ring enthusiasm for research in his
pupils. He has written several essays and books on historical subjects,
and edited others,--'Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law' (1876), 'Documents
Relating to New England Federalism' (1877), 'Albert Gallatin' (1879),
'Writings of Albert Gallatin' (1879), 'John Randolph' (1882) in the
'American Statesmen' Series, and 'Historical Essays'; but his great
life-work and monument is his 'History of the United States, 1801-17'
(the Jefferson and Madison administrations), to write which he left his
professorship in 1877, and after passing many years in London, in other
foreign capitals, in Washington, and elsewhere, studying archives,
family papers, published works, shipyards, and many other things, in
preparation for it, published the first volume in 1889, and the last in
1891. It is in nine volumes, of which the introductory chapters and the
index make up one.

The work in its inception (though not in its execution) is a polemic
tract--a family vindication, an act of pious duty; its sub-title might
be, 'A Justification of John Quincy Adams for Breaking with the
Federalist Party.' So taken, the reader who loves historical fights and
seriously desires truth should read the chapters on the Hartford
Convention and its preliminaries side by side with the corresponding
pages in Henry Cabot Lodge's 'Life of George Cabot.' If he cannot judge
from the pleadings of these two able advocates with briefs for different
sides, it is not for lack of full exposition.

But the 'History' is far more and higher than a piece of special
pleading. It is in the main, both as to domestic and international
matters, a resolutely cool and impartial presentation of facts and
judgments on all sides of a period where passionate partisanship lies
almost in the very essence of the questions--a tone contrasting oddly
with the political action and feeling of the two Presidents. Even where,
as toward the New England Federalists, many readers will consider him
unfair in his deductions, he never tampers with or unfairly proportions
the facts.

The work is a model of patient study, not alone of what is
conventionally accepted as historic material, but of all subsidiary
matter necessary to expert discussion of the problems involved. He goes
deeply into economic and social facts; he has instructed himself in
military science like a West Point student, in army needs like a
quartermaster, in naval construction, equipment, and management l