The criticism of his first book taught Prescott the futility of worrying about style--after one has worried sufficiently. He was no less anxious to improve; he noted the mannerisms into which he had fallen, resolved to correct them, and that was the conclusion of the whole matter. He stopped dwelling overmuch on the fashion of his writing, and at once gained in ease and naturalness. After ten years of labor he had mastered the materials of his art. His workmanship improved to the last. The volumes of the _History of Philip the Second_ have literary characteristics so gracious as to add sharpness to the regret that this noble work had to be left unfinished. IV THE HISTORIES The _Ferdinand and Isabella_ is not a formidable book for size. A timid reader, shrinking from fifteen hundred pages of any literature but fiction, need not fear mortgaging too much of his time in the perusal. Compared with a reading of Freeman’s _Norman Conquest_ or Carlyle’s _Frederick_, his task is light. In an introductory section Prescott traces the growth of Castile and Aragon, with their dependencies, up to the time when Ferdinand and Isabella come on the stage of history. Perhaps there is a lack of detail here and there. One would like to know the steps of the process by which the Spaniards regained the territory from which they had been driven by the Saracenic invasion of the Eighth Century. Bitter as were the jealousies and quarrels of the various petty states, they made common cause against the Mohammedans. They hated the hereditary enemy both as infidels and usurpers. Hatred fostered the national spirit. The history proper is divided into two parts. The first has chiefly to do with the internal policy of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was the period when law displaced anarchy. The law might be severe or even unjust, but it was at all events law. Here is shown how the power of the nobles was curbed, warring factions pacified, banditti of all sorts kept within bounds, and that too whether they lived in castles or lurked in dark corners, heresy suppressed in a truly rigorous fashion, above all the national ideal strengthened. To use a homely figure, Ferdinand and Isabella took up the problem of national housekeeping and handled it as it had never been handled before. A reign of order and economy was inaugurated. Thieving servants were put under restraint or discharged, poachers were apprehended, and the gypsies who had impudently camped on the best part of the estates were driven off. A government which for years had run at loose ends was now under masterful control.