THE Conquest of Peru was, for the most part, written more rapidly than any other of Prescott's histories. Much of the material necessary for it had been acquired during his earlier studies, and with this material he had been long familiar when he began to write. The book was, indeed, as he himself described it, a pendant to the Conquest of Mexico. Had the latter work not been written, it is likely that the Conquest of Peru would be now accepted as the most popular of Prescott's works. Unfortunately, it is always subjected to a comparison with the other and greater book, and therefore, relatively, it suffers. In the first place, when so compared, it resembles an imperfect replica of the Mexico rather than an independent history. The theme is, in its nature, the same, and so it lacks the charm of novelty. The exploits of Pizarro do not merely recall to the modern reader the adventurous achievements of CortÉs, but, as a matter of fact, they were actually inspired by them. Thus, Pizarro's march from the coast over the Andes closely resembles the march of CortÉs over the Cordilleras. His seizure of the Inca, Atahualpa, was undoubtedly suggested to him by the seizure of Montezuma. The massacre of the Peruvians in Caxamarca reads like a reminiscence of the massacre of the Aztecs by Alvarado in Mexico. The fighting, if fighting it may be called, presents the same features as are found in the battles of CortÉs. So far as there is any difference in the two narratives, this difference is not in favour of the later book. If Pizarro bears a likeness to CortÉs, the likeness is but superficial. His soul is the soul of CortÉs habitans in sicco. There is none of the frankness of the conqueror of Mexico, none of his chivalry, little of his bluff good comradeship. Pizarro rather impresses one as mean-spirited, avaricious, and cruel, so that we hold lightly his undoubted courage, his persistency, and his endurance. Moreover, the Peruvians are too feeble as antagonists to make the record of their resistance an exciting one. They lack the ferocity of the Aztec character, and when they are slaughtered by the white men, the tale is far more pitiful than stirring. Even Prescott's art cannot make us feel that there is anything romantic in the conquest and butchery of a flock of sheep. The outrages perpetrated upon an effeminate people by their Spanish masters form a long and dreary record of robbery and rape and it is inevitably monotonous.

Another fundamental defect in the subject which Prescott chose was thoroughly appreciated by him. "Its great defect," he wrote in 1845, "is want of unity. A connected tissue of adventures ... but not the especial interest that belongs to the Iliad and to the Conquest of Mexico." In another memorandum (made in 1846) he calls his subject "second rate,—quarrels of banditti over their spoils." This criticism is absolutely just, and it well explains the inferiority of the story of Peru when we contrast it with the book which went before. Up to the capture of the Inca there is no lack of unity; but after that, the stream of narration filters away in different directions, like some river which grows broader and shallower until at last in a multitude of little streams it disappears in dry and sandy soil. The fault is not the fault of the writer. It is inherent in the subject. Nowhere has Prescott written with greater skill. It is only that no display of literary art can give dignity and distinction to that which in itself is unheroic and sometimes even sordid. The one passage which stands out from all the rest is that which sets before us the famous incident at Panama, when Pizarro, at the head of his little band of followers, mutinous, famished, and half-naked, still boldly scorns all thought of a return.

Here is an heroic event told with that simplicity which means effectiveness. This is the one page in the Peru where the narrator makes us thrill with a sense of what, in its way, verges upon moral sublimity.

As to the historical value of the book, it stands in much the same category as the Conquest of Mexico. All that relates to the actual history of the Conquest is told with the same accurate regard for the original authorities which Prescott always showed, and for this part of the narrative, the original authorities are worthy of credence. The preliminary chapters on Peruvian antiquities are less satisfactory even than the corresponding portions of the other book. Prescott found them very hard to write. He was conscious that the subject was a formidable one. He did the best he could and all that any one could possibly have done at the time in which he wrote. Even now, after the elaborate explorations and researches of Bandelier, Markham, Baessler, Cunow, and others, the social and political relations of the Peruvians are little understood. Much has been learned of their art and of the monuments which they have left behind; but of their institutional history the records still remain obscure. The modern student, however, discovers many indications that they, too, like the Aztecs, were of the Red Race, and that their government was based upon the clan system; so that even the Inca himself, like the Mexican war-chief, was merely the elected executive of a council of the gentes. Here, as in Mexico, the Spaniards carelessly described in terms of Europe the institutions which they found, and made no serious attempt to understand them. Even the account of the Peruvian religion which Prescott gives, in accordance with the statements of the early Catholic missionaries, needs considerable modification.[50]

