yet, to show you that I have scrupulously sought occasions of animadversion, I will particularize the following passages, which I noted as I read them.

Page 11: I think this passage had better be moderated. That Mr. Henry read Livy through once a year is a known impossibility with those who knew him. He may have read him once, and some general history of Greece; but certainly not twice. A first reading of a book he could accomplish sometimes and on some subjects, but never a second. He knew well the geography of his own country, but certainly never made any other a study. So, as to our ancient charters; he had probably read those in Stith's history; but no man ever more undervalued chartered titles than himself. He drew all natural rights from a purer source the feelings of his own breast. * * *

He never, in conversation or debate, mentioned a hero, a worthy, or a fact in Greek or Roman history, but so vaguely and loosely as to leave room to back out, if he found he had blundered.

The study and learning ascribed to him, in this passage, would be inconsistent with the excellent and just picture given of his indolence through the rest of the work.

Page 33, line 4: Inquire further into the fact alleged that Henry was counsel for Littlepage. I am much persuaded he was counsel for Dandridge. There was great personal antipathy between him and Littlepage, and the closest intimacy with Dandridge, who was his near neighbor, in whose house he was at home as one of the family, who was his earliest

VOL. XII.-3.

and greatest admirer and patron, and whose daughter became, afterwards, his second wife.

It was in his house that, during a course of Christmas festivities, I first became acquainted with Mr. Henry. This, it is true, is but presumptive evidence, and may be overruled by direct proof. But I am confident he could never have undertaken any case against Dandridge; considering the union of their bosoms, it would have been a great crime.' * * *

TO ALBERT GALLATIN

J. MSS.

MONTICELLO, September 8, 1816.

DEAR SIR,-The jealousy of the European governments rendering it unsafe to pass letters through their postoffices, I am obliged to borrow the protection of your cover to procure a safe passage for the 'Jefferson further wrote to Wirt concerning his Life of Patrick Henry:

"POPLAR FOREST, November 12, 1816. "Dear Sir,-Yours of October 23d, was received here on the 31st, with the latest sheets of your work.

"They found me engaged in a business which could not be postponed and have therefore been detained longer than I wished.

"On the subject of our ancient aristocracy, I believe I have said nothing which all who knew them will not confirm, and which their reasonable descendants may not learn from every quarter. It was the effect of the large accumulation of property under the law of entails.

"The suppression of entails reduced the spirit of the rich, while the increased influence given by the new government to the people, raised theirs, and brought things to their present level, from a condition which the present generation, who have not seen it, can scarcely believe or conceive.

"You ask if I think your work would be the better of retrenchment? By no means. I have seen nothing in it which could be retrenched but to disadvantage. And again, whether, as a friend, I would advise

enclosed letter to Madame de Staël, and to ask the favor of you to have it delivered at the hotel of M. de Lessert without passing through the post-office.

In your answer of June 7 to mine of May 18, you mentioned that you did not understand to what proceeding of Congress I alluded as likely to produce a removal of most of the members, and that by a spontaneous movement of the people, unsuggested by the newspapers, which had been silent on it. I alluded to the law giving themselves 1500 D. a year. There has never been an instant before of so unanimous an opinion of the people, and that through every State in the Union. A very few members of the first order of merit in the House will be re-elected, Clay, of Kentucky, by a small majority, and a few others. But the almost entire mass will go out, not its publication? On that question, I have no hesitation on your account, as well as that of the public. To the latter, it will be valuable; and honourable to yourself.

"You must expect to be criticised; and, by a former letter I see you expect it. By the Quarterly Reviewers you will be hacked and hewed, with tomahawk and scalping-knife. Those of Edinburgh, with the same anti-American prejudices, but sometimes considering us as allies against their administration, will do it more decently.

"They will assume, as a model for biography, the familiar manner of Plutarch, or scanty manner of Nepos, and try you, perhaps, by these tests. But they can only prove that your style is different from theirs; not that it is not good.

"I have always very much dispised the artificial canons of criticism. When I have read a work in prose or poetry, or seen a painting, a statue, etc., I have only asked myself whether it gives me pleasure, whether it is animating, interesting, attaching? If it is, it is good for these reasons. On these grounds you will be safe. Those who take up your book, will find they cannot lay it down, and this will be its best criticism.

