Two generations intervened between the youthful visitor at the capital and the venerable statesman and historian, who in his last days, beneath his own vine and fig-tree, “crowned a youth of labor with an age of ease.” Yet the preacher, teacher, poet, essayist, translator, philologist, linguist, statesman, diplomat, historian, pursued with tempered ardor his literary avocations. Readers of _The North American Review_ had the pleasure of perusing, some years ago, his valuable paper on Holmes’s “Emerson.” He published more recently (in 1886) a brochure on the Legal Tender Acts and Decisions; but nothing was ever allowed to interfere with the revision of his _opus major_, the History of the United States, the sixth and last volume of the new edition of which was issued by the Appletons in February, 1885. As an octogenarian is not, strictly speaking, a contemporary, I venture to enter the realm of biography, and refer to what renders Mr. Bancroft the most interesting of American authors. His translation from the path of pedagogy, from the dream-land of poetry, from the atmosphere of theology, and the arena of party strife and the novelty of official life, was a transition from extreme to extreme. Yet he brought with him into his new fields the best fruits of his experience in the old. He did not inflame the passions of the masses at the hustings, but instructed their judgment. When he assumed the office of Collector of the Port of Boston, he exhibited a capacity for business which would have silenced the modern Senator who not only characterized scholars as “them literary fellers,” but prefixed an adjective which may not be repeated to ears polite. How many Cabinet officers are remembered for any permanent reform or progressive movement they have accomplished or initiated? But to Mr. Bancroft the country owes the establishment of the Naval School at Annapolis; and science is indebted to his fostering care for the contributory usefulness of the National Observatory, which languished until he took the Naval portfolio. When at the Court of St. James he negotiated America’s first postal treaty with Great Britain; while allusion has been made to the important service rendered at the German capital. In politics Mr. Bancroft was always a Democrat. He was one of those who angered fanatics by their love for the Constitution, and enraged secessionists by their devotion to the Union,--who labored to avert the War, but whom the first gun fired at Fort Sumter rallied to the support of Mr. Lincoln. And when the last great eulogy of the martyred President was to be pronounced, Mr. Bancroft was chosen to deliver it.