not so long protracted; in 1796 it was partially, and in 1816 wholly adopted by the Virginian legislature. In another favourite scheme he was more successful. The English law against perpetuities had strangely been modified, or rather abrogated, in Virginia, in the reign of Queen Anne; so that there was no power of cutting off an entail by fine or recovery, or in any other way than by a private or estate bill. Early in the Revolutionary war Jefferson succeeded in repealing this colonial law, and he soon after also obtained an abrogation of the law of primogeniture. The effect of the change has been great, and has spread universally in Virginia. Men's disposition of their property has followed the legal provision; no one thinks of making an eldest son his general heir; a corresponding division of wealth has taken place; there is no longer a class living in luxurious indulgence, while others are dependant and poor; you no longer see so many great equipages, but you meet every where with carriages sufficient for use and comfort; and though formerly some families possessed more plate than any one house can now show, the whole plate in the country (says a late historian) is increased forty if not fiftyfold. It is affirmed with equal confidence, that though the class of over-refined persons has been exceedingly curtailed, if not exterminated, the number of well-educated people has been incalculably increased. Nor does a session pass without disclosing talents, which, sixty or seventy years ago, would have been deemed so rare as to carry a name from south to north of the Union.

Jefferson, however, was not more zealous in promoting all measures which might prevent the growth of aristocratic distinctions and maintain the level of republican equality, than he was in furthering whatever might tend to complete religious liberty, with which he conscientiously deemed an established church to be incompatible. Upon this subject we may entertain a very different opinion, and may, with the most entire devotion to the principles of toleration, be able to descry dangers to those principles from the zeal of sects, as well as from the preponderance of a State Church. No one who contemplates the intolerance exercised during the times of the Commonwealth in this country can repose any great reliance upon the meekness or the liberality of conflicting sectaries, while it must be admitted by all men, even by candid dissenters, that the established Church is a

mild ruler to those within her pale, a quiet and inoffensive neighbour to those without. But how far a church establishment is compatible with purely republican institutions is a very different question; and it would be most rash to condemn Jefferson's persevering efforts for eradicating all ecclesiastical privileges, when we reflect that he was acting as a strict, even a stern, republican. The clergy of Virginia had from the earliest settlement of the colony been endowed not only with tithe but with a parochial assessment, although the proportion of dissenters had increased to almost an equality with the numbers of the churchmen. It was not till the year 1799 that Jefferson's efforts were crowned with entire success, and the last marks of preference to one church over the rest were finally effaced. They who agreed with him in opinion upon this important subject maintain confidently that all remains of religious intolerance have been extinguished by those measures, and that the means of spiritual instruction have been greatly extended; but how far the cause of sound and rational religion generally has gained, can only be ascertained by the experience of a longer time.

After having for two years held the office of Governor of Virginia by election, Jefferson was in 1782 chosen to represent that State in Congress. But it was no longer the same body in which he had acted during the tempestuous period of the Revolution, when it consisted only of 50 or 60 persons, all men of business, men of action. He was abundantly sensible of the difference, and looking back on the days when "the Washingtons and the Franklins were wont at once to seize the great point of a question, leaving the little ones to follow of themselves, and never treat two arguments at a time," he adds, "if the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question every thing, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?" From this scene he was not sorry to be released by accepting the mission to Paris, where he remained as minister of the United States from 1784 till 1790. The interest which he took in the great Revolution may well be conceived, intimately connected as it was with the American independence; but his foresight of its progress was not clearer than other men's, for he never doubted that a year after his return to America would see the "certain and happy termination of the struggle for liberty."

