a prolonged peace to Europe, had put an end likewise to the second
war between Great Britain and her former colonists, the people of
the United States, freed at last from their long subserviency to
the inherited animosities of Europe, turned with confident elation
to face the future problems of America. For the next half-century,
while the frontier was advancing from the Ohio to the Mississippi,
to the Missouri, to the “Great Stony Mountains,” and beyond them to
the shores of the Pacific, the Western man was too much engrossed in
the bustling business of making an empire to find time for writing
its annals. It was, therefore, only in New England, in the section of
the country farthest removed from the course of that breathless rush
across the continent, that there existed the leisure as well as the
wealth necessary for the study of historical books and documents. To
wealth and leisure we must add, moreover,--as important conditions
underlying the historical productiveness of New England--literary and
political traditions, the possession of documents and other instruments
of research, and, finally, the general intellectual tone of the extreme
Eastern States--that part of the country most strongly affected by the
civilisation of Europe. As Tyler points out, the earliest development
of New England letters had taken place in those fields of half-literary
effort which seek to provide the instruments or to record the acts of
statesmen, in oratory and in history. And when, at the close of the
Napoleonic wars, the intellectual influence of Europe upon America
began to revive, and those forces which were to produce upon the
Continent the Revolution of 1830 helped, on this side of the Atlantic,
to excite the democratic turmoil of the Jacksonian era, it is not
surprising that the new literary strivings, which manifested themselves
somewhat widely in fiction and poetry, should take on in New England
the form of historical narrative. The manner of this new historical
movement was, in large measure, determined by the influence of German
scholarship. It was from Göttingen that George Ticknor, afterward the
historian of Spanish literature, wrote to his father in 1815, lamenting
the “mortifying distance there is between an European and an American
scholar. We do not know,” said he, “what a Greek scholar is; we do
not even know the process by which a man is to be made one.” And it
was in those bare halls of the old Georgia Augusta, at the feet of
Heeren and Eichhorn and Dissen and Blumenbach, that other grateful New
Englanders--among them George Bancroft and Edward Everett in Ticknor’s
time, and Longfellow and Motley at a later day--learned something of
the spirit of Continental scholarship. In this spirit the New England
School of historians attempted, on the whole, to work. They were
somewhat swerved, no doubt, by the esteem in which their countrymen
still held the elaborate formalism of such orators as Webster and
Everett, and, also, more to their advantage, by their own admiration
for the picturesqueness of Irving, whose example encouraged them to
treat by preference of foreign subjects. Still they stood firmly upon
their native soil. Born among a people whose temperament, though shot
through with a strain of idealism and even dashed at times with a touch
of imagination, was still fundamentally sober, they were predisposed
to honest care in inquiry and, save when the temptations of rhetoric
seduced them, to accuracy of statement.
Thus even those historians of the New England School who had not
enjoyed the advantage of European study preserved most of the traits of
those who had. If Jared Sparks, a home-bred scholar who successfully
conducted _The North American Review_ in its earlier days (1817-18,
1823-30) and lived to become professor of history (1839-49) and
president (1849-53) of Harvard University, had better understood
the standards of Ranke and the “Monumenta Germaniæ Historica,” he
might, indeed, have allowed himself less latitude than he actually
took in editing the “Diplomatic Correspondence of the American
Revolution” (1829-30, 12 volumes), the “Works of Benjamin Franklin”
(1836-40, 10 volumes), and especially the “Life and Writings of George
Washington” (1834-37, 12 volumes). But the extent of his fault was
greatly exaggerated by certain of his critics, and not even the most
rigorous training could have enhanced the diligence with which he
preserved these and other less important sources of our Revolutionary
history. Mention of Sparks naturally suggests the name of Peter Force
(1790-1868), another diligent compiler of facts. Force’s “American
Archives ... a Documentary History” etc. (1837-53, 9 volumes, left
incomplete) was published by Congress.
