edge; and again he indulges his sanguine humor by predicting that "Unitarianism will, ere long, be the religion of the majority, from north to south."

In matters political he remained to the last what he was in 1800. He could not relish Scott's novels, because they concealed, as he thought, the ugly truth of the past under an alluring guise of the romantic and picturesque. He disliked the robber Norman, loved the industrial Saxon. As for Hume's History of England, and Blackstone's Commentaries, he never ceased to hate them. "They have made Tories," he wrote, "of all England, and are making Tories of those young Americans whose native feelings of independence do not place them above the wily sophistries of a Hume or a Blackstone. These two books, but especially the former, have done more towards the suppression of the liberties of man than all the million of men in arms of Bonaparte and the millions of human lives with the sacrifice of which he will stand loaded before the judgment-seat of his Maker." He said, too, that, while he feared nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force, he had fears of the influence of English books, English prejudices, English manners, and their apes and dupes among professional men. He remained a free-trader to the end. The longer he lived the more he felt the necessity of a subdivision of territory, like the town-system of New England, under which each citizen belongs to a small body of voters, with whom he can conveniently co-operate, and who can be assembled without delay or difficulty. He would have divided a city of the size of New York into three hundred wards. He also became perfectly aware of the truth, since demonstrated in so many ways and places, that universal suffrage, where a majority of the voters are grossly ignorant, tends to put the scoundrel at the summit of affairs. In commenting upon a new constitution proposed for Spain, he said there was one provision .n it "which would immortalize its inventors." That provision disfranchised every man, who, after a certain epoch, could not read and write.

CHAPTER LXXI.

VISITORS AT MONTICELLO, AND FAMILY REMINISCENCES.

THE reader may naturally desire to linger a moment longer upon the summit of the little mount, where, for the long period of sixty years, such a joyous, intelligent, and dignified life was lived. Among the visitors who thronged thither during the last years of Mr. Jefferson's life were several persons of note who recorded their recollections. Mr. Randall has gathered from surviving descendants of the family many pleasing reminiscences, and from them also I will borrow a trait or two.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A GRAND-DAUGHTER.

Books were at all times his chosen companions, and his acquaintance with many languages gave him great power of selection. He read Homer, Virgil, Dante, Corneille, Cervantes, as he read Shakspeare and Milton. In his youth he had loved poetry; but, by the time I was old enough to observe, he had lost his taste for it, except for Homer and the great Athenian tragics, which he continued to the last to enjoy. He went over the works of schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides not very long before I left him (the year before his death). Of history he was very fond; and this he studied in all languages, though always, I think, preferring the ancients. In fact, he derived more pleasure from his acquaintance with Greek and Latin than from any other resource of literature; and I have often heard him express his gratitude to his father for causing him to receive a classical education. I saw him more frequently with a volume of the classics in his hand than with any other book. Still he read new publications as they came out, never missed the new number of a

review, especially of the Edinburgh, and kept himself acquainted with what was being done, said, or thought in the world from which he had retired.

He loved farming and gardening, the fields, the orchards, and his asparagus-beds. Every day he rode through his plantation and walked in his garden. In the cultivation of the last he took great pleasure. Of flowers, too, he was very fond. One of my early recollections is of the attention which he paid to his flower-beds. He kept up a correspondence with persons in the large cities, particularly, I think, in Philadelphia, for the purpose of receiving supplies of roots and seeds both for his kitchen and flower garden. I remember well, when he first returned to Monticello, how immediately he began to prepare new beds for his flowers. He had these beds laid off on the lawn, under the windows; and many a time I have run after him when he went out to direct the work, accompanied by one of his gardeners, generally Wormley, armed with spade and hoe, while he himself carried the measuring-line.

I was too young to aid him, except in a small way; but my sister, Mrs. Bankhead, then a young and beautiful woman, was his active and useful assistant. I remember the planting of the first hyacinths and tulips, and their subsequent growth. The roots arrived labelled, each one with a fancy name. There was "Marcus Aurelius" and the "King of the Gold Mine," the "Roman Empress" and the "Queen of the Amazons," "Psyche," the "God of Love," &c. Eagerly, and with childish delight, I studied this brilliant nomenclature, and wondered what strange and surprisingly beautiful creations I should see arising from the ground when spring returned; and these precious roots were committed to the earth under my grandfather's own eye, with his beautiful grand-daughter Anne standing by his side, and a crowd of happy young faces, of younger grandchildren, clustering round to see the progress, and inquire anxiously the name of each separate deposit.

