been no Queen, there would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked, nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only, with the same pace, to advance the principles of their social constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say, that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to its punishment: nor yet, that there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right, and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the King, many thought him wilfully criminal: many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of Kings, who would war against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding. In this way, no void would have been created, courting the usurpation of a military adventurer, nor occasion given for those enormities which demoralized the nations of the world, and destroyed, and is yet to destroy, millions and millions of its inhabitants. There are three epochs in history, signalized by the total extinction of national

morality. The first was of the successors of Alexander, not omitting himself: the next, the successors of the first Cæsar: the third, our own age. This was begun by the partition of Poland, followed by the treaty of Pilnitz; next the conflagration of Copenhagen; then the enormities of Bonaparte, partitioning the earth at his will, and devastating it with fire and sword; now the conspiracy of Kings, the successors of Bonaparte, blasphemously calling themselves the Holy Alliance, and treading in the footsteps of their incarcerated leader; not yet, indeed, usurping the government of other nations, avowedly and in detail, but controlling by their armies the forms in which they will permit them to be governed; and reserving in petto the order and extent of the usurpations further meditated."

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Thus regarding the situation and governments of Europe, it may be well supposed that he formed no very advantageous opinion of the political condition of the old world, and that he looked upon the general fate of humanity there, as truly deplorable in comparison with that of his own more fortunate country. 'He saw all around him the truth of Voltaire's observation, that every man must be either the hammer or the anvil. The great mass of the people were suffering under physical and moral oppression, while those whom fortune had placed in a loftier sphere, sought in the constant restlessness and tumult of ambition, dissipation, pomp, vanity, and unceasing intrigues of politicks and love, that excitement which formed a poor substitute for higher aims and more lasting pleasures. In literature and science, indeed, the learned, the witty, and the eloquent men who will ever make that age remarkable,

left far behind them the few scholars of the infant republicks; but this was more than compensated by the wide diffusion of general knowledge through the whole mass in one community, while in the other, all but a small and favoured circle were immersed in deep and general ignorance.”

Of fashionable life in Paris, we have his own pleasant and playful account, in his letter of February 7, 1787, to Mrs. Bingham: "I know, madam, that the twelvemonth is not yet expired, but it will be, nearly, before this will have the honour of being put into your hands. You are then engaged to tell me, truly and honestly, whether you do not find the tranquil pleasures of America preferable to the empty bustle of Paris. For to what does that bustle tend? At eleven o'clock, it is day, chez madame. The curtains are drawn. Propped on bolsters and pillows, and her head scratched into a little order, the bulletins of the sick are read, and the billets of the well. She writes to some of her acquaintance, and receives the visits of others. If the morning is not very thronged, she is able to get out and hobble round the cage of the Palais Royal; but she must hobble quickly, for the coiffeur's turn is come-and a tremendous turn it is! Happy, if he does not make her arrive when dinner is half over! The torpitude of digestion a little passed, she flutters half an hour through the streets, by way of paying visits, and then to the spectacles. These finished, another half hour is devoted to dodging in and out of the doors of her very sincere friends, and away to supper. After supper, cards; and after cards, bed;, to rise at noon the next day, and to tread, like a mill-horse, the same trodden circle again.

Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning, In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the children, the arrangements for the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every moment with a healthy and an useful activity. Every exertion is encouraging, because to present amusement it joins the promise of some future good. The intervals of leisure are filled by the society of real friends, whose affections are not thinned to cobweb, by being spread over a thousand objects. This is the picture, in the light it is presented to my mind; now let me have it in yours."

Yet, as has been truly remarked, Mr. Jefferson was not insensible to those traits in the character of the French, which have thrown a charm over their nation —its manners, its society, its institutions, and its people; which have long made its cities the resort alike of those who seek for amusement or for wisdom ; which have placed it first in the scale of refinement, if not of intellect; which have given to its exploits all the brilliant tints of gallantry and romance; which have made it the chosen abode, in modern times, of taste, of science, and of art; and imparted to the luxuries of life, that elegance and zest, which, if to be desired, are yet unattained by the other nations of the world. Though the low and sullen murmurs of the

approaching storm were heard while he yet remained there, the bursting of the tempest was delayed-the steps of palaces were still trodden by gallant nobles, who, in personal intercourse, seemed to forget the pride of place and of birth, in the suavity and kindness of their manners-the gilded drawing rooms, the glittering theatres, the gardens cooled by fountains and adorned by statues, were still frequented by women, whose beauty and wit might seem to claim some pardon for their intrigues and crimes, and some hopes that they might escape impending desolation--the bureaux were still filled by statesmen, who so tempered and arranged the details of diplomatick intercourse, so displayed, when occasion offered, a candid and even a generous spirit, that those at least who were removed from the sphere of their designs, might look with less distrust or anxiety on vast schemes of political ambition, which were meant to embrace all the destinies of the agethe institutions of learning were still occupied by that large and singular body of literary triflers, whose speculations and researches are now seldom extricated from the long series of volumes which contain their labours and their dreams, but whose conversation varied and amused the society when it was eagerly welcomed and widely diffused.

From these scenes Mr. Jefferson did not part without regret; on these scenes he often looked back in the subsequent and different portion of his earthly journey; and to them he referred not long before its termination, in language which betrays an impression vividly made, and still uneffaced. "I cannot leave this great and good country," he says, after speaking of his residence