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while Jefferson, having undergone that magnifying process by which a reputation is transferred from history to romance, is now undergoing that diminishing process by which it is re-transferred from romance to history. The renown of Hamilton has to be aggrandized; that of Jefferson is fated to be dwarfed.

But great is the power of myth. There is, of course, a struggle to maintain it. Either from habitual submission to received opinions, or what is more probable, from some necessity of caressing the national fable, even so able an historian as Mr. Bancroft cannot emancipate himself entirely from it. As this writer has most unfortunately dropped all reference to his authorities, just when they are most required, it is impossible to divine from what quarries he hopes to get the spotless marble from which he seems inclined to work out the old colossal Jefferson. But of two things, one: either the citations in this book are a tissue of forgeries and garbled extracts, or Mr. Bancroft's description of Jefferson is empty declamation-mere stage-tradition. Fine writing has its advantages, but also its perils, and one of these is a tendency to betray the mind into a debauch of words. It is, I trust, under the influence of this sweet intoxication that Mr. Bancroft tells us, among other things in his florid description, that it was a beautiful trait of Jefferson's character, that he was free from envy.' Why, to ignore Jefferson's envy is to ignore a most important clue to the history of the times, to overlook entirely the initiative of those bitter party-feuds which broke out even under Washington's presidency, and to pass unnoticed the impelling cause

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of that disastrous hatred of England, which, beyond all question, has been the bane and corruption of America. The very process by which he endeavoured to lessen the almost sublime influence of Washington, to bring under suspicion the splendid abilities of Hamilton, is illustrative of its origin, for having neither the open courage of conviction, nor the bluff violence of fanaticism-though a partial and temporary political fanaticism there may for a moment have been-it at once suggests that lower and more timid passion which works by stealth, and undermines in order to destroy.

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The results of his envy have been most formidable. To attain his ends, Jefferson, through his friends, got up a cry of the republic in danger.' But the cry by itself would have been absurd, and here was the mischief. To convert it into a poison, it was necessary to mix with it some noxious ingredients; for to charge anyone with desiring to overthrow the republic, was to charge him with desiring to compass an impossibility. Monarchy had not been cashiered in America as a bad thing, but superseded because it was an impracticable thing. To dis-crown and dis-coronet the British constitution, in order to adjust it as far as possible to American wants, was a supreme necessity; to re-crown and re-coronet it, after such adjustment, would have been a sheer impossibility. But let us hear Mr. Bancroft: 'The insurgents, as they took up self-government, manifested no impatience at the recollection of having been ruled by a royal line-no eagerness to blot out the memories of a former state;' in a word, to supersede

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monarchy, most interesting evidence of which will be found in this work. In fact, as the same historian observes, 'The republic was, to America, a god-send; it came, though unsought, because society contained the elements of no other organization.' Jefferson, of course, knew this perfectly well. To call men monarchists was to revive no old hate, to grate on no old prejudices, to re-animate no extinct parties, to resuscitate no suspended fears. So, with a petty craft which is very characteristic, he drops the word monarchist,' and substitutes for it a word of his own introduction or invention, monocrat,' which though etymologically the same thing, yet, being less understood, might for that reason more easily pass with the mass for meaning something worse. But, even when tricked out in this way, the charge of monarchism would not have been sufficient of a bugbear. He was, therefore, obliged to conjoin with it another term, not in any way connected with it, in order to endow it with a full capacity of exciting odium and alarm. To blacken the men who were in his way, he called them not only monocrats' but 'Anglomen.' He charged them not only with wishing to substitute monocracy for republicanism, but he also insinuated that their preference of the monocratic form was synonymous with the desire to re-import and reimpose British supremacy; he took for his war-cry some supposed subservience to England for some undefined purpose, and to give asperity to the charge, it became necessary to foster and develope a furious enmity against England herself, and to this he devoted himself with untiring zeal and fatal success.

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The times favoured him. American independence had been effected without leaving behind it any very malignant feeling against Great Britain, though it is probable Mr. Bancroft somewhat overstates the case when, in order to illustrate the superior magnanimity of republicans, he says 'that no rankling discontent survived.' Still there might be no ill-will of any serious amount. But, fortunately for Jefferson's future necessities, the French revolution broke out. Its dawn as pure and brilliant as its setting was dark and stormy, it touched the hearts of nations, and especially kindled the sympathies of the Americans. They might well suppose that their example had not been without influence on its developement, and even look upon La Fayette as the electric wire that had conveyed the passion for liberty into the heart of France. They naturally made the cause of the French revolution their own, and when they saw the kingdoms of Europe arrayed against it, their sympathies became so fully aroused, that the passions of France became their passions, and its enmities their enmities. It was on this chord that Jefferson skilfully and incessantly touched. In his letters and conversations, in articles in the newspapers under his command, through every channel at his disposal, he was perpetually inciting his countrymen to a more and more vehement devotion to France, and to a more and more passionate hostility to England. In vain did Hamilton, early prescient of the coming chaos, and, with his sensitive love of liberty, horror-struck at the crimes he had foreseen, and were now being committed in her name,' endeavour to recall the nation to moderation and good

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sense. The match was not equal. The appeal to reason gave way before the stimulus to the passions. Under the careful culture of Jefferson, the masses in America became almost servile in their submission to France, and frantic in their hatred of England. The result was most disastrous. The American war in 1812 was a direct and overmastering consequence of this antiEnglish feeling, which for the purpose of party warfare had been so insanely instilled, and tended still more to embitter this mad and mischievous antipathy. But there was another consequence far more serious than this.

A respect and regard for England, a generous and just appreciation of her services in the cause of freedom, a noble emulation to vie with her in exhibiting free institutions to the best advantage, would not only have conferred immense benefits upon the world, but would have exercised a conservative and ennobling effect on American liberty itself. Of these invaluable results she has been deprived, mainly by the odious policy of Jefferson. I do not say entirely by that, because I may not forget the hordes of Irish, trained up by Christian priests to a sanguinary hatred of England, and the hordes of Germans, escaping from political insignificance or oppression, which have found their way into the Union, and become suddenly invested with a fullness of political power of which they comprehend neither the duties nor the dignity. For this Jefferson is not responsible, but what he is responsible for, and what has been the greatest disaster to America, is, that all the statesmen of his schoolthat is, nearly all the statesmen who have directed the