Edward Everett had been in his early youth one of the most famous pulpit orators of the country, afterward a distinguished Member of Congress, Governor of the Commonwealth, Minister to England, and Senator of the United States.

He was a consummate orator, on whose lips thousands and thousands of his countrymen had hung entranced.

He was, what is less generally remembered now, perhaps the ablest and most accomplished diplomatist ever in the public service of the United States.

Jared Sparks was a profound student of history, somewhat dull as a narrator, but of unerring historic judgment.

I suppose he would be placed by all our writers of history with great unanimity at the head of American historic investigators.