what is unknown. He establishes for his guide some fanciful theory of corpuscular attraction, of chemical agency, of mechanical powers, of stimuli, of irritability accumulated or exhausted, of depletion by the lancet and repletion by mercury, or some other ingenious dream, which lets him into all nature's secrets at short hand. On the principle which he thus assumes, he forms his table of nosology, arrays his diseases into families, and extends his curative treatment, by analogy, to all the cases he has thus arbitrarily marshalled together. I have lived myself to see the disciples of Hoffman, Boorhaave, Stalh, Cullen, Brown succeed one another like the shifting figures of a magic lantern, and their fancies, like the dresses of the annual doll-babies from Paris, becoming, from their novelty, the vogue of the day, and yielding to the next novelty their ephemeral favor. The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine. The medicine, therefore, restored him, and the young doctor receives new courage to proceed in his bold experiments on the lives of his fellow-creatures. I believe we may safely affirm, that the inexperienced and presumptuous band of medical tyros let loose upon the world, destroys more human life in one year than all the Robinhoods, Cartouches, and Macheaths do in a century. It is in this part of medicine that I wish to see a reform, an abandonment of hypothesis for sober facts; the first degree of value set on clinical observation, and the lowest on visionary theories. I would wish the young practitioner, especially, to have deeply impressed upon his mind the real limits of his art, and that when the state of his patient gets beyond these, his office is to be a watchful, but quiet spectator of the operations of nature, giving them fair play by a well-regulated regimen, and by all the aid they can derive by the excitement of good spirits and hope in the patient. I have no doubt that some diseases, not yet understood, may in time be transferred to the table of those known. But were I a physician, I would rather leave the transfer to the slow hand of accident, than hasten it in guilty experiments on those who put their lives into my hands.

"The only sure foundations of medicine are an intimate knowledge of the human body, and observation on the effects of medicinal substances on that. The anatomical and clinical schools, therefore, are those in which the young physician should be formed. If he enters with innocence that of the theory of medicine, it is scarcely possible he should come out untainted

with error. His mind must be strong, indeed, if, rising above juvenile credulity, it can maintain a wise infidelity against the authority of his instructors and the bewitching delusions of their theories.

"I dare say, that by this time you are sufficiently sensible that old heads, as well as young, may sometimes be charged with ignorance and presumption. The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to scepticism; and this is, perhaps, the most favorable apology I can make for venturing so far out of my depth, and to one, too, to whom the strong as well as the weak points of this science are so familiar."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

EMPLOYMENTS AT MONTICELLO-ADAMS AND JEFFERSON— THE INTERESTING OLD SAGE ON MANY SIDES.

ROM Monticello Mr. Jefferson wrote a number

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of letters, soon after his withdrawal from the public, to President Madison on personal and other matters, but this pleasure he was obliged to forego. The eyes of his political opponents were upon him, and to his still sensitive ear came the charge that he was yet directing the affairs of the Government. Most of his letters to his favorite friend and minister were subsequently mainly those of friendship. But occasionally he would break forth, and especially as the war with England came on; and when difficulties began to appear in Mr. Madison's Cabinet he used every means in his power to heal them, and was unable to see why the same men who had labored harmoniously so long with him, should now so soon fall into dissensions.

Mr. Jefferson now gave his attention to the interests of his farms, then consisting of over ten thousand acres, continuing to direct his affairs with no marked success until 1814, when one of his grandsons took charge of the farming with much greater skill and better returns. Mr. Jefferson had at least two hundred negroes on his lands at the time of his withdrawal from public life finally, but he was a poor task

master, and this vast population, many of them young and worthless, was a burden to him.

Mr. Jefferson always lived above his income as President, and on that account alone ended his second term with a largely increased debt. His wife's estate was mainly consumed by debts upon it, and now, after twelve years more of public life, he began again at Monticello with a weight upon him which he never lived to discharge. His channels of exhaustion continued to be very great. His house became not only the resort of scores and scores of his relatives, but also for thousands of admiring and curious visitors from Europe and this country, so that Monticello could not supply the current demands. Thus the generous old man lived, and although he died with his great debt hanging upon him, it was in that blissful hallucination in which men often force themselves to believe that through the liberality and magnanimity of their friends, that is about to be speedily accomplished which they were themselves unable to do in a life-time.

As President he received two hundred thousand dollars, and his immense farming resources, properly managed, should have found him in quite different circumstances.

In 1811, Mr. Jefferson, who believed in the abolition of slavery, the colonization of the negroes, and the substitution of free white labor in this country, wrote to John Lynch, of Virginia, as follows:

"You have asked my opinion on the proposition of Mrs. Mifflin, to take measures for procuring, on the coast of Africa, an establishment to which the people of color of these States might, from time to time, be colonized, under the auspices of different

governments. Having long ago made up my mind on this subject, I have no hesitation in saying that I have ever thought it the most desirable measure which could be adopted, for gradually drawing off this part of our population, most advantageously for themselves, as well as for us. Going from a country possessing all the useful arts, they might be the means of transplanting them among the inhabitants of Africa, and would thus carry back to the country of their origin, the seeds of civilization which might render their sojournment and sufferings here a blessing in the end to that country."

He then went on to state that Mr. Monroe, while Governor of Virginia, had proposed a settlement of the kind in Sierra Leone; that he had failed to make the necessary arrangements with the British company having that settlement in charge; that he had also failed in his attempt to effect arrangements with Portugal for a settlement of the kind in South America; and finally ended by stating that he was ready at all times to encourage and advance any safe and feasible scheme of colonization which should be conducted with caution as to the interests, safety, and prejudices of all concerned.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, had for some time been cautiously and delicately attempting to reconcile John Adams and Mr. Jefferson, and how his purpose was finally accomplished may be seen from the following extracts from Mr. Jefferson's letters. On the 16th of January, 1811, he wrote these words to Dr. Rush:

"I receive with sensibility your observations on the discontinuance of friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and myself, and the concern you take in its restoration. This discontinuance has not proceeded from me, nor from the want of a sincere desire and of effort on my part, to renew our intercourse. You know the perfect coincidence of principle and of action, in the