will never relinquish the pleasure of repeating, that, when Mr. Hancock reminded members of the necessity of hanging together, Dr. Franklin was ready with his, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or else, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." And this may have suggested to the portly Harrison - a "luxurious, heavy gentleman," as John Adams describes him his remark to slender Elbridge Gerry, that, when the hanging came, he should have the advantage; for poor Gerry would be kicking in the air long after it was all over with himself.

French critics censure Shakspeare for mingling buffoonery with scenes of the deepest tragic interest. But here we find one of the most important assemblies ever convened, at the supreme moment of its existence, while performing the act that gives it its rank among deliberative bodies, cracking jokes, and hurrying up to the table to sign, in order to get away from the flies. It is precisely so that Shakspeare would have imagined the scene.

No composition of man was ever received with more rapture than this. It came at a happy time. Boston was delivered, and New York, as yet, but menaced; and in all New England there was not a British soldier who was not a prisoner, nor a king's ship that was not a prize. Between the expulsion of the British troops from Boston, and their capture of New York, was the period of the Revolutionary War when the people were most confident and most united. From the newspapers and letters of the times, we should infer that the contest was ending rather than beginning, so exultant is their tone; and the Declaration of Independence, therefore, was received more like a song of triumph than a call to battle.

The paper was signed late on Thursday afternoon, July 4. On the Monday following, at noon, it was publicly read for the first time, in Independence Square, from a platform erected by Rittenhouse for the purpose of observing the transit of Venus. Captain John Hopkins, a young man commanding an armed brig of the navy of the new nation, was the reader; and it required his stentorian voice to carry the words to the distant verge of the multitude who had come to hear it. In the evening, as a journal of the day has it, "our late king's coat-of-arms were brought from the hall of the State House, where the said king's courts were formerly held, and burned amid the acclamations of a crowd of spectators." Similar scenes transpired in every centre of population, and at every camp and post.

Usually the militia companies, the committee of safety, and other revolutionary bodies, marched in procession to some public place, where they listened decorously to the reading of the Declaration, at the conclusion of which cheers were given and salutes fired; and, in the evening, there were illuminations and bonfires. In New York, after the reading, the leaden statue of the late king in Bowling Green was "laid prostrate in the dirt," and ordered to be run into bullets. The debtors in prison were also set at liberty. Virginia, before the news of the Declaration had reached her (July 5, 1776), had stricken the king's name out of the prayer-book; and now (July 30), Rhode Island made it a misdemeanor to pray for the king as king, under penalty of a fine of one hundred thousand pounds!

The news of the Declaration was received with sorrow by all that was best in England. Samuel Rogers used to give American guests at his breakfasts an interesting reminiscence of this period. On the morning after the intelligence reached London, his father, at family prayers, added a prayer for the success of the colonies, which he repeated every day until the peace.

The deed was done. A people not formed for empire ceased to be imperial; and a people destined to empire began the political education that will one day give them far more and better than imperial sway.

Thirteen governments were now to be created, thirteen constitutions formed, thirteen codes established, even thirteen seals engraved. Heavens! what a perplexity some of the new governors were in about a seal! No seal, no commission! Could an ensign or lieutenant's commission have the least validity without a dab of sealing-wax, with some letters and figures stamped upon it? Obviously not. George Wythe and John Page had devised a proper seal for Virginia; but not in all the Province, nor anywhere in America south of the Delaware, was there a person who had the least idea how to engrave it. "Can you get the work done in Philadelphia?" writes Page to his old comrade, Jefferson, in this month of July. "If you can, we must get the favor of you to have it done immediately. . . . The engraver may want to know the size. This you may determine, unless Mr. Wythe should direct the dimensions. He may also be at a loss for a Virtus and Libertas, but you may refer him to Spence's Polymetis, which must be in some library in Philadelphia." The work, however, could not be done there; and

the legislature was obliged to pass an act empowering the governor to issue commissions without a seal, until one could be engraved in Europe. The words to be engraved upon this mystic piece of metal, words suggested by the gentlest and most benevolent of men, George Wythe, acquired a mournful and horrible celebrity in 1865, Sic semper Tyrannis.

