We have received from Messrs. J. B. Lippincott a copy
of the " Montezuma Edition" of " The Works of W. H. Prescott," supplemented by his Life, written by George Ticknor. The works occupy twenty-one volumes. These are the Conquest of Mexico (4), Conquest of Peru (3), Ferdinand and Isabella (4), Robertson's Charles V., Edited and Supplemented (4), Philip II. (4), Biographical and Critical Miscellanies (2). It is probable that Prescott is less known in England than he was sixty years ago. He then ranked with Washington Irving in popular fame and favour. As an historian, too, he is not in the last mode. It is almost a reproach to be picturesque, and Prescott has the quality of picturesqueness in ample degree. The writer of this notice has a vivid remembrance of his description of the Spanish retreat from the city of Mexico, though it is con- siderably more than half-a-century since he read it. This edition is handsome and altogether suitable in character to the work which it reproduces. The Life by Ticknor was the work of an intimate friend. Prescott died in 1859 (in his sixty-third year); his biographer was his senior by five years, and survived him twelve. The biography is, as the editor, Mr. W. H. Munro, truly says, "an American classic." In estimating the relative rather than the absolute merit of Prescott's work we must not forget the eye trouble from which he suffered for a considerable part of his life. The price of the set —and the edition is sold in sets only— is £13 15s. net.
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