Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Ticknor, George

TICKNOR, George (1791-1871), historian of Spanish literature, was born at Boston (Mass.), on 1st August 1791. He received his early education from his father, Elisha Ticknor, who, though at that time in business, had been principal of the local Franklin public school and was the originator both of the system of free primary schools in Boston and of the first New England savings-bank. He studied at Dartmouth College from 1805 to 1807, and on leaving it was placed for nearly three years under Dr Gardiner, a pupil of Dr Parr. In the autumn of 1810 Ticknor entered the office of a leading Massachusetts lawyer, and, though his studies appear to have been literary rather than legal, he was admitted to the bar in 1813. He at once commenced practice; but a year's experiment convinced him that scholarship and letters would be more congenial to his abilities. In the spring of 1815 he set sail for England. Attractive in appearance, cultured, vivacious, and sympathetic, he had won many influential friends in America, and his introductions gave him access to most of the men then worth knowing in Europe. He spent nearly two years at Gottingen; but he also visited the chief towns on the Continent, meeting Prescott for the first time at Paris, and spending some months in Spain and Portugal, the life and literatures of which had already strong attractions for him. Returning to America in the summer of 1819, he was inducted in the August following to the Smith professorship of French and Spanish literature and to the college professorship of belles-lettres at Harvard. The history and criticism of Spanish literature was in many respects a new subject at that time even in Europe, the Spaniards themselves having no adequate treatment of their literature as a whole, and both Bouterwek and Sismondi having worked with scanty or second-hand re sources. To supply this want, therefore, he gave his most serious thought, developing in his lectures the scheme of his more permanent work. In June 1821 his father died, and in September he married Anna, daughter of Samuel Eliot, a merchant and founder of the chair of Greek literature at Harvard College. In the years following 1821 Ticknor made a vain effort to introduce measures of university reform. The death of his only son in 1834 and the subsequent failure of his wife's health led him to resign his post at Cambridge to Longfellow; and in the spring of 1835 he again went to Europe, where he remained until 1838. From that time till his death he lived chiefly at Boston. Till 1849 he published only occasional reviews and papers, such as his essays on Moore's Anacreon, on Milton's Paradise Lost, and on Thatcher's Sermons, in 1812; on Michael Stiefel, in 1816; on Griscom's Tour in Europe and on General La Fayette, in 1824; on amusements in Spain and on changes in Harvard College, in 1825; on Chateaubriand, in 1827; on Daniel Webster, in 1831; and on the best mode of teaching living languages, in 1832. His History of Spanish Literature, the first editions of which appeared in New York and London in 1849, was welcomed on all hands as the standard work on the subject, and was rapidly translated into Spanish and other Continental languages. Whatever its defects, it at least reduced to system and clearness a large mass of varied historical material hitherto only vaguely known; and its copious references to authorities and editions and its loving exploration of the byeways of the literature made it as valuable to scholars as its direct and unpretentious style made it popular with general readers. In many respects it was the admirable literary complement of the historical work of Prescott. Like his, the bent of Ticknor's mind was expository rather than critical; and in both cases the standards applied were of a conventional rather than of an advanced nature. As with Prescott the glow of vivid narration often hides rather than reveals the underlying problems of social and philosophic import, so with Ticknor a certain fund of graceful and genial commonplace is apt to gloss over the really vital critical issues of the subject-matter. At crucial moments in place of the keener edge of criticism one is apt to find only the paper-knife intelligence of the ordinary book-lover. The defect, however, was common to the critical schools of the time. The merits of the work in its accurate survey of comparatively untrodden ground were individual and of an exceedingly high order. Ticknor subsequently took an active part in the establishment of the Boston public library, in the interests of which he paid in 1856 another visit to Europe, and to which he left at his death his fine collection of Spanish and Portuguese works. In 1859, on the death of Prescott, he at once began to collect materials for a life of his friend, which was published in 1864. His death took place at Boston on 26th January 1871.

A Life of Ticknor, with his letters and journals, was edited by George S. Hillard, Boston, 1876.