Then, when spring returned, how cagerly we watched the first appearance of the shoots above ground! Each root was marked with its own name written on a bit of stick by its side; and what joy it was for one of us to discover the tender green breaking through the mould, and run to grandpapa to announce that we really believed Marcus Aurelius was coming up, or the Queen of the Amazons was above ground! With how much pleasure, compounded of our pleas

ure and his own, on the new birth, he would immediately go out to verify the fact, and praise us for our diligent watchfulness.

Then, when the flowers were in bloom, and we were in ecstasies over the rich purple and crimson, or pure white, or delicate lilac, or pale yellow of the blossoms, how he would sympathize with our admiration, or discuss with my mother and elder sister new groupings and combinations and contrasts! Oh, these were happy moments for us and for him!

It was in the morning, immediately after our early breakfast, that he used to visit his flower-beds and his garden. As the day, in summer, grew warmer, he retired to his own apartments, which consisted of a bed-chamber and library opening into each other. Here he remained until about one o'clock, occupied in reading, writing, looking over papers, &c. My mother would sometimes send me with a message to him. A gentle knock, a call of "Come in," and I would enter, with a mixed feeling of love and reverence, and some pride in being the bearer of a communication to one whom I approached with all the affection of a child, and something of the loyalty of a subject. Our mother educated all her children to look up to her father, as she looked up to him herself, literally looked up, as to one standing on an eminence of greatness and goodness. And it is no small proof of his real elevation, that as we grew older, and better able to judge for ourselves, we were more and more confirmed in the opinions we had formed of it.

ANOTHER GRAND-DAUGHTER'S RECOLLECTIONS.

Cheerfulness, love, benevolence, wisdom, seemed to animate his whole form. His face beamed with them. You remember how active was his step, how lively and even playful were his manners.

I cannot describe the feelings of veneration, admiration, and love that existed in my heart towards him. I looked on him as a being too great and good for my comprehension; and yet I felt no fear to approach him, and be taught by him some of the childish sports that I delighted in. When he walked in the garden, and would call the children to go with him, we raced after and before him, and we were made perfectly happy by this permission to accompany him. Not one of us in our wildest moods ever placed a foot on one of the garden beds, for that would violate one of his rules; and yet I never

heard him utter a harsh word to one of us, or speak in a raised tone of voice, or use a threat. He simply said, "Do," or "Do not." He would gather fruit for us, seek out the ripest figs, or bring down the cherries from on high above our heads with a long stick, at the end of which there was a hook and a little net bag. . . . One of our earliest amusements was in running races on the terrace, or around the lawn. He placed us according to our ages, giving the youngest and smallest the start of all the others by some yards, and so on; and then he raised his arm high with his white handkerchief in his hand, on which our eager eyes were fixed, and slowly counted three, at which number he dropped the handkerchief and we started off to finish the race by returning to the starting-place and receiving our reward of dried fruit, — three figs, prunes, or dates to the victor, two to the second, and one to the lagger who came in last. These were our summer sports with him.

I was born the year he was elected president; and except one winter that we spent with him in Washington, I never was with him during that season until after he had retired from office. During his absences, all the children who could write corresponded with him. Their letters were duly answered; and it was a sad mortification to me that I had not learned to write before his return to live at home, and of course had no letter from him. Whenever an opportunity occurred, he sent us books; and he never saw a little story or piece of poetry in a newspaper suited to our ages and tastes, that he did not preserve it and send it to us; and from him we learned the habit of making these miscellaneous collections by pasting in a little paper book, made for the purpose, any thing of the sort that we received from him or got otherwise.

On winter evenings, when it grew too dark to read, in the halfhour that passed before candles came in, as we all sat round the fire, he taught us several childish games, and would play them with us. I remember that " cross questions," and "I love my love with an A,” were two I learned from him; and we would teach some of ours to him. When the candles were brought, all was quiet immediately, for he took up his book to read, and we would not speak out of a whisper lest we should disturb him; and generally we followed his example and took a book; and I have seen him raise his eyes from his own book, and look round on the little circle of readers, and smile, and make some remark to mamma about it. When the snow fell we