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^Motley's Correspondence. 297 ^ 
 
 predecessors. The late Emperor of Germany and our own 
 Prince of Wales stand out among most Royal personages of the 
 present generation for their anxiety to deserve well of their 
 countrymen, and for their earnest efforts to fulfil every require- 
 ment incidental to their stations. The path of duty was very 
 different in both cases, but in both it was conscientiously 
 followed out. It would be almost miraculous if any one occu- 
 pying a foremost position in any country entirely escaped the 
 voice of detraction ; but, in justice to the good sense and gbod 
 feeling of the English people, it must be acknowledgedi 1jh?it , 
 this unwelcome voice is almost wholly silent where the Prince 
 of Wales is concerned. Few, indeed, are they who will not 
 cordially and frankly acknowledge that his personal qualities, 
 and his lofty sense of duty, well entitle him to share with his 
 illustrious mother, the Sovereign, the loyalty and affection of 
 the British people all over the world. S^^j j-ji^J ^ 
 
 Art. II. — 1. ^ The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, ' 
 
 .D.C.L., formerly United States Minister in England ; Author 
 of ^Rise of the Dutch Republic^ ' History of the United Nether- 
 lands^ Sfc. Edited by George William Curtis. 2 vols.. 
 London, 1889. 
 
 2. John Lothrop Motley, a Memoir. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 London, 1878. 
 
 AMONG the many Americans and foreigners who, in recent 
 years, have undertaken to describe England, her customs, 
 and her inhabitants, there are but few who have enjoyed such 
 opportunities as did Mr. Motley of mixing with and studying 
 the inner life of our best society ; and never perhaps have such 
 opportunities been combined with that genius of observation and- 
 faculty for description, which were possessed by the historian of 
 the Dutch Republic. They are but sketches that he gives us, 
 but sketches which comprise most of the leading characters of 
 the time, dashed off from day to day in all the ease and unrestraint 
 of his familiar correspondence, and instinct with the natural 
 humour and genial, if somewhat cynical, wit o^ the man. 
 
 We have mentioned at the outset these outline sketches of 
 London society, not because they form the largest or most 
 important portion of the Correspondence, but because it is ta 
 them that many of our readers' will turn with the greatest eager- 
 ness. There is scarcely a capital in Europe with which Mr. 
 Motley was not familiar : his diplomatic duties or his literary 
 
 Vol. 168. — No. 336. X researches 
 
 I) 
 
298 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 researches had, at one time or another, entailed residence at 
 St. Petersburg and Vienna, at the Hague, Brussels, Berlin, and 
 Rome. To the accounts of these are added descriptions of the 
 best circles in Boston and Washington, both from his own pen 
 and those of such correspondents as Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 and James Russell Lowell ; each interesting in no ordinary 
 degree, but especially interesting to the insular mind of the 
 Englishman as the background, and, if we may be allowed the 
 expression, the foil to that more extended picture of London 
 society of which he wrote : — 
 
 ' I cannot help forming a favourable idea of English civilisation 
 when I see the position accorded in this country to those who 
 cultivate art, science, and literature, as if those things were worth 
 something, and were entitled to some consideration, as well as high 
 birth, official rank, and wealth, which on the Continent are the only 
 passports.' 
 
 Partly, perhaps, owing to a want of sympathy with the French 
 and their existing form of Government, partly to an intense 
 dislike and distrust of her ruler, of whom he never speaks save 
 in terms of reprobation, Mr. Motley did not share that love of 
 Paris which is a proverbial attribute of his countrymen. 
 
 ' Upon leaving Switzerland,' he writes to his mother in 1855, ' we 
 passed a month in Paris. I don't like to say much about tha^ 
 episode in our history, because the immense fatigue and expense of 
 passing four weeks in that place so entirely counter-balances all 
 satisfaction which can be derived from it, that I cannot speak upon 
 the subject without injustice and exaggeration.' And three years 
 later : ' The influences of Paris are very depressing to me. I 
 dislike the place more and more every time I come to it.' 
 
 Scarce twelve years have passed since he was moving about 
 in London society, and yet in turning over the leaves of these 
 volumes it is sad to reflect, how few of his intimate personal 
 associates are still remaining among us. Those who had the 
 privilege of his acquaintance will not readily forget the aristo- 
 cratic air, the singularly handsome features, the cultured, if some- 
 what sarcastic wit, for which he was remarkable : those who 
 knew him more intimately could not fail to be impressed 
 with his deep sincerity and sympathy, but to the world at large 
 he is now little more than a name. • An author may interest 
 his public by his work, or by his personality, or by both,' writes 
 the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table : Motley, the historian, is 
 known, and will be known, wherever the English language is 
 spoken or read ; of Motley, the man, but a vague and indefinite 
 impression exists. 
 
 It 
 
Motley's Correspondence, 299 
 
 It is true that a memoir of him has been written by his friend, 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it is not so widely known in this 
 country as it deserves to be, nor is it such a work as would, apart 
 from any previous interest in its subject, appeal to the general 
 reader : it is addressed rather to Motley's friends and enemies — 
 for he had enemies — than to the world at large. Moreover, the 
 work is in the main an apologia pro vita ejus : his resigna- 
 tion of his post at Vienna in 1867 ; his recal from London in 
 1870 ; the attack on his religious opinions, his ' unitarianism ' 
 and 'rationalism,' by Mr. Groen van Prinsterer, are all dealt 
 with at considerable length, and give the book, intentionally 
 perhaps, a polemical character. 
 
 The two volumes before us contain merely a selection from 
 his correspondence chiefly with the members of his own family 
 and his intimate friends : the editorial notes are few and far 
 between, and where gaps in the series, extending at times over 
 two or three years, render a connecting link necessary, it is 
 confined to the briefest possible narration of facts. 
 
 In short, Mr. Motley's life can best be read and studied 
 between the lines of his own correspondence, and we are con- 
 fident that it is a study which will repay him who undertakes 
 it. His career was passed among some of the most stirring 
 events and most prominent characters of the present century, 
 but was of itself devoid of any striking external incidents : it 
 was, moreover, full of contrarieties, and it is in a great measure 
 to them that we owe these charming volumes. Deeply attached 
 to the members of his own family, he was, by the exigencies of 
 his profession, separated, sometimes for long periods, from them : 
 American to the backbone, and a thoroughgoing hater of 
 monarchy, he was compelled to pass the best years of his life at 
 European courts, and amidst European aristocracies : passion- 
 ately attached to the cause of the North, he resided in England 
 at a time when English sympathies were strongly drawn 
 towards the Confederate cause : a devoted adherent of the 
 Republican party, he was by two successive Republican pre- 
 sidents treated in a manner which wounded his sensitive nature 
 to the quick, and contributed not a little to his early death. 
 
 Amid such conflicting circumstances his natural genius was 
 sharpened, and, to his credit be it said, the chastening which 
 •he underwent seems in the end to have strengthened the nobler 
 qualities of his nature, and to have softened the rigid character 
 of his political creed. 
 
 John Lothrop Motley was born at Dorchester, now a suburb 
 of Boston, on April 15, 1814. His father, Thomas Motley, a 
 man of no little ability, was the author of some of the once 
 
 X 2 celebrated 
 
300 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 celebrated 'Major Downing's Letters,' and his mother, Anna 
 Lothrop, was a descendant of the Checkley or Chichele family, 
 so famous in the annals of Oxford University. When the 
 author of the ' Rise of the Dutch Republic' went to Oxford in 
 1860 to receive his D.C.L. degree, he wrote to his mother: — 
 
 ' I was Borry that on the Commemoration Day we lunched in 
 University Hall rather than in All Souls', where we were also 
 expected, because All Souls' was founded by Archbishop Ohicheley, 
 in the reign of Henry VI., of a Northampton family, of which your 
 grandfather Gheckley was no doubt descended. Until very recently, 
 any one proving kindred with the old archbishop might claim free 
 instruction at his college, so that I might have been educated 
 at All Souls' at small expense, but the privilege is now done 
 away with.' 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Motley had the reputation of being the hand- 
 somest couple in Boston ; and his mother, to whom he was 
 devotedly attached, and to whom a large part of the best letters 
 in this collection is addressed, is described by Mr. Holmes as 
 
 ' a woman who could not be looked upon without admiration. I well 
 remember the sweet dignity of her aspect, her "regal beauty," as 
 Mr. Phillips truly styles it, and the charm of her serene and noble 
 presence, which made her the type of a perfect motherhood. Her 
 character corresponded to the promise of her gracious aspect. She 
 was one of the fondest of mothers, but not thoughtlessly indulgent to 
 the boy from whom she hoped and expected more than she thought it 
 wise to let him know.' 
 
 At the age of ten years he was sent to a school at Janaaica 
 Plain, near Boston, kept by a Mr. C. W. Greene, but within a 
 year he was transferred to the Round Hill School at Northamp- 
 ton, Mass., an establishment which at that time had attained 
 success and popularity under the management of Mr. Joseph 
 S. Cogswell and Mr. George Bancroft, the future historian of the 
 United States. We are told that Motley went thither with a 
 considerable reputation, especially as a declaimer, and Shake- 
 speare, Scott, and Cooper would appear to have been among 
 his favourite authors. 
 
 ' I did wonder,' said Mr. Wendell PhUlips, ' at the diligence and 
 painstaking, the drudgery shown in his historical works. In early 
 life he had no industry, not needing it. All he cared for in a book 
 he caught c[uickly — the spirit of it — and alibis mind needed or would 
 use. This quickness of apprehension was marvellous.' 
 
 His great aptitude for learning languages had also exhibited' 
 itself at an early age. His want of industry led to his 
 temporary rustication while at Harvard, but on his return 
 
 thither 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 301 
 
 thither he appears to have amended his ways, and to have 
 ended his university career creditably, if not with the highest 
 honours. 
 
 Having graduated at Harvard at the early age of eighteen, 
 young Motley proceeded in 1831 to complete his education in 
 Germany, and at this point commences that series of descriptive 
 letters to his parents which continues to his mother's death 
 in 1865, and forms, so to speak, the backbone of the series. 
 Arrived at Gottingen, he was forthwith enrolled on the books 
 of the University, and set himself in earnest to study the 
 German language, in which he attained such proficiency that 
 in after years he was asked by the Emperor of Austria whether 
 he were not a German. 
 
 In his letters home he describes in all their eccentricities the 
 manners and customs of the German students ; mentions the 
 names of his English and American companions and friends ; 
 describes his holiday rambles and his legal studies ; but we 
 look in vain for any allusion to the origin and growth of an 
 acquaintance with a fellow student, formed during those years, 
 which was already ripening into a lifelong friendship with one 
 of Germany's greatest men. 
 
