Letter to his Grand-daughter, Mrs. Bankhead.—To Dr. Rush.—To Duane.—Anxiety to reopen Correspondence with John Adams.—Letter to Benjamin Rush.—Old Letter from Mrs. Adams.—Letter from Benjamin Rush.—Letter from John Adams.—The Reconciliation.—Character of Washington.—Devotion to him.—Letter to Say.—State of Health.—Labors of Correspondence.—Cheerfulness of his Disposition.—Baron Grimour.—Catherine of Russia.—Ledyard.—Letter to Mrs. Trist.—To John Adams.—Gives Charge of his Affairs to his Grandson.—Letter to his Grandson, Francis Eppes.—Description of Monticello by Lieutenant Hall.—Letter to Mrs. Adams.—Her Death.—Beautiful Letter to Mr. Adams.—Letter to Dr. Utley.—Correspondence with Mrs. Cosway.

The extracts from Jefferson's letters which I give in this chapter the reader will find to be of unusual interest. Among his family letters I find the following touching note to one of his grand-daughters.

To Mrs. Anne C. Bankhead.

Monticello, May 26th, 1811.

My dear Anne—I have just received a copy of the Modern Griselda, which Ellen tells me will not be unacceptable to you; I therefore inclose it. The heroine presents herself certainly as a perfect model of ingenious perverseness, and of the art of making herself and others unhappy. If it can be made of use in inculcating the virtues and felicities of life, it must be by the rule of contraries.

Nothing new has happened in our neighborhood since you left us; the houses and the trees stand where they did; the flowers come forth like the belles of the day, have their short reign of beauty and splendor, and retire, like them, to the more interesting office of reproducing their like. The Hyacinths and Tulips are off the stage, the Irises are giving place to the Belladonnas, as these will to the Tuberoses, etc.; as your mamma has done to you, my dear Anne, as you will do to the sisters of little John, and as I shall soon and cheerfully do to you all in wishing you a long, long good-night. Present me respectfully to Doctor and Mrs. Bankhead, and accept for Mr. Bankhead and yourself the assurances of my cordial affections, not forgetting that Cornelia shares them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In January, 1811, Dr. Rush, in a friendly letter to Mr. Jefferson, expressed regret at the suspension of intercourse between Mr. Adams and himself. Jefferson's letter in reply is one of the most charming he ever wrote.

To Benjamin Rush.—[Extract.]

I receive with sensibility your observations on the discontinuance of friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and myself, and the concern you take in its restoration. This discontinuance has not proceeded from me, nor from the want of sincere desire and of effort on my part to renew our intercourse. You know the perfect coincidence of principle and of action, in the early part of the Revolution, which produced a high degree of mutual respect and esteem between Mr. Adams and myself. Certainly no man was ever truer than he was, in that day, to those principles of rational republicanism which, after the necessity of throwing off our monarchy, dictated all our efforts in the establishment of a new Government. And although he swerved afterwards towards the principles of the English Constitution, our friendship did not abate on that account. While he was Vice-president, and I Secretary of State, I received a letter from President Washington, then at Mount Vernon, desiring me to call together the Heads of Department, and to invite Mr. Adams to join us (which, by-the-by, was the only instance of that being done), in order to determine on some measure which required dispatch; and he desired me to act on it, as decided, without again recurring to him. I invited them to dine with me, and after dinner, sitting at our wine, having settled our question, other conversation came on, in which a collision of opinion arose between Mr. Adams and Colonel Hamilton on the merits of the British Constitution; Mr. Adams giving it as his opinion that, if some of its defects and abuses were corrected, it would be the most perfect constitution of government ever devised by man. Hamilton, on the contrary, asserted that, with its existing vices, it was the most perfect model of government that could be formed, and that the correction of its vices would render it an impracticable government. And this, you may be assured, was the real line of difference between the political principles of these two gentlemen.

Another incident took place on the same occasion, which will further delineate Mr. Hamilton's political principles. The room being hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those of Bacon, Newton, and Locke. Hamilton asked me who they were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced, naming them. He paused for some time: "The greatest man," said he, "that ever lived was Julius CÆsar." Mr. Adams was honest as a politician, as well as a man; Hamilton honest as a man, but, as a politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to govern men.

Writing to Colonel Duane in the same year, speaking of the state of the country and differences of opinion, he says: "These, like differences of face, are a law of our nature, and should be viewed with the same tolerance. The clouds which have appeared for some time to be gathering around us have given me anxiety, lest an enemy, always on the watch, always prompt and firm, and acting in well-disciplined phalanx, should find an opening to dissipate hopes, with the loss of which I would wish that of life itself. To myself, personally, the sufferings would be short. The powers of life have declined with me more in the last six months than in as many preceding years. A rheumatic indisposition, under which your letter found me, has caused this delay in acknowledging its receipt."

