writers: they are virtually our own countrymen and contemporaries, but have the advantage which is enjoyed by intelligent travellers, that their observation has been exercised in a field out of the reach of common men and that having thus seen in a manner with our eyes what we cannot see for ourselves, their conclusions are such as bear upon our own circumstances, while their information has all the charm of novelty, and all the value of a mass of new and pertinent facts, illustrative of the great science of the nature of civilized man.

Now when it is said that men in manhood so often throw their Greek and Latin aside, and that this very fact shows the uselessness of their early studies, it is much more true to say that it shows how completely the literature of Greece and Rome would be forgotten, if our system of education did not keep up the knowledge of it. But it by no means shows that system to be useless, unless it followed that when a man laid aside his Greek and Latin books, he forgot also all that he had ever gained from them. This, however, is so far from being the case, that even where the results of a classical education are least tangible, and least appreciated even by the individual himself, still the mind often retains much of the effect of its early studies in the general liberality of its tastes and comparative comprehensiveness of its views and notions.

All this supposes, indeed, that classical instruction should be sensibly conducted; it requires that a classical teacher should be fully acquainted with modern history and modern literature, no less than with those of Greece and Rome. What is, or perhaps what used to be, called a mere scholar, cannot possibly communicate to his pupils the main advantages of a classical education. The knowledge of the past is valuable because without it our knowledge of the present and of the future must be scanty: but if the knowledge of the past be confined wholly to itself,-if, instead of being made to bear upon things around us, it be totally isolated from them, and so disguised by vagueness and misapprehension as to appear incapable of illustrating them, then indeed it becomes little better than laborious trifling, and they who declaim against it may be fully forgiven.

Quarterly Journal of Education, 1834.

Boston, and grandson of Colonel William Prescott, who commanded at Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796; graduated at Harvard University, with distinguished honour, 1814; passed two years in Europe (visiting England, France, and Italy), 1815-17, and about three months (visiting England, Scotland, Brussels, and Antwerp) in 1850; died suddenly of apoplexy, Jan. 28, 1859. (See article George Ticknor, LL.D., in this volume.)

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Át a college-dinner in his Junior year, an under-graduate threw at random a large, hard piece of bread, which struck one of Prescott's eyes, and, for all useful purposes, closed it forever on the world. His other eye was soon sympathetically affected; and the youthful student, to whom life had but yesterday seemed so bright and hope-inspiring, was now obliged to turn his back upon the sun and all that it gladdens, and, at a later period, for many weary months to submit to the imprisonment of a darkened room."-Allibone's Crit. Dictionary of Eng. Literature, ii. 1663, which see for copious accounts of Prescott's life and works. See also Life of William Hickling Prescott, by George Ticknor, Boston, 1864, 4to.

Works: History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, Bost., 1838, 3 vols. 8vo, 12th London edit., 1859; History of the Conquest of Mexico, with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror, Hernando Cortez, New York, 1843, 3 vols. 8vo, 10th London edit., 1859; History of the Conquest of Peru, with a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas, New York, 1847, 3 vols. 8vo, 8th London edit., 1859; History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, vols. i. and ii., Boston, Dec. 1855, 4th London edit., 1855, vol. iii., Boston, Dec. 1858, Lond., 1858; The Life of Charles the Fifth after his Abdication, being a Supplement to a new edition of Robertson's Reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, Bost., 1857, 3 vols. 8vo, Lond., 1857; Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, New York, 1845, 8vo, 2d London edit., 1850, Svo, new edit., 1859, 8vo.

America, and he may justly be assigned a Place "Mr. Prescott was by far the first Historian of beside the very greatest of modern Europe. To the indispensable requisites of such an authorindustry, candour, and impartiality-he united ornamental qualities of the highest grade: a mind stored with various and Elegant Learning, a poetical temperament, and great, it may almost be said PRES- unrivalled, pictorial Powers. These great qualities appeared not less strongly in his last production, the History of the Reign of Philip the Second, than in the earlier works-the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the History of

one of the most eminent of modern historians, son of Judge William Prescott, of

the Conquest of Mexico, and the History of the
Conquest of Peru-which won for him his world-
wide fame. The death of such a man, in the prime
of life, and in the Meridian of his Powers, is a loss
not to his country alone, but to the whole human
race, to whom his beautiful writings will always
prove a source of instruction and enjoyment."-
SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON TO S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE,
Glasgow, June 4, 1859.

