Twelve years after Thomas Prince died, Charles Chauncy, Prince's frequent ideological adversary, took special notice of him in "Sketch of Eminent Men in New-England": "I do not know any one that had more learning among us, excepting Doct. Cotton Mather; and it was extensive, as was also his genius. He possessed all the intellectual powers in a degree far beyond what is common. He may be justly characterized as one of our great men ... [and] deserves to be remembered with honour." Chauncy's estimate of Prince was not an exaggeration; as a theologian, bibliophile, historian, scientist, and pastor of the influential Old South Church in Boston, Prince stood out among his contemporaries as an eighteenth-century Puritan-style renaissance man. On the one hand he was an eloquent and persuasive minister who tried to defend the "old New England way" during the time of its greatest (and final) peril; on the...