XX Dr. Kirkland’s Discourse in Commemoration of 
of these higher branches; so that he is as yet but a smatterer 
like his father. However, he has a foundation laid, which will 
enable him, with a year’s attendance on the mathematical pro- 
fessor, to make the necessary proficiency for a degree.” 
In the intervals of business, and afterwards in his long season 
of ample leisure, Mr. Adams was a constant reader. He re- 
tained and increased his knowledge of Latin, which he read 
currently, and he occasionally applied himself to a Greek author. 
When he went to France, he left nothing undone to master 
the French language. He learned to read it perfectly, to un- 
derstand it in conversation, and to speak it with tolerable fluency, 
but not well. 
His reading included works on general politics, the body of 
English and French literature, older and recent productions, 
ethics and mental philosophy, and the most important theological 
subjects. In his latter years he reviewed opinions in philosophy, 
in its largest definition; the science that discovers and teaches 
those principles, by means of which happiness is acquired, presery- 
ed, and increased,—the nature of good; perusing such works as 
Enfield’s “ History of Philosophy,” and many of the original works 
of ancient and modern authors of which a summary account is 
there given. He read the free-thinkers, French and English, 
and re-examined the evidences of revealed religion, finding his 
faith confirmed by the result. Butler’s “ Analogy ” and “Sermons” 
stood high in his estimation. The latter he said he had by heart 
long ago. He valued him as giving the key to the present state, 
teaching that the end of being is character. He approved of the 
ethical philosophy of Hutcheson, Wollaston, Samuel Clarke, and 
Brown, the lectures of the last having been read by him within 
a year of his death. He valued Paley, but deemed his theory 
