Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume LXII., No. 381, July, 1847

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume LXII., No. 381, July, 1847

The worlds history contains no chapter more striking and attractive than that comprising the narrative of Spanish conquest in the Americas. Teeming with interest to the historian and philosopher, to the lover of daring enterprise and marvellous adventure it is full of fascination. On the vast importance of the discovery of a western hemisphere, vying in size, as it one day, perhaps, may compete in civilisation and power, with its eastern rival, it were idle to expatiate. But the manner of its conquest commands unceasing admiration. It needs the concurring testimony of a host of chroniclers and eye-witnesses to convince succeeding generations that the hardships endured, the perils surmounted, the victories obtained, by the old Conquistadores of Mexico and Peru, were as real as their record is astounding. The subjugation of vast and populous empires by petty detachments of adventurers, often scantily provided and ignorantly ledthe extraordinary daring with which they risked themselves, a few score strong, into the heart of unknown countries, and in the midst of hostile millions, require strong confirmation to obtain credence. Exploits so romantic go near to realise the feats of those fabulous paladins who, cased in impervious steel and wielding enchanted lance, overthrew armies as easily as a Quixote scattered merinos. Hardly, when the tale is put before us in the quaint and garrulous chronicle of an Oviedo or a Zarate, can we bring ourselves to accept it as history, not as the wild invention of imaginative monks, beguiling conventual leisure by the composition of fantastical romance. And the man who undertakes, at the present day, to narrate in all their details the exploits and triumphs of a Corts or a Pizarro, allots himself no slight task. A clear head and a sound judgment, great industry and a skilful pen, are needed to do justice to the subject; to extract and combine the scraps of truth buried under mountains of fiction and misrepresentation, to sift facts from the partial accounts of Spanish jurists and officials, and to correct the boastful misrepresentations of insolent conquerors. The necessary qualities have been found united in the person of an accomplished American author. Already favourably known by his histories of the eventful and chivalrous reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the exploits of the Great Marquis and his iron followers, Mr Prescott has added to his well-merited reputation by his narrative of the Conquest of Peru. In its compilation he has spared no pains. Private collections and public libraries, the archives of Madrid and the manuscripts of the Escurial, he has ransacked and collated. And he has been so scrupulously conscientious as to send to Lima for a copy of the portrait whose engraving faces his title-page. But although his materials had to be procured from many and distant countries, their collection appears to have occasioned him less trouble than 2 their abundance. The comrades and contemporaries of Pizarro were afflicted with a scribbling mania. They have left masses of correspondence, of memoranda and personal diaries, contradictory of each other, often absurd in their exaggerations and childish in their triviality. From this farrago has Mr Prescott had to cull,a labour of no trifling magnitude, whose result is most creditable to him. And to our admiration of his talents are added feelings of strong sympathy, when we read his manly and affecting account of the painful circumstances under which the work was done. Deprived by an accident of the sight of one eye, the other has for years been so weak as at times to be useless to him for all purposes of reading and writing. At intervals he was able to read print several hours a-day, but manuscript was far more trying to his impaired vision, and writing was only possible through those aids by which even the stone-blind may accomplish it. But when he could read, although only by daylight, he felt, he says, satisfied with being raised so nearly to a level with the rest of his species. Unfortunately the evil increases. The sight of my eye has become gradually dimmed, whilst the sensibility of the nerve has been so far increased, that for several weeks of the last year I have not opened a volume, and through the whole time I have not had the use of it, on an average, for more than an hour a-day. Sustained by love of letters, and assisted by readers and amanuenses, the student and scholar has triumphed over these cruel disadvantages, surmounted all obstacles, and produced three long and important historical works, conspicuous by their impartiality, research, and elegance; entitling him to an exceedingly honourable position amongst writers in the English tongue, and to one of the very loftiest places in the as yet scantily filled gallery of American men of letters. The last of these works, of which Pizarro is the hero and Peru the scene, yields nothing in merit or interest to its predecessors. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 58220
Author: Various
Release Date: Nov 2, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English