There are many points of difference between his work and Mr. Prescott's
"History of the Conquest of Mexico"; but the chief distinction, we
think, may be thus stated. If the foundations on which Mr. Prescott's
narrative is built should ever be overthrown,--a contingency which as
yet we do not apprehend,--that narrative would still rank among the
masterpieces of our literature. It could no longer be received as a
truthful relation of what had actually happened in the past; but it
would be received as a most faithful and graphic relation of what had
been asserted, of what was once universally _believed_, to have so
happened. If the reality appears strange, how much stranger would
appear the fiction! The truth of such a story may seem improbable;
the invention of such a story would be little short of miraculous.
Prescott's work, if removed from its place among histories, must stand
in the first rank among works of imagination,--must be classed with the
"Odyssey" and the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments."
But this book of Wilson's must, under all conditions, and in any
contingency, be regarded as worthless. Be the story of the Conquest true
or false, this contains no relation of it, this contains no refutation
of it.
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