JEFFERSON.

THE great tragic poet of antiquity has observed, and historians and philosophers in every age, have repeated the observation, that no one should be pronounced happy, till death has closed the period of human uncertainty. Yet if to be happy, is to descend into the vale of years, loved and honoured; to enjoy in life, that posthumous fame, which is usually bestowed only beyond the tomb; to see the labours of our earlier years, crowned with more than hoped for success; and to find those theoretic visions which untried, could offer nothing more than expected excellence, exceeding in practical utility their promised advantages; if these can confer aught of happiness on this side the grave, then may the subject of our memoir be esteemed truly happy.

He has indeed outlived those who were the partners of his toils, and the companions of his earlier years; but in so doing, he has not experienced the usual fate of mortality, in outliving the sympathy, the kindness and the love of his fellow creatures. A new race of companions has risen around him, who have added to those feelings the deeper ones of admiration, respect, and gratitude; and he still lives in the bosom of his country, which is

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the bosom of his friends, cherished with an affection that .mingles at once the ardour of youth, with the steadiness of age.

One cannot resist applying to him that sentiment, in which the greatest of historians has indulged, when speaking of a man whom Mr. Jefferson seems strongly to resemble, in the mild and virtuous dignity of his domestic character, his fondness for the pursuits of science, chastened but not extinguished by the occupations of an active life, the serenity of his temper and manners, and a modesty and simplicity which, while they shed an uncommon lustre over his public career, doubly adorn the less conspicuous scenes of retirement. "Agricola had possessed to the full," says Tacitus, "those enjoyments which alone can make us truly happy, those which spring from virtue-he had been adorned with all the dignity, which consular rank or triumphal honours could bestow-what more could fortune add to his happiness or his fame?"

Need the author of this article say, that it is with feelings of unaffected diffidence, he takes his pen to record a brief, and probably transient account, of the chief incidents in the life of this distinguished man? need he say, that he can indulge no hope of portraying, either vividly or justly, those brilliant characteristics with which it abounds? and need he add, that if his sketch shall possess any interest, it is to be attributed more to the illustrious name which adorns it, than to its own excellence? He is indeed but too well aware that the historian of Mr. Jefferson has not an easy task to perform.

His is a life of no common character. It is one abounding in great events and extraordinary circumstances, upon which the opinions of his countrymen have been so much divided, that prejudices arising from their divisions, have thrown their shade upon almost every transaction of his life. Let it be remembered, however, that to these conflicting sentiments a biographer is not called on to become a party; nor would it be proper in him to obtrude the peculiar opinions he may entertain. It is his duty alone to state their existence, with the powerful influence that attended them, and to ask from his country, that, all prejudices laid aside, the illustrious object of his labours may come before them, in that cloudless mirror, wherein posterity will examine the fathers of our country.

THOMAS JEFFERSON is descended from a family, which had been long settled in his native province of Virginia. His ancestors had emigrated thither at an early period; and although bringing with them, so far as is known, no fortune beyond that zeal and enterprise which are more than useful, to adventurers in a new and unknown country; no rank beyond a name, which was free from dishonour; they had a standing in the community highly respectable, and lived in circumstances of considerable affluence. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a gentleman well known in the province. He was appointed in the year 1747, one of the commissioners for determining the division line, between Virginia and North Carolina, an office which would seem to indicate at once considerable scientific knowledge, and that integrity,

firmness and discernment, which are so peculiarly necessary in settling the boundaries between small but independent territories.

THOMAS JEFFERSON was born on the second day of April (O.S.) 1743, at Shadwell, in Albemarle county, Virginia, and on the death of his father, succeeded to an ample and unembarrassed fortune. But little is known of the incidents of his early life, and the biographer is entirely destitute of those anecdotes of youth which are so often remembered and recorded, pointing out as they seem to do, the latent sparks of genius, and fortelling the career of future usefulness and honour. We first hear of him as a student in the college of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, and then, ignorant of his success on the youthful arena of literary fame, find him a student of law, under a master whose talents and virtue, may have offered a model for his succeeding life, the celebrated George Wythe, afterwards chancellor of the state of Virginia. With this gentleman he was united, not merely by the ties of professional connexion, but by a congeniality of feeling, and similarity of views, which are alike honourable to them both; the friendship formed in youth was cemented and strengthened by age, and when the venerable preceptor closed his life, in 1806, he bequeathed his library and philosophical apparatus to a pupil and friend, who had already proved himself worthy alike of his instruction and regard.

Mr. Jefferson was called to the bar in the year 1766; and pursued the practice of his profession with zeal and success. In the short period during which he continued