latter and to family friends his hospitality was profuse; they came and went singly and in families-staying three months, six months, or longer according to inclination. Accomplished young kinswomen habitually passed two or three of the summer months there, as they would now at a fashionable watering-place. They married the sons of Mr. Jefferson's friends, and then came with their families; first one child, then two, three, four, five, six-babies, small children, school-boys, little girls, young ladies, nurses and tutors! As a specimen of Virginia life, we will mention that a friend from abroad came to Monticello with a family of six persons, and remained ten months. A second visit brought the same train six months-and so on.

This was according to the recognized usages of hospitality in the Ancient Dominion. All this was to be expected in the abode of the head of a family connection, supposed to be entirely independent in his circumstances, always receiving his relatives and friends with out-stretched arms, always retarding their departure and urging their return. Nor would this, under ordinary circumstances, have proved the source of pecuniary embarrassment to him.

We come now to the real causes of his misfortunes, and to avoid a frequent recurrence to them, shall extend the view over some years not yet reached in this narrative. In the first

gifts of nature and education. He had fine talents, a superior education, an active mind, a strong and active body, great courage, but it was as if some bad fairy, presiding at his birth, had, by a fatal curse, paralyzed the power to profit by these advantages. He could make great efforts, but just at the moment he was to receive their reward, some strange relaxation, some sudden intermission would render all his previous labors abortive. He would stand like one in a dream, lose all apparent interest in the completion of his work, and see the fruit of his toils perish before his eyes for want of energy to continue and carry out his own plans. For example, his income, like that of other gentlemen farmers in Virginia, was derived from his crops. He was himself a scientific agriculturist, and at the same time, an excellent practical farmer. He was indefatigably industrious, superintending all the details of the farming operations. He loved the life of the fields, and delighted in the occupation it afforded him. He was one of the best botanists in the State; was an excellent classical scholar, and might often be seen under the shade of a tree with a favorite Greek or Latin author in his hand. These refined tastes interfered not in the least degree with the business of the plantation; and he generally succeeded in raising the best crops, without in any way abus ing or harassing his slaves, towards whom he was eminently humane. I have seldom

known a kinder master.

"After months of anxious attention and intelligent supervision the object would be attained-large and beautiful harvests would reward his care. They were gathered into his barns, and nothing remained but to get them conveyed to market, in Richmond, seventy miles distant, and there sold. Here would come in the torpor of which I spoke. All the excitement of pleasant occupation was over; what remained to be done was irksome. His whole nature and tastes were repugnant to commerce of any kind. He could neither buy nor sell, nor bargain. His harvests remained in his barns, or if taken to Richmond, in the warehouses there, till the golden moment for disposing of them was over; so that a common saying among his neighbors, was, that no man made better crops than Colonel Randolph, and no man sold his crops for worse prices."

place, a long and scarcely interrupted series of unfavorable seasons followed Mr. Jefferson's retirement. Thus the summer of 1810 in his region was cold and backward, the breadth of crops small, and the produce limited. This was followed by an unfavorable winter, and the crops of 1811 did not exceed twothirds the usual product. The Hessian fly increased its ravages. These specifications might be continued, but it would be to n'o purpose. The agricultural staples of Virginia were kept at ruinous prices by Embargo and Non-intercourse laws from 1807 until war was declared in 1812. The crops of the last-named year chanced to be fine ones, but those of the interior were caught unsold by the "Ninety-day Embargo." The rigorous blockade of the Chesapeake from an early period in 1813 left no chance for exportation, and consequently no considerable market for products during the remainder of the war. The Virginia farmers often fed their wheat to their horses.

To these causes must be added monetary revulsions, both during and after the war, by which credit was prostrated, the currents of trade stopped, markets destroyed, and landed property reduced almost to its original wilderness prices. The war left the nation in debt and with a disordered currency. The merchants were ruined by the sudden fall in the price of their imported goods. The Southern farmer was relieved in this quarter, and he found his former markets for certain products; but the general disarrangement of trade and currency neutralized these benefits. The Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816; and then followed a period of paper money plethora almost as disastrous to the agricultural interests as the preceding depression. The rage for speculation was maddening. Lands sold at high prices, but the pay was "rags." And times of high prices bring no relief to those whose consumption (as in Mr. Jefferson's case) exceeds their production. The bubble was soon blown to bursting. What followed is vividly portrayed by Colonel Benton in his Thirty Years' View:

"The years of 1819 and 1820 were a period of gloom and agony. No money, either gold or silver: no paper convertible into specie: no measure or standard of value left remaining. The local banks (all but those of New England), after a brief resumption of specie payments, again sank into a state of suspension. The bank of the United States, created as a remedy for all those evils, now at the head of the evil, prostrate and helpless, with no power left but that of suing its debtors, and

selling their property, and purchasing for itself at its own nominal price. No price for property or produce. No sales but those of the sheriff and the marshal. No purchasers at execution sales but the creditor, or some hoarder of money. No employment for industry-no demand for labor-no sale for the product of the farmno sound of the hammer, but that of the auctioneer, knocking down property. Stop laws-property laws-replevin laws-stay laws-loan-office laws-the intervention of the legislator between the creditor and the debtor; this was the business of legislation, in three-fourths of the States of the Union-of all south and west of New England. No medium of exchange but depreciated paper; no change even, but little bits of foul paper, marked so many cents, and signed by some tradesman, barber, or innkeeper: exchanges deranged to the extent of fifty or one hundred per cent. Distress the universal cry of the people; relief the universal demand thundered at the doors of all legislatures, State and federal."

