"Boston State House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar." Like Irving, Holmes was fond of eighteenth-century English writers, and much of his verse is modeled after the couplets of Pope. Holmes writes fluid and rippling prose, without a trace of effort. His meaning is never left to conjecture, but is stated in pure, exact English. He not only expresses his ideas perfectly, but he seems to achieve this result without premeditation. This apparent artlessness is a great charm. He has left America a new form of prose, which bears the stamp of pure literature, and which is distinguished not so much for philosophy and depth as for grace, versatility, refined humor, bright intellectual flashes, and artistic finish. THE HISTORIANS Three natives of Massachusetts and graduates of Harvard, William H. Prescott, John Lothrop Motley, and Francis Parkman, wrote history in such a way as to entitle it to be mentioned in our literature. We cannot class as literature those historical writings which are not enlivened with imagination, invested with at least an occasional poetic touch, and expressed in rare style. Unfortunately the very qualities that render history attractive as literature often tend to raise doubts about the scientific method and accuracy of the historian. For this reason few histories keep for a great length of time a place in literature, unless, like Irving's _Knickerbocker's History of New York_, they aim to give merely an imaginative interpretation of a past epoch. They may then, like Homer's _Iliad_, Shakespeare's _Macbeth_, and some of Irving's and Cooper's work, be, in Celtic phrase, "more historical than history itself." History of this latter type lives, and is a treasure in the literature of any nation. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT (1796-1859).--Like Washington Irving, Prescott was attracted by the romantic achievements of Spain during the years of her brilliant successes, and he wrote four histories upon Spanish subjects: a _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_ (1837), a _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ (1843), a _History of the Conquest of Peru_ (1847), and a _History of the Reign of Philip II_. (1855-1858), the last of which he did not live to complete.