_History of Banbury_ (London, 1841).

BANCHIERI, ADRIANO (_c._ 1557-1634), Bolognese composer for church and
stage, organist, writer on music and poet. He founded the Accademia Florida
of Bologna. Like Orazio Vecchi he was interested in converting the madrigal
to dramatic purposes. He disapproved of the monodists with all their
revolutionary harmonic tendencies, about which he expressed himself
vigorously in his _Moderna Practica Musicale_ (Venice, 1613), while
systematizing the legitimate use of the monodic art of thorough-bass.

BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800-1891), American historian and statesman, was born in
Worcester, Mass., on the 3rd of October 1800. His family had been in
America since 1632, and his father, Aaron Bancroft, was distinguished as a
revolutionary soldier, clergyman and author. The son was educated at
Phillips Academy, Exeter, at Harvard University, at Heidelberg, Goettingen
and Berlin. At Goettingen he studied Plato with Heeren, New Testament Greek
with Eichhorn and natural science with Blumenbach. His heart was in the
work of Heeren, easily the greatest of historical critics then living, and
the forerunner of the modern school; it was from this master that Bancroft
caught his enthusiasm for minute pains-taking erudition. He concluded his
years of preparation by a European tour, in the [v.03 p.0307] course of
which he received kind attention from almost every distinguished man in the
world of letters, science and art; among others, from Goethe, Humboldt,
Schleiermacher, Hegel, Byron, Niebuhr, Bunsen, Savigny, Cousin, Constant
and Manzoni. Bancroft's father was a Unitarian, and he had devoted his son
to the work of the ministry; but the young man's first experiments at
preaching, shortly after his return from Europe in 1822, were
unsatisfactory, the theological teaching of the time having substituted
criticism and literature for faith. His first position was that of tutor in
Harvard. Instinctively a humanist, he had little patience with the narrow
curriculum of Harvard in his day and the rather pedantic spirit with which
classical studies were there pursued. Moreover, he had brought from Europe
a new manner, full of the affections of ardent youth, and this he wore
without ease in a society highly satisfied with itself; the young
knight-errant was therefore subjected to considerable ridicule. A little
volume of poetry, translations and original pieces, published in 1823 gave
its author no fame. As time passed