 ' I never pass by old Logier's House, in the Friedrichstrasse,' wrote 
 Bismarck in 1863, ' without looking up at the windows that used to be 
 ornamented by a pair of red slippers sustained on the wall by the 
 feet of a gentleman sitting in the Yankee way, his head below and 
 out of sight. I then gratify my memory with remembrance of " good 
 old colony times when we were roguish chaps." ' * 
 
 It is difficult to realize that the following epistle was 
 addressed by the Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs to the 
 Minister of the United States at the Court of Vienna : — 
 
 ' Berlin, May 23rd, 1864. 
 ' Jack my Deab, — Where the devil are you, and what do you do 
 that you never write a line to me? I am working from morn to 
 night like a nigger, and you have nothing to do at all — you might 
 as well tip me a line as well as looking on your feet tilted against 
 the wall of God knows what a dreary colour. I cannot entertain a 
 regular correspondence ; it happens to me that during five days I do 
 not find a quarter of an hour for a walk ; but you, lazy old chap, 
 what keeps you from thinking of your old friends? When just 
 going to bed in this moment my eye met with yours on your portrait, 
 and I curtailed the sweet restorer, sleep, in order to remind you of 
 Auld Lang Syne. Why do you never come to Berlin ? It is not a 
 
 * In 1888, Prince Bismarck, in his great speech to the German EeicLsrath, 
 luoted this song, adding at the same time that he had learnt it from his ' dear 
 ieceased friend, John Motley.' 
 
 quarter 
 
302 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 quarter of an American's ioliday journey from Vienna, and my wife 
 and me should be so happy to see you once more in this sullen life. 
 When can you come, and when will you ? I swear that I will make 
 out the time to look with you on old Logier's quarters, and drink a 
 bottle with you at Gerolt's, where they once would not allow you to 
 put your slender legs upon a chair. Let politics be hanged and 
 come to see me. I promise that the Union Jack shall wave over 
 our house, and conversation and the best old hock shall pour 
 damnation upon the rebels. Do not forget old friends, neither their 
 wives, as mine wishes nearly as ardently as myself to see you, or at 
 least to see as quickly as possible a word of your handwritiug. 
 ' Sei gut und komm oder schreibe. 
 
 ' Dein, V. Bismaeck. 
 
 ' Haunted by the old song, " In good old Colony Times." ' 
 
 Though Motley's letters, however, are silent on this point, the 
 want is in great measure supplied by Prince Bismarck himself, 
 for in 1878, in answer to an appeal from Dr. Holmes, he 
 wrote : — 
 
 ' I met Motley at Gottingen in 1832, I am not sure if at the 
 beginning of the Easter term or Michaelmas term. He kept 
 company with German students, though more addicted to study than 
 we members of the fighting clubs. Although not having mastered 
 yet the German language he exercised a marked attraction by a 
 conversation sparkling with wit, humour, and originality. In 
 autumn of 1833, having both of us emigrated from Gottingen to 
 Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we became fellow lodgers 
 in the house No. 161, Friedrich Strasse. There we lived in the 
 closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor exercise. Motley by 
 that time had arrived at talking German fluently : he occupied 
 himself not only in translating Goethe's poem, " Faust," but tried 
 his hand even in composing German verses. Enthusiastic admirer 
 of Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation 
 abundantly with quotations from these his favourite authors. A 
 pertinacious arguer, so much so that sometimes he watched my 
 awakening in order to continue a discussion on some topic of 
 science, poetry, or practical life cut short by the chime of the small 
 hours, he never lost his mild and amiable temper. . . . The most 
 striking feature of his handsome and delicate appearance was 
 uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never entered a 
 drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of 
 the ladies.' 
 
 Having completed his studies at Gottingen and Berlin, which 
 included a course of lectures on law from Savigny, Motley, then 
 in his twenty-first year, set off on a twelvemonth's journey in 
 Europe, principally in Austria, Italy, and Sicily : that the past 
 two years of work had not been in vain is proved by his letters, 
 
 which 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 303 
 
 which begin to show increasing signs of that picturesque vigour 
 which is so marked a feature in his more mature writings. 
 The comments of a youth of twenty-one on his first journey 
 along the beaten track of European travel are not wont to bear 
 the light of publication half a century later ; but whether he is 
 describing his ascent of Etna,* or calling up the ghosts of old 
 scenes and characters among the ruins of Hadrian's Villa, or 
 pondering over the Apollo Belvedere and the Aurora in Rome, 
 his reflections display an originality and a sympathetic insight 
 uncommon in so young a man. 
 
 In the summer of 1835 Motley returned to Boston, with the 
 intention of practising as a lawyer, and here occurs the first 
 hiatus in the correspondence, for in the next letter we find him, 
 in 1841, leaving his wife and family to take up his duties as 
 Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg,*but Dr. Holmes enables 
 us to supply the deficiency. In 1837 he was married to Mary 
 Benjamin, of whom 
 
 ' those who remember her find it hard to speak in the common terms 
 of praise which they award to the good and lovely. She was not 
 only handsome, amiable, and agreeable, but there was a cordial 
 frankness, an open-hearted sincerity about her which made her 
 seem like a sister to those who could help becoming her lovers.' 
 
 How happy a marriage this proved to be is testified on almost 
 every page of the subsequent correspondence ; how terrible a 
 blow to Motley was her death is shown by his touching letter to 
 Dr. Holmes, written a few months after that event. 
 
 The other leading episode in these years was the publication 
 of Motley's first novel, ' Morton's Hope.' The book was a 
 failure, and is now only interesting from the fact, that — like 
 many another book written at a time when the influence of 
 Byron, reflected by Benjamin Disraeli, was strongly at work — 
 it contains much that is of an autobiographical character. That 
 it was a failure is admitted by the author, who in 1861 
 wrote : — 
 
 ' Then I knew how hard it was to write a novel. Saud inexpertus 
 loquor. Did I not have two novels killed under me (as Balzac 
 phrases it) before I found that my place was among the sappers and 
 miners and not the lancers ? ' 
 
 * The effect produced on his mind by the famous shadow of the mountain is 
 shown by a passage in the ' Dutch Eepublic,' Part I., ch. iii. ; — ' As across the 
 bright plains of Sicily when the sun is rising, the vast pyramidal shadow of 
 Mount Etna is definitely and visibly projected — the phantom of that ever- 
 present enemy which holds fire and devastation in its bosom — so in the morning 
 hour of Philip's Jteign the shadow of the Inquisition was cast from afar across 
 those warm and smiling provinces, a spectre menacing fiercer flames and wider 
 desolation than those which mere physical agencies could ever compass.' 
 
 To 
 
304 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 To return to the correspondence, we find Motley in the 
 autumn of 1841 on his way to take up his appointment at the 
 Court of the Czar : he arrived at his post in the early part of 
 November, but it is evident from the first that his position was 
 uncongenial to him ; his office he describes as a sinecure ; he 
 was out of sympathy with Russian society, ' which,' he writes, 
 ' is very showy and gay, but entirely hollow, and anything but 
 intellectual.' ' You have no idea,' he adds later on, ' of the 
 absolute and dreary solitude in which I live,' and before three 
 months had elapsed he had thrown up his appointment, and 
 quitted for ever a country of which he wrote : — 
 
 ' Peter the Great alone raised Eussia out of the q^uagmire of 
 barbarism, just as he raised St. Petersburg out of the morass ; but it 
 seems to me that just as this city may at any moment, by six hours 
 too long continuance o? a south-west wind, be inundated and 
 swamped for ever, so may Eussia, at any moment, through a 
 succession of half-a-dozen bad Czars, be submerged in its original 
 barbarism.' 
 
 In the brief period of his residence at St. Petersburg, Motley 
 found occasion to send home to his family some graphic 
 accounts of the Russian Court and societj' : — 
 
 ' The Czar is deserving of all the praise I have heard of him. He 
 is one of the handsomest men I ever saw, six feet three inches at 
 least in height, and " every inch a king." His figure is robust, erect 
 and stately, and his features are of great symmetry, and his forehead 
 and eye are singularly fine. 
 
 ' " The front of Jove himself, 
 An eye like Mars to threaten and command." 
 
 In short he is a regular-built Jupiter.' 
 
 In describing a ball in the ' Salle Blanche ' of the Imperial 
 palace, he dwells upon the sumptuous magnificence of the 
 scene. 
 
 ' The floor of the hall was thronged with dignitaries glittering like 
 goldfinches and chattering like magpies. The most picturesque 
 figures were the officers from the various Asiatic provinces of Eussia 
 and from the regions of " frosty Caucasus." The Circassians with 
 their keen eyes, black beards and white caftans, showed their purer 
 descent from the original stock of the European race, and were well 
 contrasted with the Cossack officers, some of whom looked as if 
 they might have served in Attila's army.' 
 
 Motley did not immediately return to America, but spent 
 some months travelling about on the Continent, visiting 
 Mme. de Goethe at Weimar, and finally passing a few weeks in 
 Paris, where he attended a meeting of the Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 Of 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 305 
 
 Of the speakers he there heard he formed but a low opinion, 
 M. Thiers alone deserving the name of an orator, although his 
 delivery would be more correctly described as squeaking than 
 speaking — 
 
 ' and yet in spite of his funny voice, every word that he said was 
 distinctly [audible, and his style was so fluent, so limpid, and so 
 logical, his manners so assured and self-possessed, that, in spite of 
 the disadvantages of his voice, his figure, and his great round 
 spectacles, which give him the appearance of a small screech owl, I 
 thought him one of the most agreeable speakers I had ever heard. 
 The Chamber is evidently afraid of him without respecting him, and 
 his consummate brass, added to his ready wit, makes every one of his 
 speeches gall and wormwood to his enemies.' 
 
 From the summer of 1842, when Motley returned home, 
 there occurs another gap in the correspondence down to 1851. 
 In the interval he took some part in politics. Already those 
 forces which ten years later were to burst forth in one of the 
 greatest social conflagrations the world has ever seen, were 
 beginning to make themselves felt, and Motley actively sup- 
 ported the candidature of Clay for the Presidency : Polk's 
 success was a bitter disappointment to him, and though seven 
 years later he served for a time in the Massachusetts House of 
 Representatives, he does not appear to have had any serious 
 desire to take an active part in American political life. 
 
 These years were in fact the most important in his life, for 
 they formed the turning-point of his career. Home politics 
 were, as we have seen, not to his taste ; the legal profession, 
 for which he had been trained, never appears to have engaged 
 his serious attention ; his first efforts in diplomacy had ended 
 in disappointment ; his attempts at fiction had been a failure, 
 for his second novel, ' Merry Mount,' though not published till 
 1849, was probably written some years previously ; but another 
 form of literature was beginning to absorb his mind. 
 
