Had Prescott lived, his history of Philip II. would have been extended to a greater length than any of his other books--probably to six volumes instead of the three which are all that he ever finished. It is likely, too, that this book would have constituted his surest claim to high rank as an historian. He came to the writing of it with a mind stored with the accumulations of twenty years of patient, conscientious study. He had lost none of his charm as a writer, while he had acquired laboriously that special knowledge and training which are needed in one who would be a master of historical research. _Philip II._ shows on every page the skill with which information drawn from multifarious sources can be massed and marshalled by one who is not only documented but who has thoroughly assimilated everything of value which his documents contain. No better evidence of Prescott's thoroughness is needed than the tribute which was paid to him by Motley, who had diligently gleaned in the same field. He said; "I am astonished at your omniscience. Nothing seems to escape you. Many a little trait of character, scrap of intelligence, or dab of scene-painting which I had kept in my most private pocket, thinking I had fished it out of unsunned depths, I find already in your possession."[53] And we may well join with Motley in his expression of regret that so solid a piece of historical composition should remain unfinished. Writing from Rome to Mr. William Amory soon after Prescott's death, Motley said:-- "I feel inexpressibly disappointed ... that the noble and crowning monument of his life, for which he had laid such massive foundations, and the structure of which had been carried forward in such a grand and masterly manner, must remain uncompleted, like the unfinished peristyle of some stately and beautiful temple on which the night of time has suddenly descended."[54] CHAPTER X PRESCOTT'S RANK AS AN HISTORIAN In forming an estimate of Prescott's rank among American writers of history, one's thought inevitably associates him with certain of his contemporaries. The Spanish subjects which he made his own invite a direct comparison with Irving. His study of the sombre Philip compels us to think at once of Motley. The broadly general theme of his first three books--the extension of European domination over the New World--brings him into a direct relation to Francis Parkman.