drawn, the committee gave it up to Jefferson alone, and the alterations made by Adams and Franklin were only verbal. Only two clauses of any consequence were struck out of the original by Congress, from the pusillanimous idea of having friends in England worth keeping terms with.' Of these, one was in assertion of the above doctrine; the other, in reprobation of the slave trade, especially that the King of England, being deter'mined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, had prostituted his negative for prohibiting every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable com.

'merce.'

It is natural that the honour of having been selected to draw up this Magna Charta of their separate and sovereign existence, should have ever afterwards identified Jefferson in the minds of his countrymen with the American constitution. The main task of defending this declaration in immediate debate, fell to the share of Adams. In this glorious partnership, he is described by Jefferson as coming out with a power, both of thought and expression, which moved us from our seats.' A very interesting letter, written by Adams to his wife, on the day which intervened between the vote with closed doors and its publication, cannot but have described equally the feeling of both friends. Yesterday, the greatest question was decided, that was ever ' decided among men. A resolution was passed unanimously, "That these United States are, and of right ought to be, free ' and independent states." The day has passed. The second ' of July, 1776, will be a memorable epoch in the history of 'America. I am apt to believe, it will be celebrated by succeed'ing generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought 'to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts ' of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnized with pomps, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illumina'tions, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time for ever! You will think me transported with enthusiasm, 'but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, blood, and trea'sure, it will cost to maintain this declaration, and support and 'defend these states; yet, through all the gloom, I can see a ray ' of light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all 'the means; and that posterity will triumph, although you and I rue-which I hope we shall not.'

may

It is agreeable to look back and recognise that the only penalty which the patriots had to pay, was their being made public men in their own despite. Nothing, apparently, but the imperative claims of the crisis on which his lot was cast, would have forced Jefferson from his books, in the first instance, or

afterwards induced him to defer to so late a day the repose after which he longed, as the Hermit of Monticello.' When Envoy at Paris, his recollections were recalled from his preferments to the attachments of his early life. I had rather be 'shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post 'which any human power can give.' His object, on returning home, was very different from the career which there awaited him. You know,' (he writes to Madison,) the circumstances which led me from retirement, step by step, and from one 'nomination to another, up to the present. My object is a return to the same retirement.' On resigning the office of Secretary (1794,) he resumed his resolution. As to myself, the subject has been thoroughly weighed and decided upon, and my ' retirement from office had been meant from all office high or low, without exception. My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months; my age requires that I should 'place my affairs in a clear state; these are sound, if taken care of, but capable of considerable dangers if longer neglected; and, above all things, the delights I feel in the society of my 'family, and in the agricultural pursuits in which I am so ea'gerly engaged. The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days, has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than a present name.' Notwithstanding all this determination, his alarm that republicanism was endangered by the supposed monarchial policy of the Federalists, kept him at the helm of public affairs till 1809. Writing to M. Dupont de Nemours, among other things, for a couple of pairs of true-bred shepherd's dogs,- A valuable possession to a country ' now beginning to pay great attention to the raising sheep,' he adds- Within a few days I retire to my family, my books, and 'my farms; and, having gained the harbour myself, I shall look on my friends still buffeting the storm, with anxiety, indeed, but not with envy. Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall, on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of 'science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the 'boisterous ocean of political passions.' The emoluments and patronage of English office, if not struggled for with greater eagerness, seem relinquished with more regret. The few of our statesmen who trust themselves to voluntary retirement, may look with some shade of envy on the account which he gives, a

6

year afterwards, of his mode of life. It is better than writing Latin verses. 'Now a word as to myself. I am retired to Mon'ticello, where, in the bosom of my family, and surrounded by my books, I enjoy a repose to which I have long been a stranger. My mornings are devoted to correspondence. From breakfast 'to dinner, I am in my shops, my garden, or on horseback among my farms; from dinner to dark, I give to society and recreation with my neighbours and friends; and from can'dle-light to early bed-time, I read. My health is perfect, ' and my strength considerably reinforced by the activity of the 'course I pursue; perhaps it is as great as usually falls to the lot of near sixty-seven years of age. I talk of ploughs and harrows, seeding and harvesting, with my neighbours, and of 'politics, too, if they choose, with as little reserve as the rest of my fellow-citizens, and feel, at length, the blessing of being 'free to say and do what I please, without being responsible for it to any mortal. A part of my occupation, and by no means the least pleasing, is the direction of the studies of such young men as ask it. They place themselves in the neighbouring 'village, and have the use of my library and counsel, and make a part of my society. In advising the course of their reading, 'I endeavour to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science-the freedom and happiness of man. So that, coming to bear a share in the councils and government of their country, they will ever keep in view the sole objects of all le'gitimate government.' Two years later, when (thanks to the mediation of Dr Rush) the friendship of early times was revived with Adams, after breaking ground a little upon politics, he exclaims, 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 ' upon former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow-labourers 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 every day; visit three or four times a-year a possession I have ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horse

• back."