"I had as great regard for Mr. Prescott as for any man of whom I knew so little; and I think very highly of his works."-LORD MACAULAY TO THE SAME, Holly Lodge, Kensington, May 28, 1859.

SABELLA OF SPAIN AND ELIZABETH OF

ENGLAND.

It is in the amiable qualities of her sex that Isabella's superiority becomes most apparent over her illustrious namesake, Elizabeth of England, whose history presents some features parallel to her own. were disciplined in early life by the teachBoth ings of that stern nurse of wisdom, adversity. Both were made to experience the deepest humiliation at the hands of their nearest relative, who should have cherished and protected them. Both succeeded in establishing themselves on the throne after the most precarious vicissitudes. Each conducted her kingdom, through a long and triumphant reign, to a height of glory which it had never before reached. Both lived to see the vanity of all earthly grandeur, and to fall the victims of an inconsolable melancholy; and both left behind an illustrious name, unrivalled in the subsequent annals of the country.

But with these few circumstances of their history the resemblance ceases. Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact. Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King Harry's temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse, and irascible; while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the dignity of royal station with the most bland and courteous manners. was constant in her purposes; and her conOnce resolved, she duct in public and private life was characterized by candour and integrity. Both may be said to have shown that magnanimity which is implied by the accomplishment of great objects in the face of great obstacles. But Elizabeth was desperately selfish; she was incapable of forgiving, not merely a real injury, but the slightest affront to her vanity; and she was merciless in exacting retribution. Isabella, on the other hand, lived only for others,-was ready at all times to sacrifice self to considerations of public duty; and, far from personal resentments, showed the greatest condescension and kindness to those who had most sensibly injured her; while

her benevolent heart sought every means to mitigate the authorized severities of the law, even toward the guilty.

indeed, was placed in situations which deBoth possessed rare fortitude. Isabella, of it than her rival; but no one will doubt manded more frequent and higher displays ter of Henry the Eighth. Elizabeth was better educated, and every way more highly a full measure of this quality in the daughaccomplished than Isabella. But the latter knew enough to maintain her station with dignity; and she encouraged learning by a munificent patronage. The masculine powers and passions of Elizabeth seemed to divorce attributes of her sex; at least from those her in a great measure from the peculiar which constitute its peculiar charm; for she had abundance of its foibles,-a coquetry chill; a levity most careless, if not criminal; and love of admiration which age could not and a fondness for dress and tawdry magnificence of ornament, which was ridiculous, periods of life in which it was indulged. or disgusting, according to the different Isabella, on the other hand, distinguished through life for decorum of manners and purity beyond the breath of calumny, was content with the legitimate affection which she could inspire_within the range of her domestic circle. Far from a frivolous affectation of ornament or dress, she was most simple in her own attire, and seemed to set no value on her jewels, but as they could serve the necessities of the state: when they gave them away to her friends. could be no longer useful in this way, she

par

selection of their ministers; though ElizaBoth were uncommonly sagacious in the beth was drawn into some errors in this ticular by her levity, as was Isabella by her religious feeling. It was this, combined with her excessive humility, which led to the only grave errors in the administration of the latter. Her rival fell into no such errors; and she was a stranger to the amiable qualities which led to them. Her conduct principle; and, though the bulwark of the was certainly not controlled by religious Protestant faith, it might be difficult to say whether she were at heart most a Protestant connection with the state, in other words, or a Catholic. She viewed religion in its with herself; and she took measures for enforcing conformity in her own views, not a whit less despotic, and scarcely less sanguinary, than those countenanced for conscience' sake by her more bigoted rival.

a shade over Isabella's otherwise beautiful
This feature of bigotry, which has thrown
character, might lead to a disparagement of
her intellectual power compared with that
of the English queen. To estimate this

the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful, unknown God, Creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support."

