GEORGE BANCROFTGEORGE BANCROFTAT WASHINGTON
GEORGE BANCROFT
Mr.Bancroft, the historian, was “at home” beneath every roof-tree, beside every fireside, where books are household gods.Mr.Bancroft, the octogenarian, who came into the world hand in hand with the Nineteenth Century, was especially at home at the capital of the country whose history was to him a labor of love and the absorbing occupation of a lifetime. For although his career was one of active participation in public affairs, his pursuits ran parallel with his literary work. He was contributing to the making of one period of a United States history while his pen was engaged in writing of other periods. If self-gratulation is ever permitted to authors,Mr.Bancroft must have more than once exclaimed, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places!” as he availed himself of opportunities which only an ambassador could secure and a scholar improve.
It is the prose-Homer of our Republic whom it is my privilege to present to the readers of this sketch. Picture to yourself a venerable man, ofmedium height, slender figure, erect bearing; with lofty brow thinned, but not stripped, of its silvery locks; a full, snowy beard adding to his patriarchal appearance; bluish gray eyes, which neither use nor time has deprived of brightness; a large nose of Roman type, such as I have somewhere read or heard that the first Napoleon regarded as the sign of latent force; “small white hands,” which Ali Pasha assured Byron were the marks by which he recognized the poet to be “a man of birth”;—let your imagination combine these details, and you have a sketch for the historian’s portrait. The frame is a medium-sized room of good, high pitch. In the center is a rectangular table covered with books, pamphlets and other indications of a literary life. Shelving reaches to the ceiling, and every fraction of space is occupied by volumes of all sizes, from folio to duodecimo; a door on the left opens into a room which is also full to overflowing with the valuable collections of a lifetime; and further on is yet another apartment equally crowded with the historian’s dumb servants, companions, and friends; while rooms and nooks elsewhere have yielded to Literature’s rights of squatter sovereignty. In the Republic of Letters, all books are citizens, and one is as good as another in the eyes of the maid-servant who kindles the breakfast-room fire, save perhaps the vellum Plautus orilluminated missal. But men are known not only by the society they keep, but by the books which surround them. Just as there are “books which are no books,” so are there libraries which are no libraries. But a library selected by a scholar who was a book-hunter in European fields, who spared neither time, money, labor, nor any available agency in his collection, must be rich in literary treasures, particularly those bearing upon his specialty; and such wasMr.Bancroft’s library. The facilities which personal popularity, the fraternal spirit of literary men, and the courtesy of official relations afford, were employed byMr.Bancroft when ambassador in procuring authentic copies of invaluable writings and state-papers bearing immediately or remotely on the history of the American Colonies and Republic. To these facilities, and his own indefatigable industry and perseverance, is due the priceless collection of manuscripts which, copied in a large and legible handwriting, well-bound and systematically classified, adorned his shelves. Of the printed volumes, not the least precious was a copy of “Don Juan,” presented to him with the author’s compliments, sixty-six years ago.
Mr.Bancroft’s home was a commodious double house, with brown-stone front, plain and solid-looking, which was, before the War, the winter residence of a wealthy Maryland family. Diagonallyopposite, at the corner of the intersecting streets, is the “Decatur House,” whither the gallant sailor was borne after his duel with Commodore Barron, and where he died after lingering in agony. Within a stone’s throw is the White House; and I would say that the historian lived in the centre of Washington’s Belgravia, had not the British Minister’s residence, with an attraction stronger than centripetal, drawn around it a social colony whose claims must be at least debated before judgment is pronounced. In front ofMr.Bancroft’s house is a small courtyard in which, in spring-time, beds of hyacinths blooming in sweet and close communion show his love of flowers. When conversing with the historian, it was impossible to ignore the retrospect of a life so full of interest, for imagination persists in picturing the boyish graduate of Harvard; the ambitious student at Gottingen and Berlin; the inquisitive and ever-acquiring traveler; the pupil returned to the bosom of his Alma Mater and promoted to a Fellowship with her Faculty—preacher, teacher, poet and translator, before his calling and election as his country’s historian was sure; his entrance into the arena of politics and rapid advance to the line of leadership; his membership inMr.Polk’s Cabinet; his subsequent Mission to England; his much later Mission to Berlin, where he succeeded in obtaining fromBismarck a recognition of the “American doctrine” that naturalization is expatriation, and negotiated a treaty which endeared him to the German-American heart, since the Fatherland may now be visited without the risk of compulsory service in the army.
