blossoms, and fruit. I could tell their characteristics, their uses, the legends and traditions that belonged to them. All this I learned by familiarity with these objects; meeting with them in all my walks and rambles, and taking note of them with the emphasis and vigor of carly experience and observation. In after days, I have never had time to make natural history a systematic study; yet my knowledge as to these things has constantly accumulated, and that without special effort. When I have traveled in other countries, the birds, the animals, the vegetation, have interested me as well by their resemblances as their differences, when compared with our own. In looking over the pages of scientific works on natural history, I have always read with the eagerness and intelligence of preparation; indeed, of vivid and pleasing associations. Every idea I had touching these matters was living and sympathetic, and beckoned other ideas to it, and these again originated still others. Thus it is that in the race of a busy life, by means of a homely, hearty start at the beginning, I have, as to these subjects, easily and naturally supplied, in some humble degree, the defects of my irregular education, and that too, not by a process of repulsive toil, but with a relish superior to all the seductions of romance. I am therefore a believer in the benefits accruing from simple country life and simple country habits, as here illustrated, and am therefore, on all occasions, anxious to recommend them to my friends and countrymen. To city people, I would say, educate your children, at least partially, in the country, so as to imbue them with the love of nature, and that knowledge and training which spring from simple rustic sports, exercises, and employments. To country people, I would remark, be not envious of the city, for in the general balance of good and evil, you have your full portion of the first, with a diminished share of the last. LETTER IX. Death of Washington—Jefferson and Democracy—Ridgefield on the Great Thoroughfare between New York and Boston-Jerome Bonaparte and his Young Wife-Oliver Wolcott, Governor Treadwell, and Deacon Olmstead-Inauguration of Jefferson-Jerry Mead and Ensign Keeler— Democracy and Federalism-Charter of Charles II.-Elizur Goodrich, Deacon Bishop, and President Jefferson-Abraham Bishop and “ About Enough Democracy." MY DEAR C****** The incidents I have just related revolved about the period of 1800-some a little earlier and some a little later. Among the events of general interest that occurred near this time, I remember the death of Washington, which took place in 1799, and was commemorated all through the country by the tolling of bells, funeral ceremonies, orations, sermons, hymns, and dirges, attended by a mournful sense of loss, seeming to cast a pall over the entire heavens. In Ridgefield, the meeting-house was dressed in black, and we had a discourse pronounced by a Mr. Edmonds, of Newtown. The subject, indeed, engrossed all minds. Lieutenant Smith came every day to our house to talk over the event, and to bring us the proceedings in different parts of the country. Among other papers, he brought us a copy of the Connecticut Courant, then, as now, orthodox in all good things, and according to the taste of the times, duly sprinkled with murders, burglaries, and awful disclosures in general. This gave us the particulars of the rites and ceremonies which took place in Hartford, in commemoration of the Great Man's deThe paper was bordered with black, which left its indelible ink in my memory. The celebrated hymn,* written for the occasion by Theodore Dwight, sank into my mother's heart-for she had a constitu cease. * HYMN sung at Hartford, Conn., during religious services performed on the occasion of the death of George Washington, Dec. 27th, 1799. What solemn sounds the ear invade? What wraps the land in sorrow's shade? Let every heart be fill'd with woe, Let every eye with tears o'erflow; Each form, oppress'd with deepest gloom, Behold that venerable band- tional love of things mournful and poetic-and she often repeated it, so that it became a part of the cherished lore of my childhood. This hymn has ever since been to me suggestive of a solemn pathos, mingled with the Ridgefield commemoration of Washington's death-the black drapery of the meetinghouse, and the toll of those funeral bells, far, far over the distant hills, now lost and now remembered, as if half a dream and half a reality-yet for these reasons, perhaps, the more suggestive and the more mournful. I give you these scenes and feelings in some detail, to impress you with the depth and sincerity of this mourning of the American nation, in cities and towns, in villages and hamlets, for the death of Washington. It seems to me wholesome to go back and sympathize with those who had stood in his presence, and catch from them the feeling which should be sacredly cherished in all future time.* Where shall our country turn its eye? Almighty God! to Thee we fly; Hear, O Most High! our earnest prayer- When dangers press and foes draw near, Let future Washingtons appear. * Mr. Jefferson and his satellites had begun their attacks upon Washington several years before this period; but beyond the circle of I have already said that Ridgefield was on the great thoroughfare between Boston and New York, for the day of steamers and railroads had not interested partisans, and those to whom virtue is a reproach and glory an offence, they had not yet corrupted or abused the hearts of the people. Some years later, under the presidency of Jefferson and his immediate successor, democracy being in the ascendant, Washington seemed to be fading from the national remembrance. Jefferson was then the master; and even somewhat later, a distinguished Senator said in his place in Congress, that his name and his principles exercised a greater influence over the minds of the people of his native State-Virginia-than even the "Father of his Country." Strange to say, this declaration was made rather in the spirit of triumph than of humiliation. At the present day the name of Jefferson has lost much of its charm in the United States: democracy itself seems to be taking down its first idol, and placing Andrew Jackson upon the pedestal. Formerly "Jefferson Democracy" was the party watchword: now it is "Jackson Democracy." The disclosures of the last thirty years-made by Mr. Jefferson's own correspondence, and that of others-show him to have been very different from what he appeared to be. Had his true character been fully understood, it is doubtful if he would ever have been President of the United States. He was in fact a marvelous compound of good and evil, and it is not strange that it has taken time to comprehend him. He was a man of rare intellectual faculties, but he had one defect -a sort of constitutional atheism-a want of faith in God and man-in human truth and human virtue. He did good things, great things: he aided to construct noble institutions, but he undermined them by taking away their foundations. He was, in most respects, the opposite of Washington, and hence his hatred of him was no doubt sincere. We may even suppose that the virulent abuse which he caused to be heaped upon him by hireling editors, was at least partially founded upon conviction. Washington believed in God, and made right the starting-point of all his actions. Next to God, was his country. His principles went before; there was no expediency for him, that was not dictated by rectitude of thought, word, and deed. He was a democrat, but in the English, Puritan, sense-that of depositing power in the hands of the people, and of seeking to guide them only by the truth-by instructing them, elevating them, and exclusively for their own good. Jefferson, on the contrary, was a democrat according to French ideas, and those of the loosest days of the Revolution. Expediency was with him the beginning, the middle, the end of conduct. God seems not to have been in all his thought. He penetrated the masses with his astute intelligence he had seen in Paris how they could be deluded, stimulated, |