describing the sleeping-places of the
Indian babies, and we see the same sympathetic touch throughout his
descriptions of these dark children of the forest, to whom the white
man came as a usurper of their rights and destroyer of their woodland
homes.

The remaining volumes of the history consist almost entirely of the
causes which led up to the American Revolution, the Revolution itself,
and its effect upon Europe. One-half of the whole work is devoted to
this theme, which is treated with a philosophical breadth that makes
it comparable to the work of the greatest historians. Here we are led
to see that, besides its influence upon the history of the New World,
the American Revolution was one of the greatest events in the world's
history; that it followed naturally from the revolt of the Netherlands
against Spain and the Revolution of the English people against the
tyranny of Charles I., and that, like them, its highest mission was to
vindicate the cause of liberty.

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,