[Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams by William H. Seward]@TWC D-Link bookLife and Public Services of John Quincy Adams CHAPTER IV 17/24
They were collected and published in two volumes, completing the theoretical part of the subject.
I think it may be fairly said, that they will bear a favorable comparison with any treatise on the subject, at that time extant in our language.
The standard of excellence, in every branch of critical learning, has greatly advanced in the last forty years, but these lectures may still be read with pleasure and instruction.
Considered as a systematic and academical treatise upon a subject which constituted the chief part of the intellectual education of the Greeks and Romans, these lectures, rapidly composed as they were delivered, and not revised by the author before publication, are not to be regarded in the light of a standard performance.
But let any statesman or jurist, even of the present day, in America or Europe--whose life, like Mr.Adams's, has been actively passed in professional and political engagements, at home and abroad--attempt, in the leisure of two or three summers--his mind filled with all the great political topics of the day--to prepare a full course of lectures on any branch of literature, to be delivered to a difficult and scrutinizing, though in part a youthful audience, and then trust them to the ordeal of the press, and he will be prepared to estimate the task which was performed by Mr.Adams." [Footnote: Edward Everett's Eulogy on the Life and Character of John Quincy Adams.] Mr.Adams's devotion to literary pursuits was destined to an early termination.
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