Beschreibung:

ADAMS, John Quincy Autograph letter signed ("John Quincy Adams") to George A. Otis, Quincy, 4 November 1833. 3 pages, 4to, creases repaired on second and third pages . ADAMS URGES OTIS TO PREPARE AN AMERICAN EDITION OF CICERO: "WHOEVER DOES THIS DESERVES WELL OF HIS COUNTRY." A learned, discursive letter from the recently retired President to Cicero's American translator, George A. Otis. Adams praises Otis's work, offers some judicious critcisms and makes interesting comments on the power of Cicero's prose. "To my taste, your translation is now better than Guthrie's. But if not better it is another. Its novelty would excite curiosity and attract readers to the Offices , and perhaps even to the other works of Cicero. Whoever does this, deserves well of his Country. Let me recommend to you however after going through the whole work, as you have with the first chapters, to give it a second and severely scrutinizing revisal. The language of Cicero, perhaps more than that of any other profane writer, is at once the language of thought and feeling . The mind and the heart are all in it." Closing with his own lyrical ruminations on the pleasures of Cicero's style, Adams says: "Although the Style of Cicero is diffusive, you will very seldom find in his writings a word not pregnant with meaning, with Sense, or Sensibility, nor will his whole meaning disclose itself to a single, or a cursory reading. When you have caught the general idea conveyed in one of his periods, you will find it useful to weigh every word of which it is composed, and you will often discover in single words a collateral or incidental train of thought encircling the principal sentiment, like a garland of Roses crowning a beautiful head....A good American Translation of all Cicero's works would be a jewel of great price. there is not to my knowledge a good English Translation of any one of them extent."