In two other volumes, entitled History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States, Bancroft gave a minute and careful description of the consolidation of the States into an individual nation after the Revolution, and the draughting and adopting of the Constitution by which they have since been governed. This, with some miscellaneous papers, among which may be mentioned the dramatic description of the Battle of Lake Erie, comprise the remainder of Bancroft's contribution to American literature.
Bancroft said that there were three qualities necessary to the historian: A knowledge of the evil in human nature; that events are subordinate to law, and that there is in man something greater than himself. To these qualifications, which he himself eminently possessed, may be added that of untiring industry, which distinguished his work. A passage was written over and over again, sometimes as many as eight times, until it suited him. And he was known to write an entire volume over. He carried his labor into his old age, being eighty-four years of age when he made the last revision of the history which had occupied fifty years of his life.
His diplomatic career also extended over many years, he being seventy-four when at his own request the Government recalled him from the Court of Berlin where he was serving as Minister.
Bancroft died in 1891, in his ninety-second year. The most famous of his own countrymen united in tributes to his memory, and the sovereigns of Europe sent wreaths to place upon his coffin. As historian, diplomatist, and private citizen, he had honored his country as is the privilege of few.
CHAPTER X
EDGAR ALLAN POE
1809-1849
In the play-ground of an old-fashioned English school the boy Edgar Allan Poe, then in his ninth year, first entered that world of day-dreams, whose wonders he afterward transcribed so beautifully in his prose and poetry. The school was situated in the old town of Stoke Newington, and the quaint, sleepy village, with its avenues shaded by ancient trees and bordered by fragrant shrubberies, and with its country stillness broken only by the chime of the church-bell tolling the hour, seemed to the boy hardly a part of the real world. In describing it in after years he speaks of the dream-like and soothing influence it had upon his early life. The school building, also the village parsonage, as the master of the school was a clergyman, had a similar effect; it was a large, rambling house, whose passages and rooms had a labyrinthine irregularity which charmed the young student and made him regard it almost as a place of enchantment. It had many nooks and corners in which one might lose one's self and dream day-dreams out of the books, poetry and history, with which it was pretty well stocked. The school-room itself was low-walled and ceiled with oak, and filled with desks and benches that had been hacked and hewed by generations of boys. It was of great size, and seemed to Poe the largest in the world. In this room he studied mathematics and the classics, while in the play-ground outside, which was surrounded by brick walls topped with mortar and broken glass, he spent many of his leisure hours, taking part in those sports so loved by the English school-boy. The boys were allowed beyond the grounds only three times in a week; twice on Sunday, when they went to church, and once during the week, when, guarded by two ushers, they were taken a solemn walk through the neighboring fields. All the rest of life lay within the walls that separated the school from the village streets. In this quiet spot Poe spent five years of his life, speaking of them afterward as most happy years and rich in those poetic influences which formed his character.