 The character and career of the ' sagacious despot,' the 
 'Scandinavian wizard' who, though 'addicted to drinking, 
 murdering his son, beating his Prime Minister, and a few other 
 foibles, was still a wonderful man,' seems to have been the one 
 thing which aroused the interest of the young diplomatist 
 during his residence in St. Petersburg ; and in October, 1845, 
 there appeared in the ' North American Review ' an historical 
 essay on Peter the Great, ' a narrative rather than a criticism, a 
 rapid, continuous, brilliant, almost dramatic narrative,' which 
 gave to the world a foretaste of the remarkable power of vivid 
 portraiture which was subsequently to render the name of 
 
 Motley famous. 
 
 In 
 
306 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 In 1847 Mr. Prescott's fame was at its zenith : his two great 
 histories of ' Ferdinand and Isabella,' and of the ' Conquest of 
 Mexico,' had in that year been succeeded by his history of the 
 ' Conquest of Peru.' It was a bold step for a young and almost 
 unknown writer to enter the field occupied by one whose repu- 
 tation was so firmly and widely established, but this Motley 
 dared to do. Captivated apparently by the analogy which he 
 saw between William of Orange and George Washington, he 
 dared to take up the threads of Spanish history where his 
 master had for the time left them, and to transfer the scene 
 from the little known new world to the familiar ground of 
 the old. 
 
 Even before the appearance of the ' Conquest of Peru,' 
 Motley had made some general studies in reference to the 
 subject, without being aware that Prescott had the intention of 
 continuing his work. On receiving intimation of that fact, 
 
 ' My first thought was, inevitably as it were, only of myself. It 
 seemed to me that I had nothing to do but to abandon at once a 
 cherished dream, and probably to renounce authorship. Tor I had 
 not first made up my mind to write a history and then cast about to 
 take up a subject. My subject had taken me up, drawn, me on, and 
 absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for me, it seemed, to 
 write the book I had been thinking much of, even if it were destined 
 to fall dead from the press, and I had no inclination or interest to 
 write any other. When I had made up my mind accordingly, it 
 then occurred to me that Prescott might not be pleased that I should 
 come forward upon his ground. It is true that no announcement of 
 his intentions had been made, and that he had not, I believe, even 
 commenced his preliminary studies for Philip. At the same time 
 I thought it would be disloyal on my part not to go to him at once, 
 confer with him on the subject, and if I should find a shadow of 
 dissatisfaction on his mind at my proposition, to abandon my plan 
 altogether. 
 
 ' I had only the slightest acquaintance with him at that time. I 
 was comparatively a young man, and certainly not entitled on any 
 ground to more than the common courtesy which Prescott never 
 could refuse to anyone. But he received me with such a frank and 
 ready and liberal sympathy, and such an open-hearted, guileless 
 expansiveness, that I felt a personal affection for him from that hour. 
 I remember the interview as if it had taken place yesterday. It was 
 in his father's house, in his own library, looking on the garden-house 
 and garden — ^honoured father and illustrious son — alas ! all numbered 
 with the things that were. 
 
 ' He assured me that he had not the slightest objection whatever to 
 my plan, that he wished me every success, and that if there were any 
 books in his library bearing on my subject that I liked to use they 
 were entirely at my service. 
 
 'Had 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 307 
 
 'Had the result of that [interview been different — ^had he 
 distinctly stated, or even vaguely hinted, that it would be as well if 
 I should select some other topic, or had he only sprinkled me with 
 the cold water of conventional and commonplace encouragement, 
 I should have gone from him with a chill upon my mind, and no 
 doubt have laid down the pen at once ; for as I have already said, it 
 was not that I cared about writing a history, but that I felt an 
 inevitable impulse to write one particular history.' 
 
 Fortified by this encouragement, Motley set himself to write 
 his history, but after some two or three years of work in 
 America, he discovered that it was hopeless to attempt the 
 task apart from the original authorities. There was no help 
 for it, the inevitable impulse was upon him, and he boldly 
 determined to abandon what he had done, to transplant his 
 home to Europe, and to seek materials for his great work at the 
 fountain-head. 
 
 In the summer of 1851 we once more take up the corre- 
 spondence to find Motley and his family arriving in Europe, 
 and seeking a residence convenient for the prosecution of his 
 labours. 
 
 It is interesting to note his first impressions of that country 
 to which he was destined to render such signal service. 
 
 'Holland,' he writes to his mother, 'is a stranger and more 
 wonderful country than I had imagined. I did not think that you 
 would so plainly observe how it has been scooped out of the bottom 
 of the sea. But when travelling there you see how the never-ending, 
 still-beginning duel, which this people has so long been waging with 
 the ocean, remains still their natural condition, and the only means 
 by which their physical existence as a nation can be protracted a 
 year. They are always below high-water mark, and the ocean is 
 only kept out by the most prodigious system of dykes and pumps 
 which the heart of man ever conceived. It is like a leaking ship at 
 sea after a tempest, the people are pumping night and day for 
 their lives.' 
 
 The winter was spent in Dresden ; Motley, working ten 
 hours a day, likens his toil to that of a miner, smashing 
 quartz with a sledge hammer, and digging raw material from 
 the subterranean depths of black-letter folios in half-a-dozen 
 different languages, ignorant the while whether his spoil, on 
 being sifted, would yield pure ore, or only dross. 
 
 ' But I confess that I have not been working under ground for so 
 long without hoping that I may make some few people in the world 
 wiser and better by my labour. This must be the case whenever a 
 man honestly " seeks the truths in ages past " to furnish light for 
 the present and future track. And if you only get enough oil to 
 
 feed 
 
308 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 feed a very small lamp it is better than nothing. A little lantern 
 may help you to find an honest man or so in the dark corridor of 
 history ; but not if you look for them in the spirit of Diogenes. It 
 is always much harder to find commendable than accusable characters 
 in the world, partly, perhaps, because the world likes better to 
 censure than to commend. I flatter myself that I have found one 
 great, virtuous and heroic character, William the First of Orange, 
 founder of the Dutch Eepublic. This man, who did the work of a 
 thousand men every year of his life, who was never inspired by any 
 personal ambition, but who performed good and lofty actions 
 because he was born to do them, just as other men have been born to 
 do nasty ones, deserves to be better understood than 1 believe him to 
 have been by the world at large. He is one of the very few 
 men who have a right to be mentioned in the same page with 
 Washington.' 
 
 The following winter found him still hard at work, oscillat- 
 ing between the Hague — ' that mild, stagnant, elegant, drowsy, 
 tranquil, clean, umbrageous little capital, smothered in foliage, 
 buried in an ancient forest with the downs thrown up by the 
 North Sea surging all round it, and the ocean rolling beyond,' 
 — and Brussels especially endeared to him as the theatre of so 
 many deep tragedies, so many stately dramas, even so many 
 farces, with which he was familiar. Of this city he draws a 
 memorable and vivid picture, too long for insertion here, in 
 which he dwells on the contrast between the upper quarter — 
 with its brocaded Hotel de Ville, and spire embroidered 
 with the delicacy of needlework, sugar-work, spider-work, 
 or what you will — and the squalor of the lower town. ' Thus 
 you see,' he adds, ' that our Cybele sits with her head crowned 
 with very stately towers, and her feet in a tub of very dirty 
 water.' 
 
 At length, in May, 1854, Motley betook himself to London, 
 the precious MS. — that is to say, the portion of it which stops 
 at the year 1584, with the death of the Prince of Orange — in 
 his hand, and in search of a publisher. In this he was destined, 
 like many a distinguished predecessor, to undergo some dis- 
 appointment, but in the end the book was issued in the spring 
 of 1856, and met with such immediate success that 17,000 
 copies were sold in England during the first year of publication. 
 While the sheets were passing through the press, Motley paid a 
 visit to his old college companion. Otto von Bismarck, who 
 was then chief of the Prussian Legation at Frankfort, and 
 whom he had not met since their college days. 
 
 ' When I called, Bismarck was at dinner, so I left my card, and 
 said I would come back in half an hour. As soon as my card had 
 been carried to him (as I learned afterwards) he sent a servant after 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 309 
 
 me to the hotel, but I had gone another way. When I came back I 
 was received with open arms. I can't express to you how cordially 
 he received me. If I had been his brother, instead of an old friend, 
 he could not have shown more warmth and affectionate delight in 
 seeing me. I find I like him even better than I thought I did, and 
 you know how high an opinion I always expressed of his talents and 
 disposition. He is a man of very noble character, and of very great 
 powers of mind. The prominent place which he now occupies as a 
 statesman sought Mm. He did not seek it, or any other of&oe. The 
 stand which he took in the Assembly from conviction, on the occasion 
 of the outbreak of 1848, marked him at once to all parties as ono of 
 the leading characters of Prussia. Of course I don't now go into the 
 rights and wrongs of the matter, but I listened with great interest, 
 as you may suppose, to his detailed history of the revolutionary 
 events of that year, and his share in them, which he narrated to me 
 in a long conversation which we had last night. 
 
 ' In the summer of 1851, he told me that the Minister, Manteuffel, 
 asked him one day abruptly, if he would accept the post of 
 Ambassador at Frankfort, to which (although the proposition was as 
 unexpected a one to him as if I should hear by the next mail that I 
 had been chosen Governor of Massachusetts) he answered, after a 
 moment's deliberation, yes, without another word. The King, the 
 same day, sent for him, and asked him if he would accept the place, 
 to which he made the same brief answer, " Ja." His Majesty 
 expressed a little surprise that he made no inquiries or conditions, 
 when Bismarck replied that anything which the King felt strong 
 enough to propose to him, he felt strong enough to accept. I only 
 write these details that you may have an idea of the man. Strict 
 integrity and courage of character, a high sense of honour, a firm 
 religious belief, united with remarkable talents, make up necessarily 
 a combination which cannot be found any day in any Coxu-t ; and I 
 have no doubt that he is destined to be Prime Minister, unless his 
 obstinate truthfulness, which is apt to be a stumbling-block for 
 politicians, stands in his way. ... 
 
 ' Well, he accepted the post and wrote to his wife next day, who 
 was preparing for a summer's residence in a small house they had 
 taken on the sea coast, that he could not come because he was 
 already established in Frankfort as Minister. The result, he said, 
 was three days of tears on her part. He had previously been leading 
 the life of a plain country squire with a moderate income, had never 
 held any position in the Government or in diplomacy, and had 
 hardly ever been to Court. He went into the office with a holy 
 horror of the mysterious nothings of diplomacy, but soon found how 
 little there was in the whole " galimatias." Of course my politics 
 are very different from his, although not so antipodal as you might 
 suppose, but I can talk with him as frankly as I could with you, and 
 I am glad of an opportunity of hearing the other side put by a man 
 whose talents and character I esteem, and who knows so well le 
 dessous des cartes,' 
 
 It 
 
310 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 It would be out of place on the present occasion to enter into 
 any discussion of the ' History ; ' it has already been reviewed in 
 these pages, and its niche in the Temple of Fame is too well 
 known to require any further indication. Suffice it to say, that 
 Motley did not long remain idle ; after a few months spent in a 
 journey to Italy, and a short visit to Boston, he returned to his 
 labours among the archives in London and in Holland. ' I am 
 almost distraught,' he wrote to O. W. Holmes, ' at the circum- 
 locution and circumvolutions of London. Sisyphus with his 
 rock was an idle, loafing individual, compared to the martyr 
 who is doomed to work up the precipice of English routine.' 
 In truth, the work on which he was engaged was a task of no 
 ordinary magnitude ; after the death of William the Silent, the 
 history of Holland merges itself in the history of Europe, and 
 of that mighty war of religion which convulsed the civilized 
 world, and did not terminate till the peace of Westphalia. 
 This was the goal which Motley had in view, but which he was 
 destined never to reach, and it must ever be a sojirce of regret 
 that we have not his portraits of Gustavus Adolphus and 
 Wallenstein to place beside those of William of Orange, of 
 John of Barneveld, and of Maurice of Nassau. 
 
