from that of the round horned elk than I ever saw two skins differ which belonged to different individuals of any wild species. These differences are in the colour, length and coarseness of the hair, and in the size, texture, and marks of the skin.”

Again after tabling the various squirrels, gray, black, red, etc. with their weights, he writes: "I have enumerated the squirrels according to my own knowledge derived from daily sight of them." Of Catesby's American Birds, we are told: "his drawings are better as to form and attitude than colouring, which is generally too high." Jefferson knew the popular as well as the Latin names of all Virginian birds from bald eagle and turkey buzzard down to wren and humming bird, and enumerated a score unnoticed by Catesby. His knowledge of insects appears in disquisitions on bees and weevils. His letters teem with observations on the whole vegetable and animal kingdom. He pursued agriculture as a science, and gardened as a botanist.

A naturalist is not often a successful politician; for the proper study of mankind is man. But Jefferson's mind seems to have expanded eagerly and easily as new fields of inquiry opened before it. His curiosity was universal; to satisfy it he employed unusual talents and exceptional industry. The tastes and interests of boyhood developed into hobbies and scientific pursuits. Nothing in his life will astonish us more than the variety of his aptitudes. A gift for languages, a gift for mathematics and mechanics, a profound interest in law and custom, a passion for music and architecture, all these were indulged and pursued through the stress and strain of a most arduous public life. We shall not try to distinguish the qualities he inherited from the qualities he acquired. He was happy alike in his birth and his birthplace. But there

is nothing far-fetched or fanciful in supposing that a joyous, healthy boyhood spent mostly with nature gave him that strength and flexibility of mind and body which distinguished Jefferson even among the giants of that heroic

age.

CHAPTER II

AT COLLEGE

"To scorn delights and live laborious days."

MILTON

y the death of his father, Jefferson, a boy of fourteen, was thrown on his own resources without a relative or friend qualified to advise or guide him. Recalling this long afterwards in a letter to his eldest grandson, remembering also "the various sorts of bad company with which I was associated from time to time," he wrote: "I am astonished that I did not turn off with some of them and become as worthless to society as they

His father had left him an estate and a classical education. He prized them both. No man ever enjoyed home and home life more. In later years he always left his beloved and beautiful Monticello with reluctance, and returned with a joyful heart. Yet in old age he was often heard to say that if he had to choose between the pleasure derived from his classical studies and his property, he would decide for the former.

Jefferson's second schoolmaster, James Maury, a correct classical scholar, was a Whig clergyman of broad views, who lived fourteen miles from Shadwell at the foot of Peter's Mountain. Maury was of Huguenot extraction, and had come to Virginia as tutor to the Monroe family. His fee for board and tuition was twenty pounds a year

rather a high figure at that time, and four pounds more than Douglas charged. But we may suppose that the diet as well as the instruction was better; for Jefferson used to tell his grandchildren of the "mouldy pies" at his first boarding school.

After two years under Maury Jefferson wrote a letter, the earliest we possess, to his guardian, John Harvey. It was dated Shadwell, January 14, 1760:

Sir: I was at Colo. Peter Randolph's about a fortnight ago, and my schooling falling into discourse, he said he thought it would be to my Advantage to go to the College, and was desirous I should go, as indeed I am myself for several Reasons. In the first place, as long as I stay at the Mountain, the loss of one-fourth of my Time is inevitable, by Company's coming here and detaining me from School. And likewise my Absence will, in a great measure, put a Stop to so much Company, and by that means lessen the Expenses of the Estate in Housekeeping. And on the other Hand by going to the College I shall get a more universal Acquaintance, which may hereafter be serviceable to me; and I suppose I can pursue my Studies in the Greek and Latin as well there as here, and likewise learn something of the Mathematics. I shall be glad of your Opinion,

And remain, Sir,

Your most humble servant,
Thomas Jefferson, Jr.

His guardian consented, and accordingly in the spring of 1760, being then just seventeen, Jefferson went to William and Mary College, where he was speedily beset by all the temptations that assailed and still assail young gentlemen of wealth in Virginia and elsewhere. On his way to college, we are told, he spent some merry days with Colonel Dandridge of Hanover county, "in junketing, dancing and high jinks of all sorts." Here he met for the first time a youth who was destined to set Liberty aflame. Patrick Henry - for it was no other lived near by and enjoyed

close intimacy with Dandridge. Though only twenty-four he had already failed in business. As Jefferson wrote long afterwards to Henry's biographer, Wirt: "Mr. Henry had a little before broken up his store, or rather it had broken him up." But if his purse was empty, his heart was light. He fiddled and danced, jested and rollicked with a gaiety which enchanted the youngsters. Henry's dress and manners betokened the rude life of the backwoods. His great delight, wrote Jefferson, "was to put on his hunting shirt, collect a parcel of overseers and such. like people, and spend weeks together in the piny woods, camping at night and cracking jokes round a light wood fire." He spoke with a mixed brogue-"larnin'” for learning, and "nateral" for natural. Jefferson was attracted by talents and a character so unlike his own. A short time afterwards Patrick Henry appeared in Williamsburg. He had "studied" law for a few weeks, and had prevailed upon the Examiners to grant him a license to practice at the Virginian Bar. His natural eloquence and abilities, often displayed in bold opposition to the Crown, soon won him such a reputation that in 1765 he was elected by Louisa county to the House of Burgesses. On his visits to court at Williamsburg Henry used to stop with Jefferson, and the two friends soon began to share unusually advanced views about political and/ religious liberty.

Williamsburg, where Jefferson was to work for the next fifteen years, is situated between the York river and the James river. Jamestown, the old capital, had never thriven; so in 1699 it was decided to transfer the seat of government to a more salubrious spot. A site for the new city, named after the reigning monarch, was selected in true English fashion by a jury of twelve freeholders.