with these imperfections, the History of Philip II.' and the History of 'the Rise of the Dutch Republic,' are undoubtedly two important works, the result of profound researches, sincere convictions, sound principles, and manly sentiments; and even those who are most familiar with the history of the period will find in them a fresh and vivid addition to their previous knowledge. They do honour to American literature, and they would do honour to the literature of any country in the world.

ART. II.-1. De la Longevité Humaine, et de la Quantité de Vie sur le Globe. Par P. FLOURENS, Membre de l'Académie Française, Secretaire perpetuel de l'Académie des Sciences, &c. &c. Deuxième Edition. Paris: 1855.

2. On the Decline of Life in Health and Disease. By B. Van OVEN, M. D. London: 1854.

3. Records of Longevity. By THOMAS BAILEY. London: 1856.

THE

HE doctrine of M. Flourens is, that Man ought, by virtue of his natural constitution, to live for a century; and that this natural term of life is abridged only by his own improvidence, follies, and excesses. Such an opinion, supported by a name of some eminence, deserves consideration at least; and this we propose to give to it, adding further what occurs to ourselves as needful to a more complete and just view of the subject.

Without citing any of the innumerable maxims and commonplaces by which the love of long life has been illustrated or reproved, we may at once assume the fact that all mankind, of every age, race, and country, have a deep and paramount interest in this great question of the duration of life, and of the means by which it may best be maintained and prolonged. Such maxims and speculations come to us from the earliest records of man on the earth—they are embodied in classical poetry, in history and they appertain alike to savage and civilised life, to the fool and the philosopher-and are common to every country and clime, from the arctic circle to the equator.

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There needs no argument to prove that this must be so; and that the feeling is justified by being natural and inevitable. The word life, when thus used to express the totality to every man of his present being, is in itself of deep significance. While marking out the longer or shorter space which each one occupies in the endless line of time, it includes those many wonderful changes of mind and body- those diverse yet continuous stages of existence by which, without forfeiture of personal identity, childhood, manhood, and old age are all included within one span. Philosophy in every age has been occupied and perplexed by this great problem of the origin, progress, and end of life. Metaphysicians and moralists have alike lost themselves in the inquiry. Physiologists and physicians, by taking other routes, and noting the close connexion of vital and physical laws, have seemed to approach nearer to its solution; yet all are met in the end by barriers which no research or reason can surmount, and upon which speculation wastes itself in words without meaning.

Look, as a single case, at that profound problem to which we have just referred the preservation of unity of consciousness, under the successive natural changes of state, and the numberless accidents and strange fluctuations which compose the life of man. The phrase of Rochefoucauld, On est quelquefois aussi dif'ferent de soi-même que des autres,' is a feeble and superficial expression of those diversities of condition which occur in each single being, between the cradle and the grave. Yet the line of personal identity is kept entire, though thus knotted and tangled in every part of its length-though feelings are altered and memories have passed away. If reason cannot reach these things, faith may find in them some index to a higher identity beyond the term of life on earth.

Look again at that which seems to make the greatest breach in this unity of being, yet is itself an integral part of life, and necessary to it the wonderful phenomenon of Sleep. If called upon to name that part of our nature, which is at once most marvellous in itself, and most prolific of conclusions beyond, we could not hesitate to find it in this great function, so familiar to our experience, so obscure to our philosophy. When Sir Thomas Brown describes sleep as the brother of death, which extracteth 'a third part of our lives,' he quaintly but strikingly denotes the wonderful fact of this periodical intermission of ordinary life; during which the senses cease in great part to have relation to the world without; and the mind, barely conscious of its own identity, works in a vague succession of images and associations

the shadows sometimes of prior events, sometimes the seeming creation of the very act of dreaming, and traceable to no reality of waking existence. Scarcely can we abate our wonder at this phenomenon of our nature, by placing what we believe to be its true theory before us; viz. that sleep is not one, but an ever-changing variety of state; passing through every stage and degree of change from perfect wakefulness to the most complete suppression of all external consciousness-varying also at every moment in the degree in which each particular sense and function of life is submitted to its influence.* All these more especial conditions of sleep do rather enhance the wonder and the mystery of a state, which thus occupies and engrosses a full fourth part of human existence on earth;-not less than a third, if

* We find this theory of sleep as a succession of ever-changing conditions, strongly urged by Sir H. Holland in his Chapters on Mental Physiology, as the only one accordant with truth, or capable of expounding the strange phenomena, mental and bodily, of this mysterious function of life, and we have previously adverted to this work in No. ccx. of this Journal.