While Jefferson was going about Philadelphia in these burning summer days looking for an engraver, he was himself brooding over a design for a seal; Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and himself having been appointed a committee to devise a seal for the central power. But Congress, too, had to do without a seal for some years. The committee, by combining their ideas, achieved a most elaborate design, with the Red Sea in it, and Pharaoh, and a sword, and a pillar, and a cloud brilliant with the hidden presence of God. All of their suggestions were finally rejected, except the very best legend ever appropriated, E Pluribus Unum.

Jefferson could not remain in Congress at such a time. Besides that the condition of his wife and household now made his presence in Virginia, as he said, "indispensably necessary," he had been elected to his old seat in the legislature, where duties of the most interesting nature invited him. Twice he asked to be released, before his request was granted and a successor appointed. In September, 1776, he left Congress, and went home to assist in adjusting old Virginia to the new order of things.

CHAPTER XXII.

JEFFERSON NAMED ENVOY TO FRANCE.

A TEMPTATION crossed Jefferson's path while the Declaration of Independence was still a fresh topic in Christendom. It was a temptation which was, and is, of all others, the most alluring to an American who is young, educated, and fond of art; and it came to him in such a guise of public duty, that, if he had yielded to it, only one person in the world would have blamed him. But the censure of that one would have properly outweighed a world's applause; for it was himself.

This temptation presented itself on the 8th of October, 1776. He had resigned his seat in Congress, and, after spending a few days at home, had proceeded to Williamsburg, where he had taken his seat in the legislature, and was about to engage in the hard and long task of bringing up old Virginia to the level of the age. His heart was set on this work. He wanted to help deliver her from the bondage of outgrown laws, and introduce some of the institutions and usages which had given to New England so conspicuous a superiority over the Southern Colonies. A Virginian, dining one day with John Adams, lamented the inferiority of his State to New England. "I can give you," said Mr. Adams, "a receipt for making a New England in Virginia. Town-meetings, training-days, town-schools, and ministers; the meeting-house, schoolhouse, and training-field are the scenes where New-England men were formed." Probably Mr. Jefferson had heard his friend Adams say something of the kind. He was now intent upon purging the Virginia statutebooks of unsuitable laws, and founding institutions in accord with the recent events.

Young as he was, he had had some training now in practical statesmanship. That sharp experience in Congress, while his draught of the

Declaration of Independence was edited of its crudities, redundancies, and imprudences, was salutary to him. It completed the preliminary part of his education as a public man, a public man being one who has to do, not with what is ideally best, but with the best attainable; not to give eloquent expression to his own ideas, but effective expression to the will of his constituents. He wrote little that needed severe pruning after July 4, 1776, though he was still to propose many things that were unattainable. A truly wise, bold, safe, competent public man is one of the slowest formations in human nature; but when formed, there is only one man more precious, the philosopher, who is the common teacher of legislators and constituents. If there had been such a philosopher in Virginia just then, he would have smiled, perhaps, at the noble enthusiasm of these young Virginians, who were about to try to make a New England out of a State in which the laboring majority were only too likely to remain slaves.

But it belongs to the generous audacity of youth to attempt the impossible. Here at Williamsburg, in this October, 1776, were gathered once more the circle of Virginia liberals who had been working together against the exactions of the king. Patrick Henry was governor now, living in "the palace," and enjoying the old viceregal salary of a thousand pounds a year. George Wythe, from service in Congress, had acquired experience and distinction. It was he who began the constitution-making in which Virginia had been engaged during much of this year. In January, while spending an evening with Mr. John Adams at Philadelphia, and hearing him discourse, in his robust and ancient-Briton manner, of the constitution proper for a free State, George Wythe asked him to put the substance of his ideas upon paper. Mr. Adams gave him, in consequence, his "Thoughts upon Government;" which were the best thoughts on that subject of Locke, Milton, Algernon Sidney, James Otis, and John Adams. How congenial to Mr. Adams such a piece of work! "The best lawgivers of antiquity," said he, "would rejoice to live at a period like this, when, for the first time in the history of the world, three millions of people were deliberately choosing their government and institutions." Patrick Henry was well pleased with the "Thoughts." "It shall be my incessant study," he wrote to Mr. Adams, "so to form our portrait of government, that a kindred with New England may be