John Lothrop Motley

John Lothrop Motley is Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.’s memorial biography of the American historian and diplomat John Lothrop Motley, published in 1879 shortly after Motley’s death. Motley had been one of the most prominent American historians of his generation, best known for his multi volume Rise of the Dutch Republic and his subsequent History of the United Netherlands, both of which brought the dramatic story of the Dutch revolt against Spain to a wide American audience. He had also served as American minister to Austria and to Britain, with both diplomatic appointments ending in controversy.

Holmes had been a close friend of Motley for decades. The two had been part of the wider Boston intellectual circle that included Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, and the historians Prescott and Bancroft, and they had corresponded regularly through Motley’s years in Europe. The biography draws extensively on those letters as well as on Holmes’s own personal recollections, giving the book the kind of intimate quality that distinguishes friend authored memorials from more academic biographies.

The book is short by Victorian biographical standards, more a memorial essay than a full life, and it focuses on the qualities of Motley’s character and intellect rather than on a comprehensive accounting of his career. Holmes wrote with the kind of warm, slightly formal affection that Boston Brahmin culture cultivated for memorial occasions, but the biography is not merely sentimental. Holmes is honest about the diplomatic controversies that ended both of Motley’s appointments, about the personal disappointments that shaped his later years, and about the complexity of writing about a friend who was not always treated well by the country he served.

For scholars of nineteenth century American historiography, of the Boston intellectual culture of the mid Victorian era, of the wider career of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., or of John Lothrop Motley himself, the book is a useful primary source. It is also a window into how the Boston intellectual community memorialized its own members and how the memorial biography genre worked in late nineteenth century American letters. The book is short enough to read in an afternoon and rewards the time for readers interested in the period.