This _History_ was so long in the writing that Bancroft’s style changed materially. The opinion prevails that his diction improved as the work proceeded, that the later volumes are uniformly less inflated, strained, and ‘eloquent’ than the earlier ones. It is true that he made innumerable revisions of the text. The changes were not always improvements. Sometimes in rewriting a sentence he made it less energetic. Strong expressions were softened. A plain old-fashioned word would be taken out; often it carried the whole phrase with it. Whether the literary or the historical sense dictated the change in question cannot always be determined. Bancroft’s diction is manly and forceful, but it lacks natural grace and suppleness; it is flexible as chain armor is flexible, but not as is the human body. It may be doubted whether he is ever read for literary pleasure. Nevertheless, scattered through these twelve volumes are hundreds of passages well worth the study of those who enjoy an exhibition of mastery in the use of words. IV _THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES_ One does well to read Bancroft in the tall, wide-margined, and almost sumptuous volumes of the original editions. The page is open and inviting. Both text and notes have a personal flavor very diverting at times. There is no question as to the usefulness of an attractive page in works of this sort. Political histories should be made easy, not by picture-book methods, but by the legitimate arts of good printing. The work is generously planned. Twelve octavo volumes are required to bring the narrative down to the ratification of the constitution.[16] Three volumes, comprising nearly fifteen hundred pages, are given to the Colonial period alone. Bancroft announced his theory of historical writing in the preface of 1834. He was to be controlled always by ‘the principles of historical scepticism,’ and his narrative was to be drawn ‘from writings and sources which were contemporaries of the events that are described.’ Nothing commonly supposed to belong to American history was to be retained merely because it had been unchallenged by former historians. The treatment, as shown in these volumes on the Colonial period, is in perfect accord with the author’s conception of the dignity of the subject. The matter is as stately as the manner. Bancroft writes history as a lord high chamberlain conducts a court function. He feels that during the ceremony of discovering a world and planting a nation there should be no unseemliness, certainly no laughter or disturbance.