our country, far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with it the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the West to the Pacific ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source of permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue. These are points in your administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand, and teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget our peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of uncommon difficulty and trial; the good will cultivated with the unfortunate aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended among them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary, that we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments, and awing them into justice; and that theme, on which, above all others, the historic genius will hang with rapture, the liberty of speech and of the press, preserved inviolate, without which genius and science are given to man in vain.

In the principles on which you have administered the government, we see only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities, which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny, until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same uniform, consistent character, the same warm and devoted attachment to liberty and the republic, the same Roman love of your country, her rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity.

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How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your country, and proofs the most decisive, of the love, the gratitude, the veneration of your countrymen.

That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and useful; that our youth may see, in the blissful close of your days, an additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout and earnest prayer of your fellow-citizens who compose the general assembly of Virginia.'

Thus terminated the political career of one who had been a principal agent of two revolutions, and an eyewitness of a third; of one who, from his entrance into manhood, had continued the advocate of principles, which, first discarded, next endured, then embraced, had eventually swayed the destinies of his country through the perilous and successive convulsions of transformation from a monarchical to a free structure of government, and of deliverance from the fatal catastrophe of a counter-revolution, in the last extremities of exhaustion, despair, and self-abandonment; who had lived to see the energies of those principles so extensively transfused into the very sycophants of the tyrants of the old world, temporal and spiritual, as that the earth was every where shaking under their feet; and who, at last, enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his name become the synonym of political orthodoxy at home, and the watch-word of the aspirants for its attainment, in all parts of the civilized world.

Bright are the memories link'd with thee,
BOAST of a glory-hallowed land,

HOPE of the valiant and the free.'

Thus had he performed his distinguished course, and thus, full of years and covered with glory, he was ready as to all political affairs, to utter his favorite invocation : Nunc dimittas, Domine - Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'

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CHAPTER XIV.

IN repairing with so much eagerness to the shades of his native mountains, it seems not to have entered the mind of Mr Jefferson to relax his efforts for the benefit of mankind, but to divert them into another channel. His whole life, he was in the habit of remarking, had been at war with his natural taste, feelings and wishes. Circumstances had led him along, step by step, the path he had trodden.

His was not the retirement of one who sought refuge from the pangs of disappointed ambition, and the world's mockery of them, in the resource of oblivion and stoical insensibility; or who coveted repose from the turbulence of the scene, to indulge in indolence. No, his was the voluntary seclusion of one, 'who,' as it has been beautifully said, had well filled a noble part in public life, from which he was prepared and anxious to withdraw ; who sought retirement to gratify warm affections, and to enjoy his well earned fame; who desired to turn those thoughts which had been necessarily restrained and limited, to the investigation of all the sources of human happiness and enjoyment; who felt himself surrounded, in his fellow citizens, by a circle of affectionate friends, and had not to attribute to a rude expulsion from the theatre of ambition, his sincere devotion to the pursuits of agriculture and philosophy; and who, receiving to the last moment of his existence continued proofs of admiration and regard, which penetrated his remote retirement, devoted the remainder of his days to record those

various reflections for which the materials had been collected and treasured up, unknown to himself, on the long and various voyage of his life.'

In the possession of undecayed intellectual powers, and a physical strength unsubdued by the labors which 'the history of a wonderful era had made incumbent on him,' he devoted the remnant of his days to unlocking all the store-houses of knowledge, and dispensing their treasures to the generation who had succeeded him on the theatre of public affairs; and to laying the foundations for the still greater extension of science by the establishment of a seminary of learning which should rival the institutions of Cambridge and Oxford.

To give a few choice selections from his cabinet, developing the OPINIONS of the Monticellian philosopher, on questions interesting and important to mankind, and which have not yet been brought into special review; his observations on the distinguished characters with whom he acted or came in contact, in the course of his career; on the parties and political occurrences of the passing day; his daily occupations and habits of living -all expressed in the freedom of private and unrestrained confidence, seems the most satisfactory method of supplying that portion of his history, for which the materials are of too abstract a nature to be adapted to historical narrative. The quotations must be necessarily limited, but possess great interest and value.

THE CONSTITUTION — POPULAR RIGHTS.-'Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to -be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book reading and this they would say themselves were they to

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rise from the dead. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principle in them. Though we may say with confidence, that the worst of the American constitutions is better than the best which ever existed before in any other country, and they are wonderfully perfect for a first essay, yet every human essay must have defects. It will remain therefore to those now coming on the stage of public affairs to perfect what has been so well begun by those going off it. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know, also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual changes of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence, rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs. Let us avail ourselves of our reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well meaning councils. And, lastly, let us provide in our constitu