 The ' History of the United Netherlands ' was now taxing 
 all his energies. 
 
 ' I have much to do in the subterranean way in Brussels, the 
 Hague, London, and Paris. I do not write at all as yet, but I am 
 diving deep and staying under very long, but hoping not to come up 
 too dry. My task is a very large and hard one. My canvas is very 
 broad, and the massing and the composition of the picture will give 
 me more trouble than the more compact one which I have already 
 painted. Then I have not got a grand central heroic figure, like 
 "William the Silent, to give unity and flesh and blood interest to the 
 scene. The history will, I fear, be duller and less dramatic than the 
 other. Nevertheless, there are many grand events and striking 
 characters, if I can do justice to them. If I could write half a 
 dozen volumes, with a cheerful confidence that people would read 
 them as easily as I write them, my task would be a comparatively 
 easy one. But I do not know where all the books are to go that are 
 written nowadays. And then my publishers have failed, and 
 Heaven knows what may be the condition of the market when I take 
 my next pigs there. In short, I cannot write at all, except by 
 entirely forgetting for the time that there is such a thing as printing 
 and publishing.' 
 
 In the early summer of 1858, Motley, leaving his wife and 
 daughters at Nice, came to London, no longer an obscure toiler 
 among archives, dependent on his letters of introduction for 
 acquaintances, but an author of the first rank, and as such to 
 
 find 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 311 
 
 find flung open to him all doors of that society in which 
 'every illustration from the world of science, art, letters, 
 politics and finance mingle in full proportions with the patri- 
 cians, and on equal terms.' His natural diffidence and the sense 
 of loneliness which all men feel on entering a new society soon 
 wore off, and in the course of a few weeks he had become 
 attached to many of the leaders of the London world by ties 
 of friendship and intimacy which lasted to the end of his life. 
 
 He was at this time forty-three years of age, of singularly 
 aristocratic appearance. Lady Byron, who is frequently men- 
 tioned in these pages, detected in him a strong likeness to 
 her husband. Though by nature an impulsive man, he was 
 reserved in manner, but in congenial society he was a brilliant 
 conversationalist ; in politics he was an extreme Liberal, such 
 as in England would be termed a Radical, and he associated 
 himself chiefly with members of the Liberal party, but he 
 regarded a Radical in the literal sense of the name, as a man 
 ' whose trade is dangerous to society.' He was a keen 
 partizan, but his partizanship arose rather from an intense 
 belief in principles than from any narrow-minded adherence to 
 political parties or petty details. 
 
 During the war, this quality of his mind was exaggerated 
 almost to a bitter intolerance of anything which was associated, 
 or any one who sympathized with, the cause of the South. In 
 that great constitutional convulsion, he could discern nothing 
 but the deadly struggle between the advocates and the oppo- 
 nents of slavery ; all the minor issues, which at the time blurred 
 the vision even of his own countrymen, were to him as nothing 
 in view of ' the great national disgrace of slavery.' It will be 
 seen, later on, that the divergence of opinion between himself 
 and his own father, on this point, was so great as to form a 
 barrier in their familiar intercourse. But no point in his 
 character is more evident, in every page of his correspondence, 
 than his strong affection and power of sympathy. * Though so 
 oppressed by a constitutional melancholy, which grows upon 
 me very rapidly, as to be almost incapacitated from making 
 myself agreeable,' we find even at times when his inmost 
 feelings were stirred, and in the letters where he gives most 
 strong expression to those feelings, some touch of playful 
 humour or some grotesque allusion, which shows how near the 
 surface was his kindlier and gentler disposition. 
 
 His letters to his wife during the months of May, June, and 
 July, 1858, are a sparkling comment on London society ; to 
 summarize them would be impossible, we can but give a few 
 extracts taken almost at random from this brilliant panorama. 
 
 Before 
 
312 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 Before he had made Thackeray's acquaintance his heart had 
 warmed to him in consequence of some words of his, overheard 
 at a dinner party, in high commendation of the ' Autocrat of 
 the Breakfast Table.' Appreciation of his friend's work was 
 a sure passport to Motley's regard : — 
 
 ' I believe you have never seen Thackeray. He has the appearance 
 of a colossal infant, smooth, white, shiny, ringlety hair, flaxen, alas, 
 with advancing years, a roundish face, with a little dab of a nose 
 upon which it is a perpetual wonder how he keeps his spectacles, a 
 sweet but rather piping voice, with something of the childish treble 
 about it, and a very tall, slightly stooping figure — such are the 
 characteristics of the great " snob " of England. His manner is like 
 that of everybody else in England — nothing original, all planed 
 down into perfect uniformity with that of his fellow-creatures. 
 There was not much more distinction in his talk than in his white 
 choker or black coat and waistcoat. As you like detail, however, I 
 shall endeavour to Boswellize him a little, but it is very hard work. 
 Something was said of Carlyle the author. Thackeray said, " Carlyle 
 hates everybody that has arrived — if they are on the road, he may 
 perhaps treat them civilly." Mackintosh praised the description in the 
 " French Eevolution " of the flight of the King and Queen (which is 
 certainly one of the most living pictures ever painted with ink), and 
 Thackeray agreed with him, and spoke of the passages very heartily. 
 Of the Cosmopolitan Club, Thackeray said, " Everybody is or is 
 supposed to be a celebrity ; nobody ever says anything worth hearing ; 
 and every one goes there with his white choker at midnight, to 
 appear as if he had just been dining with the aristocracy. I have no 
 doubt," he added, " that half of us put on the white cravat after a 
 solitary dinner at home or at our club, and so go down [among the 
 Cosmopolitans." ' 
 
 A few days later he ' called at the Russells',' an event worthy 
 of notice simply from the fact, that he then first made the 
 acquaintance of a lady renowned and beloved in English and 
 foreign societies, who was soon to become one of his best 
 friends and most constant correspondents. Lady William 
 Russell. 
 
 In 1856, Macaulay had been compelled by failing health to 
 abandon his seat for Edinburgh, and in the following year he 
 had been raised to the peerage ' with,' as he himself has told us, 
 ' I think as general approbation as I remember in the case of 
 any man that in my time has been made a peer.' In the 
 following account we can trace the inroads which his bodily 
 ailments were making on his health and spirits in 1858. 
 
 'His general appearance is singularly commonplace. I cannot 
 describe him better than by saying he has exactly that kind of 
 face and figure which by no possibility would be selected, out 
 
 of 
 
Motley's Correspondence, 313 
 
 of even a very small number of persons, as those of a remarkable 
 personage. He is of the middle height, neither above nor below 
 it. The outline of his face in profile is rather good. The nose, 
 very slightly aquiline, is well cut, and the expression of the 
 mouth and chin agreeable. His hair is thin and silvery, and he 
 looks a good deal older than many men of his years — for, if I am not 
 mistaken, he is just as old as his century, like Cromwell, Balzac, 
 Charles V., and other notorious individuals. Now those two 
 impostors, so far as appearances go, Prescott and Mignet, who are 
 sixty-two, look young enough, in comparison, to be Maoaulay's sons. 
 The face, to resume my description, seen in front, is blank, and as 
 it were badly lighted. There is nothing luminous in the eye, nothing 
 impressive in the brow. The forehead is spacious, but it is scooped 
 entirely away in the region where benevolence ought to be, while 
 beyond rise reverence, firmness and self-esteem, like Alps on Alps. 
 The under eyelids are so swollen as almost to close the eyes, and it 
 would be q[uite impossible to tell the colour of those orbs, and equally 
 BO, from the neutral tint of his hair and face, to say of what complexion 
 he had originally been. His voice is agreeable, and its intonations 
 delightful, although that is so common a gift with Englishmen as to 
 be almost a national characteristic. 
 
 ' As usual, he took up the ribands of the conversation, and kept 
 them in his own hand, driving wherever it suited him. I believe he 
 is thought by many people a bore, and you remember that Sydney 
 Smith spoke of him as "our Tom, the greatest engine of social 
 oppression in England." I should think he might be to those who 
 wanted to talk also. I can imagine no better fun than to have 
 Carlyle and hiniself meet accidentally at the same dinner- table with a 
 small company. It would be like two locomotives, each with a long 
 train, coming against each other at express speed. Both, I have no 
 doubt, could be smashed into silence at the first collision. Macaulay, 
 however, is not so dogmatic, or so outrageously absurd as Carlyle 
 often is, neither is he half so grotesque or amusing. His whole 
 manner has tho smoothness and polished surface of the man of the 
 world, the politician, and the new peer, spread over the man of 
 letters within. I do not know that I can repeat any of his conversa- 
 tion, for there was nothing to excite very particular attention in its 
 even flow. There was not a touch of Holmes's ever bubbling wit, 
 imagination, enthusiasm, and arabesqueness. It is the perfection of 
 the commonplace, without sparkle or flash, but at the same time 
 always interesting and agreeable. I could listen to him with 
 pleasure for an hour or two every day, and I have no doubt I should 
 thence grow wiser every day, for his brain is full, as hardly 
 any man's ever was, and his way of delivering himself is easy 
 and fluent.' 
 
 At Lady Stanley's Motley heard Thackeray deliver his lecture 
 on George III., and was ' much impressed with the quiet graceful 
 ease with which he read — just a few notes above the conversa- 
 
 Vol. 168.— iVo. 336. T tional 
 
314 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 tional level — but never rising to the declamatory. This light- 
 in-hand manner suits well the delicate, hovering, rather than 
 superficial style of the composition.' The lecture over : — 
 
 'Lady Airlie said to me, "Mrs. Korton wishes to make your 
 acquaintance." I turned and bowed, and there she was, looking 
 to-day almost as handsome as she has always been described as being. 
 I know that you will like a sketch. She is rather above middle 
 height. In her shawl and crinoline, of course I could not pronounce 
 upon her figure. Her face is certainly extremely beautiful. The 
 hair is raven black — violet black — without a thread of silver. The 
 eyes very large, with dark lashes, and black as death ; the nose 
 straight ; the mouth flexible and changing ; with teeth which in 
 themselves would make the fortune of an ordinary face — such is her 
 physiognomy ; and when you add to this extraordinary poetic genius, 
 descent from that famous Sheridan who has made talent hereditary in 
 his family, a low, sweet voice and a flattering manner, you can 
 understand how she twisted men's heads off and hearts out, we will 
 not be particular how many years ago. 
 
