difficulties of another kind to overcome. He was nearly blind, and had
to teach himself Spanish and look up authorities through the help of
others, and to write with a noctograph or by amanuenses.

George Bancroft (1800-91) issued the first volume of his great _History
of the United States_ in 1834, and exactly half a century later the
final volume of the work, bringing the subject down to 1789. Bancroft
had studied at Göttingen, and imbibed from the German historian Heeren
the scientific method of historical study. He had access to original
sources, in the nature of collections and state papers in the
governmental archives of Europe, of which no American had hitherto been
able to avail himself. His history, in thoroughness of treatment,
leaves nothing to be desired, and has become the standard authority on
the subject. As a literary performance merely, it is somewhat wanting
in flavor, Bancroft's manner being heavy and stiff when compared with
Motley's or Parkman's. The historian's services to his country have
been publicly recognized by his successive appointments as secretary of
the navy, minister to England, and minister to Germany.

The greatest, on the whole, of American historians was John Lothrop
Motley (1814-77), who, like Bancroft, was a student at Göttingen and
United States minister to England. His _Rise of the Dutch Republic_,
1856, and _History of the United Netherlands_, published in
installments from 1861 to 1868, equaled Bancroft's work in scientific
thoroughness and philosophic grasp, and Prescott's in the picturesque
brilliancy of the narrative, while it excelled them both in its
masterly analysis of great historic characters, reminding the reader,
in this particular, of Macaulay's figure-painting. The episodes of the
siege of Antwerp and the sack of the cathedral, and of the defeat and
wreck of the Spanish Armada, are as graphic as Prescott's famous