included one hundred and thirty-five; the number at Poplar Forest is not given. His sowing of wheat extended to four hundred and twenty bushels. We find no record of the products of the year, and infer from the omission, that they were neither so large nor so small as to occasion particular remark. The farm-book contains the usual particulars and annual estimates in respect to the domestic manufacture of wool, cotton, and hemp. Mr. Jefferson had not yet learned how utterly inadequate this kind of manufacturing would prove to withstand the reflux of importation after the close of the war.

In a letter, of March 2d, 1815, to Jean Baptiste Say, the celebrated French writer on political economy, appear some interesting, because definite and reliable, agricultural, economical, and other statistics of Virginia. Say was contemplating emigrating to America, to engage in cotton manufacturing, and was inclined to select his residence in the immediate neighborhood of Mr. Jefferson. His inquiries drew from the latter the statements from which the following are selected. After giving a scale of the rise in lands from 1793 to 1811, illustrated by particular examples, showing that they ascended, during that period, from four to sixteen dollars, and from seven to twenty dollars per acre, Mr. Jefferson declared that, owing to the "dropsical state of our medium," this did not give a true idea of their actual value, which he supposed to be from twelve to fifteen dollars an acre. The "best farmers, such as Mr. Randolph, his son-in-law," he said, "got from ten to twenty bushels of wheat to the acre; the worst, such as himself, from six to eighteen." The labor of an able-bodied man cost sixty dollars a year, and he was clothed and fed by his employer-a woman half that sum. A good plowhorse was worth fifty or sixty dollars; a draught-ox, from twenty to twenty-five; a milch cow from fifteen to eighteen; a sheep two dollars; beef five cents, mutton and pork seven cents, and butter from twenty to twenty-five cents a pound; a turkey or goose fifty cents; a chicken, eight and one-third cents; and a dozen of eggs the same. We will close the extracts with a word descriptive of his Albemarle neighbors:

"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 neigh bors, 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."

He wrote to Mr. Wendover, March 13th,' some views in respect to the right of the clergy to discuss political questions in the pulpit, which do not appear elsewhere in his writings. He said that human concerns, moral and physical, were so vast, that no person could qualify himself to instruct others in all of them, and that consequently they were divided into departments, each of which might occupy the time and attention of a single individual who purposed to teach them. Thus there were separate teachers of mathematics, medicine, law and religion. Congregations associated together, and employed a religious teacher of their particular sect, and contributed to pay him a salary “for the trouble of delivering them at such periods as they agree on, lessons in the religion they profess." Mr. Jefferson continued:

"If they want instruction in other sciences or arts, they apply to other instructors; and this is generally the business of early life. But I suppose there is not an instance of a single congregation which has employed their preacher for the mixed purposes of lecturing them from the pulpit in Chemistry, in Medicine, in Law, in the science and principles of Government, or in anything but religion exclusively. Whenever, therefore, preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put them off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art or science. In choosing our pastor we look to his religious qualifications, without inquiring into his physical or political dogmas, with which we mean to have nothing to do. I am aware that arguments may be found, which may twist a thread of politics into the cord of religious duties. So may they for every other branch of human art or science. Thus, for example, it is a religious duty to obey the laws of our country; the teacher of religion, therefore, must instruct us in those laws, that we may know how to obey them. It is a religious duty to assist our sick neighbors; the preacher must, therefore, teach us medicine, that we may do it understandingly. It is a religious duty to preserve our own health; our religious teacher, then, must tell us what dishes are wholesome, and give us recipes in cookery, that we may learn how to prepare them. And so, ingenuity, by generalizing more and more, may amalgamate all the branches of science into any one of them, and the physician who is paid to visit the sick, may give a sermon instead of medicine, and the merchant to whom money is sent for a hat, may send a handkerchief instead of it ?""

1 The letter is indorsed "not sent."

He did not deny that a congregation might, if they chose, agree with their preacher

Mr. Jefferson confined this view to abstract or legal rights. There is another one of expediency, in regard to which the opinion of Mr. Burke may be perused with some interest in this connection. He said:

"Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

No sound ought

to be heard in the church but the voice of healing charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them, are for the greater part both ignorant of the character they leave, and of the character they assume. Wholly unacquainted with the world, in which they are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they know nothing of politics but the passions they excite. Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind."