 ' She said to me, as I made my bow on introduction, " Tour name 
 is upon every lip." I blushed and looked as much like a donkey as 
 usual when such things are said. Then she added, " It is agreeable, 
 is it not ? " I then had grace enough to reply, " You ought to know 
 if any one ; " and then we talked of other things.'^ 
 
 There are frequent allusions to the youthful appearance of 
 English matrons. ' England is the paradise of grandmothers.' 
 
 ' There is no doubt that the English aristocracy has much beauty. 
 When I say how handsome the women are, the reply is invariable — '■ 
 that is a great compliment from an American, for everybody knows 
 that the American women are the handsomest in the world. On the 
 whole I think that the grandmothers of England are the most 
 miraculous race. There are the Duchess of Somerset, Lady Dufferin, 
 and Mrs. Norton, then Lady Stanley, of whom I have spoken several 
 times, the Marchioness of Londonderry, and various others, all 
 exceedingly handsome women still. I can hardly remember the 
 names of the many persons I was presented to. I remember one, a 
 lively agreeable person, whose name was Lady Edward Thynne, a 
 daughter of Mrs. Gore the novelist. She was apparently a young 
 woman, and I daresay she is capable of having at this moment ten 
 grandchildren for aught I know on the contrary.' 
 
 On the occasion of one of Mr. Motley's frequent visits to 
 Cambridge House he describes Lord Palmerston, who 
 
 ^ talked with me a long time about English politics and American 
 matters, saying nothing worth repeating, but conversing always with 
 an easy, winning, quiet manner, which accounts for his great popu- 
 larity among his friends. At the same time it seemed difficult to 
 realise that he was the man who made almost every night, and a very 
 
 late 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 315 
 
 late hour in the night, those rattling, vigorous, juvenile, slashing 
 speeches which ring through the civilised world as soon as uttered. 
 I told him that it seemed to me very difficult to comprehend how any 
 man could make those ready impromptu harangues in answer always to 
 things said in the course of the debate, taking up all the adversary's 
 points in his target, and dealing blows in return, without hesitation 
 or embarrassment. He said very quietly that it was all a matter of 
 habit ; and I suppose that he really does it with as much ease as he 
 eats his breakfast.' 
 
 One of Motley's earliest friends was Lord Lyndhurst, whose 
 own American origin led to many bonds of union with the 
 Boston society, and when on his way to St. Petersburg in 
 1851, Motley passed through London, he brought with him a 
 letter of introduction to the ex-Lord Chancellor. Dining at 
 Lady Stanley's of Alderley one evening, he had the good 
 fortune to meet the two great rivals, Lyndhurst and Brougham, 
 together. 
 
 ' Brougham is exactly like the pictures in ' Punch,' only ' Punch ' 
 flatters him. The common pictures of Palmerston and Lord John 
 are not like at all to my mind, but Brougham is always hit exactly. 
 His face, like his tongue and his mind, is shrewd, sharp, humorous. 
 There certainly never was a great statesman and author who so 
 irresistibly suggested the man who does the comic business at a small 
 theatre. Tou are compelled to laugh when you see him as much as at 
 Keeley or Warren. Yet there is absolutely nothing comic in his mind. 
 But there is no resisting his nose. It is not merely the configuration 
 of that wonderful feature which surprises you, but its mobility. It 
 has the litheness and almost the length of the elephant's proboscis, 
 and I have no doubt he can pick up pins or scratch his back with 
 it as easily as he could take a pinch of snuff. He is always twisting 
 it about in quite a fabulous manner. 
 
 ' His hair is thick and snow-white and shiny ; his head is large and 
 knobby and bumpy, with all kipds of phrenological developments, 
 which I did not have a chance fairly to study. The rugged outlines 
 or headlands of his face are wild and bleak, but not forbidding. 
 Deep furrows of age and thought and toil, perhaps of sorrow, run all 
 over it, while his vast mouth, with a ripple of humour ever playing 
 around it, expands like a placid bay under the huge promontory of 
 his fantastic and incredible nose. His eye is dim and could never 
 have been brilliant, but his voice is rather shrill with an unmistake- 
 able northern intonation; his manner of speech is fluent, not 
 garrulous, but obviously touched by time ; his figure is tall, slender, 
 shambling, awkward, but of course perfectly self-possessed. Such is 
 what remains at eighty of the famous Henry Brougham. 
 
 ' The company was too large for general conversation, but every 
 now and then we at our end paused to listen to Brougham and 
 Lyndhurst chaffing each other across the table. Lyndhurst said, 
 
 T 2 " Brougham, 
 
316 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 "Brougham, you disgraced the woolsack by appearing there with 
 those plaid trousers, and with your peer's robe on one occasion put 
 on over your chancellor's gown," " The devil," said Brougham, 
 " you know that to be a calumny ; I never wore the plaid trousers." 
 "Well," said Lyndhurst, "he confesses the two gowns. Now the 
 present Lord Chancellor never appears except in small clothes and 
 silk stockings." Upon which Lady Stanley observed that the ladies 
 in the gallery all admired Lord Chelmsford for his handsome leg. 
 " A virtue that was never seen in you. Brougham," said Lyndhurst, 
 and so on. I do not repeat these things because they are worth 
 recording, but because I always try to Boswellize a little for your 
 entertainment.' 
 
 Space forbids us to continue these extracts. Our readers 
 will find, on turning to the volumes themselves, that the passages 
 we have quoted constitute but a very small portion of the vivid 
 panorama of London society which is here presented to them. 
 We would fain add to our selection the humorous description 
 of the monotonous formality of London dinner parties, the 
 portraits of Lord John Russell, ' the plain, quiet, smallish 
 individual in green cutaway coat, large yellow waistcoat and 
 plaid trousers ' : of Hallam, who, crippled as he was, retained 
 his intellectual powers unimpaired, ' a wreck, but he has not 
 sunk head downwards as you sometimes see, which is the most 
 melancholy termination of a voyage ' ; of the famous Lady 
 Dufferin, looking as though she might be the sister of her own 
 son ; of that ' hearty, jolly companion ' Monckton Milnes, ' the 
 bird of Paradox,' ' who invited himself to meet me at Stirling's, 
 eating up conscientiously nearly the whole of our breakfast, 
 talking all the time ' ; of Danby Seymour, who in his eagerness 
 to say a pleasant thing to the author of the ' History of the Dutch 
 Republic,' assured him in 1858, that he had read that work 
 eight years before ; of Samuel . Wilberforce, ' altogether too 
 strenuous, too good and too bad for the feeble role of an 
 Anglican Bishop : as a Cardinal in the days when Rome had 
 power or as a prize-fighter in the great political ring he would 
 have had scope for his energies ' ; of Mrs. Grote, ' despising 
 crinoline and flounces, and attiring herself when going out for 
 a walk in a shawl thrown over her shoulders and tied round her 
 waist, with a poplin gown reaching to the tops of her boots, a 
 tall, brown, man's hat with a feather in it, and a stout walking- 
 stick ' ; of Dean Milman and Sir Roderick Murchison ; of 
 Hayward and Disraeli ; of the late Duke of Wellington, Pro- 
 fessor Owen, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe ; but for all these 
 and a host of others we can only refer our readers to the letters. 
 
 The London season over, Mr. Motley, before rejoining his 
 
 family, 
 
Motley's Correspondence, 317 
 
 family, returned to Holland to resume his labours among the 
 archives, and his visits to the scenes made memorable by the 
 events he was recording, but the impossibility of scaring up 
 another ghost like William the Silent in the second portion of 
 his work sorely oppressed him ; he was despondent about the 
 result, and found that the strain on his mind, his time, and his 
 resources was greater than he had anticipated. During his 
 month's residence at the Hague, in August, he made the ac- 
 quaintance of the King and Queen of Holland, who not only 
 showed their cordial appreciation of the services he had ren- 
 dered to their country, but paid him marked attention both on 
 this and on many subsequent occasions. 
 
 The winter of 1858 and the following spring were passed 
 in Rome, but the intention of proceeding to Venice, for the 
 collection of much important material for the history, was 
 frustrated by the outbreak of the war of Italian Independence. 
 
 Motley was thus by stress of circumstances, rather than by 
 choice, driven to a second residence in England, which we 
 have the less cause to regret, in that it has yielded us a series 
 of pictures of English and Scottish country life corresponding 
 to those of London society which we have already noticed. 
 
 At the close of 1860, the first two volumes of the ' History 
 of the United Netherlands' were published, but the future 
 progress of the work was about to be interrupted by events, 
 which, although not unforeseen, were destined to assume such 
 magnitude as the wisest had not anticipated, and which were 
 to constitute a crisis not only in Motley's life but in the 
 world's history. 
 
 The most ardent of Republicans, Motley had for months 
 past been looking forward with the deepest anxiety to the 
 result of the Presidential Election. ' With regard to my views 
 and aspirations,' he wrote in March, 1860, 'I can only say 
 that if Seward is not elected (provided he be the candidate) 
 this autumn, good-night, my native land ! ' Seward, as is well 
 known, was after a close contest beaten for the Republican 
 Nomination, and when the news of Abraham Lincoln's election 
 reached Motley in London, he wrote to his mother : — 
 
 ' Although I have felt little doubt as to the result for months past, 
 yet as I was bo intensely anxious for the success of the Eepublican 
 cause, I was on tenterhooks till I actually knew the result. I rejoice 
 in the triumph at last of freedom over slavery more than I can 
 express. Thank God, it can no longer be said, after the great 
 verdict just pronounced, that the common law of my country is 
 slavery, and that the American flag carries slavery with it wherever 
 
 it goes ! ' . . . 
 
 At 
 
318 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 At this moment war was discussed only as a possible con- 
 tingency, but before the new President could actually enter 
 upon his office those four fatal months must elapse, in which 
 the weakness and vacillation of Buchanan and the corruption 
 of his cabinet were to accelerate so much the march of events ; 
 even in Lincoln's inaugural address war was not regarded as 
 inevitable, but before he had been a month at the White House 
 the first shot at Fort Sumter had ushered in that struggle which 
 is only now beginning to assume its true historical perspective. 
 
