He has found time, in the midst of his professional duties, to write a really meritorious work on the history of Spain. But he had not the time, perhaps not the opportunity, for making a thorough examination of the original authorities. He was therefore obliged to take for his guide a modern author, who had made this history the peculiar field of his researches. The guide whom he selected, and he could have made no better choice, was William Hickling Prescott. So necessary was it for his purpose that the latter should precede him in a pathway so obscure, that he postponed the composition of a portion of his work until the publication of the first two volumes of the "History of Philip the Second," then in preparation, should supply him with the requisite light. His indebtedness to Mr. Prescott was frankly and fully acknowledged both in public and in private. In letters which now lie before us, he says, "I am working hard on 'Philip the Second,' and blessing at the same time the learned pioneer who has traced for me so easy a road through this confused and difficult period of history." "It is a piece of good-fortune which I cannot too highly appreciate, that your studies should have been directed to the most difficult portion of Spanish history, from which you have thus removed for me all the thorns. The conscientiousness and the thoroughness of your researches, the perfect trustworthiness of your conclusions, and the lofty calmness of your judgments, are the precious supports on which I lean; and I have now, for the reign of Philip the Second, a guide whom I shall be ever proud and happy to follow, _as I have before followed him through the reigns of the Catholic Kings and the Conquests of Mexico and Peru_." That these expressions are no exaggeration of the facts of the case might be easily established by a comparison of the "Histoire d'Espagne" with the writings of the American historian. The passages in the former work cited by Mr. Wilson would form a portion of the proof; and thus, in following M. St. Hilaire, he has in fact been indirectly and ignorantly availing himself of labors which he affects to speak of with contempt.