All this material and more was in Prescott's hands, and he made full use of it. His narrative, moreover, was told in a style which was easy and unstudied, less glowing than in the _Mexico_, but even better fitted for the telling of events which were so pregnant with good and ill to succeeding generations. In the pages of _Philip II._ we have neither the somewhat formal student who wrote of Ferdinand and Isabella, nor the romanticist whose imagination was kindled by the reports of Cortés. Rather do we find one who has at last reached the highest levels of historical writing, and who with perfect poise develops a noble theme in a noble way. The only criticism which has ever been brought against the book has come from those who, like Thoreau, regard literary finish as a defect in historical composition. The author of Walden seemed, indeed, to single out Prescott for special animadversion in this respect, and his rather rasping sentences contain the only jarring notes that were sounded by any contemporary of the historian. Thoreau, writing of the colonial historians of Massachusetts, such as Josselyn, remarked with a sort of perverse appreciation: "They give you one piece of nature at any rate, and that is themselves, smacking their lips like a coach-whip,--none of those emasculated modern histories, such as Prescott's, cursed with a style." If style be really a curse to an historian, then Prescott remained under its ban to the very last. As a bit of vivid writing his description of the battle of Lepanto was much admired, and Irving thought it the best thing in the book. A bit of it may be quoted by way of showing that Prescott in his later years lost nothing of his vivacity or of his fondness for battle-scenes. First we see the Turkish armament moving up to battle against the allied fleets:--