 To enter into any discussion of the American Civil War, 
 save in so far as may be necessary in dealing with the subse- 
 quent years of Mr. Motley's life, would be out of place on the 
 present occasion. For the time all else is banished from his 
 mind ; when eight years previously ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was 
 moving the heart of Europe against slavery. Motley had written, 
 ' The only way the curse is ever to be taken from the nation 
 is by creating such an atmosphere, all round the Slave States, 
 that a slaveholder may not be able to thrust his nose outside 
 his own door without scenting that the rankness of his offence 
 is tainting every wind of heaven,' 
 
 ' But here in Europe nobody knows anything about the matter, 
 saving only that slavery exists. They have no idea that America is 
 a confederation of States, each of which States is competent to 
 establish and aboKsh slavery at its pleasure, and that the general 
 government has no power to do one or the other. I believe everybody 
 in Europe thinks, so far as he thinks at all, most of them contenting 
 themselves with bragging, that the President of the United States 
 could abolish slavery to-morrow by an edict, just as the Emperor of 
 the French abolished the Eepublic by half a dozen lines of 
 proclamation.' 
 
 The President, in his inaugural address, said, ' I have no pur- 
 pose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of 
 slavery in the States where it now exists ; I believe that I have 
 no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.' 
 
 In Motley's mind the matter is perfectly simple, and he can 
 brook no wavering or weighing of arguments in others : no 
 matter that the main question was confused by a score of side 
 issues ; that, even in the Northern States, there were men who 
 took a different view ; that, by his own admission, great igno- 
 rance prevailed in Europe concerning American politics and 
 institutions.* He had no patience with any one who disagreed 
 
 " In a recently published American work we read, 'Miss Martineau, who 
 had been received with open arms in Boston, was socially ostracized by the same 
 society as soon as she was known to be in pronounced sympathy with the anti- 
 slavery party.' — ' Men and Manners of half a Century.' By Hugh McOnlloch. 
 
 with 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 319 
 
 with him ; he cannot bear to think that the South should have 
 any well-wishers in England; for him, throughout the war 
 there seems scarce any pity for Southerners even in their sorest 
 straits ; for him Lee and Davis, the general and'the statesman, 
 seem entirely lost in Lee and Davis the rebels. 
 
 The Liberal Government in England had recognized the 
 South as a belligerent power ; this step was taken in no spirit of 
 hostility to the North, but it raised a storm of resentment 
 among the Federals as being a form of moral support, which, 
 apart from any material aid, might suffice to turn the scale. 
 Motley was torn asunder, by his growing affection for England 
 and the English on one hand, and his passionate devotion to 
 his native land and her cause on the other. Among leading 
 English statesmen there were many who shared his views, but 
 the popular voice, and there was reason to believe even the 
 Government, inclined to the other side. 
 
 His first act was, by means of two very able letters to the 
 'Times,' to endeavour to guide popular opinion in England; 
 his next to proceed to America, where on his arrival, he 
 
 ' told Lord Lyons in Washington that I had appointed myself 
 a peace commissioner between the two countries, and meant to 
 discharge my duties to the fullest extent, and in that vein I had 
 spoken to the President, to Seward, Chase, Blair, and Bates, and to 
 every other personage, private or public, with whom I came in contact. 
 Of course I only said this in jest—for I have no idea of exaggerating 
 my humble individuality — but he was kind enough to say that he 
 thought I might do much good.' 
 
 We catch in the letters which Motley wrote to his wife in 
 England, during this short visit to America, echoes of the 
 intensity of feeling which prevailed in Boston, and of the 
 enthusiasm which was rapidly welding the North into a ' unit ' 
 in opposition to 'an outrageous and unprovoked insurrection 
 against a constituted Government.' ' The most warm-hearted 
 England-loving men in this England-loving part of the country 
 are full of sorrow at the attitude taken up by England.' 
 
 Regiments were being formed and hurried to the front, and 
 there was scarce a family of his acquaintance but had sent at 
 least one member to do battle for the Union. 
 
 From Washington, whither Motley went in the prosecution 
 of his task as mediator between England and America, he sent 
 accounts of Scott and McDowell, McClellan and Butler, Chase 
 and Seward, Sumner and Blair, and of Lincoln — ' a man who 
 looks younger than his pictures, and on the whole, except for 
 his height, which is two or three inches above six feet, one who 
 would not be remarked in any way as well, or ill-looking.' 
 
 Whatever 
 
320 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 Whatever the success which attended or might have attended 
 Motley's efforts, they were not destined to be prolonged ; he 
 was at this juncture called upon to serve his country in a 
 different capacity and a distant land, and we must pass from 
 the turmoil and enthusiasm, the hopes and fears, the forecasts 
 of events, and the estimates of characters attendant upon the 
 commencement of hostilities, to follow him in his new capacity 
 of United States Minister at the Court of Austria. How many 
 of those forecasts and estimates were to be falsified and dis- 
 appointed, readers of history must judge. 
 
 How great was the change to a man of Motley's impulsive 
 nature may easily be imagined. A few weeks before his 
 appointment he had written, ' as to going abroad and immersing 
 myself again in the sixteenth century, it is simply an impossi- 
 bility. I can think of nothing but American affairs, and should 
 be ashamed if it were otherwise,' but duty compelled him to go, 
 and he did not return to his native land until the war in which 
 his whole soul was absorbed was ended. This enforced absence, 
 however, did not diminish his zeal for the great cause in which 
 he was enlisted, and we see how eagerly he was carrying on his 
 advocacy of that cause in spite of what he calls his exile. 
 
 Describing his first experiences at Vienna to Dr. O. W. 
 Holmes, he writes : — 
 
 'What can I say to you of Ois- Atlantic things? I am almost 
 ashamed to be away from home. You know that I decided to remain, 
 and had sent for my family to come to America, when my present 
 appointment altered my plans. I do what good I can. I think I 
 made some impression on Lord John Eussell, with whom I spent two 
 days soon after my arrival in England ; and I talked very frankly, 
 and as strongly as I could, to Lord Palmerston ; and I had long 
 conversations and correspondences with other leading men in 
 England. I also had an hour's talk with Thouvenel in Paris, and 
 hammered the Northern view into him as soundly as I could. For 
 this year there will be no foreign interference with us, and I do not 
 anticipate it at any time, unless we bring it on ourselves by bad 
 management, which I do not expect. Our fate is in our own hands, 
 and Europe is looking on to see which side is the strongest. When 
 it has made the discovery, it will back it as also the best and the 
 most moral. Yesterday I had my audience with the Emperor. He 
 received me with much cordiality, and seemed interested in a long 
 account which I gave him of our affairs. You may suppose I 
 inculcated the Northern views. We spoke in his vernacular, and he 
 asked me afterwards if I was a German. I mention this not from 
 vanity, hut because he asked it with earnestness and as if it had a 
 political significance. Of course, I undeceived him. His appearance 
 interested me and his manner is very pleasing.' 
 
 Through 
 
Motley's Correipondence. 321 
 
 Through all this time of storm and stress, it is gratifying to 
 find how unwavering was his affection for England : when the 
 Trent affair had strained the relations between the two countries 
 almost to breaking-point, he writes to his mother, ' I do not 
 enter into the law or the history, I simply feel that if a war is 
 to take place now between England and America, I shall be in 
 danger of losing my reason : ' to Lady William Russell he 
 writes, ' Alas ! for perfidious Albion. Felix Austria makes me 
 no amends for her loss : I might live here for the rest of the 
 century and never take root, while I am still bleeding from my 
 eternal extirpation from your hostile but congenial soil.' He 
 is never tired of comparing English society where all that is 
 distinguished in art, literature, and science meets on equal 
 terms with the highest ranks of the aristocracy, and that of 
 Vienna, where ' you must be intimate with the Pharaohs or stay 
 at home,' and ' if an Austrian should be Shakespeare, Galileo, 
 Nelson, and Raphael, all in one, he could not be admitted into 
 good society unless he had the sixteen quarterings of nobility 
 which birth alone could give him.' By a curious regulation he 
 was, in virtue of his official position, forbidden access to the 
 Vienna archives, and thus cut off even from his friends of the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 This very dearth of intellectual companionship, combined 
 with his craving for personal sympathy and fresh news, drove 
 Motley back on his correspondents, and enhances the interest of 
 the letters at this period. 
 
 He discusses every turn of events and principle of politics, 
 not only with his friends O. W. Holmes and J. R. Lowell, but 
 with such Englishmen as John Bright and John Stuart Mill, 
 whose mature views on the question are very instructive, though 
 it is not a little strange, considering the circumstances in which 
 he wrote, to find Mr. Bright using such a two-edged argument 
 against his own country and on behalf of America as that 
 
 'the rich, made rich by commerce, are generally very corrupt — 
 the fluctuations of politics suddenly influence their fortunes, 
 and they are more likely to take the wrong side than the 
 right one. Thus, in London, Liverpool, and Manchester, on the 
 Stock Exchange and the commercial exchanges, are found many 
 friends of the South, from the stupid idea that, if the North would 
 not resist, peace would of necessity be restored.' 
 
 And so, down to the eventful month of April, 1865, which 
 brought to the North the climax of ' National joy and national 
 bereavement,' Motley continued to watch intensely for every 
 fragment of personal as well as public news from across the 
 
 Atlantic ; 
 
322 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 Atlantic ; for every symptom of increasing sympathy among his 
 personal friends in England, or in the nation at large : the 
 keenness of his partizanship seemed even to increase, for he finds 
 fault with his friend O. W. Holmes for being 'far too com- 
 plimentary to the slaveholders,' and is enthusiastic in his 
 admiration of Lowell's ' Yankee Idyll.' ' Was there ever any- 
 thing more stinging, more concentrated, more vigorous, more 
 just?' The Comte de Paris, whose acquaintance he makes, 
 wins his affection and admiration at once by his espousal of the 
 Federal cause. He^ extols ' the extraordinary genius of Grant,' 
 whom he considers ' at least equal to any general now living in 
 any part of the world ;' and, when the news of his father's death 
 reached him in 1864, amid his deep regrets that he should have 
 been deprived of the privilege of being with him at the last, he 
 expresses the ' sincere pain, at times almost distress, that I 
 could find^no sympathy with him in my political sentiments,' a 
 pain so great that for some time he had been compelled to carry 
 on his home correspondence with his mother alone. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that the correspondence of 
 this period is confined to American topics ; they form, it is true, 
 the undercurrent of all his thoughts, but Vienna and its customs, 
 its salons and celebrities, are fully described, as well as summer 
 tours in Austria and Italy, and many other diverse matters. 
 
 During the negociations about the partition of Schleswig- 
 Holstein, Bismarck visited Vienna, and dined on more than one 
 occasion with his old college friend, to whom he had written a 
 few months previously. 
 