He now, at Washington's earnest request, overcame the hearty desire which he had of retiring into private life, and became his Secretary of State. If any one could doubt that great man's sincerely republican feelings, this anxiety for the introduction into his cabinet of the very chief of the democratic party must at once dispel all such fancies. The able and virtuous leader of the Federalists in that cabinet was Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Knox, the Secretary at War, joined him; while Randolph, the Attorney-General, sided with Jefferson. But Washington, taking part with neither, held the balance even between them with the scrupulous justice which marked his lofty nature, and with the firm hand which he of all men most possessed. It is strange, it is melancholy, to see the folly of sanguine men in pertinaciously believing that those things have a real existence which they vehemently wish were true. Because Washington never took part with the French faction, and kept aloof from the more violent movements of the democratic party, and because Hamilton and others of the Federalists despaired of a republican government being practicable, or at least permanent, in a great community, the party in this country most opposed to popular institutions, and who retained a hankering after monarchical government in America. must needs flatter themselves that there remained in the United States a leaning towards the British yoke, and that at all events the illustrious President as well as the Federalist chiefs were friendly to kingly power. The truth is, that even Hamilton, the most open admirer of our institutions, never dreamed of giving them another trial in America, until all attempt to establish a lasting republic should be found to fail. His words were remarkable in recommending that all other modifications of popular government should be tried before recourse was again had to monarchy. "That mind," he said, "must be really depraved which would not prefer the equality of poli tical rights, the foundation of pure republicanism, if it were to be obtained eventually with order." Accordingly each year that what he regarded as the great, though not very promising experiment, continued without a failure each year that the American constitution proved sufficient for the government of the rapidly-extending people-diminished those apprehensions upon which alone his opinion rested. But Washington never felt any such fears, and wanted no

experience to confirm his deliberate purpose of a republic. Towards England he never felt any sentiments but those of distrust and alienation; and his well-considered judgment respecting a return to monarchy may be easily gathered from his remarkable expression when endeavouring to prevent Jefferson's resignation in 1793, even after the excesses of the French Revolution had lessened the number of republicans every where," that he did not believe there were ten men in the United States for a monarchy." They who flattered themselves that Washington was disposed to content those ten may be classed with the men whose sanguine temperament no disappointments can cure,-the class among whom, to the lasting misfortune of this country, Mr. Pitt held an eminent place, as he showed when a friend carried him a letter from Geneva, mentioning the assembling of an army of reserve near Dijon, and received for answer from the minister, that "he must have a very disaffected correspondent." The army, whose existence at Dijon was thus deemed impossible, because it was unpleasant, in less than a month after decided the fate of Europe at Marengo.

When Washington resigned, Jefferson was proposed for the Presidency, but Adams obtained it, and he was chosen Vice-President. At the expiration of Adams's four years, Jefferson succeeded him; and set an example to all party chiefs when promoted to power. He made it his rule never either to remove an adversary because his own partisans required it, or to retain one because his enemies threatened and assailed him. He pursued his own course, regardless of the taunts from one party or the importunity of the other; and, although exposed to more unmeasured abuse than any man that ever filled his high station, he lived to see full justice done him, and the firm and manly course of his adminis tration generally approved. It is profitable to consider such an example; and they who are unable to follow it, respecting measures as well as men, may be well assured that they mistook their vocation when they assumed to direct the councils of their country. Whoever suffers himself to be seduced or deterred from the path of his duty, does not rule, but obey; he usurps the place of others; he pretends to guide, when he slavishly follows; but he puts forth false pretences, and would be understood to act for himself, while he is but a tool in other men's hands, he meanly un

dertaking the responsibility for the profit or the patronage, they dictating his conduct while they skulk in the dark. It is a compact equally dishonouring both the parties, and of which the country whose best interests are sacrificed by it has the most just right to complain.

Although Jefferson retired from public life at the close of his second presidency, in 1806, his days were prolonged for twenty years beyond that period, and these he passed on his estate in Virginia, superintending agricultural improvements, and watching over the university which he had founded and which he regarded with unceasing parental care. Like the other chief magistrates of the Republic, he retired without any fortune, and his property was at his decease found barely sufficient to pay his debts. It was a singular and affecting coincidence, that when the people were assembled in countless numbers to celebrate the Fiftieth anniversary of the American Independence, the passing-bell should toll of Adams, one of the last surviving patriots who had signed the memorable act of the Fourth of July. On that day he expired; but it was after a few days found, that at the same time another of the patriarchs of the New World had also rested from his labours: the author of that famous instrument had, on the same day, closed his earthly course, in his 84th year.

It is impossible to close the page of history which records. the foundation of the Great Republic, without adverting to the singular change that seems of late years to have come over some friends of liberty in this country, inclining them against the popular institutions which that system consecrates, and upon which it reposes. Writers of ability, but scantily endowed with candour, observers of moderate circumspection, men labouring under the prejudices of European society, and viewing the social system of the New World through the medium of habits and associations peculiar to that of the Old, have brought back for our information a number of details, for which they needed hardly to cross the Atlantic, and have given up as discoveries a relation of matters necessarily existing under a very popular government, and in a very new community. As those travellers had pretty generally failed to make many con