Page:Hubert Howe Bancroft His Work and His Method.djvu/16

173 lecting his unique and unapproachable library and publishing his massive volumes has conferred a benefit on his Coast and his coun- try that his critics are slow to admit.

But one must be pardoned for regretting that he was not able to leave us some such style as that of Parkman, such dignity as that of Oncken or Winsor, such mastery of his splendid subject as is shown by Gibbon ; one must be pardoned, finally, for regretting that Bancroft should have written so largely without sympathy - and hence perfect understanding - with his subject, as in the case of the aborigines of California, that he should have consented to collect materials by means charged with being questionable if not clearly dishonest, that he should have laid himself open to the suspicion of degrading biography by writing up individuals for money.