When he first went abroad, an American was an object of curiosity to Europeans, and we may compare his reception among German scholars to that of Burns by the metaphysicians, philosophers and social leaders of Edinburgh—first surprise, and then fraternal welcome. Two years were spent at Gottingen, and half a year at Berlin. During this period he was the pupil and companion of the great philologist Wolf, of whom Ticknor’s delightful Memoirs contain such an entertaining account; he studied under Schlosser, who so frequently appears in the pages of Crabb Robinson’s Memoirs; he was a favorite with Heeren, whose endorsement of his history was theimprimaturof a literary Pope. In his subsequent wanderings through France, Switzerland, and over the Alps into Italy, he experienced the friendly offices of men distinguished in literature, famous in history, and foremost in politics. Some time was spent in Paris. With Lafayette intimate relations were established; so much so, that the champion of republican principles enlisted the young and sympathetic American in his too sanguineschemes. Manuscript addresses were entrusted toMr.Bancroft to be published and disseminated at certain places along his Italian journey. But the youthful lieutenant saw soon the impracticability of the veteran’s hopes and plans.
It was a novel sensation to converse with one who survived so many famous men of many lands with whom he came in contact; one who discussed Byron with Goethe at Weimar, and Goethe with Byron at Monte Nero; who, seventy years ago, went to Washington and dined at the White House with the younger Adams; who since mingled with the successive generations of American statesmen; witnessed the death of one great political party, and the birth of another, but himself clung with conservative consistency to the principles he espoused in early manhood. Yet neither his years nor his tastes exiled him from the enjoyment of a congenial element of society at the capital. But his circle rarely touched the circumference which surrounds the gay and ultra-fashionable coteries of a Washington season.
Mr.Bancroft had a warm sympathy for youth and childhood, and took pleasure in the occasions that brought them around him. His habits were those of one who early appreciated the fact that time is the most reliable and available tool of the worker. It was for years his custom to rise to hislabors at five o’clock. After a noon-luncheon, he took the exercise which contributed so much to his physical and intellectual activity. He covered considerable distances daily on foot or horseback, for he was both pedestrian and rider of the English type; or, if the weather did not favor these methods of laying in a supply of oxygen, he might have been seen reclining in a roomy two-horse phaeton.
Two generations intervened between the youthful visitor at the capital and the venerable statesman and historian, who in his last days, beneath his own vine and fig-tree, “crowned a youth of labor with an age of ease.” Yet the preacher, teacher, poet, essayist, translator, philologist, linguist, statesman, diplomat, historian, pursued with tempered ardor his literary avocations. Readers ofThe North American Reviewhad the pleasure of perusing, some years ago, his valuable paper on Holmes’s “Emerson.” He published more recently (in 1886) a brochure on the Legal Tender Acts and Decisions; but nothing was ever allowed to interfere with the revision of hisopus major, the History of the United States, the sixth and last volume of the new edition of which was issued by the Appletons in February, 1885.
As an octogenarian is not, strictly speaking, a contemporary, I venture to enter the realm ofbiography, and refer to what rendersMr.Bancroft the most interesting of American authors. His translation from the path of pedagogy, from the dream-land of poetry, from the atmosphere of theology, and the arena of party strife and the novelty of official life, was a transition from extreme to extreme. Yet he brought with him into his new fields the best fruits of his experience in the old. He did not inflame the passions of the masses at the hustings, but instructed their judgment. When he assumed the office of Collector of the Port of Boston, he exhibited a capacity for business which would have silenced the modern Senator who not only characterized scholars as “them literary fellers,” but prefixed an adjective which may not be repeated to ears polite. How many Cabinet officers are remembered for any permanent reform or progressive movement they have accomplished or initiated? But toMr.Bancroft the country owes the establishment of the Naval School at Annapolis; and science is indebted to his fostering care for the contributory usefulness of the National Observatory, which languished until he took the Naval portfolio. When at the Court ofSt.James he negotiated America’s first postal treaty with Great Britain; while allusion has been made to the important service rendered at the German capital. In politicsMr.Bancroft wasalways a Democrat. He was one of those who angered fanatics by their love for the Constitution, and enraged secessionists by their devotion to the Union,—who labored to avert the War, but whom the first gun fired at Fort Sumter rallied to the support ofMr.Lincoln. And when the last great eulogy of the martyred President was to be pronounced,Mr.Bancroft was chosen to deliver it.
On the approach of summer,Mr.Bancroft led the exodus which leaves the capital a deserted village. July found him domiciled at Newport, in an old, roomy house, which faces Bellevue Avenue and is surrounded by venerable trees, beneath whose wide-spreading shade the visitor drives to the historian’s summer home. The view of the ocean is one of the accidental charms of the spot, but the historian’s own hand dedicated an extensive plot to a garden of roses—the flower which was nearest to his heart. At Newport he led a life similar to that in Washington. He rose early and saw the sun rise above the sea; he devoted a portion of his time to literary pursuits, and entered into the social life of the place, without taking part in its gayeties. In October he struck his tent, and returned to his other home in time to enjoy the beauties of our Indian summer.
B. G. Lovejoy.