The opportunity was, in fact, unique. The complete renovation in historical studies forced European scholars to begin again at the beginning and Americans could enter the competition on an equality with them. The publication, for example, of Navarrete's documents made Robertson obsolete and opened the way for Irving to write his Columbus without fearing the advent of any rival with superior resources. Fresh from his studies in Gottingen and from contact with the best minds in England and France, Ticknor could with equal confidence rear the solid fabric of his History of Spanish Literature. In like manner, Bancroft, trained in history and philosophy in the best German universities, brought a greater breadth of knowledge to bear upon the story of the English Colonies than had before been bestowed on such a theme by an English writer. Prescott, too, fortunate in his wealth, enlisted in his service to collect material several of the most accomplished scholars in Europe, and wove their contributions to his store into a narrative which for literary charm none of them could equal. Then, following his Spaniards to the New World, in the collision of European civilization with the ancient culture of Mexico and Peru he laid hold of two of the most dramatic incidents in all history. In the meantime the long panorama of the life in the northern forests, of the clash of French and English, of fur trader and settler, and of both with the Indian, had been unfolded by Cooper in a series of romances that carried his name and familiarized his theme throughout the civilized world.
These examples naturally turned the minds of young men of literary ambitions toward history. Such was the effect on Motley and Parkman, the most distinguished successors of Irving and Prescott. Motley was drawn by Prescott's success into the European field and chose for his life work the history of the struggle of the Dutch against Spanish rule. Parkman, on the other hand, under the spell of Cooper, and hardly less fascinated by Thierry's portrayal of the movements of contending races in his Norman Conquest, found, in undertaking a companion picture to Prescott's Conquest of
