_George Bancroft._--Bancroft spent the greater part of his long life (1800-91) upon his monumental history of the United States, a work that has occupied a high position among historical writings upon America. It was his ambition, as he announces in the Preface to his first volume (1834), to write “a history of the United States from the discovery of the American continent to the present time.” Although he anticipated years of work in the completion of the task, he could not have foreseen either that it was to consume more than half a century of his industrious life, or that the history itself was to end near the real beginning of the Republic. Bancroft was a writer inspired by his theme and exalted by the conception of his undertaking. Witness the opening sentences: The United States of America constitute an essential portion of a great political system, embracing all the civilised nations of the earth. At a period when the force of moral opinion is rapidly increasing, they have the precedence in the practice and the defence of the equal rights of man. The sovereignty of the people is here a conceded axiom, and the laws, established upon that basis, are cherished with faithful patriotism. While the nations of Europe aspire after change, our constitution engages the fond admiration of the people, by which it has been established.... The rhetorical flavour of the passage is characteristic. Critics have been inclined to regard the style of the “History” as extravagant and perfervid. They have, perhaps, tended to overlook the influence of the sincere enthusiasm and robust patriotism of the early days of national organisation and growth. The book was undoubtedly suited to the spirit and the national ideals of the period. Note the tenor of contemporary opinion. Bancroft’s friend, Edward Everett, devoured the first volume as it fell from the press and hastened to congratulate the author (October 5, 1834): “I think that you have written a work which will last while the memory of America lasts; and which will instantly take its place among the classics of our language.... I could almost envy you to have found so noble a theme, while yet so young.” On the score of method, the “History” was generously applauded for its “exceedingly scrupulous care” by A. H. L. Heeren, the German historian and Bancroft’s earlier teacher at Göttingen. It was inevitable, however, that the patriotic fervour and sanguine tone of the book should suggest to wise heads a danger and a source of weakness. “Let me entreat you,” writes Gov. John Davis, the author’s brother-in-law, “not to let the partisan creep into the work. Do not imbue it with any present feeling or sentiment of the moment which may give impulse to your mind.... The historian is the recorder of truth and not of his own abstract opinions.” In still plainer speech did Thomas Carlyle complain that Bancroft was too didactic, going “too much into the origin of things