When we pass to the more illustrious writers of what has been called
the classical period of historical writing in America, we discover two
tolerably distinct tendencies. The one tendency appears in those men
who were led to write by the spirit of the time and the place, and who
wrote of America out of an ardent interest and a profound belief in the
country and its political and social institutions. Foremost among these
men stands George Bancroft. The other tendency appears in Prescott,
Motley, and Parkman, who, though trained in the same atmosphere, were
first men of letters and afterward Americans. They sought, not national
and political, but picturesque and dramatic subjects, and these
subjects lay, in large part, outside the history of their own country.
_George Bancroft._--Bancroft spent the greater part of his long life
(1800-91) upon his monumental history of the United States, a work that
has occupied a high position among historical writings upon America. It
was his ambition, as he announces in the Preface to his first volume
(1834), to write “a history of the United States from the discovery of
the American continent to the present time.” Although he anticipated
years of work in the completion of the task, he could not have
foreseen either that it was to consume more than half a century of his
industrious life, or that the history itself was to end near the real
beginning of the Republic. Bancroft was a writer inspired by his theme
and exalted by the conception of his undertaking. Witness the opening
sentences:
The United States of America constitute an essential portion of
a great political system, embracing all the civilised nations of
the earth. At a period when the force of moral opinion is rapidly
increasing, they have the precedence in the practice and the
defence of the equal rights of man. The sovereignty of the people
is here a conceded axiom, and the laws, established upon that
basis, are cherished with faithful patriotism. While the nations
of Europe aspire after change, our constitution engages the fond
admiration of the people, by which it has been established....
The rhetorical flavour of the passage is characteristic. Critics have
been inclined to regard the style of the “History” as extravagant and
perfervid. They have, perhaps, tended to overlook the influence of the
sincere enthusiasm and robust patriotism of the early days of national
organisation and growth. The book was undoubtedly suited to the spirit
and the national ideals of the period. Note the tenor of contemporary
opinion. Bancroft’s friend, Edward Everett, devoured the first volume
as it fell from the press and hastened to congratulate the author
(October 5, 1834): “I think that you have written a work which will
last while the memory of America lasts; and which will instantly take
its place among the classics of our language.... I could almost envy
you to have found so noble a theme, while yet so young.” On the score
of method, the “History” was generously applauded for its “exceedingly
scrupulous care” by A. H. L. Heeren, the German historian and
Bancroft’s earlier teacher at Göttingen. It was inevitable, however,
that the patriotic fervour and sanguine tone of the book should suggest
to wise heads a danger and a source of weakness. “Let me entreat you,”
writes Gov. John Davis, the author’s brother-in-law, “not to let the
partisan creep into the work. Do not imbue it with any present feeling
or sentiment of the moment which may give impulse to your mind....
The historian is the recorder of truth and not of his own abstract
opinions.” In still plainer speech did Thomas Carlyle complain that
Bancroft was too didactic, going “too much into the origin of things
generally known, into the praise of things only partially praisable,
only slightly important.” And at a later time (1852) Henry Hallam
wrote: “I do not go along with all your strictures on English statesmen
and on England, either in substance, or, still more, in tone....
Faults there were, but I do not think that all were on one side. At all
events, a more moderate tone would carry more weight. An historian has
the high office of holding the scales.” In the midst of public affairs
and political duties, the great labour of the “History” progressed.
A second volume appeared in 1837, and a third in 1840. These volumes
covered the colonial period down to 1748. Their conspicuous success
contributed to Bancroft’s appointment, in 1846, as Minister to
England; and there, as subsequently in Germany, his official position,
added to his established reputation, opened to him unusual stores of
historical material. He writes from England to Prescott, his “brother
antiquary”: “I am getting superb materials, and had as lief a hundred
should treat the same subject as not. If they do it with more heart
than I, don’t you see that as a good citizen of the Republic I must
applaud and rejoice in being outdone?” Under the circumstances, the
democratic humility of the man is perhaps slightly overdone; although
the unusual riches laid under contribution might well have offered a
temptation to pride, for both public and private collections of great
value were placed absolutely at his disposal. An unrivalled collection
of historical manuscripts (now in the Lenox Library, New York City)
bears testimony to his thoroughness and his wisdom in the use of
extraordinary advantages.