In a letter of December 5th, 1811, to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jefferson, after alluding to letters from him, wherein he expresses a desire to bring about a reconciliation between Mr. Adams and himself, says:

To Benjamin Rush.

Two of the Mr. Coles, my neighbors and friends, took a tour to the northward during the last summer. In Boston they fell into company with Mr. Adams, and by his invitation passed a day with him at Braintree. He spoke out to them every thing which came uppermost, and as it occurred to his mind, without any reserve; and seemed most disposed to dwell on those things which happened during his own Administration. He spoke of his masters, as he called his Heads of Departments, as acting above his control, and often against his opinions. Among many other topics, he adverted to the unprincipled licentiousness of the press against myself, adding, "I always loved Jefferson, and still love him."

This is enough for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives.... I wish, therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my unchanged affection for him. There is an awkwardness which hangs over the resuming a correspondence so long discontinued, unless something could arise which should call for a letter. Time and chance may perhaps generate such an occasion, of which I shall not be wanting in promptitude to avail myself. From this fusion of mutual affections, Mrs. Adams is, of course, separated. It will only be necessary that I never name her.[58] In your letters to Mr. Adams you can perhaps suggest my continued cordiality towards him, and, knowing this, should an occasion of writing first present itself to him, he will perhaps avail himself of it, as I certainly will, should it first occur to me. No ground for jealousy now existing, he will certainly give fair play to the natural warmth of his heart. Perhaps I may open the way in some letter to my old friend Gerry, who, I know, is in habits of the greatest intimacy with him. I have thus, my friend, laid my heart open to you, because you were so kind as to take an interest in healing again Revolutionary affections, which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence. God ever bless you, and preserve you in life and health.

To this letter Dr. Rush replied as follows:

From Benjamin Rush.—[Extract.]

Philadelphia, Dec. 17th, 1811.

My dear old Friend—Yours of December 5th came to hand yesterday. I was charmed with the subject of it. In order to hasten the object you have suggested, I sat down last evening and selected such passages from your letter as contained the kindest expressions of regard for Mr. Adams, and transmitted them to him. My letter which contained them was concluded, as nearly as I can recollect, for I kept no copy of it, with the following words: "Fellow-laborers, in erecting the fabric of American liberty and independence! fellow-sufferers in the calumnies and falsehoods of party rage! fellow-heirs of the gratitude and affection of posterity! and fellow-passengers in the same stage which must soon convey you both into the presence of a Judge with whom forgiveness and love of enemies is the only condition of your acceptance, embrace—embrace each other—bedew your letter of reconciliation with tears of affection and joy. Let there be no retrospect of your past differences. Explanations may be proper between contending lovers, but they are never so between divided friends. Were I near you, I would put a pen in your hand, and guide it while it wrote the following note to Mr. Jefferson: 'My dear old friend and fellow-laborer in the cause of the liberties and independence of our common country, I salute you with the most cordial good wishes for your health and happiness.

John Adams."

Jefferson's hopes were realized by receiving early in the year 1812 a letter from Mr. Adams. It is pleasing to see with what eagerness he meets this advance from his old friend. In his reply he says:

To John Adams.

A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how, we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port.... But whither is senile garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which I have taken final leave. I think little of them, and say less. I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I find myself much the happier. Sometimes, indeed, I look back to former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow-laborers who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side of the Potomac, and, on this side, myself alone.

You and I have been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a considerable activity of body and mind. I am on horseback three or four hours of every day; visit three or four times a year a possession I have ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horseback. I walk little, however, a single mile being too much for me; and I live in the midst of my grandchildren, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a great-grandfather. I have heard with pleasure that you also retain good health, and a greater power of exercise in walking than I do. But I would rather have heard this from yourself, and that, writing a letter like mine, full of egotisms, and of details of your health, your habits, occupations, and enjoyments, I should have the pleasure of knowing that in the race of life you do not keep, in its physical decline, the same distance ahead of me which you have done in political honors and achievements. No circumstances have lessened the interest I feel in these particulars respecting yourself; none have suspended for one moment my sincere esteem for you, and I now salute you with unchanged affection and respect.

Mr. Adams having had some affliction in his household, Mr. Jefferson, at the close of a letter written to him in October, 1813, says:

To John Adams.

On the subject of the postscript of yours of August the 16th, and of Mrs. Adams's letter, I am silent. I know the depth of the affliction it has caused, and can sympathize with it the more sensibly, inasmuch as there is no degree of affliction, produced by the loss of those dear to us, which experience has not taught me to estimate. I have ever found time and silence the only medicine, and these but assuage, they never can suppress, the deep-drawn sigh which recollection forever brings up, until recollection and life are extinguished together.

