The same excellent faculty for characterization serves our historian on great occasions as well as small ones. Of an intriguing nobleman like the Duke of Norfolk, he is as prompt to speak as of the harp itself: "He was one of those politicians who are never contented; who plot and counterplot incessantly; who are always running their heads fearlessly, to be sure, but indiscreetly, into danger of decapitation." This fine analytic power appears throughout the book. Describing the enthusiasm of the Londoners for Henry of Bolingbroke, and their coldness towards the captive King Richard, the historian acutely observes: "Ever thus, from the beginning of the world, have those been insulted who have fallen from a high estate. The multitude follows successful usurpation, but never offers a shield to fallen dignity." The bashfulness and silence of Prince Henry an ordinary writer would perhaps have called by those names; but Mr. Towle says: "He was neither loud nor forward in giving his views; he apparently felt that one so young should never seem dogmatic or positive on questions in regard to which age and learning were in doubt." Such a sentence might perhaps suggest the idea that Mr. Towle's History was intended for the more youthful reader, but when you read, farther on, in the analysis of Henry's character, "It was fitting that so fine a soul should be illustrated by brilliancy of intellect and eloquence of speech, that so precious a jewel should be encased in a casket of beauty and graceful proportion,"--or when you learn, in another place, that "the eloquence of Stephen Partington stirred the religious element of Henry's _character, which appreciated and admired_ superior ability of speech,"--we say, you can no longer doubt that Mr. Towle addresses himself to minds as mature as his own. It is natural that an historian whose warmth of feeling is visible in his glow of language should be an enthusiastic worshipper of his hero, and should defend him against all aspersions. Mr. Towle finds that, if Henry was a rake in youth and a bigot in manhood, he was certainly a very amiable rake and a very earnest bigot. "There can be no doubt," says our historian, in his convincing way, "that he often paused in his reckless career, filled with remorse, wrestling with his flighty spirit, to overcome his unseemly sports"; and as to the sincerity of his fanaticism, "to suppose otherwise is to charge a mere youth with a hypocritical cunning worthy of the Borgias in their zenith." Masterly strokes like these are, of course, intended to console the reader for a want of distinctness in Mr. Towle's narrative, from which one does not rise with the clearest ideas of the civilization and events of the time which he describes.