mprovement
seems to have been explored by him. As a statesman, he was unrivalled in
the profundity of his knowledge. His state papers--given to the world
while Minister, Secretary of State, President, and Member of Congress--his
numerous addresses, orations, and speeches, are astonishing in number, and
in the learning they display. [Footnote: Aside from his state papers,
official correspondence, and speeches, which would make many volumes, the
Literary World gives the following list of the published writings of Mr.
Adams:--
"1. Oration at Boston, 1793; 2. Answer to Paine's Rights of Man, 1793; 3.
Address to the Members of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society; 4.
Letters on Silesia; 5. Letters on Silesia, 1804; 6. Inaugural Oration
at Harvard College, 1806; 7. Letters to H. G. Otis, in reply to Timothy
Pickering, 1808; 8. Review of the Works of Fisher Ames, 1809; 9. Lectures
on Rhetoric and Oratory, two volumes, 1810; 10. Report on Weights and
Measures, 1821; 11. Oration at Washington, 1821; 12. Duplicate Letters;
the Fisheries and the Mississippi, 1822; 13. Oration to the citizens of
Quincy, 1831; 14. Oration on the Death of James Monroe, 1831; 15. Dermot
McMorrogh, or the Conquest of Ireland, 1832; 16. Letters to Edward
Livingston, on Free Masonry, 1833; 17. Letters to William L. Stone, on the
entered apprentice's oath, 1833; 18. Oration on the Life and Character of
Lafayette, l835; 19. Oration on the Life and Character of James Madison,
1836; 20. The Characters of Shakspeare, 1837; 21. Oration delivered at
Newburyport, 1837; 22. Letters to his Constituents of the Twelfth
Congressional District of Massachusetts, 1837; 23. The Jubilee of the
Constitution, 1839; 24. A Discourse on Education, delivered at Braintree,
1840; 25. An Address at the Observatory, Cincinnati, 1843.
Among the unpublished works of Mr. Adams, besides his Diary, which extends
over half a century, and would probably make some two dozen stout octavos,
are Memoirs of the earlier Public and Private Life of John Adams, second
President of the United States, in three volumes; Reports and Speeches on
Public Affairs; Poems including two new cantos of Dermot McMorrogh, a
Translation of Oberon and numerous Essays and Discourses."]

No man was more familiar with modern history, with diplomacy and
international law, and the politics of America and Europe for the last two
or three centuries.

In other departments he appeared equally at home. His acquaintanc