It may, indeed, be questioned whether his knowledge of our Colonial and Revolutionary history does not surpass that of any contemporary.

Nor has he been content with the mere mastery of details, with the collection of facts and incidents.

He has studied their relations and their interdependence, has analyzed their causes and comprehended their effects.

Of New England in its Provincial period he could narrate "the rise of religious sects, the manners of successive generations, the revolutions in dress, in furniture, in repasts, in public amusements," even more accurately than Macaulay presented the same features of the same time in Old England.

Mr.Hoar has studied the era with a devout enthusiasm for the character of the people,--a people from whom he is proud to claim his own descent, and whose positive virtues (even with the spice of acridness which distinguished them) are faithfully reproduced in his own person.
In truth Mr.Hoar is a Puritan, modified by the religious progress of two centuries, but still a Puritan--in manners, in morals, in deep earnestness, in untiring energy.