From the Westminster Review.
Among the historians who have attained a high and deserved reputation in the United States, within the last few years, we are inclined to yield the first place to George Bancroft. His great work on the history of the United States has been brought down from the commencement of American colonization to the opening of the Revolutionary War, to which subject it is understood that he intends devoting the three succeeding volumes. His researches in the public offices of England, while he was Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James, have brought to light a great mass of documentary evidence on the antecedents and course of the Revolution, which have not yet been made public. With his critical sagacity in sifting evidence, his hound-like instinct in scenting every particle of testimony that can lead him on the right-track, and his plastic skill in moulding the most confused and discordant materials into a compact, symmetrical, and truthful narrative, he cannot fail to present the story of that great historical drama with a freshness, accuracy, and artistic beauty, worthy of the immortal events which it commemorates. Mr. Bancroft is now exclusively occupied in the completion of this work. He pursues it with the drudging fidelity of a mechanical laborer, combined with the enthusiasm of a poet and the comprehensive wisdom of a statesman. With strong social tastes, he gives little time to society. His favorite post is in his library, where he labors the live-long day in the spirit of the ancient artist, Nulla dies sine linea. His experience in political and diplomatic life, no less than his rare and generous culture, and his singular union of the highest mental faculties, enable us to predict with confidence that this work will be reckoned among the genuine masterpieces of historical genius. The volumes of the History of the United States already published, are well known to intelligent readers both in Great Britain and America. They are distinguished for their compact brevity of statement, their terse and vigorous diction, their brilliant panoramic views, and the boldness and grace of their sketches of personal character. A still higher praise may be awarded to this history for the tenacity with which it clings to the dominant and inspiring idea of which it records the development. Whoever reads it without comprehending the standpoint of the author, is liable to disappointment. For it must be confessed that as a mere narrative of events, the preference may be given to the productions of far inferior authors. But it is to be regarded as an epic in prose of the triumph of freedom. This noble principle is considered by Mr. Bancroft as an essential attribute of the soul, necessarily asserting itself in proportion to the spiritual supremacy which has been achieved. The history, then, is devoted to the illustration of the progress of freedom, as an out-birth of the spontaneous action of the soul. It is in this point of view that the remarkable chapters on the Massachusetts Pilgrims, the Pennsylvania Quakers, and the North American Indians, were written; and their full purport, their profound significance, can only be appreciated by readers whose minds possess at least the seeds of sympathy and cognateness with this sublime philosophy. The chapter on the Quakers is a pregnant psychological treatise. Sparkling all over with the electric lights of a rich humanitary philosophy, it invests the theologic visions of Fox and Barclay with a radiance and beauty which have been ill-preserved in the formal and lifeless organic systems of their successors. The parallel run by the historian between William Penn and John Locke is one of the most characteristic productions of his peculiar genius. Original, subtle, suggestive, crowded with matter and frugal of words, it brings out the distinctive features of the spiritual and mechanical schools in the persons of two of their 'representative men,' with a breadth and reality which is seldom found in philosophical portraitures. Mr. Bancroft was the son of an eminent Unitarian clergyman in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was born about the beginning of the present century, and is consequently a little more than fifty years of age. He graduated at Harvard University, with distinguished honors, before he had completed his fifteenth year. Soon after he sailed for Europe, and continued his studies at the German Universities, returning to his own country just before the attainment of his majority. Devoting himself for several years to literary and educational pursuits, he acquired a brilliant reputation as a poet, critic, and essayist; and at a subsequent period, entering the career of politics, he has signalized himself by his attachment to democratic ideas, and the eloquence and force with which on all occasions he has sustained the principles with the prevalence of which he identifies the progress of humanity.