Although Mr. Adams gave most of his days to the service of his country, yet he was fond of literary pursuits, and acquired, during his hours of relaxation from sterner duties, a vast fund of classic lore and useful learning.  At an early day, he had become distinguished as a ripe scholar, and an impressive, dignified, and eloquent public speaker.  His reputation for literary and scholastic attainments quite equalled his fame as a politician and statesman.

In 1804, on the death of President Willard, Mr. Adams was urged by several influential individuals, to be a candidate for the presidency of Cambridge University.  He declined the proffered honor.  During the following year, however, he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, in that institution.  He accepted the office, on condition that he should be allowed to discharge its duties at such times as his services in Congress would permit.  His inaugural address, on entering the professorship, was delivered on the 12th of June, 1806.  His lectures on rhetoric and oratory were very popular.  They were attended by large crowds from Boston and the surrounding towns, in addition to the collegiate classes—­a compliment which few of the professors since his day have received.

Mr. Adams continued his connection with the University, delivering lectures and conducting exercises in declamation, until July, 1809.  “It was at this time, and as a member of one of the younger classes at college, that I first saw Mr. Adams, and listened to his well-remembered voice from the chair of instruction; little anticipating, that after the lapse of forty years, my own humble voice would be heard, in the performance of this mournful office.  Some who now hear me will recollect the deep interest with which these lectures were listened to, not merely by the youthful audience for which they were prepared, but by numerous voluntary hearers from the neighborhood.  They formed an era in the University; and were, I believe, the first successful attempt, in this country, at this form of instruction in any department of literature.  They were collected and published in two volumes, completing the theoretical part of the subject.  I think it may be fairly said, that they will bear a favorable comparison with any treatise on the subject, at that time extant in our language.  The standard of excellence, in every branch of critical learning, has greatly advanced in the last forty years, but these lectures may still be read with pleasure and instruction.  Considered as a systematic and academical treatise upon a subject which constituted the chief part of the intellectual education of the Greeks and Romans, these lectures, rapidly composed as they were delivered, and not revised by the author before publication, are not to be regarded in the light of a standard performance.  But let any statesman or jurist, even of the present day, in America or Europe—­whose life, like Mr. Adams’s, has been actively passed in professional