But Bancroft, once established in London, soon found his literary
labours pushed into the background. He confesses in 1849: “Here in
London, to write is impossible.... Mr. Macaulay says, one man can
do but one thing well at a time.... I am of his opinion, now in my
approaching old age.” The eighteen years of private life at home that
followed the ministry to England (1846-49) were much more productive.
Between 1849 and 1867 six more volumes (iv. to ix.) of the “History”
were brought out, a volume of “Literary and Historical Miscellanies”
(1855), and the official eulogy pronounced upon Abraham Lincoln in
the House of Representatives (1866). A passage from the “Miscellanies”
on the conception of history displays Bancroft’s style in his more
oratorical vein:
But history, as she reclines in the lap of eternity, sees
the mind of humanity itself engaged in formative efforts,
constructing sciences, promulgating laws, organising commonwealths,
and displaying its energies in the visible movement of its
intelligence. Of all pursuits that require analysis, history,
therefore, stands first. It is equal to philosophy; for as
certainly as the actual bodies forth the ideal, so certainly
does history contain philosophy. It is grander than the natural
sciences; for its study is man, the last work of creation, and the
most perfect in its relations with the Infinite.
It was with gratification that Bancroft accepted in 1867 and held
until 1874 the ministerial post at Berlin. The honour may have come
as Bancroft’s reward for writing President Johnson’s first annual
message (1865). At the close of the ministry appeared the tenth volume
of the History: “The American Revolution. Epoch Fourth Continued.
Peace between America and Great Britain, 1778-82” (1874). This at
seventy-four years of age!
It was impossible, of course, that Bancroft should, at his advanced
age, carry his work, as originally planned, through the nineteenth
century. He determined, instead, to write the history of the
organisation of the Federal Government. In 1882 came, accordingly, his
“History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of
America” (2 volumes). Thus, at eighty-two, he had set forth in twelve
generous volumes what may be called an introduction to the history of
the country. It is indeed more than that, for, as the author himself
somewhere remarks, the history of the United States begins with the
united resistance of the colonies to Great Britain.
As an historical writer, Bancroft belongs to the period of his first
volumes and not to that of his last. His interpretation of men
and events rests upon his political philosophy, and his political
philosophy was a heritage of the times of Andrew Jackson. To this
philosophy he was faithful. Ranke, the German historian, once said to
him, “Your history is the best book ever written from the democratic
point of view.” Bancroft was aware of his democratic bias; but he would
have denied with vehemence that this bias infused a subjective taint
into his candour or laid a tinge of partiality upon his judgment. The
“History” has been called an “epic of liberty.” It is philosophical,
at times rhapsodical--not scientific--history. It treats an heroic
theme in an heroic manner. Recent criticism of his method and political
theories tends to obscure the brilliancy of his services to American
historiography. Over and above the serious spirit in which he set about
his task, the exacting search among contemporary sources, the unceasing
devotion to truth, and an unsparing and prodigious industry, the broad
and national character of the whole achievement calls for grateful
recognition. Bancroft raised the history of America above the plane of
provincialism and local interests, and set forth both the total march
of internal events incident to national development and the manifold
relations of the United States to the history of Europe. This wide
perspective of events and causes would hardly have been possible except
for years of residence, both as student and diplomat, in the capitals
of Germany and Great Britain. In the matter of method also, Bancroft’s
services to historical research must not be overlooked. He presented
to Americans an object-lesson in the collection, criticism, and use of
scattered materials. His distinction, then, as the founder of a new
American school rests upon a double basis: his wide conception of a
national history and his improved methodology in research. He reaped
abundant success, both in the popular enthusiasm with which his books
were hailed and in the extraordinary personal honours bestowed upon
him until the time of his death. And it is no disparagement of his
services to say that his great popularity rests rather upon a genius
for catching up and reflecting the youthful spirit of genuine and
uncritical Americanism than upon a capacity for setting down without
passion and for interpreting without prejudice the human events of an
inspiring epoch.