In a letter written to Dr. Walter Jones on the 2d of January, 1814, we have one of the most beautiful descriptions of character to be found in the English language, and the most heartfelt tribute to General Washington which has ever flowed from the pen of any man. Jefferson writes:

Jefferson's Character of Washington.

You say that in taking General Washington on your shoulders, to bear him harmless through the Federal coalition, you encounter a perilous topic. I do not think so. You have given the genuine history of the course of his mind through the trying scenes in which it was engaged, and of the seductions by which it was deceived, but not depraved. I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these:

His mind was great and powerful without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and, as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in a readjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal danger with the calmest unconcern.

Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contribution to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it.

His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.

Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within-doors.

On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect; in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a Government new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example. How, then, can it be perilous for you to take such a man on your shoulders?...

He has often declared to me that he considered our new Constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it.... I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our Government.... I felt on his death, with my countrymen, that "Verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel."

The following pleasing anecdote in relation to Jefferson's devotion to Washington is remembered by his family. Long years after he had retired from public life, some admirer of Jefferson's, who lived in France, sent a wreath of immortelles to a member of the family at Monticello, with the request that it might be placed round his brow on his birthday. Jefferson ordered it to be placed, instead, on Washington's bust, where it ever afterwards rested.

On another occasion, while riding after night with a member of his family, the conversation fell upon Washington. Mr. Jefferson was warm in his expressions of praise and love for him, and finally, in a burst of enthusiasm, exclaimed, "Washington's fame will go on increasing until the brightest constellation in yonder heavens shall be called by his name!"

How different was the education in which such men as Washington and Jefferson were trained from the more modern system, so happily criticised by the latter, in the following extract from a letter to John Adams, bearing date July 5, 1814:

To John Adams.

But why am I dosing you with these antediluvian topics? Because I am glad to have some one to whom they are familiar, and who will not receive them as if dropped from the moon. Our post-revolutionary youth are born under happier stars than you and I were. They acquire all learning in their mother's womb, and bring it into the world readymade. The information of books is no longer necessary; and all knowledge which is not innate is in contempt, or neglect at least. Every folly must run its round; and so, I suppose, must that of self-learning and self-sufficiency; of rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of intuition. When sobered by experience, I hope our successors will turn their attention to the advantages of education—I mean of education on the broad scale, and not that of the petty academies, as they call themselves, which are starting up in every neighborhood, and where one or two men, possessing Latin and sometimes Greek, a knowledge of the globes, and the first six books of Euclid, imagine and communicate this as the sum of science. They commit their pupils to the theatre of the world with just taste enough of learning to be alienated from industrious pursuits, and not enough to do service in the ranks of science.

The following to an old friend finds a place here

To Mrs. Trist.

Monticello, Dec. 26th, 1814.

My good Friend—The mail between us passes very slowly. Your letter of November 17 reached this place on the 14th inst. only. I think while you were writing it the candle must have burnt blue, and that a priest or some other conjurer should have been called in to exorcise your room. To be serious, however, your view of things is more gloomy than necessary. True, we are at war—that that war was unsuccessful by land the first year, but honorable the same year by sea, and equally by sea and land ever since. Our resources, both of men and money, are abundant, if wisely called forth and administered. I acknowledge that experience does not as yet seem to have led our Legislatures into the best course of either....

I think, however, there will be peace. The negotiators at Ghent are agreed in every thing except as to a rag of Maine, which we can not yield nor they seriously care about, but it serves them to hold by until they can hear what the Convention of Hartford will do. When they shall see, as they will see, that nothing is done there, they will let go their hold, and we shall have peace on the status ante bellum. You have seen that Vermont and New Hampshire refuse to join the mutineers, and Connecticut does it with a "saving of her duty to the Federal Constitution." Do you believe that Massachusetts, on the good faith and aid of little Rhode Island, will undertake a war against the rest of the Union and the half of herself? Certainly never—so much for politics.

We are all well, little and big, young and old. Mr. and Mrs. Divers enjoy very so-so health, but keep about. Mr. Randolph had the command of a select corps during summer; but that has been discharged some time. We are feeding our horses with our wheat, and looking at the taxes coming on us as an approaching wave in a storm; still I think we shall live as long, eat as much, and drink as much, as if the wave had already glided under our ship. Somehow or other these things find their way out as they come in, and so I suppose they will now. God bless you, and give you health, happiness, and hope, the real comforters of this nether world.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In a letter to CÆsar A. Rodney, inviting a visit from him, and written on March 16th, 1815, he says: "You will find me in habitual good health, great contentedness, enfeebled in body, impaired in memory, but without decay in my friendships."

In a letter written to Jean Baptiste Say a few days earlier than the one just quoted, he speaks thus of the society of the country around him: "The society is much better than is common in country situations; perhaps there is not a better country society in the United States. But do not imagine this a Parisian or an academical society. It consists of plain, honest, and rational neighbors, some of them well-informed, and men of reading, all superintending their farms, hospitable and friendly, and speaking nothing but English. The manners of every nation are the standard of orthodoxy within itself. But these standards being arbitrary, reasonable people in all allow free toleration for the manners, as for the religion, of others."