The Spanish chroniclers whom Prescott followed describe the Peruvians as united under a great monarchy,—an "empire,"—the head of which, the Inca, was an hereditary and absolute ruler, whose person was sacred in that he was divine and the sole giver of law. The system was, therefore, a theocratic one, with the chief priest appointed by the Inca. There was a nobility, but the great offices of state were filled by the members of the imperial family. The rule of the Inca extended over a vast territory, and of it he was the supreme lord, having his wives from among the Virgins of the Sun, the fifteen hundred beautiful maidens who abode in the Palace of the Sun in Cuzco. Over the wonderful system of roads which intersected the empire, the couriers of the Inca passed back and forth with the commands of their master, to which all gave heed. The Peruvian religion was strongly monotheistic in that it recognised the unity, and preËminence of a supreme deity.

Recent investigation has left practically nothing of this interesting fiction which has been repeated by hundreds of writers with every possible magnificence of detail. There was no "empire" of Peru. The Indians of the coast governed themselves, though they sometimes paid tribute to the Cuzco Indians. There was, however, no homogeneous nationality. In the valley of Cuzco there was a tribe known as the Inca, perhaps seventy thousand souls in all, who were locally divided into twelve clans, each having its own government, and dwelling in its own village or ward; for it was a combination of these twelve villages which made up the whole settlement collectively styled Cuzco. A council of the twelve clans chose a war-chief whom some of the other tribes called "Inca," but who was not so called by his own people. He was not an hereditary chief; he could be deposed; he had no especial sanctity. The Virgins of the Sun were something very different from virgins. The road system of the Peruvians really constituted no system at all. The nobles were not nobles. The religion was not monotheistic, but embodied the worship not only of sun, moon, and stars, but of rocks, mountains, stone idols, and a variety of fetishes. Metal-work, pottery, weaving, and building were the chief arts of the Peruvians; but in them all, quaintness, utility, and permanence were more conspicuous than beauty.[51]

Disregarding, however, all questions of Peruvian archÆology, we may accept the judgment passed upon the Conquest of Peru by one of the most eminent of modern investigators, Sir Clements Markham, who, as a young man, knew Prescott well, and to whom the reading of this book proved to be an inspiration in his chosen field. Long after Prescott's death, and speaking with the fuller knowledge of the subject which he had acquired, he declared of the Peru: "It deservedly stands in the first rank as a judicious history of the Conquest."

The History of the Reign of Philip II. remains an unfinished work. Its subject, of course, provokes a comparison with the two brilliant histories by Motley,—The Rise of the Dutch Republic and The History of the United Netherlands. The interest in this comparison lies in the view which each of the historians has taken of the gloomy Philip. The contrasted temperaments of the two writers are well indicated in a letter which Motley sent to Prescott after the first volume of Philip II. had appeared. He wrote:—

The two men, indeed, approached their subject in very different fashion. In Motley, rigidly scientific though he was, there are always a touch of emotion, a love of liberty, a hatred of oppression. He once wrote to his father that it gratified him "to pitch into the Duke of Alva and Philip II. to my heart's content." Prescott, on the other hand, was more detached, partly because he was by nature tolerant and calm; and it may be also because his protracted Spanish studies had given him unconsciously the Spanish point of view. He even came at last to adopt this theory himself, and he wrote of it in a humorous way. Thus to Lady Lyell, he declared:—

Again, he styles Philip one "who may be considered as to other Catholics what a Puseyite is to other Protestants." And elsewhere he confesses to "a sneaking fondness for Philip." It was very like him, this hesitation to condemn; and it recalls a memorandum which he made while writing his Peru: "never call hard names À la Southey." Hence in a letter of his to Motley, who had sent him a copy of the Dutch Republic,—a letter which forms an interesting complement to Motley's note to him, he wrote:—

Prescott's Philip II. raised no such questions of accuracy as followed upon the publications of the Mexican and Peruvian histories. As in the case of the Ferdinand and Isabella, the sources were unimpeachable, first-hand, and contained the more intimate revelations of incident and motive. There were no archÆological problems to be solved, no obscure racial puzzles to perplex the investigator. The reign of Philip had simply to be interpreted in the light of the revelations which Philip himself and his contemporaries left behind them—often in papers which were never meant for more than two pairs of eyes. How complete are these revelations, one may learn from a striking passage written by Motley, who speaks in it of the abundant stores of knowledge which lie at the disposal of the modern student of history.