Several letters are addressed to Professor' Girardin, in the early part of 1815, in reference to events to be described in the continuation of Burk's History of Virginia. Girardin was then preparing that work at Milton, two or three miles from Monticello. In one of his letters Mr. Jefferson mentioned how he wished to be treated, during his life, by writers of history:

"As to what is to be said of myself, I of course am not the judge. But my sincere wish is that the faithful historian, like the able surgeon, would consider me in his hands, while living, as a dead subject, that the same judgment may now be expressed which will be rendered hereafter, so far as my small agency in human affairs may attract future notice; and I would of choice now stand as at the bar of posterity. Cum semel occidaris, et de te ultima Minos fecerit arbitria.' The only exact testimony of a man is his actions, leaving the reader to pronounce on them his own judgment. In anticipating this, too little is safer than too much; and I sincerely assure you that you will please me most by a rigorous suppression of all friendly partialities. This candid expression of sentiments once delivered, passive silence becomes the future duty.

He also contributed some materials to Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, during the year. His family remember that he was particularly active during the summer in both indoor and outdoor improvements, inventions, scientific investigations, etc. He

to instruct them in law, or medicine, or politics-but in that case he said, it must be by the consent of every individual member," because the association being voluntary, the mere majority had no right to apply the contributions of the minority to purposes unspecified in the agreement of the congregation." Out of the pulpit, he thought "the preacher had the right, equally with every other citizen, to write or express his sentiments," on politics or other subjects, "his leisure time being his own, and his congregation not obliged to listen to his conversation, or to read his writings."

He was a Professor for a time in William and Mary College-in what department we are not informed.

contrived a leather top for a carriage, which could be readily arranged to exclude rain, or leave the vehicle entirely uncovered and which worked essentially on the plan of the modern extension-top carriage. He invented a machine for breaking hemp, which he first had moved by the gate of his saw-mill, and afterwards by a horse. It answered its purpose completely, and produced a material saving in expense. His fertile ingenuity also gave birth to many minor contrivances. He measured the heights of Monticello and various contiguous hills-and of the peaks of Otter when he made his autumn visit to Poplar Forest. Altogether he spent an active and agreeable year.

In one of his earliest letters in 1816, addressed to his Revolutionary compatriot, the venerable Charles Thomson, he thus described his bodily condition and habits:

"I retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback,' 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 120 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 writingtable 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.'"

In a letter written to John Adams, about three months. afterwards, he shows how well he preserved the elasticity of his early feelings and his characteristic view of human life:

"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

He alluded to a bodily habit, not mentioned here, in a letter to Mr. Maury, June 16th, 1815:

"Your practice of the cold bath thrice a week during the winter, and at the age of seventy, is a bold one, which I should not, à priori, have pronounced salutary. But all theory must yield to experience, and every constitution has its own laws. I have for fifty years bathed my feet in cold water every morning (as you mention), and having been remarkably exempted from colds (not having had one in every seven years of my life on an average), I have supposed it might be ascribed to that practice. When we see two facts accompanying one another for a long time, we are apt to suppose them related as cause and effect."

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. I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of grief could be intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have a useful object. And the perfection of the moral character is, not in a stoical apathy, so hypocritically vaunted, and so untruly too, because impossible, but in a just equilibrium of all the passions. I wish the pathologists then would tell us what is the use of grief in the economy, and of what good it is the cause, proximate or remote."

"There is a ripeness of time for death, regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for another growth. When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another. I enjoy good health; I am happy in what is around me, yet I assure you I am ripe for leaving all, this year, this day, this hour."

Should we suppose that every word in this off-hand correspondence implied settled opinions or ideas-that he wrote nothing in it merely as speculation, to embody the passing doubt of the moment, or to draw out another's opinions and experiencesthat his language never partook of the exaggeration of expression customary in epistolary writing-we should much wonder to hear Mr. Jefferson, in the above extract, asking what were the uses of grief in the moral economy. But that wonder ceases when we remember that in the same paragraph he declared his belief that the world was framed on a principle of benevolence, and when we know that none more uniformly than he felt or expressed complete resignation to the Divine will, under the infliction of the most agonizing griefs which he ever encountered.'

Some of Mr. Jefferson's earliest letters in 1816, were directed against the prevailing bank-mania. He wrote Colonel Yancey, January 6th:

"Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in that state

1 Let the reader turn back for an example to his letter to Governor Page, on the death of Mrs. Eppes. After receiving Mr. Adams's answer to his question above, ho wrote back, August 1st, 1816: "To the question, indeed, on the utility of grief, no answer remains to be given. You have exhausted the subject. I see that with the other evils of life, it is destined to temper the cup we are to drink."