JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, Etc.
1855
[Etext Editor's Note: JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, born in Dorchester, Mass.
1814, died 1877. Other works: Morton's Hopes and Merry Mount, novels.
Motley was the United States Minister to Austria, 1861-67, and the United
States Minister to England, 1869-70. Mark Twain mentions his respect
for John Motley. Oliver Wendell Holmes said in 'An Oration delivered
before the City Authorities of Boston' on the 4th of July, 1863:
"'It cannot be denied,'--says another observer, placed on one of our
national watch-towers in a foreign capital,--'it cannot be denied
that the tendency of European public opinion, as delivered from high
places, is more and more unfriendly to our cause; but the people,'
he adds, 'everywhere sympathize with us, for they know that our cause
is that of free institutions,--that our struggle is that of the
people against an oligarchy.' These are the words of the Minister to
Austria, whose generous sympathies with popular liberty no homage
paid to his genius by the class whose admiring welcome is most
seductive to scholars has ever spoiled; our fellow-citizen, the
historian of a great Republic which infused a portion of its life
into our own,--John Lothrop Motley." D.W.]