All this material and more was in Prescott's hands, and he made full use of it. His narrative, moreover, was told in a style which was easy and unstudied, less glowing than in the Mexico, but even better fitted for the telling of events which were so pregnant with good and ill to succeeding generations. In the pages of Philip II. we have neither the somewhat formal student who wrote of Ferdinand and Isabella, nor the romanticist whose imagination was kindled by the reports of CortÉs. Rather do we find one who has at last reached the highest levels of historical writing, and who with perfect poise develops a noble theme in a noble way. The only criticism which has ever been brought against the book has come from those who, like Thoreau, regard literary finish as a defect in historical composition. The author of Walden seemed, indeed, to single out Prescott for special animadversion in this respect, and his rather rasping sentences contain the only jarring notes that were sounded by any contemporary of the historian. Thoreau, writing of the colonial historians of Massachusetts, such as Josselyn, remarked with a sort of perverse appreciation: "They give you one piece of nature at any rate, and that is themselves, smacking their lips like a coach-whip,—none of those emasculated modern histories, such as Prescott's, cursed with a style."

If style be really a curse to an historian, then Prescott remained under its ban to the very last. As a bit of vivid writing his description of the battle of Lepanto was much admired, and Irving thought it the best thing in the book. A bit of it may be quoted by way of showing that Prescott in his later years lost nothing of his vivacity or of his fondness for battle-scenes.

First we see the Turkish armament moving up to battle against the allied fleets:—

Then we have the two fleets in the thick of combat:—

"The Pacha opened at once on his enemy a terrible fire of cannon and musketry. It was returned with equal spirit and much more effect; for the Turks were observed to shoot over the heads of their adversaries. The Moslem galley was unprovided with the defences which protected the sides of the Spanish vessels; and the troops, crowded together on the lofty prow, presented an easy mark to their enemy's balls. But though numbers of them fell at every discharge, their places were soon supplied by those in reserve. They were enabled, therefore, to keep up an incessant fire, which wasted the strength of the Spaniards; and, as both Christian and Mussulman fought with indomitable spirit, it seemed doubtful to which side victory would incline....

"Thus the fight raged along the whole extent of the entrance to the Gulf of Lepanto. The volumes of vapour rolling heavily over the waters effectually shut out from sight whatever was passing at any considerable distance, unless when a fresher breeze dispelled the smoke for a moment, or the flashes of the heavy guns threw a transient gleam on the dark canopy of battle. If the eye of the spectator could have penetrated the cloud of smoke that enveloped the combatants, and have embraced the whole scene at a glance, he would have perceived them broken up into small detachments, separately engaged one with another, independently of the rest, and indeed ignorant of all that was doing in other quarters. The contest exhibited few of those large combinations and skilful manoeuvres to be expected in a great naval encounter. It was rather an assemblage of petty actions, resembling those on land. The galleys, grappling together, presented a level arena, on which soldier and galley-slave fought hand to hand, and the fate of the engagement was generally decided by boarding. As in most hand-to-hand contests, there was an enormous waste of life. The decks were loaded with corpses, Christian and Moslem lying promiscuously together in the embrace of death. Instances are recorded where every man on board was slain or wounded. It was a ghastly spectacle, where blood flowed in rivulets down the sides of the vessels, staining the waters of the Gulf for miles around.

"It seemed as if a hurricane had swept over the sea and covered it with the wreck of the noble armaments which a moment before were so proudly riding on its bosom. Little had they now to remind one of their late magnificent array, with their hulls battered, their masts and spars gone or splintered by the shot, their canvas cut into shreds and floating wildly on the breeze, while thousands of wounded and drowning men were clinging to the floating fragments and calling piteously for help."