We get a glimpse of the state of his health and his daily habits in a letter written to a friend in the spring of 1816. He writes:

I retain good health, and am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback,[59] and every three or four months taking, in a carriage, a journey of ninety miles to a distant possession, where I pass a good deal of my time. My eyes need the aid of glasses by night, and, with small print, in the day also. My hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth shaking yet, but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold are now experienced, my thermometer having been as low as 12° this morning.

My greatest oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the extent of which I have long been endeavoring to curtail. This keeps me at the drudgery of the writing-table all the prime hours of the day, leaving for the gratification of my appetite for reading only what I can steal from the hours of sleep. Could I reduce this epistolary corvÉe within the limits of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from it to reading and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life would be as happy as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should look on its consummation with the composure of one "qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat."

The cheerfulness of his bright and happy temper gleams out in the following extract from a letter written a few months later to John Adams:

To John Adams.

You ask if I would agree to live my seventy, or, rather, seventy-three, years over again? To which I say, yea. I think, with you, that it is a good world, on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us. There are, indeed (who might say nay), gloomy and hypochondriac minds, inhabitants of diseased bodies, disgusted with the present and despairing of the future; always counting that the worst will happen, because it may happen. To these I say, how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened! My temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I acknowledge, even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account....

Did I know Baron Grimm while at Paris? Yes, most intimately. He was the pleasantest and most conversable member of the diplomatic corps while I was there; a man of good fancy, acuteness, irony, cunning, and egoism. No heart, not much of any science, yet enough of every one to speak its language; his forte was belles-lettres, painting, and sculpture. In these he was the oracle of the society, and, as such, was the Empress Catherine's private correspondent and factor in all things not diplomatic. It was through him I got her permission for poor Ledyard to go to Kamtschatka, and cross over thence to the western coast of America, in order to penetrate across our continent in the opposite direction to that afterwards adopted for Lewis and Clarke; which permission she withdrew after he had got within two hundred miles of Kamtschatka, had him seized, brought back, and set down in Poland.

To Mrs. Trist.

Poplar Forest, April 28th, 1816.

I am here, my dear Madam, alive and well, and, notwithstanding the murderous histories of the winter, I have not had an hour's sickness for a twelvemonth past. I feel myself indebted to the fable, however, for the friendly concern expressed in your letter, which I received in good health, by my fireside at Monticello. These stories will come true one of these days, and poor printer Davies need only reserve awhile the chapter of commiserations he had the labor to compose, and the mortification to recall, after striking off some sheets announcing to his readers the happy riddance. But, all joking apart, I am well, and left all well a fortnight ago at Monticello, to which I shall return in two or three days....

Jefferson is gone to Richmond to bring home my new great-grand-daughter. Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Divers, are habitually in poor health; well enough only to receive visits, but not to return them; and this, I think, is all our small news which can interest you.

On the general scale of nations, the greatest wonder is Napoleon at St. Helena; and yet it is where it would have been well for the lives and happiness of millions and millions, had he been deposited there twenty years ago. France would now have had a free Government, unstained by the enormities she has enabled him to commit on the rest of the world, and unprostrated by the vindictive hand, human or divine, now so heavily bearing upon her. She deserves much punishment, and her successes and reverses will be a wholesome lesson to the world hereafter; but she has now had enough, and we may lawfully pray for her resurrection, and I am confident the day is not distant. No one who knows that people, and the elasticity of their character, can believe they will long remain crouched on the earth as at present. They will rise by acclamation, and woe to their riders. What havoc are we not yet to see! But these sufferings of all Europe will not be lost. A sense of the rights of man is gone forth, and all Europe will ere long have representative governments, more or less free....

We are better employed in establishing universities, colleges, canals, roads, maps, etc. What do you say to all this? Who could have believed the Old Dominion would have roused from her supineness, and taken such a scope at her first flight? My only fear is that an hour of repentance may come, and nip in the bud the execution of conceptions so magnanimous. With my friendly respects to Mr. and Mrs. Gilmer, accept the assurance of my constant attachment and respect.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In a letter to John Adams, written at the beginning of the next year (1817), he complains bitterly of the burden of his extensive correspondence.

To John Adams.

Monticello, Jan. 11th, 1817.

Dear Sir—Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve of them quarto! Dear Sir, how I envy you! Half a dozen octavos in that space of time are as much as I am allowed. I can read by candle-light only, and stealing long hours from my rest; nor would that time be indulged to me, could I by that light see to write. From sunrise to one or two o'clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing-table. All this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I have never before heard. Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse them civil answers. This is the burthen of my life, a very grievous one indeed, and one which I must get rid of.

