His compliment to Prescott's "good faith" seems, after all, to have been premature. In other parts of his book we find remarks that seem in conflict with this admission. He makes several severe strictures on Mr. Prescott's omission to give due credit to General Cass for his valuable contribution to Aztec history. "Mr. Prescott nowhere refers to the subject, as we think he ought to have done." (p. 30.) "The ink was hardly dry on the leaves of the North American Quarterly which contained the exposure of these fictions, when another contributor to the same periodical, Mr. Prescott, began his history, founded on authors already _denounced as fabulous by so high an authority as the Hon. Lewis Cass_!" Think of the unparalleled audacity of the author of the "History of Ferdinand and Isabella" in actually exercising his own judgment with regard to the credibility of the Spanish chroniclers, after so high an authority had pronounced against them! However, we are not yet prepared to abandon our own belief in Mr. Prescott's "good faith." We really believe that he was guilty of no intentional disrespect towards the Hon. Lewis Cass. It is possible that he may never have seen the article in question. Contributors to periodicals are sometimes sadly neglectful of the most brilliant performances of their _confrères_. We doubt whether the "Autocrat" has ever read with proper attention any of our own modest, but not, we hope, inelegant effusions. Mr. Wilson is not without a suspicion that the world may be slow to surrender its confidence in the veracity and accuracy of a writer whose works have already stood the test of many a severe and critical examination. When this idea breaks upon his mind, he manages to lash himself into a state of considerable excitement. He foresees the difficulty of convincing "those who take an array of great names for the foundation of their belief, and those who judge a work only by the elegance with which its periods are strung together. And, besides these two,"--meaning, we presume, not two men, but two classes of men,--"we have to encounter also the opposition of _savans_--men who live and judge the outside world through the medium of books alone. These hold as of no account, all but Greece and Rome," [the proof-reader is requested not to disturb Mr. Wilson's punctuation,] "and receive no idea of antiquity that does not come through them. For any, then, too wise to learn or too thoughtless to inquire, this chapter is not designed.... Many there are," [how many, we wonder,] "who have dealt in Spanish romances, supposing them to be history; and these are slow to abandon their delusions. At enormous expense they have gathered volumes of authorities; will they readily admit them to be cheats and counterfeits? They grudge the time too they have spent in their perusal; and are loth, as well they may be, to lose it. But individual loss and injury _is_" [the proof-reader will please not to interfere with Mr. Wilson's