_Contemporaries of Bancroft._--The writers of American history who came
nearest to rivalling Bancroft in his own day were Richard Hildreth
(1807-65), a vigorous New England leader writer and anti-slavery
pamphleteer, and George Tucker (1775-1861), a Southern lawyer, who
served for twenty years as professor of philosophy and political
economy in the University of Virginia. Hildreth’s “History of the
United States” (1849-52, 6 volumes) comes down to 1821, Tucker’s
(1856-58, 4 volumes) to 1841. Both did careful work, though both have
been criticised for their partisan leanings. Each gives a relatively
large space to the Colonial and Revolutionary history of his own
section. In the constitutional period, Hildreth commonly accepts the
view of events most favourable to the Federalist party, whereas Tucker
inclines to side even more strongly with the Democrats, of whose
leader, Jefferson, he had published, in 1837, a sympathetic life.
In connection with this branch of the New England School should be
mentioned John Gorham Palfrey’s illustrious “History of New England”
(1858-75, 4 volumes; a supplemental volume, edited by F. W. Palfrey,
1890). Palfrey was a graduate of Harvard and for several years the
editor of _The North American Review_. His work is commonly regarded as
the best of the colonial histories of New England; it occupies besides
a secure place in American literature.
_William Hickling Prescott._--Eminent among the men of the “classical”
period who wrote picturesque and romantic histories, stands Prescott
(1796-1859), author of “The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella the Catholic” (1838), “The History of the Conquest of Mexico
with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization and the
Life of the Conqueror Hernando Cortés” (1843), “The History of the
Conquest of Peru, with a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the
Incas” (1847), “The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King
of Spain” (1855-58), and other historical and literary works. “The
Reign of Philip” was not finished, as Prescott suffered, during its
preparation (1858), a shock of apoplexy, and died the following year.
After working for ten years--so quietly that but few of his friends
knew of the undertaking--upon his “Ferdinand and Isabella,” Prescott,
upon its publication, found himself suddenly famous. “Love of the
author gave the first impulse,” declared the author’s friend, Gardiner;
“the extraordinary merits of the work did all the rest.” The American
demand for the “History” was unparalleled, and all Europe sent liberal
and judicious praise. Translations were called for in Russia, France,
Spain, Italy, and Germany.
A bodily affliction, the partial loss of sight in early manhood, has
lent a peculiar personal interest to Prescott’s heroic performances. He
has been called, with but little exaggeration, “the blind historian.”
During his junior year at Harvard, an accident destroyed the sight of
one eye, and not long afterward the uninjured eye became permanently
affected. A career in the practice of law had to be abandoned.
Much of his subsequent life was spent in the dark. A great part of
his historical labours had to be done with the aid of readers and
secretaries. The task of mastering a language (he began Spanish at
twenty-eight) and of collecting materials from libraries and archives
would have seemed to be impossible. Nevertheless it was accomplished.
The histories bear but little evidence of the writer’s physical
infirmities. They are renowned for their accuracy and thoroughness.
Recent ethnological discovery and advancement in historical method
have, it is true, necessitated revision in certain statements of fact
(_e. g._, regarding the social and private life of the Aztecs); but
that is an accident of time. His thoroughness is attested by Jared
Sparks, who knew of no historian, “in any age or language, whose
researches into the materials with which he was to work have been so
extensive, thorough, and profound as those of Mr. Prescott.” But the
wide popularity of Prescott’s historical writings rests first upon
their literary merits. He wrote in a clear, graceful, and dignified
style upon epochs and personages that were surrounded by charm and
romance. His power for pictorial representation was great. The
admirable qualities of his books strongly suggest the author himself.
He was cheerful, amiable, spontaneous, warm-hearted, and much beloved.
At forty-five, Sumner said of him that he possessed the “freedom and
warmth and frolic of a boy.” At the same time, Prescott’s capacity
for self-criticism and for rigorous discipline was unusual. Without
these qualities, he would hardly have succeeded in the face of painful
disabilities. For many years it was his custom to analyse his powers
and weaknesses, and to formulate exacting rules for his own guidance.