Delaplaine lately requested me to give him a line on the subject of his book; meaning, as I well knew, to publish it. This I constantly refuse; but in this instance yielded, that in saying a word for him I might say two for myself. I expressed in it freely my sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the effect of an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and others, who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions, and speculations, political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical, etc., etc., etc. I hope the appeal will bring me relief, and that I shall be left to exercise and enjoy correspondence with the friends I love, and on subjects which they, or my own inclinations, present. In that case your letters shall not be so long on my files unanswered, as sometimes they have been to my great mortification.

From a letter to his son-in-law, Mr. Eppes, written the previous year, I take the following extract:

To John W. Eppes.

I am indeed an unskillful manager of my farms, and sensible of this from its effects, I have now committed them to better hands, of whose care and skill I have satisfactory knowledge, and to whom I have ceded the entire direction.[60] This is all that is necessary to make them adequate to all my wants, and to place me at entire ease. And for whom should I spare in preference to Francis, on sentiments either of duty or affection? I consider all my grandchildren as if they were my children, and want nothing but for them. It is impossible that I could reconcile it to my feelings, that he alone of them should be a stranger to my cares and contributions.

From this extract we learn that Mr. Jefferson had found the cares of his large estates too great a burden for him to carry in his advancing years, and gladly handed them over into the hands of the young grandson, in whose skill and energy he expresses such perfect confidence. From this time until the day of Jefferson's death, we shall find this grandson interposing himself, as far as possible, between his grandfather and his financial troubles, and trying to shield him, at least during his life, from the financial ruin which the circumstances of his situation made unavoidable. With his usual sanguine temper, Jefferson did not appreciate the extent to which his property was involved.

In a letter to his young grandson, Francis Eppes, after alluding to his studies, he says:

To Francis Eppes.

But while you endeavor, by a good store of learning, to prepare yourself to become a useful and distinguished member of your country, you must remember that this never can be without uniting merit with your learning. Honesty, disinterestedness, and good-nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends. Never suffer a thought to be harbored in your mind which you would not avow openly. When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public; if you would not, be sure it is wrong. In little disputes with your companions, give way rather than insist on trifles, for their love and the approbation of others will be worth more to you than the trifle in dispute. Above all things and at all times, practise yourself in good humor; this, of all human qualities, is the most amiable and endearing to society. Whenever you feel a warmth of temper rising, check it at once, and suppress it, recollecting it would make you unhappy within yourself and disliked by others. Nothing gives one person so great an advantage over another under all circumstances. Think of these things, practise them, and you will be rewarded by the love and confidence of the world.

I have given, in the earlier pages of this work, the charming sketches of Monticello and its owner from the pens of two distinguished Frenchmen,[61] and, fortunately, the Travels of Lieutenant Hall, a British officer, enable me to give a similar sketch from the pen of an Englishman. Their national prejudices and enthusiasm might be thought to have made the French noblemen color their pictures too highly when describing Jefferson; but certainly, if ever he had a critical visitor, a British officer might be considered to have been one, and in this view the following pleasantly-written account of Mr. Hall's visit to Monticello in 1816 will be found particularly interesting:

Lieut. Hall's Visit to Jefferson.[62]

Having an introduction to Mr. Jefferson (Mr. Hall writes), I ascended his little mountain on a fine morning, which gave the situation its due effect. The whole of the sides and base are covered with forest, through which roads have been cut circularly, so that the winding may be shortened at pleasure; the summit is an open lawn, near to the south side of which the house is built, with its garden just descending the brow; the saloon, or central hall, is ornamented with several pieces of antique sculpture, Indian arms, mammoth bones, and other curiosities collected from various parts of the Union. I found Mr. Jefferson tall in person, but stooping and lean with old age, thus exhibiting the fortunate mode of bodily decay which strips the frame of its most cumbersome parts, leaving it still strength of muscle and activity of limb. His deportment was exactly such as the Marquis de Chastellux describes it above thirty years ago. "At first serious, nay even cold," but in a very short time relaxing into a most agreeable amenity, with an unabated flow of conversation on the most interesting topics discussed in the most gentlemanly and philosophical manner.

I walked with him round his grounds, to visit his pet trees and improvements of various kinds. During the walk he pointed out to my observation a conical mountain, rising singly at the edge of the southern horizon of the landscape; its distance, he said, was forty miles, and its dimensions those of the greater Egyptian pyramid; so that it actually represents the appearance of the pyramid at the same distance. There is a small cleft visible on the summit, through which the true meridian of Monticello exactly passes; its most singular property, however, is, that on different occasions it looms, or alters its appearance, becoming sometimes cylindrical, sometimes square, and sometimes assuming the form of an inverted cone. Mr. Jefferson had not been able to connect this phenomenon with any particular season or state of the atmosphere, except that it most commonly occurred in the forenoon. He observed that it was not only wholly unaccounted for by the laws of vision, but that it had not as yet engaged the attention of philosophers so far as to acquire a name; that of "looming" being, in fact, a term applied by sailors to appearances of a similar kind at sea. The Blue Mountains are also observed to loom, though not in so remarkable a degree....