On being courted back to the public councils, he had the satisfaction of feeling, that he had surmounted the difficult

I profess so much of the

point of knowing when to retire. Roman principle, as to deem it honourable for the general of 'yesterday to act as a corporal to-day, if his services can be useful to his country; holding that to be false pride, which post'pones the public good to any private or personal considerations. But I am past service. The hand of age is upon me. The decay of bodily faculties apprises me that those of the mind 'cannot be unimpaired, had I not still better proofs. Every year counts my increased debility, and departing faculties keep the score. The last year it was the sight, this it is the hearing, the next something else will be going, until all is gone. Of all this I was sensible before I left Washington, and probably my fellow-labourers saw it before I did. The decay of memory was obvious: it is now become distressing. But the mind, 'too, is weakened. When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal powers.'

Whilst Adams kept, to the last, his industry in epistolary correspondence, Jefferson would gladly have pushed aside his writing-table for his books-that comfort, without which, so great a part of life would not be worth having. In place of this has • come on a canine appetite for reading. And I indulged it, because I see in it a relief against the tædium senectutis,—a lamp to lighten my path through the dreary wilderness of time before 'me, whose bourne I see not. Losing daily all interest in the things around us, something else is necessary to fill the void. With me, it is reading, which occupies the mind without the labour of producing ideas from my own stock.' People who wish for long life, and for the means of reconciling it with duties and amusements of opposite descriptions, may see (vol. iv. p. 231) the method by which Jefferson had contrived to solve this problem.

The exclusion of all familiar letters out of the present collection is not so complete, but that glimpses are let in by which we see that Jefferson took into private life the same energy of character, which was so remarkable in his public conduct. Nobody felt more strongly, how firm a link the idem velle et sentire de republica adds to the chain of personal affections, however dear. Few of his youthful friends had stood by him in his political contentions: but the alienation of the rest was in part made up by the consistent friendship and cordial co-operation of Madison and Munro, to whom he frequently refers as the two pillars of his life. The interior of his home and family are kept sacred from the sight of strangers; but the incidental notice of his own misfortunes in a single sentence of sympathy to

Adams, is evidence enough that it had been neither cold nor silent. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of 6 every form of connexion which can rive the human heart, I 'know well, and feel, what you have lost, what you have suffer'ed, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials 'have taught me, that for ills so innumerable, time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless con'dolences, 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.'

Jefferson's understanding and character were of a plain, bold, and practical cast-full of activity and strength. But neither in his politics, science, or literature, do we see any sign of genius or depth. His speculations are chiefly interesting from our curiosity to learn the opinions of so celebrated a person. There is scarce a tincture visible from first to last, among all his multifarious disquisitions, of real philosophical sagacity, inventive observation, or refinement of taste. Independent and incorruptible himself, he was proud of the virtue of the party with which he acted, and confident in his belief that the popular will, whilst unvitiated by the perverse laws and corrupt habits of communities where commerce and distinction of orders had prevailed, might be trusted as the sole principle of government. This personal uprightness, and this confiding reliance in the trustworthiness of human nature, under such circumstances, at least, as the population of the United States is placed in, are in singular contrast with the boundless suspicions he is always brooding over in the case of his federal opponents, and the sweeping denunciations which he promulgates against the privileged classes of Europe.

We have seen that he was constantly pining after what he felt to be his true vocation. The interest which attends the literary pursuits and opinions of men eminent in the practical part of life, has led us to look attentively for the traces of them scattered up and down these volumes. They show him to have been so plainly destined for an enterprising scholar, rather than a master, that we cannot count him as one of the sacrifices which, in free countries, the sciences are always offering up at the altar of patriotism or ambition. The Notes on Virginia (his only professed work) were originally written as answers to some ques