At twenty-eight he wrote in his journal: “To the end of my life I trust
I shall be more avaricious of time and _never_ put up with a smaller
average than seven hours’ intellectual occupation per diem.” About this
time he wrote down a list of “rules for composition.” Among them are
to be found these: “Rely upon myself for estimation and criticism of
my composition;” “write what I think without affectation upon subjects
I have examined;” “never introduce what is irrelevant or superfluous
or unconnected for the sake of crowding in more facts.” He was early
attracted toward historical writing, although he devoted much time
to biography and critical reviews. The interest in Spanish history
seems to have come from Ticknor’s lectures on Spanish literature,
which Prescott heard at Harvard. The Ferdinand and Isabella theme
first came to him in 1826. “The age of Ferdinand,” he remarks at
this time, “is most important as containing the germs of the modern
system of European politics.... It is in every respect an interesting
and momentous period of history; the materials ample, authentic,--I
will chew upon this matter, and decide this week.” The decision came,
however, only after two years of further consideration. With Irving,
Ticknor, and Motley, Prescott stands as one of the men who gave to the
English-speaking world a clear and brilliant account of the history and
literature of Spain. It is, however, a fact of still greater moment to
American letters that Prescott should have embodied in permanent form
a series of histories of great men and great events that is the common
possession of the Old World and the New, and that marks the advancement
of American historical writing beyond the limits of national feeling
and national interest.
_John Lothrop Motley._--Bancroft, Prescott, Motley (1814-77), and
Parkman were all born and reared in the vicinity of Boston, and all
were graduated from Harvard University. Motley and Bancroft continued
their studies at Göttingen and Berlin. While in Germany, Motley enjoyed
the friendship of Prince Bismarck, who was his fellow-student. “We
lived,” said Bismarck, “in the closest intimacy, sharing meals and
outdoor exercise.” In 1841 Motley was appointed secretary to the
American Legation at St. Petersburg; but he soon relinquished the post
and returned to America. Ten years later he took up his residence
in Europe, where he remained for half a decade pursuing historical
studies. At the end of this time (1856) appeared “The Rise of the
Dutch Republic: A History.” In 1860 came the first two volumes of
“The History of the United Netherlands,” and in 1868 the last two.
The continuation of the Dutch history came out in biographical form
(1874) as “The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of
Holland; with a View of the Primary Causes and Movements of the Thirty
Years’ War.” Meanwhile, Motley had been appointed to the American
Ministry to Austria (1861) and to England (1869). Both appointments
ended unhappily. An interesting circumstance connects Motley’s career
with Prescott’s and, indirectly, with Washington Irving’s. With noble
generosity, Irving had abandoned his well-formed plan of writing
a Conquest of Mexico when he learned, through a common friend, of
Prescott’s intentions in the same field. This act involved real
sacrifice. “I had,” Irving afterward confesses, “no other subject
at hand to supply its place. I was dismounted from my _cheval de
bataille_, and have never been completely mounted since.” Prescott
was presently to realise the cost of Irving’s surrender. For Motley,
in turn, essayed to enter the field made illustrious by the author of
“Ferdinand and Isabella.” In ignorance of Prescott’s plans for “The
History of Philip,” Motley began his study of related subjects. The
news then came to him as a blow. “For I had not,” Motley says, “first
made up my mind to write a history, and then cast about to take up a
subject. My subject had taken me up, drawn me on, and absorbed me into
itself.” Prescott listened to the younger man’s proposal to retire,
“with frank, ready, and liberal sympathy,” and insisted that Motley
should proceed. More than this, he made handsome allusion, in the
Preface to his “Philip,” to the forthcoming work on the revolt of the
Netherlands. Motley wrote with zeal and enthusiasm. He loved liberty.
The story of a people fighting for freedom fired his imagination.
His ardour led him, naturally, toward the advocacy of favourite
characters and parties; and the greater moderation of the Dutch
historians themselves tends to support the charge of partiality. But
Motley’s partiality was not mere partisanship. It rested upon a nice
discrimination of the good and the bad, of the noble and the mean. His
Dutch history is classic. It is renowned for its scholarly qualities
and for its vivid colouring. Froude, without previous knowledge of the
writer or of his work, placed “The Rise of the Dutch Republic” among
“the finest histories in this or in any language.” While, by the more
exacting standards of current schools, it is criticised for its lack of
philosophical insight, it is still justly regarded as a faithful and
striking picture of an heroic people.