I slept a night at Monticello, and left it in the morning, with such a feeling as the traveller quits the mouldering remains of a Grecian temple, or the pilgrim a fountain in the desert. It would, indeed, argue a great torpor, both of understanding and heart, to have looked without veneration or interest on the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence, who shared in the councils by which her freedom was established; whom the unbought voice of his fellow-citizens called to the exercise of a dignity from which his own moderation impelled him, when such an example was most salutary, to withdraw; and who, while he dedicates the evening of his glorious days to the pursuits of science and literature, shuns none of the humbler duties of private life; but, having filled a seat higher than that of kings, succeeds with graceful dignity to that of the good neighbor, and becomes the friendly adviser, lawyer, physician, and even gardener of his vicinity. This is the still small voice of philosophy, deeper and holier than the lightnings and earthquakes which have preceded it. What monarch would venture thus to exhibit himself in the nakedness of his humanity? On what royal brow would the laurel replace the diadem? But they who are born and educated to be kings are not expected to be philosophers. This is a just answer, though no great compliment, either to the governors or the governed.

Early in 1817 Jefferson wrote the following delightful letter to Mrs. Adams—the last, I believe, that he ever addressed to her:

To Mrs. Adams.

Monticello, Jan. 11th, 1817.

I owe you, dear Madam, a thousand thanks for the letters communicated in your favor of December 15th, and now returned. They give me more information than I possessed before of the family of Mr. Tracy.[63] But what is infinitely interesting, is the scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII. for Bonaparte. What lessons of wisdom Mr. Adams must have read in that short space of time! More than fall to the lot of others in the course of a long life. Man, and the man of Paris, under those circumstances, must have been a subject of profound speculation! It would be a singular addition to that spectacle to see the same beast in the cage of St. Helena, like a lion in the tower. That is probably the closing verse of the chapter of his crimes. But not so with Louis. He has other vicissitudes to go through.

I communicated the letters, according to your permission, to my grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph, who read them with pleasure and edification. She is justly sensible of, and flattered by, your kind notice of her; and additionally so by the favorable recollections of our Northern visiting friends. If Monticello has any thing which has merited their remembrance, it gives it a value the more in our estimation; and could I, in the spirit of your wish, count backward a score of years, it would not be long before Ellen and myself would pay our homage personally to Quincy. But those twenty years! Alas! where are they? With those beyond the flood. Our next meeting must then be in the country to which they have flown—a country for us not now very distant. For this journey we shall need neither gold nor silver in our purse, nor scrip, nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the provision for it more easy than the preparation has been kind. Nothing proves more than this, that the Being who presides over the world is essentially benevolent—stealing from us, one by one, the faculties of enjoyment, searing our sensibilities, leading us, like the horse in his mill, round and round the same beaten circle—

To see what we have seen,

To taste the tasted, and at each return

Less tasteful; o'er our palates to decant

Another vintage—

until, satiated and fatigued with this leaden iteration, we ask our own congÉ.

I heard once a very old friend, who had troubled himself with neither poets nor philosophers, say the same thing in plain prose, that he was tired of pulling off his shoes and stockings at night, and putting them on again in the morning. The wish to stay here is thus gradually extinguished; but not so easily that of returning once in a while to see how things have gone on. Perhaps, however, one of the elements of future felicity is to be a constant and unimpassioned view of what is passing here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional visits. Mercier has given us a vision of the year 2440; but prophecy is one thing, and history another. On the whole, however, perhaps it is wise and well to be contented with the good things which the Master of the feast places before us, and to be thankful for what we have, rather than thoughtful about what we have not.

You and I, dear Madam, have already had more than an ordinary portion of life, and more, too, of health than the general measure. On this score I owe boundless thankfulness. Your health was some time ago not so good as it has been, and I perceive in the letters communicated some complaints still. I hope it is restored; and that life and health may be continued to you as many years as yourself shall wish, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and respectful friend.

The pleasant intercourse between Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Adams terminated only with the death of the latter, which took place in the fall of the year 1818, and drew from Jefferson the following beautiful and touching letter to his ancient friend and colleague:

To John Adams.

Monticello, November 13th, 1818.

The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In the following letter we have a most interesting and minute account of Mr. Jefferson's habits and mode of life:

To Doctor Vine Utley.

Monticello, March 21st, 1819.

Sir—Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant; and the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied it of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as the history of my own. Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. I double, however, the Doctor's glass-and-a-half of wine, and even treble it with a friend; but halve its effect by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I can not drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast, like that also of my friend, is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion which accept and concoct without ever murmuring whatever the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age.