 'You have given me a great pleasure with your letter of the 
 9th, and I shall he very grateful to you if you keep your promise 
 to write oftener and longer. I hate politics, but, as you say 
 truly, like the grocer hating figs, I am none the less obliged to 
 keep my thoughts increasingly occupied with those figs. Even 
 at this moment while I am writing to you my ears are full of it. 
 I am obliged to listen to particularly tasteless speeches out of the 
 mouths of uncommonly childish and excited politicians, and I have 
 therefore a moment of unwilling leisure which I cannot use better 
 than in giving you news of my welfare. I never thought that in my 
 riper years I should be obliged to carry on such an unworthy trade 
 as that of a parliamentary Minister. As Envoy, although an of&cial, 
 I still had the feeling of being a gentleman ; as (parliamentary) 
 Minister one is a helot. I have come down in the world, and hardly 
 know how. 
 
 ' April 18/A. — I wrote as far as this yesterday, then the sitting 
 came to an end ; five hours' Chamber until three o'clock ; one hour's 
 report to His Majesty, three hours at an incredibly dull dinner, old 
 important Whigs, then two hours' work ; finally, a supper with a 
 
 colleague, 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 323 
 
 colleague, who would have been hurt if I had slighted his fish. 
 This morning, I had hardly breakfasted, before Karolyi was sitting 
 opposite to me ; he was followed without interruption by Denmark, 
 England, Portugal, Eussia, Prance, whose Ambassador I was obliged 
 to remind at one o'clock that it was time for me to go to the House 
 of phrases. I am sitting again in the latter ; hear people talk 
 nonsense, and end my letter. All these people have agreed to 
 approve our treaties with Belgium, in spite of which twenty speakers 
 scold each other with the greatest vehemence, as if each wished to 
 make an end of the other ; they are not agreed about the motives 
 which make them unanimous, hence, alas ! a regular German 
 squabble about the Emperor's beard; querelle d'Allemand. Ton 
 Anglo-Saxon Yankees have something of the same kind also. Do 
 you all know exactly why you are waging such furious war with 
 each other ? All certainly do not know, but they kill each other con 
 amore, that's the way the business comes to them. Your battles are 
 bloody ; ours wordy ; these chatterers really cannot govern Prussia. 
 I must bring some opposition to bear against them ; they have too 
 little wit and too much self-complacency — stupid and audacious. 
 Stupid, in all its meanings, is not the right word ; considered indi- 
 vidually, these people are sometimes very clever, generally educated 
 — the regulation German University culture ; but of politics, beyond 
 the interests of their own church tower, they know as little as we 
 knew as students, and even less ; as far as external polities go, they 
 are also, taken separately, like children. In all other questions they 
 become childish as soon as they stand together in corpore. In the 
 mass stupid, individually iatelligent. . . . 
 
 ' Now, an affectionate farewell. I can't go on writing such an 
 unorthographic language as English so late at night, but please try 
 it yourself soon again. Your handwriting is like crow's feet, but is 
 very legible. Is mine the same ? 
 
 ' Your faithful old friend, V. Bismaeck.' 
 
 In 1864 occurred the most important diplomatic negociation 
 which Motley was officially called upon to conduct. At the 
 instigation of Louis Napoleon — ' the Prince of Darkness, who, 
 for the time being, has thought proper to assume the appearance 
 of a Sovereign of France, and to inhabit the Tuileries '—the 
 Archduke Maximilian had been elected Emperor of Mexico: 
 Maximilian applied to his brother, the Emperor of Austria, for 
 help, and a body of volunteers was on the point of sailing from 
 Trieste, when the threat of the immediate recal of the United 
 States Minister led to the abandonment of the enterprise. 
 
 Meanwhile the ' atmosphere of Schleswig-Holsteinismus, which 
 is as good as a London fog, pervaded Europe ' : 'the old Bund 
 was moribund ' ; Prussia and Austria, having combined to crush 
 Denmark, were quarrelling over the spoils, and events were 
 drawing onward apace to the crisis which ended in the ' most 
 
 lightning-like 
 
324 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 lightning-like campaign in all military history.' These events 
 Motley could regard as a dispassionate spectator, while his his- 
 torical training and his official position combine to give his 
 narratives and summaries of what was passing around him a 
 peculiar value and interest. 
 
 But his career at Vienna was drawing to a close : the events 
 which led to his resignation are fully narrated in Dr.^Holmes's 
 Memoir, and for our present purpose it is only necessary to 
 give a brief summary of them, for they are not dealt with in 
 the Correspondence. 
 
 It appears then that in 1866 a letter was addressed to 
 Mr. Seward, Secretary of State under President Johnson, signed 
 George W. McCracken — or McCrackin — and containing sweep- 
 ing and abusive accusations against several United States 
 Ministers abroad, amongst them of Mr. Motley, as being ' a 
 thorough flunky,' ' an un-American official,' and so forth. 
 Whether such an individual as George W. McCracken ever 
 existed is doubtful, at any rate he was unknown either to 
 Motley or Seward. It might be supposed that such a 
 communication would have been consigned to the waste- 
 paper basket without further ado, but Mr. Seward saw fit 
 to send to the accused a formal statement of the charge, 
 and a request for an explanation. We who have experienced 
 the extreme punctiliousness of the United States Government in 
 matters connected with the functions of an Ambassador may be 
 led to draw a comparison between the occurrences of 1867 
 and 1888. To Motley's high-bred sensitive nature this com- 
 munication was a cruel blow, and he instantly sent in his 
 resignation. That it was accepted was due, not to Mr. Seward, 
 but to the President. 
 
 In March, 1867, Motley writes to O. W. Holmes :— 
 
 ' It is a fall from a steep precipice after speaking of your romance 
 to allude to a late correspondence in the newspapers. But as you 
 say so many kind things in your last letter, and as so many friends 
 and so many strangers have said so much that is gratifying to me in 
 public and private on this very painful subject, it would he like 
 affectation in writing to so old a friend as you not to touch upon it. 
 I shall confine myself, however, to one fact, which, so far as I know, 
 may be new to you. George W. McCracken is a man and a name 
 utterly unknown to me. With the necessary qualification which 
 every man who values truth must make when asserting such a 
 negative, viz., to the very best of my memory and belief, I never set 
 eyes on him nor heard of him until now, in the whole course of my 
 life. Not a member of my family or of the legation has the faintest 
 recollection of any such person. I am quite convinced that he never 
 saw me nor heard the sound of my voice. That his letter was a 
 
 tissue 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 325 
 
 tissue of vile calumnies, shameless fabrications, and unblushing and 
 contemptible falsehoods, by whomsoever uttered, I have stated in a 
 reply to what ought never to have been an official letter. No man 
 can regret more than I do that such a correspondence is enrolled in 
 the Capitol among American State Papers. I shall not trust myself 
 to speak of the matter. It has been a sufficiently public scandal. 
 My letter — published by the Senate — has not yet been answered by 
 the Secretary of State. At least I have not yet received any reply.' 
 
 Meanwhile the two concluding volumes of the ' United 
 Netherlands ' were ready for the printer, and Motley returned 
 to England to see them through the press, during which time 
 he gives us a fresh series of sketches of English life and society, 
 but we cannot pause to give any further extracts. 
 
 In 1868, he proceeded to America and supported General 
 Grant's candidature for the Presidency ; in 1869, he was ap- 
 pointed, by the President and Mr. Sumner, United States 
 Minister to England, on the recal of Mr. Reverdy Johnson. 
 The selection appeared to be a singularly good one, though 
 Motley accepted the post with diffidence and misgivings. 
 
 'I feel anything but exaltation at present, rather the opposite 
 sensation. I feel that I am placed higher than I deserve, and at the 
 same time that I am taking greater responsibilities than ever were 
 assumed by me before. Ton will be indulgent for my mistakes and 
 shortcomings, but who can expect to avoid them ? But the world 
 will be cruel and the times are threatening. I shall do my best, but 
 the best may be poor enough, and keep a "heart for any fate." 
 Pardon my brevity, but I have no time to do half what I have to do.' 
 
 His reception in England was most cordial and gratifying, 
 but his tenure of the office was destined to be all too brief ; 
 once more a frivolous — to apply no more sinister epithet — 
 pretext was seized upon by his own countrymen to oust him 
 from it ; to Englishmen it must always be a cause of congratu- 
 lation that a name so honoured among all classes, so beloved 
 among those who knew him, should be enrolled in that distin- 
 guished body of envoys who have done so much to render 
 America and her sons popular in England. 
 
 The burning question which had led to Mr. R. Johnson's 
 recal was the Alabama claims. Immediately on his arrival 
 Motley had an interview with Lord Clarendon, to whoni he 
 submitted the draft of his report thereon before sending it to 
 Washington. Some words supposed to have been used in the 
 conversation, and the submission of the draft, seem to have 
 called forth some slight criticism, but the matter appeared to 
 be of no serious import and to have been closed amicably until 
 July, 1870, when Motley having been summarily called upon 
 
 to 
 
326 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 to resign on the ground of this incident, and having declined 
 to do so, was dismissed. 
 
 The cause assigned by Dr. Holmes for this strange decision 
 is that, in the interval, a personal quarrel had occurred between 
 Grant and Sumner over the San Domingo Treaty, and that Grant 
 was aiming a blow at his adversary in the recal of one who 
 was known to be that adversary's personal friend ; and to this 
 supposition Motley alludes in his defence. Meanwhile Sumner 
 had been succeeded by Mr. Hamilton Fish, and the reply to 
 Motley's defence ' was so objectionable in its tone and ex- 
 pressions,' writes Dr. Holmes, 'that it has been generally 
 doubted whether the paper could claim anything more of the 
 secretary's hand than his signature.' 
 
 ' I truly believe,' writes Motley, ' that I found myself exactly at 
 the moment when I was expelled from my post in a position in which 
 I could do much good. I thought myself entirely in the confidence 
 and the friendship of the leading personages in England. And I 
 know that I could have done as well as any man to avert war or even 
 animosity between two great nations, and at the same time guard the 
 honour and interests of our nation. Farewell, write to me soon if 
 you are to send an occasional message to one who now plunges into 
 obscurity for ever and without personal regret.' 
 
 Thus for a second time, and finally, was an abrupt termina- 
 tion put to Motley's official life. The few years of health and 
 strength which remained to him were to be devoted to the 
 prosecution of his historical labours, and, with the exception of 
 a few months, were to be passed in England, ' the land which 
 we love so much ' ; the man whose whole mind and body had 
 for years been at the disposal of his country in the crisis of her 
 fate, could now say, ' events at home fill me with disgust un- 
 fathomable.' The death of his beloved mother in 1865 had 
 severed one of the closest ties which bound him to America, 
 while the marriages of his daughters in England had been a 
 further inducement to him to settle on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 In 1871, he spent some months in study at the Hague, where 
 he renewed his acquaintance with the Queen of the Nether- 
 lands — than whom ' I have rarely known a more intellectual 
 and accomplished lady or a sincerer friend.' It was no small 
 gratification to him to find how widely his history was appre- 
 ciated in Holland. 
 