The period from Mr. Jefferson's retirement from public life to his death, was one that called for pecuniary prudence in all classes of men-a husbanding of means, and an avoidance of expenditure an extinguishment, so far as practicable, of outstanding debts, and the contraction of no new ones. The principal causes which rendered these ends unattainable in his case, are thus described by an eye-witness:

economy, was regular in keeping his accounts, knew the value of money, and was in no way disposed to waste it. He was simple in his tastes, careful, and spent very little on himself. 'Tis not true that he threw away his money in fantastic projects and theoretical experiments. He was eminently a practical man. He was, during all the years that I knew him, very liberal, but never extravagant.

To return to his visitors: they came of all nations, at all times, and paid longer or shorter visits. I have known a New England judge bring a letter of introduction to my grandfather, and stay three weeks. The learned Abbé Correa, always a welcome guest, passed some weeks of each year with us during the whole time of his stay in the country. We had persons from abroad, from all the States of the Union, from every part of the State, men, women, and children. In short, almost every day for at least eight months of the year, brought its contingent of guests. People of wealth, fashion, men in office, professional men military and civil, lawyers, doctors, Protestant clergymen, Catholic priests, members of Congress, foreign ministers, missionaries, Indian agents, tourists, travellers, artists, strangers, friends. Some came from affection and respect, some from curiosity, some to give or receive advice or instruction, some from idleness, some because others set the example, and very varied, amusing and agreeable was the society afforded by this influx of guests. I have listened to very remarkable conversations carried on round the table, the fireside, or in the summer drawing-room.

There were few eminent men of our country, except perhaps some political adversaries, who did not visit him in his retirement, to say nothing of distinguished

foreigners. Life at Monticello was on an easy and informal footing. Mr. Jefferson always made his appearance at an early breakfast, but his mornings were most commonly devoted to his own occupations, and it was at dinner, after dinner, and in the evening that he gave himself up to the society of his family and his guests. Visitors were left free to employ themselves as they liked during the morning hours, to walk, read, or seek companionship with the ladies of the family, and each other. M. Correa passed his time in the fields and the woods; some gentlemen preferred the library; others the drawing-room; others the quiet of their own chambers; or they strolled down the mountain side and under the shade of the trees. The ladies in like manner, consulted their ease and inclinations, and whiled away the time as best they might.

All the visitors at Monticello were not of so agreeable a stamp. We have it from an equally authoritative source, that with this constant influx of well-bred guests, came also swarms of impertinent gazers who, without introduction, permission or any ceremony whatever, thrust themselves into the most private of Mr. Jefferson's out-of-door resorts, and even into his house, and stared about as if they were at a public show. This nuisance increased as years advanced. There are a number of persons now living who have seen groups of utter strangers, of both sexes, planted in the passage between his study and diningroom, consulting their watches, and waiting for him to pass from one to the other to his dinner, so that they could momentarily stare at him. A female once punched through a window-pane of the house, with her parasol, to get a better view of him. He was waylaid in his rides and walks. When sitting in the shade of his porticoes to enjoy the coolness of the approaching evening, parties of men and women would sometimes approach within a dozen yards, and gaze at him point-blank until they had looked their fill, as they would have gazed on a lion in a menagerie. And he was compelled to submit to such things, shut himself up in a room, or evince a resentment as foreign from his manners as it was really from his feelings. These intrusions annoyed him, but they excited sensations of regret and pity rather than of anger.

It is painful to record such facts. In nineteen cases out of twenty they were undoubtedly the sins of ignorance instead of intentional impertinence, and at heart were often really the highest compliments which uncultivated men could pay to the great setting political luminary. They wanted to tell their children, and have it told to their grandchildren, that they had seen Thomas Jefferson.

We have already introduced to the reader old Wormley, a grey-haired servant of Mr. Jefferson. We once stood with him before the dilapidated pile of Monticello. The carriage-houses, three in number, were at the moment under our eye. Each would hold a four-horse coach. We inquired" Wormley, how often were these filled, in Mr. Jefferson's time?" "Every night, sir, in summer, and we commonly had two or three carriages under that tree," said he, pointing to a large tree. "It took all hands to take care of your visitors?" we suggested. "Yes, sir, and the whole farm to feed them," was the concise and significant reply. The last was a literal truth, and expressed less than the fact. We find in a list of Mr. Jefferson's allotments of his servants, between farming, mechanical and menial occupations, as early as 1810, that the house servants (including children) numbered thirty-seven. The whole Monticello estate, so far as he had laborers to work it, did not in some years furnish a surplus of food sufficient for his guests, and their horses and servants! The general mode of travelling then in Virginia was on horseback, or by carriages drawn by at least two horses; and strangers who came from a distance, very generally took carriages from some Virginia town. Male and female servants much more commonly accompanied travellers than now. Mrs. Randolph, who presided over the domestic establishment at Monticello, being once asked, what was the greatest number of guests she had ever been called upon to provide beds for over night, replied, "she believed fifty!" Not only was everything which was raised at Monticello thus consumed, or exchanged for articles of consumption, but heavy drafts were often made on the Bedford estate.

And such a horde of fashionable company consume something besides common farm products. When Mr. Jefferson first reached what he fancied was to be retirement, he was asked by his daughter on what scale he desired to live-how he would have the appointments of his table. "I will live like a plain country gentleman," was the answer. But this standard could not be easily followed, under the actual circumstances. A delicious Virginia ham on its bed of greens, engirdled by its rim of eggs (à la Old Dominion), and a slice of chicken or turkey might do very well for a "plain country gentleman's dinner two or three times a week, and these could be had for