I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfill them; and now, retired, at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. Indeed, my fondness for reading and study revolts me from the drudgery of letter-writing; and a stiff wrist, the consequence of an early dislocation, makes writing both slow and painful. I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour, or half-hour's reading of something moral whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use spectacles at night, but not necessarily in the day, unless in reading small print. My hearing is distinct in particular conversation, but confused when several voices cross each other, which unfits me for the society of the table.

I have been more fortunate than my friend in the article of health. So free from catarrhs, that I have not had one (in the breast, I mean) on an average of eight or ten years through life. I ascribe this exemption partly to the habit of bathing my feet in cold water every morning for sixty years past. A fever of more than twenty-four hours I have not had above two or three times in my life. A periodical headache has afflicted me occasionally, once, perhaps, in six or eight years, for two or three weeks at a time, which seems now to have left me; and, except on a late occasion of indisposition, I enjoy good health; too feeble, indeed, to walk much, but riding without fatigue six or eight miles a day, and sometimes thirty or forty.

I may end these egotisms, therefore, as I began, by saying that my life has been so much like that of other people, that I might say with Horace, to every one, "Nomine mutato, narratur fabula de te." I must not end, however, without due thanks for the kind sentiments of regard you are so good as to express towards myself; and with my acknowledgments for these, be pleased to accept the assurances of my respect and esteem.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In the following month of the same year we find him receiving a letter from Mrs. Cosway, who had long been silent. I give the following quotation from this letter, Jefferson's reply, and other letters from her, which close their pleasant correspondence.

From Mrs. Cosway.—[Extract.]

London, April 7th, 1819.

My different journeys to the Continent were either caused by bad health or other particular private melancholy motives; but on any sudden information of Mr. C.'s bad health, I hastened home to see him. In my stay on the Continent, I was called to form establishments of education: one at Lyons, which met with the most flattering success; and lastly, one in Italy, equally answering every hoped-for consolation. Oh! how often have I thought of America, and wished to have exerted myself there! Who would ever have imagined that I should have taken up this line! It has afforded me satisfactions unfelt before, after having been deprived of my own child. What comfortable feelings in seeing children grow up accomplished, modest, and virtuous women! They are hardly gone home from the establishment at fifteen, but are married and become patterns to their sex.

But am I not breaking the rules of modesty myself, and boasting too much? In what better manner can I relate this? However, though seemingly settled at Lodi, I was ever ready to return home when called. At last, at the first opening of communication on the cessation of the cruel hostilities which kept us all asunder, alarmed at the indifferent accounts of Mr. C.'s health, I hastened home. He is much broken, and has had two paralytic strokes, the last of which has deprived him of the use of his right hand and arm. Forgotten by the arts, suspended from the direction of education (though it is going on vastly well in my absence), I am now discharging the occupations of a nurse, happy in the self-gratification of doing my duty with no other consolation. In your "Dialogue," your Head would tell me, "That is enough;" your Heart, perhaps, will understand I might wish for more. God's will be done!

What a loss to me not having the loved Mrs. Church! and how grieved I was when told she was no more among the living! I used to see Madame de Corny in Paris. She still lives, but in bad health. She is the only one left of the common friends we knew. Strange changes, over and over again, all over Europe—you only are proceeding on well.

Now, my dear Sir, forgive this long letter. May I flatter myself to hear from you? Give me some accounts of yourself as you used to do; instead of Challion and Paris, talk to me of Monticello.

To Mrs. Cosway.

Monticello, Dec. 27th, 1820.

"Over the length of silence I draw a curtain," is an expression, my dear friend, of your cherished letter of April 7, 1819, of which, it might seem, I have need to avail myself; but not so really. To seventy-seven heavy years add two of prostrate health, during which all correspondence has been suspended of necessity, and you have the true cause of not having heard from me. My wrist, too, dislocated in Paris while I had the pleasure of being there with you, is, by the effect of years, now so stiffened that writing is become a slow and painful operation, and scarcely ever undertaken but under the goad of imperious business. But I have never lost sight of your letter, and give it now the first place among those of my trans-Atlantic friends which have been lying unacknowledged during the same period of ill health.

I rejoice, in the first place, that you are well; for your silence on that subject encourages me to presume it. And next, that you have been so usefully and pleasingly occupied in preparing the minds of others to enjoy the blessings you yourself have derived from the same source—a cultivated mind. Of Mr. Cosway I fear to say any thing, such is the disheartening account of the state of his health given in your letter; but here or wherever, I am sure he has all the happiness which an honest life assures. Nor will I say any thing of the troubles of those among whom you live. I see they are great, and wish them happily out of them, and especially that you may be safe and happy, whatever be their issue.