 ' I like to tell so old and indulgent a friend as you,' he writes to 
 Holmes, ' that my efforts to illustrate the very heroic history of this 
 country have been appreciated here, and that the books in the trans- 
 lation have gone through many editions. They are used in the 
 higher schools also. |^I should have been sorry not to be known in 
 
 the 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 327 
 
 the country to whose past I liave devoted so much, of my life. But 
 we have been most warmly welcomed from highest to lowest, and I 
 feel very grateful. I will say no more, and I blush to have said so 
 much.' 
 
 On quitting Holland he took a few weeks' tour in Germany 
 to revisit old haunts, and ' to patch up my health, which is 
 somewhat broken . . . after being bowled out in so brutal a 
 manner from a place where I did my duty as faithfully as 
 ever man did.' 
 
 But though the ' disgust of the inkstand,' as he calls it, was 
 creeping over him, his interest in his work was revived by the 
 discovery of a fresh hero. 
 
 ' I live much among the dead men, and have been solacing myself 
 for several months in reading a considerable correspondence of John 
 van Oldenbarneveld, who had the ill luck to be decapitated, as'you 
 remember, two centuries and a half ago. If they had cut his head off 
 on account of his abominable handwriting, no creature would have 
 murmured at the decree who ever tried to read his infinite mass of 
 manuscripts. I take some credit to myself for having, after much 
 time and trouble, enabled myself to decipher the most of them. It is a 
 system of hieroglyphics such as I have not before encountered, and 
 I have had some experience in the cacography of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. 
 
 ' I am afraid that I write history now rather from the bad habit of 
 years, and because one must have a file to gnaw at, than from any 
 hope of doing much good. The desire to attempt the justification of 
 the eminent and most fearfully injured Barneveld inspires me, but I 
 cannot help thinking, so far as my own small personality is concerned, 
 that [the public has had enough of me, and will hardly absorb 
 another book of mine. Moreover, I have at last the consciousness 
 of being doubled up. I have suddenly fallen into old age as into a 
 pit. And I hate it. I try to imagine that it has much to do with 
 the climate and the marshy exhalations of a soil below the level of 
 the sea, this sudden failing of intellectual and bodily vigour, languor, 
 lassitude, moorditoh melancholy.' 
 
 In 1872, he paid a visit to Prince Bismarck, at Varzin, and 
 his accounts of the daily life and domestic circle of the Great 
 Chancellor make us long for fuller details of that unrestrained 
 intercourse, which the two old friends held with each other. 
 
 ' He told inmunerable anecdotes about that great battle, and subse- 
 quently gave some most curious and interesting details about the 
 negociations of Nikolsburg. I wish that you could have heard him. 
 You know his way. He is the least of a poseur of any man I ever saw, 
 little or big. Everything comes out so offhand and carelessly ; but 
 I wish there could be an invisible, self-registering Boswell always 
 attached to his button-hole, so that his talk could be perpetuated. 
 
 There 
 
328 Motley's Correspondence. 
 
 There were a good many things said by him about the Nikolsburg 
 Conference confirming what I had always understood. 
 
 ' The military opinion was bent on going to Vienna after Sadowa. 
 Bismarck strongly opposed this idea. He said it was absolutely 
 necessary not to humiliate Austria, to do nothing that would make 
 friendly relations with her in the future impossible. He said many 
 people refused to speak to him. The events have entirely justified 
 Bismarck's course, as all now agree. It would have been easy enough 
 to go to Vienna or to Hungary, but to return would have been full 
 of danger. I asked him if he was good friends with the Emperor of 
 Austria now. He said Yes, that the Emperor was exceedingly civil . 
 to him last year at Salzburg, and crossed the room to speak to him 
 as soon as he appeared at the door. He said he used when younger 
 to think himself a clever fellow enough, but now he was convinced 
 that nobody had any control over events — ^that nobody was really 
 powerful or great, and it made him laugh when he heard himself 
 complimented as wise, foreseeing, and exercising great influence over 
 the world. A man in the situation in which he had been placed 
 was obliged, while outsiders for example were speculating whether 
 to-morrow it would be rain or sunshine, to decide promptly, it will 
 rain, or it will be fine, and to act accordingly with all the forces at 
 his command. If he guessed right, all the world said. What sagacity 
 — what prophetic power ! if wrong, all the old women would have 
 beaten me with broomsticks. 
 
 ' If he had learned nothing else, he said he had learned modesty. 
 Certainly a more unaffected mortal never breathed, nor a more genial 
 one. He looks like a Colossus, but his health is somewhat shattered. 
 He can never sleep until four or five in the morning. Of course 
 work follows him here, but as far as I _have yet seen it seems to 
 trouble him but little. He looks like a country gentleman entirely 
 at leisure. 
 
 ' He talks away right and left about anything and everything — 
 says among other things that nothing could be a greater hetise than for 
 Germany to attack any foreign country — that if Eussia were to offer 
 the Baltic provinces as a gift, he would not accept them. As to 
 Holland, it would be mere insanity to pretend to occupy or invade 
 its independence. It had never occurred to him or to anybody. As 
 to Belgium, Trance would have made any terms at any time with 
 Germany if allowed to take Belgium. I wish I could record the 
 description he gave of his interviews with Jules Eavre and afterwards 
 with Thiers and Favre, when the peace was made. 
 
 'One trait I mustn't forget, however. Favre cried a little, or 
 affected to cry, and was very pathetic and heroic. Bismarck said 
 that he must not harangue him as if he were an assembly ; they were 
 two together on business purposes, and he was perfectly hardened 
 against eloquence of any kind. Eavre begged him not to mention 
 that he had been so weak as to weep, and Bismarck was much 
 diverted at finding in the printed account afterwards published by 
 Favre that he made a great parade of the tears he had shed.' 
 
 At 
 
Motley's Correspondence. 329 
 
 At length, in 1874, was given to the world the last instalment 
 of that great work which Motley had set himself, but which he 
 never lived to complete, for the rude shocks which he had 
 sustained in recent years had told severely on his health, and 
 the end was rapidly drawing near. In the winter of 1873, he 
 had been sent to Bournemouth, but without deriving much 
 benefit from the change, though, on returning to London in 
 June, he so far rallied as to be able to write, ' It is extraordinary 
 how well I feel here,' but the improvement was but of short 
 duration, In the spring he wrote to Dr, Holmes, ' I am 
 physically a bankrupt, and, as months roll on, fear that this is 
 my fate for what remains of life.' Moreover, Mrs. Motley's 
 health had for some time past been a cause of grave anxiety, 
 and on the last day of 1874, she who had been his stay and 
 support in all his labours and troubles, was taken away from him. 
 
 There remains but little to tell. Tended by the loving care of 
 his daughters and cheered by the companionship of his grand- 
 children, he was, in spite of failing health and strength, able to 
 enjoy the society of his friends, and to pay a few visits, till on 
 the 29th of May, 1877, he suddenly passed away at Kingston 
 Russell, the seat of the Slieridans, to whom he was connected 
 by the marriage of his daughter to the nephew of his old friend 
 Mrs. Norton. 
 
 We have in the foregoing pages dwelt more than once on 
 Motley's prejudices, and on the strength with which those preju- 
 dices were expressed ; and this marked trait of his character 
 brings out into all the stronger relief the gentleness, which in 
 these latter years of his life is markedly apparent in all his 
 letters. Within a few weeks of his death, he wrote to his eldest 
 ■daughter : — 
 
 'I am a good deal puzzled by English party politics, and in my 
 own ignorance now should be the more ready to forgive (if I had not 
 long since done so) the gross ignorance and hatred manifested from 
 1861 to 1864 by many parliamentary chiefs in regard to America.' 
 
 In estimating a man's character there is nothing more mis- 
 leading than his* own selected and edited letters, though as 
 throwing a light on independent materials, or as illustrating 
 facts and transactions which are known from other sources, they 
 are invaluable. Apart from any study of Motley's character, 
 his letters are of exceptional interest for the brilliant comments 
 they contain on subjects which appeal to every educated 
 reader, nor, we believe, is it possible for any one to rise from 
 the perusal of them without that feeling of personal intimacy 
 with, and of personal affection for, the writer which constitutes 
 
 Vol, 168.— iVo. 336. z one 
 
330 Motley s Correspondence. 
 
 one of the greatest charms of good memoirs and biographies, but 
 as a means of arriving at a just and true estimate of character 
 the chief value of this collection lies, perhaps, in the letters 
 addressed to Motley. When we consider the variety of his 
 correspondents and their individual high positions and intel- 
 lectual celebrity, as well as the tone of confidence and ease 
 which pervades their communications, it is impossible to 
 escape the conviction, that they could only have been addressed 
 to a man of remarkable qualities both of heart and head. 
 
 That as a. public man he was not popular among certain 
 classes in his own country is admitted by his biographer. 
 Democracies, as Sir Henry Maine, amongst others, has proved, 
 are slow to discern individual worth, and Motley ' did not 
 illustrate the type of popular politician. He- was too high- 
 minded, too scholarly, too generously industrious, too polished, 
 too much at home in the highest European circles, too much 
 courted for his personal fascinations, too remote from the 
 trading world of caucus managers.' 
 
 The mere fact of his being a Massachusetts man had raised, 
 in some quarters, strong opposition to his appointment to 
 Vienna ; the same cause had exercised a bitter influence in the 
 McCracken accusations. His position in European societies 
 had caused the stigma of aristocracy to be attached to him, a 
 stigma which extreme Republicans are slow to forgive. 
 
 It was a strange irony of fate that the man, in whom the love 
 of democratic institutions amounted to a passion, the man in 
 whose eyes a monarch was, if not necessarily a monster like 
 Philip II., yet unworthy of confidence ; who can scarce see 
 anything to praise in the eiforts of England under Elizabeth 
 and James I. in that cause of European freedom, the credit of 
 supporting which he would assign almost entirely to democratic 
 Holland, that this man should have been assailed as an aristo- 
 crat ; but so it was ; the experience must have been a bitter one, 
 but when the first pang of anger and mortification had passed 
 away, it seems to have been succeeded by a feeling of manly 
 humility and resignation. 
 
 ' Do not believe me inclined to complain, or tcw pass what remains 
 of life in feeble lamentations. "When I think of all the blessings I 
 have had, and of the measure of this world's goods infinitely beyond 
 my deservings that have been heaped upon me, I should despise 
 myself if I should not find strength enough to bear the sorrows which 
 the Omnipotent has now chosen to send.' 
 
 Motley was, in short, one of those few beings, to whom we 
 are tempted to apply that often misused phrase — a thorough 
 gentleman. 
 
 We 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 2436.A3M91 ^ 
 
 Motley's correspondence.l'A review of) Th 
 
 3 1924 022 151 157