The passage, indeed, is perhaps the best example we have of the power of Mr.Webster's historical imagination.

He had some fragmentary sentences, the character of the man, the nature of the debate, and the circumstances of the time to build upon, and from these materials he constructed a speech which was absolutely startling in its lifelike force.

The revolutionary Congress, on the verge of the tremendous step which was to separate them from England, rises before us as we read the burning words which the imagination of the speaker put into the mouth of John Adams.

They are not only instinct with life, but with the life of impending revolution, and they glow with the warmth and strength of feeling so characteristic of their supposed author.

It is well known that the general belief at the time was that the passage was an extract from a speech actually delivered by John Adams.