"You have certainly practised vigorously the precept of de mortuis nil nisi bonum. This presents a very difficult question,-whether one only or both sides of the medal shall be presented. It constitutes,

only those who supported the law or voted for it, or skulked from the vote, but those who voted against it or opposed it actively, if they took the money; and the examples of refusals to take it were very

perhaps, the distinction between panegyric and history. On this, opinions are much divided-and, perhaps, may be so on this feature of your work. On the whole, however, you have nothing to fear; at least if my views are not very different from the common. And no one will see its appearance with more pleasure than myself, as no one can, with more truth, give you assurances of great respect and affectionate attachment."

"POPLAR FOREST. Sep. 29, 16.

"DEAR SIR,-I found, on my arrival here the 2d parcel of your sheets, which I have read with the same avidity and pleasure as the former. This proves they will experience no delay in my hands, and that I consider them as worthy everything I can do for them. They need indeed but little, or rather I should say nothing. I have however hazarded some suggestions on a paper inclosed. When I read the former sheets, I did not consider the article of style as within my jurisdiction. However since you ask observations on that, and suggest doubts entertained by yourself on a particular quality of it, I will candidly say that I think some passages of the former sheets too flowery for the sober taste of history. It will please young readers in it's present form, but to the older it would give more pleasure and confidence to have some exuberances lightly pruned. I say lightly, because your style is naturally rich and captivating, and would suffer if submitted to the rasp of a rude hand. A few excrescences may be rubbed off by a delicate touch; but better too little than too much correction. In the 2d parcel of sheets, altho' read with an eye to your request, I have found nothing of this kind. I thus comply with your desire; but on the condition originally prescribed, that you shall consider my observations as mere suggestions, meant to recall the subject to a revision by yourself, and that no change be made in consequence of them but on the confirmed dictates of your own judgement. I have no amour-propre which will suffer by having hazarded a false criticism. On the contrary I should regret were the genuine character of your composition to be adulterated by any foreign ingredient. I return to Albermarle within a week. Shall stay there 10. days, come back and pass here October and part of November. I salute you affectionately."

"MONTICELLO, Oct. 8, 16. "DEAR SIR, I received your 3d parcel of sheets just as I was leaving Poplar Forest, and have read them with the usual pleasure. They

few. The next Congress, then, Federal as well as Republican, will be almost wholly of new members.

We have had the most extraordinary year of drought and cold ever known in the history of America. In June, instead of 3 inches, our average of rain for that month, we only had of an inch; in

relate however to the period of time exactly, during which I was absent in Europe. Consequently I am without knolege of the facts they state. Indeed they are mostly new history to me.

"On the subject of style they are not liable to the doubts I hazarded on the 1st parcel, unless a short passage in page 198, should be thought too poetical. Indeed as I read the 2d & 3d parcels with attentions to style and found them not subject to the observations I made on the first, (which were from memory only, & after I had parted with them) I have suspected that a revisal might have corrected my opinion on the Ist. Of this however you will judge. One only fact in the last sheets was within my knolege, that relating to Philips, and on this I had formerly given you explanations. I am very glad indeed that you have examined the records, and established truth in this case. How Mr. Randolph could indulge himself in a statement of facts, so solemnly made, the falsehood of every article of which had been known to himself particularly; and how Mr. Henry could be silent under such a perversion of facts known to himself, agreed on at a consultation with members whom he invited to the palace to advise with on the occasion, and done at his request according to what was concluded, is perfectly unaccountable. Not that I consider Mr. Randolph as misstating intentionally, or desiring to boulster an argument at the expence of an absent person: for there were no unsocial dispositions between him & myself; and as little do I impute to Mr. Henry any willingness to leave on my shoulders a charge which he could so easily have disproved. The fact must have been that they were both out of their heads on that occasion. Still not the less injuriously to me, whom Mr. Randolph might as well have named, as the journals shewed I was the first named of the Committee. Would it be out of place for you to refer by a note to the countenance which Judge Tucker has given to this misrepresentation, by making strictures on it, in his Blackstone, as if it were true? It is such a calumny on our revolutionary government as should be eradicated from history, and especially from that of this state, which justly prides itself on having gone thro' the revolution without a single example of capital punishment connected with that. Ever affectionately yours."