While at Round Hill, Mr. Bancroft prepared some text-books for his pupils, translating Heeren’s “Politics of Ancient Greece” (1824) and Jacobs’s Latin Reader (1825),—the latter going through several editions. His first article in the “North American Review,” then the leading literary journal in the United States, appeared in October, 1823, and was a notice of Schiller’s “Minor Poems,” with many translations. From this time forward he wrote in almost every volume, but always on classical or German themes, until in January, 1831, he took up “The Bank of the United States,” and a few years later (October, 1835), “The Documentary History of the Revolution.” These indicated the progress of his historical studies, which had also begun at Round Hill, and took form at last in his great history. The design of this monumental work was as deliberate as Gibbon’s, and almost as vast; and the author lived, like Gibbon, to see it accomplished. The first volume appeared in 1834, the second in 1837, the third in 1840, the fourth in 1852, and so onward. Between these volumes was interspersed a variety of minor essays, some of which were collected in a volume of “Literary and Historical Miscellanies,” published in 1855. Bancroft also published, as a separate work, a “History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States” (1882). While at Northampton, he was an ardent Democrat of the most theoretic and philosophic type, and he very wisely sought to acquaint himself with the practical side of public affairs. In 1826 he gave an address at Northampton, defining his position and sympathies; in 1830 he was elected to the Legislature, but declined to take his seat, and the next year refused a nomination to the Senate. In 1835 he drew up an address to the people of Massachusetts, made many speeches and prepared various sets of resolutions, was flattered, traduced, caricatured. From 1838 to 1841 he was Collector of the Port of Boston; in 1844 he was Democratic candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, but was defeated,—George N. Briggs being his successful antagonist,—although he received more votes than any Democratic candidate before him. In 1845 he was Secretary of the Navy under President Polk. In all these executive positions he may be said to have achieved success. It was, for instance, during his term of office that the Naval Academy was established at Annapolis; it was he who gave the first order to take possession of California; and he who, while acting for a month as Secretary of War, gave the order to General Taylor to march into Texas, thus ultimately leading to the annexation of that state. This, however, identified him with a transaction justly censurable, and indeed his whole political career occurred during the most questionable period of Democratic subserviency to the slave power, and that weakness was never openly—perhaps never sincerely—resisted by him. This left a reproach upon his earlier political career which has,