Page:Reviews of Bancroft's History of the Pacific States from British Quarterly Review and London Times.pdf/8



This new volume of Mr Bancroft's work sufficiently justifies all that we have said of former volumes. If it lacks the brilliancy of episode which characterized the two volumes we last noticed, it maintains a high level of vigorous narrative. The weight and multiplicity of the facts do not embarrass him; the largeness of the field does not confuse his vision. The broad stream of events is kept faithfully in view, but the master-leaders not allowed to be absorbed in it. The study have here of Cortés, in the new efforts he put forth in the direction of explorations in the north, is at once careful and eloquent. The peculiar elements which the Jesuit influence contributed to the problem of conquest in Mexico, especially in the north, is traced out with decision and clearness, and yet with largeness of outline. Not a few readers will turn with especial interest to the account we have here of earlier European adventure in California, and we should suppose will be a little surprised to know how soon the Jesuits asserted themselves there, and with effect. The portraits of Salvatierra and Lorenzo are in every respect vigorous, and, so far as we can judge, faithful. The sketches of St. Francis Xavier and Father Kino impart in their own way a softening element to the story of calculation and ambition and strife. The minute way in which the labors of the Mission Fathers to convert the Indians followed up, shows the very mixed nature of the motives which marked such enterprises in those days. The quarrels between the Jesuits and the Spanish settlers could not be passed over, and the facts connected with them are faithfully chronicled. It is impossible for us to do more in the space at our disposal here than to briefly and generally characterize a volume which, like its predecessors, is at once a monument of industry and of literary skill. The special authorities for this volume fill some forty closely printed pages, so that the immense labor that has gone to produce it may be guessed.