[1] Quoted by Jameson: Historical Writing in America, p. 72, Boston, 1891.
[2] This house was long ago demolished. Its site is now occupied by Plummer Hall, containing a public library.
[3] A very interesting appreciation of President Kirkland is given by Dr. A. P. Peabody in his Harvard Reminiscences (Boston, 1888).
[4] John Quincy Adams was titularly Professor of Rhetoric, but he had been absent for several years on a diplomatic mission in Europe.
[5] The first number appeared in February, 1820; the last in July of the same year.
[6] Her mother had been Miss Hannah Linzee, whose father, Captain Linzee, of the British sloop-of-war Falcon, had tried by heavy cannonading to dislodge Colonel William Prescott from the redoubt at Bunker Hill. The swords of the two had been handed down in their respective families, and now found a peaceful resting-place in young Prescott's "den," where they hung crossed upon the wall above his books.
[7] Professor Jameson mentions two other contemporary instances,—Karl Szaynocha and Prescott's Florentine correspondent, the Marquis Gino Capponi.
[8] Prescott owned two noctographs, but did nearly all of his writing with one, keeping the other in reserve in case the first should suffer accident. One of these two implements is preserved in the Massachusetts Historical Society.
[11] Lembke was a German, the author of a work on early Spanish history, and a member of the Spanish Historical Academy. Prescott mentions him in his letter to Irving. "This learned Theban happens to be in Madrid for the nonce, pursuing some investigations of his own, and he has taken charge of mine, like a true German, inspecting everything and selecting just what has reference to my subject. In this way he has been employed with four copyists since July, and has amassed a quantity of unpublished documents. He has already sent off two boxes to Cadiz."
[12] Hale, Memories of a Hundred Years, ii. pp. 71, 72 (New York, 1902).
[13] In place of Navarrete, deceased. Prescott received eighteen ballots out of the twenty that were cast.
[14] Wilson, Thackeray in America, i. pp. 16, 17 (New York, 1904).
[15] Meaning, of course, that he took more wine than was good for his eye.
[17] For an interesting account of Simancas and the archives, see a paper by Dr. W. R. Shepherd, in the Reports of the American Historical Association for 1903 (Washington, 1905).
[18] The father of Mr. James Lawrence, who afterward married Prescott's daughter Elizabeth. See p. 97.
[19] Alluding to the fact that he always shed tears at the opera.
[20] The English title of this book was Critical and Historical Essays. It contained twelve papers and also the life of Charles Brockden Brown already mentioned (p. 65). The American edition bore the title Biographical and Critical Miscellanies. It has been several times reprinted, the last issue appearing in Philadelphia in 1882.
[38]Moeurs des Sauvages AmÉricains ComparÉes aux Moeurs des Premiers Temps (Paris, 1723). Lafitau had lived as a missionary among the Iroquois for five years, after which he returned to France and spent the rest of his life in teaching and writing.
[39]The History of the American Indians (London, 1775).
[40] Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (Seville, 1590).
[48] "Though remarkably fair and judicious in the main, Mr. Prescott's partiality for a certain class of his material is evident. To the copies from the Spanish archives, most of which have been since published with hundreds of others equally or more valuable, he seemed to attach an importance proportionate to their cost. Thus, throughout his entire work, these papers are paraded to the exclusion of the more reliable, but more accessible standard authorities."—H. H. Bancroft, History of Mexico, i. p. 7, Note.
[50] Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 52 (Philadelphia, 1868).
[51] See the section by Markham on "The Inca Civilisation in Peru," in Winsor, A Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. i. (Boston, 1889); and an interesting summary of the results of eleven years researches by Bandelier in a paper entitled "The Truth about Inca Civilisation," published in Harper's Magazine for March, 1905.
[52] Motley, History of the United Netherlands, i. p. 54.
