In his ["Brotherly Love"], Mr. Hoffman uses extensive scholarly research as the basis of a regional epic on the founding of Pennsylvania, and more particularly of Philadelphia, the city whose name provides the title. The sequence concerns the relations between the settlers and the Lenni Lenape Indians, whose treaty with William Penn was strictly observed by the Founder himself but not by his heirs. Eventually, the Lenni Lenape were dispossessed and driven westward to die.

Mr. Hoffman seems uneasily poised between two conclusions. The first is that of Voltaire, expressed in a letter that Mr. Hoffman versifies. Alone of all the settlers, Penn and "the peaceful Quakers" lived in harmony with the Indians. Pennsylvania was "the fabled / Age of Gold" realized in history. Penn's utopia might have lasted indefinitely, Mr. Hoffman implies, but for the turpitude of Penn's descendants. The other view—only fleetingly presented—finds the root...