He then withdrew to his rural palace of Tezcotzinco, where he remained forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums. At the expiration of this time, he is said to have been comforted by a vision assuring him of the success of his petition. At all events, such proved to be the fact: and this was followed by the cheering intelligence of the triumph of his arms in a quarter where he had lately experienced some humiliating reverses.

aright, we must contemplate the results of remedy was to propitiate them by human their respective reigns. Elizabeth found all | sacrifice. The king reluctantly consented, the materials of prosperity at hand, and and the altars once more smoked with the availed herself of them most ably to build blood of slaughtered captives. But it was up a solid fabric of national grandeur. Isa- all in vain; and he indignantly exclaimed, bella created these materials. She saw the "These idols of wood and stone can neither faculties of her people locked up in a death-hear nor feel; much less could they make like lethargy, and she breathed into them the breath of life for those great and heroic enterprises which terminated in such glorious consequences to the monarchy. It is when viewed from the depressed condition of her early days, that the achievements of her reign seem scarcely less than miraculous. The masculine genius of the English queen stands out relieved beyond its natural dimensions by its separation from the softer qualities of her sex. While her rival's, like some vast but symmetrical edifice, loses in appearance somewhat of its actual grandeur from the perfect harmony of its proportions. The circumstances of their deaths, which were somewhat similar, displayed the great dissimilarity of their characters. Both pined amidst their royal state, a prey to incurable despondency rather than any marked bodily distemper. In Elizabeth it sprung from wounded vanity, a sullen conviction that she had outlived the admiration on which she had so long fed, and even the solace of friendship and the attachment of her subjects. Nor did she seek consolation, where alone it was to be found in that sad hour. Isabella, on the other hand, sunk under a too acute sensibility to the sufferings of others. But, amidst the gloom which gathered around her, she looked with the eye of faith to the brighter prospects which unfolded of the future; and when she resigned her last breath, it was amidst the tears and universal lamentations of her people.

Greatly strengthened in his former religious convictions, he now openly professed his faith, and was more earnest to wean his subjects from their degrading superstitions, and to substitute nobler and more spiritual conceptions of the Deity. He built a temple in the usual pyramidal form, and on the summit a tower nine stories high, to represent the nine heavens; a tenth was surmounted by a roof painted black, and profusely gilded with stars on the outside, and incrusted with metal and precious stones within. He dedicated this to "the unknown God, the Cause of causes." It seems probable, from the emblem on the tower, as well as from the complexion of his verses, as we

History of the Reign of Ferdinand and shall see, that he mingled with his reverence Isabella the Catholic.

THE KING OF TEZCUCO.

It would be incredible that a man of the enlarged mind and endowments of Nezahualcoyoti should acquiesce in the sordid superstitions of his countrymen, and still more in the sanguinary rites borrowed by them from the Aztecs. In truth, his humane temper shrunk from these cruel ceremonies, and he strenuously endeavoured to recall his people to the more pure and simple worship of the ancient Toltecs. A circumstance produced a temporary change in his conduct.

for the Supreme the astral worship which existed among the Toltecs. Various musical instruments were placed on the top of the tower, and the sound of them, accompanied by the ringing of a sonorous metal struck by a mallet, summoned the worshippers to prayers at regular seasons. No image was allowed in the edifice as unsuited to the "invisible God ;" and the people were expressly prohibited from profaning the altars with blood, or any other sacrifices than that of the perfume of flowers and sweet-scented gums.

The remainder of his days was chiefly spent in his delicious solitude of Tezcotzinco, where he devoted himself to astroHe had been married some years to the nomical and, probably, astrological studies, wife he had so unrighteously obtained, but and to meditation on his immortal destiny, was not blessed with issue. The priests-giving utterance to his feelings in songs, represented that it was owing to his neglect or rather hymns, of much solemnity and of the gods of his country, and that his only pathos. An extract from one of these will