bery, and eleven colored servants stowed away in convenient spots on the various summits, followed by the president's four-horse carriage. In this last vehicle rode Mr. Bacon, and thus caught some of the roadside "ovations" intended for another. The worthy manager was nearly three weeks in getting home through the mud. and storm of a cold, dismal spring; so that Mr. Jefferson overtook him at Culpeper Court-House, though he did not start till the wagons had been a week on the road.

"On our way home," Bacon reports, "it snowed very fast, and when we reached Culpeper Court-House it was half-leg deep. A large crowd of people had collected there, expecting that the president would be along. When I rode up, they thought I was the president, and shouted and hurrahed tremendously. When I got out of the carriage, they laughed very heartily at their mistake. There was a platform along the whole front of the tavern, and it was full of people. Some of them had been waiting a good while, and drinking a good deal; and they made so much noise, that they scared the horses, and Diomede backed, and trod upon my foot, and lamed me so that I could hardly get into the carriage the next morning. There was one very tall old fellow, that was noisier than any of the rest, who said he was bound to see the president, 'Old Tom,' he called him. They asked me when he would be along; and I told them I thought he would certainly be along that night, and I looked for him every moment. The tavern was kept by an old man named Shackleford. I told him to have a large fire built in a private room, as Mr. Jefferson would be very cold when he got there; and he did so. I soon heard shouting, went out, and Mr. Jefferson was in sight. He was in a one-horse vehicle, a phaeton, — with a driver, and a servant on horseback. When he came up, there was great cheering again. I motioned to him to follow me; took him straight to his room, and locked the door. The tall old fellow came and knocked very often, but I would not let him in. I told Mr. Jefferson not to mind him, he was drunk. Finally the door was opened, and they rushed in and filled the room. It was as full as I ever saw a bar-room. He stood up, and made a short address to them. Afterwards some of them told him how they had mistaken me for him. He went on next day, and reached Monticello before we did.”

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But not till he had encountered another snow-storm, still more

violent. "As disagreeable a snow-storm as I was ever in," wrote Jefferson. During the last-three days of the journey he was glad to abandon his phaeton and take to one of his horses. On reaching Monticello, he found that his sixty-six years had not sensibly lessened the vigor of his frame; for this rough journey had done him no harm which a night's rest could not repair.

CHAPTER LXIX.

AT MONTICELLO.

AFTER his retirement from the presidency, in 1809, Jefferson lived seventeen years. He was still the chief personage of the United States. Between himself and the president there was such a harmony of feeling and opinion, that the inauguration of Madison did little more than change the signature to public documents. Madison consulted him on every important question; and Jefferson, besides writing frequently and at length, rode over to Orange every year, when the president was at home, and spent two or three weeks at his house. When there was dissension in the cabinet, it was Jefferson who restored harmony. Monroe was in ill-humor because Madison had been preferred before himself by the nominating caucus. It was Jefferson who healed the breach, and thus prevented one in the Republican party. During the gloom of 1815, many Republicans desired a candidate for the presidency of more executive energy than Mr. Madison was then supposed to have; and Jefferson was himself solicited from many quarters to accept a nomination. He said, with convincing power, "What man can do will be done by Mr. Madison." In the same year the president proposed that he should return to the office of secretary of state, and Monroe become secretary of war; but he pleaded his sixty-nine years as an excuse for declining the invitation.

The success in public life of these two men, Madison and Monroe, whose early education he had assisted, as well as the bright career which his nephews and sons-in-law were enjoying, induced other young men to seek his advice and assistance. "A part of my occupation," he wrote to General Kosciuszko in 1810, "and by no means the least pleasing, is the direction of the studies of such young men as ask it. They place themselves in the neighboring village,

and have the use of my library and counsel, and make a part of my society. In advising the course of their reading, I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. So that coming to bear a share in the councils and government of their country, they will keep ever in view the sole objects of all legitimate government."

Monticello ovorflowed with guests during all these years. The circle of those who had a right to seek its hospitality was very large; and many foreigners of distinction felt their American experience incomplete until they had paid a pilgrimage to the author of the Declaration of Independence. But these were but a small portion of the throng of guests whom the custom of the country brought to Monticello during the summer months. His daughter, Mrs. Randolph, said once that she had been obliged to provide beds for as many as fifty inmates; and Mr. Randall tells us of one friend who came from abroad with a family of six persons, and remained at Monticello ten months. It fell to the manager, Mr. Edmund Bacon, to keep the mountain-top supplied with sustenance for this crowd of people, and the animals that carried and drew them. Mr. Bacon did not enjoy it, and he has since availed himself of an opportunity to relieve his mind.

"After Mr. Jefferson returned from Washington," he relates, "he was for years crowded with visitors, and they almost ate him out of house and home. They were there all times of the year; but about the middle of June the travel would commence from the lower part of the State to the Springs, and then there was a perfect throng of visitors. They travelled in their own carriages, and came in gangs, the whole family, with carriage and riding horses and servants; sometimes three or four such gangs at a time. We had thirty-six stalls for horses, and only used about ten of them for the stock we kept there. Very often all of the rest were full, and I had to send horses off to another place. I have often sent a wagon-load of hay up to the stable, and the next morning there would not be enough left to make a hen's-nest. I have killed a fine beef, and it would all be eaten in a day or two. There was no tavern in all that country that had so much company. Mrs. Randolph, who always lived with Mr. Jefferson after his return from Washington, and kept house for him, was very often greatly perplexed to entertain them. I have

known her many and many a time to have every bed in the house full. I finally told the servant who had charge of the stable to only give the visitors' horses half allowance. Somehow or other Mr. Jefferson heard of this: I never could tell how, unless it was through some of the visitors' servants. He countermanded my orders. One great reason why Mr. Jefferson built his house at Poplar Forest, in Bedford County, was that he might go there in the summer to get rid of entertaining so much company. He knew that it more than used up all his income from the plantation and every thing else; but he was so kind and polite that he received all his visitors with a smile, and made them welcome. They pretended to come out of respect and regard to him; but I think that the fact that they saved a tavernbill had a good deal to do with it with a good many of them. I can assure you I got tired of seeing them come, and waiting on them."

Such was the custom of old Virginia; and a very bad, cruel custom it was. All this, too, at a period when non-intercourse and war had reduced the income of Virginia planters two-thirds, and when Mr. Jefferson had a Washington debt of many thousand dollars to provide for. But, among this multitude of visitors, there were a large number whose company he keenly enjoyed; nor would he permit his guests to rob him of his working-hours. From breakfast to dinner, he let them amuse themselves as best they could while he toiled at his correspondence and rode over his farms. From dinner-time he gave himself up to social enjoyment. I may well speak of his correspondence as toil. One thousand and sixty-seven letters he received in one year, which was not more than the average. After his death, there were found among his papers twenty-six thousand letters addressed to him, and copies of sixteen thousand written by him.

To complete his character as a personage, it should be mentioned that the Federalists still bestowed upon him the distinction of an animosity such as, perhaps, virtuous men never before entertained for one of their number. I look with wonder upon the publications spread out before me at this moment, issued during the time of nonintercourse and war, Jefferson being the theme. Here are two octavo volumes of vituperation, entitled "Memoirs of the Hon. Thomas Jefferson," published in New York several months after his retirement, and opening thus: "The illustrious Dr. Robertson, in a letter