Excerpt from The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. 1 of 3: A History
The "Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic" was first published in 1855; and it had cost Motley ten years" labour. He had previously written novels; and, with more effect, some fine historical and literary essays, showing original powers and a scholarly equipment of a rare kind. He had studied the living history of his own country from the Massachusetts House of Representatives; and that of Russia from the post of Secretary of Legation, which he held for a brief term at St. Petersburg - his first diplomatic appointment. But his residence there was not a happy experience. The Russian climate did not suit him, and living was expensive; and in a letter to his mother he confessed: "With my reserved habits, it would take a great deal longer to become intimate here than to thaw the Baltic." That was in 1841-42. As for his earnest concern with the affairs and the politics of America, we may gauge it from the striking comment he made, when almost in despair because of the failure of Henry Clay, a statesman, and the election for the Presidency in 1844 of Mr. Polk: "Mr. Polk is anybody, - Mr. Quelconque." Many such glimpses of Motley, in his years of preparation for his historical work, may be had in his Life by his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Of Motley in his youth, we gain an impression from Wendell Phillips, who thought him handsomer than any portrait of Byron represents the poet. Like many great scholars, Motley preferred his own way of learning. At school he would study as he liked, and not by rule. "I did wonder," says Wendell Phillips, "at the diligence and painstaking, the drudgery shown in his historical works." It was very much the same when he went to Harvard, where, at one period, he became so negligent that he was rusticated. A tutor there remonstrated with him upon the heaps of novels upon his table. "Yes," said Motley, "I am reading historically, and have come to the novels of the nineteenth century. Taken in a lump, they are very hard reading."
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