"Don Quixote" may be said to form an epoch in the history of letters, as the original of that kind of composition, the novel of character, which is one of the distinguishing peculiarities of modern literature. When well executed, this sort of writing rises to the dignity of history itself, and may be said to perform no insignificant part of the functions of the latter. History describes men less as they are than as they appear, as they are playing a part on the great political theater--men in masquerade. It rests on state documents, which too often cloak real purposes under an artful veil of policy, or on the accounts of contemporaries blinded by passion or interest. Even without these deductions, the revolutions of states, their wars, and their intrigues do not present the only aspect, nor, perhaps, the most interesting, under which human nature can be studied. It is man in his domestic relations, around his own fireside, where alone his real character can be truly disclosed; in his ordinary occupations in society, whether for purposes of profit or pleasure; in his every-day manner of living, his tastes and opinions, as drawn out in social intercourse; it is, in short, under all those forms which make up the interior of society that man is to be studied, if we would get the true form and pressure of the age--if, in short, we would obtain clear and correct ideas of the actual progress of civilization. But these topics do not fall within the scope of the historian. He can not find authentic materials for them. They belong to the novelist, who, indeed, contrives his incidents and creates his characters, but who, if true to his art, animates them with the same tastes, sentiments, and motives of action which belong to the period of his fiction. His portrait is not the less true because no individual has sat for it. He has seized the physiognomy of the times. Who is there that does not derive a more distinct idea of the state of society and manners in Scotland from the "Waverley Novels" than from the best of its historians? Of the condition of the Middle Ages from the single romance of "Ivanhoe" than from the volumes of Hume or Hallam? In like manner, the pencil of Cervantes has given a far more distinct and a richer portraiture of life in Spain in the sixteenth century than can be gathered from a library of monkish chronicles. GEORGE BANCROFT Born in Massachusetts in 1800; died in Washington in 1891; graduated from Harvard in 1817; studied in Germany; taught Greek in Harvard; established a private school at Northampton in 1823; collector of the Port of Boston in 1838; unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 1844; Secretary of the Navy in 1845; established the Naval Academy at Annapolis; minister to England in 1846; minister to Berlin in 1867; published his "History of the United States" in 10 volumes in 1834-74. THE FATE OF EVANGELINE'S COUNTRYMEN[70] (1755)