Congressman from Pennsylvania who later served as a federal judge (1770-1842). ALS signed “Jos. Hopkinson,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 7.75 x 10, October 6, 1839. Letter to the grandson of Oliver Wolcott, Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury and Governor of Connecticut. In part: "I am glad you have undertaken to give the public a biography of your grandfather. He was so intimately connected with the administration of the federal government in its most crucial and difficult situations, that his correspondence and other papers cannot fail to disclose facts and opinions of great interest…Mr. Wolcott was a man of cheerful and ever playful disposition; his conversation was interesting and earnest…He had a good taste in literature, with one exception, about which we often disputed, and in which his New England attachments, or prejudices, controlled his judgment. He had an excessive admiration of Dr. Dwight: Conquest of Canaan, a great part of which he had in his memory, and used to recite with great spirit, always insisting that it was the best epic that had ever been written. I am not sure that he did not except Homer, but I well remember that he put it before Vergil and all the moderns attempts, except Milton." In fine condition, with scattered light foxing. Hopkinson's career as a jurist was marked by prudence and his opinions characterized by clarity and literary skill—gifts certainly evident in the present letter, praising an important figure in early American history.
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