GEORGE BANCROFT. 367 



after Bancroft's death, said: ''You have well said, Mr. President, 

 that Bancroft was foremost as the historian of the United States. 

 His great work in all its varied editions will always he read and 

 recognized as the leading authority on American history for the 

 period which it includes. His style may he criticised, and cen- 

 sured as redundant or rhetorical. His philoso^jhy may be discarded 

 as partaking occasionally of that German mysticism which he im- 

 bibed in his youth. A vein of partisanship too, may sometimes be 

 detected amid all his professions of impartiality. It could hardly 

 be otherwise. No one in writing history, or in doing anything 

 else, can escape from himself, or can wholly conceal, even should 

 he try to do so, his own preconceived opinions, his own individual 

 peculiarities and idiosyncrasies." Further on in his remarks 

 Mr. Winthrop added, " The triith of history was upj)ermost in his 

 aims and efforts from first to last." Two months later Mr. Win- 

 throp attended the semiannual meeting of the American Anti- 

 quarian Society. Bancroft had for twenty years been the First 

 Vice-President of this Society. A memorial of his life was read 

 by Samuel S. Green. Mr. Winthrop, alluding to Bancroft's death, 

 then said, "1 do not forget that he and I shared so long the dis- 

 tinction of being the oldest members of the Society, and that is 

 now left to me alone." He then added, with great earnestness of 

 manner, " I paid my little tribute to him at our Massachusetts 

 Historical Society, and I have nothing to add to it, and nothing 

 to detract from it." Mr. Winsor, in the Narrative and Critical 

 History of America deals with the question of the probability of 

 Bancroft retaining his position in the following language: "His 

 learning and the extraordinary resources of his material are likely 

 to make his work necessary for the student, till another with equal 

 or better facilities shall compass the subject in a way to gain wider 

 sympathy." In other words, the writer who shall supplant Ban- 

 croft must command at least equal facilities, and deal with the sub- 

 ject in a more attractive way. To measure the probabilities of the 

 occurrence of these events, it is necessary to review the resources 

 at his command. 



It has been seen that no especial claim can be made for him in 

 regard to the facilities at his disposal for the preparation of his 

 Colonial History. The researches of topical students have placed 

 within easy reach of the writer of to-day much that was to be 

 learned only by diligent study when Bancroft wrote. To examine 

 the Colonial records of the original States, he was obliged to travel 



