Chapter V: Historical Writings

_COLUMBUS_, _CONQUEST OF GRANADA_, _MAHOMET_

The _Life and Voyages of Columbus_ is written in the spirit of tempered hero-worship. It is free from the extravagance of partisans who make a god of Columbus, and from the skeptical cavillings of those who apparently are not unwilling to rob the great explorer of any claim he may possess to virtue or ability. As Irving conceives him, Columbus is a many-sided man, infinitely patient when patience is required, doggedly obstinate if the need be, crafty or open, daring in the highest degree, having that audacity which seems to quell the powers of nature, yet devout, with a touch of the superstition characteristic of his time and his belief.

On many questions, fine points of ethnography, geography, navigation and the like, Irving neither could nor did he presume to speak finally. History has to be rewritten every few years wherever these questions are involved. But the letters of Columbus, the testimony of his contemporaries, the reports of friend and enemy, throw an unchanging light on character. The march of science can neither dim nor augment that light. Irving was emphatically a judge of human nature. He needed no help in making up his mind what sort of man Columbus was. Modern scholars with their magnificent scientific equipment sometimes forget that cartography, invaluable though it is, is after all a poor guide to character. And yet, by the testimony of one of those same modern scholars, Irving’s life of the Admiral, as a trustworthy and popular résumé, is still the best.

One often wishes Irving had been less temperate. The barbarous tyranny of the Spaniards over the Indians of Hispaniola stirs the reader to deepest indignation. He longs for such treatment of the theme as Carlyle might possibly have given. Here is need of thunderbolts of wrath like unto those wielded by the Jupiter Tonans of history. But taken as a whole, the book has extraordinary virtues. It is a clear, full, well-ordered, picturesque, and readable narrative of the great explorer’s career. There is no better, nor is there likely to be a better. He who has time to read but one book on the discoverer of America will not go amiss in reading this one. He who proposes to read many books on the subject may well elect to read Irving’s first.

The supplementary _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_ narrates the adventures of Ojeda, that dare-devil of the high seas, of Nicuesa, of Vasco Nuñez, of Ponce de Leon. Though wanting the unity of the preceding volumes, these narratives are of high interest, and for vigor, animation, and picturesqueness must rank among the most attractive examples of Irving’s work.

While making collateral studies bearing on the life of Columbus, Irving became so captivated with the romantic and chivalrous story of the fall of Granada that he found himself unable to complete his more sober task until he had sketched a rough outline of the new book. When the _Columbus_ was sent to the press, Irving made a tour of Andalusia, visited certain memorable scenes of the war, and on his return to Seville elaborated his sketch into the ornate and glowing picture known as _A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, by Fray Antonio Agapida_.

The book is commonly described as romance rather than history. It was written with a view to rescuing the ancient chronicle of the conquest from the mass of amatory and sentimental tradition with which it was incrusted, and of presenting it in its legitimate brilliancy. Irving believed, too, that the world had forgotten or had failed to realize how stern the conflict was. In the fifteenth century it was regarded as a Holy War. Christian bigot was arrayed against Moslem bigot. Atrocities of the blackest sort were perpetrated and justified in the name of religion. The title-page says that the narrative is taken from the manuscript of one Fray Antonio Agapida. The brother is an imaginary character, a personification of monkish zeal and intolerance. When the slaughter of the infidels has been unusually great, Fray Antonio makes his appearance, like the ‘chorus’ of a play, and thanks God with much unction. Through this mouth-piece Irving gives ironical voice to that sentiment it is impossible not to feel in contemplating the barbarities of a ‘holy’ war. A few readers were disturbed by the fiction of the old monk. They ought to have liked him. He is an amusing personage and comes too seldom on the stage.

The _Life of Mahomet and his Successors_ has been spoken of as ‘comparatively a failure.’ If a book which sums up the available knowledge of the time on the subject, which is written in clear, pure English, which is throughout of high interest, in other words, which has solidity, beauty, and a large measure of the literary quality--if such a book is comparatively a failure, one hardly knows what can be the critic’s standard of measurement. Irving was not acquainted with Arabic. He drew his materials from Spanish and German sources. Yet it is not too much to say that no better general account of Mahomet and the early caliphs has been written.