more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in a readjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his. character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed, refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and anyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble, the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation; his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a suddey opinion, he was unrealy, short, and embarrassed. Yet

he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and with journalizing his agricultural proceedings occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect; in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example."

No. VII.

JEFFERSON'S OPINION OF PLATO.

He speaks most contemptuously of the "whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work;" and says he often asked himself how the world could have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense. He thus

"In

accounts for Plato's influence among the moderns. truth he is one of the race of genuine sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first, by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind is ever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen through a mist, can be defined neither in form nor dimension. Yet this, which should have consigned him to early oblivion, really procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mys ticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them and for this obvious reason, that nonsense cannot be explained."

Without denying that the sublimated speculations of Plato, in the main, merit the severe censure bestowed on them by Mr. Jefferson, another explanation may be given for the favor which this philosopher found among the earlier Christian writers, without supposing it was the result of settled design. First, on account of his pure and lofty theism, and next because his mystical fancies could be made. to harmonize with some of the more subtle doctrines which the controversies of the Christian sects had engendered; and which were thus more readily received by the scholars of the age, when recommended by an authority of such celebrity

No. VIII.

JEFFERSON'S RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF LIFE.

MR. JEFFERSON wrote a letter to his namesake, Thomas Jefferson Smith, of Washington, at the instance of his father, who requested him to address something to his son which might have a salutary influence on his future life, when he could understand it. More solid advice was never conveyed in so small a compass, and no one could have a better chance for respectability or happiness who would faithfully observe these precepts. Those which respect his religious and moral character are six. 1. Adore God. 2. Reverence and cherish your parents. 3. Love your neighbor as yourself, your country more than yourself 4. Be just. 5. Be true. 6. Murmur not at the ways of

Providence.

He also gives him ten canons for the regulation of his practical life They were-1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 3. Never spend your money before you have it. 4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. 5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 6. We never repent of having eaten too little. 7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. 9. Take things by the smooth handle. 10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

He also cited to him for his imitation, the translation of one of the Psalms, beginning, "Lord, who's the happy

JEFFERSON S CORRESPONDENCE AFTER RETIREMENT. 353

man ;" which he calls "the portrait of a good man by the most sublime of poets."

No. IX.

JEFFERSON'S CORRESPONDENCE AFTER HIS RETIREMENT.

ONE of the inconveniences felt by Mr. Jefferson, from the conspicuous part he had acted in public affairs, as well as from his popularity, was the number of letters with which he was importuned. This tax, in a greater or less degree, every ex-president must pay; but no one, unless perhaps General Washington, was ever called upon to pay it to the same extent as Mr. Jefferson. He sorely complains of it in a letter to Mr. Adams, dated June 27, 1822. “I do not know how far you may suffer, as I do, under the persecution of letters, of which every mail brings a fresh load. They are letters of inquiry for the most part, always of goodwill, sometimes from friends whom I esteem, but much oftener from persons whose names are unknown to me, but written kindly and civilly, and to which, therefore, civility requires answers. Perhaps the better known failure of your hand in its function of writing, may shield you in greater degree from this distress, and so far qualify the misfortune of its disability. I happened to turn to my letter list some time ago, and a curiosity was excited to count those received in a single year. It was the year before lust. I found the number to be one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven, many of them requiring answers of elabo rate research, and all to be answered with due attention