I will talk about Monticello, then, and my own country, as is the wish expressed in your letter. My daughter Randolph, whom you knew in Paris a young girl, is now the mother of eleven living children, the grandmother of about half a dozen others, enjoys health and good spirits, and sees the worth of her husband attested by his being at present Governor of the State in which we live. Among these I live like a patriarch of old. Our friend Trumbull is well, and is profitably and honorably employed by his country in commemorating with his pencil some of its Revolutionary honors. Of Mrs. Conger I hear nothing, nor, for a long time, of Madame de Corny. Such is the present state of our former coterie—dead, diseased, and dispersed. But "tout ce qui est differÉ n'est pas perdu," says the French proverb, and the religion you so sincerely profess tells us we shall meet again....

Mine is the next turn, and I shall meet it with good-will; for after one's friends are all gone before them, and our faculties leaving us, too, one by one, why wish to linger in mere vegetation, as a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all its former companions have disappeared. You have many good years remaining yet to be happy yourself and to make those around you happy. May these, my dear friend, be as many as yourself may wish, and all of them filled with health and happiness, will be among the last and warmest wishes of an unchangeable friend.

TH. JEFFERSON.

The original of the following letter, now lying before me, is edged with black:

From Mrs. Cosway.

London, July 15th, 1821.

My dear and most esteemed Friend—The appearance of this letter will inform you I have been left a widow. Poor Mr. Cosway was suddenly taken by an apoplectic fit, and, being the third, proved his last. At the time we had hopes he would enjoy a few years, for he had never been so well and so happy. Change of air was rendered necessary for his health. I took a very charming house, and fitted it up handsomely and comfortably with those pictures and things which he liked most.

All my thoughts and actions were for him. He had neglected his affairs very much, and when I was obliged to take them into my hands I was astonished. I took every means of ameliorating them, and had succeeded, at least for his comfort, and my consolation was his constantly repeating how well and how happy he was. We had an auction of all his effects, and his house in Stratford Place, which lasted two months. My fatigue was excessive. The sale did not produce as much as we expected, but enough to make him comfortable, and prevent his being embarrassed, as he might have been had I not lived accordingly. Every body thought he was very rich, and I was astonished when put into the real knowledge of his situation. He made his will two years ago, and left me sole executrix and mistress of every thing.

After having settled every thing here, and provided for three cousins of Mr. C.'s, I shall retire from this bustling and insignificant world to my favorite college at Lodi, as I always intended, where I can employ myself so happily in doing good.

I wish Monticello was not so far—I would pay you a visit, were it ever so much out of my way; but it is impossible. I long to hear from you. The remembrance of a person I so highly esteem and venerate affords me the happiest consolations, and your patriarchal situation delights me—such as I expected from you. Notwithstanding your indifference for a world of which you make one of the most distinguished ornaments and members, I wish you may still enjoy many years, and feel the happiness of a nation which produces such characters.

I will write again before I leave this country (at this moment in so boisterous an occupation, as you must be informed of), and I will send you my direction. I shall go through Paris and talk of you with Madame de Corny. Believe me ever your most affectionate and obliged

MARIA COSWAY.

From Mrs. Cosway.—[Extract.]

Milan, June 18th, 1823.

I congratulate you on the undertaking you announce me of the fine building[64] which occupies your taste and knowledge, and gratifies your heart. The work is worthy of you—you are worthy of such enjoyment. Nothing, I think, is more useful to mankind than a good education. I may say I have been very fortunate to give a spring to it in this country, and see those children I have had the care of turn out good wives, excellent mothers, et bonnes femmes de mÉnage, which was not understood in these countries, and which is the principal object of society, and the only useful one.

I wish I could come and learn from you; were it the farthest part of Europe nothing would prevent me, but that immense sea makes a great distance. I hope, however, to hear from you as often as you can favor me. I am glad you approve my choice of Lodi. It is a pretty place, and free from the bustle of the world, which is become troublesome. What a change since you were here! I saw Madame de Corny when at Paris: she is the same, only a little older.

From Mrs. Cosway.

Florence, Sept. 24th, 1824.

My dear Sir, and good Friend—I am come to visit my native country, and am much delighted with every thing round it. The arts have made great progress, and Mr. Cosway's drawings have been very much admired, which induced me to place in the gallery a very fine portrait of his. I have found here an opportunity of sending this letter by Leghorn, which I had not at Milan.

I wish much to hear from you, and how you go on with your fine Seminary. I have had my grand saloon painted with the representation of the four parts of the world, and the most distinguished objects of them. I am at loss for America, as I found very few small prints—however, Washington town is marked, and I have left a hill bare where I would place Monticello and the Seminary: if you favor me with some description, that I might have them introduced, you would oblige me much. I am just setting out for my home. Pray write to me at Lodi, and, if this reaches you safely, I will write longer by the same way. Believe me ever, your most obliged and affectionate friend,

MARIA COSWAY.