THE LIFE

OF

THOMAS JEFFERSON, ESQ. L. L. D.

The features of some men who have a marked and strong physiognomy, are familiar to us in the productions of every artest, their likeness to the public. two striking to be lost. distinguished lines to be

who attempts to give There are expressions Nature will not suffer her forgotten by carlessness,

or effaced for want of talent. The heads of the great men of this and other countries are as will know by the wretched cuts seen in our shops, as by the productions of Reynolds or David. It is the same with the moral and mental qualities of some great men, drawn by ever so ordinary a writer, their superiority is immediately evident. A mere sketch assists us to preserve the remembrance of those whose talents and virtues deserve recollection; and from faint outlines, the able historian frequentley formes an ample, beautiful, and imperishable biography.

It is a trite, but incorrect remark, that it is one of the highest efforts of the writer to delineate the character of a great man. The dull and regular features of imbicility, or mediocrity. are more difficult to trace, than the bold impressions of genius;

more taste is required to describe "the elegantly little," than "the awfully vast." To show the moth-worm from its birth in the dust, through its chrysalis state, to its bursting into life, in its second and beautiful form of existence, spreading its new born wings to flutter and revel in the sunshine, and passing away on the summer's breeze, requires a higher effort of talent, and demands more powers of description, than it does to give the whole history of the hundred years of the life of the eagle. It requirs more delicacy and judgment to describe Mount Hymettus with its flowers, and the course Illyssus, with its delightful wanderings, than it does to make a map of the Mississippi, which rises from one side of the continent, and empties its waters into the other, or to trace the Andes, in whose giant shade, the nations of the earth might repose.

With the character of a great man, the writer can take the latitude of an historian before the tomb has closed upon the ashes of its subject. Time is not wanted to soften or hide defects, when the high qualities of the mind over-balance them; but for the dead whom fortune once made conspicuous, the eulogist must collect their virtues, and dispose of them with such skill and care as to bring whatever is good, or commendatory, into light, and to conceal their defects in the shade; while the biographer of true greatness, having no need of disguise, goes on with honest simplicity, and tells the world, all he can gather, and all he knows.

The life of the distinguished individual whose memoir we now present to the public had a mind formed for eminence and attempered to every virtue. Seldom has there been found in any one individual so enlightened a head united to a heart of such unspotted purity. A statesman of transcendent abilities, he was fitted for the management of the weightiest concerns: a patriot and legislator of tried integrity; the welfare of his country was the idol of his heart; an advocate and counsellor of the first and most exalted standing, he appeared both in the court-house and senate chamber with distinguished lustre.

With such an assemblage of attributes, native and acquired he was superlatively qualified to instruct and delight, enlighten and adorn. The brilliancy of his diction, and the fertility of his invention, while they gave richness to his resources, increased his charms both as a writer and a speaker. The quickness of his perception gave him an intuitive in sight, into the weakness of his opponents, and enabled him to assail them with greater effect. Add to these, that his wisdom and ingenuity, his erudition and address, chastening yet sustaining his eloquence, and directing all his knowledge to form himself a statesman, gave him an influence beyond what was ever possessed by any other man, if we except Washington, in the counsils of the nation.

In any other country he would have attained

equal, if not greater distinctions. In England, his "notes on Virginia are sufficient to immortalise his name. In the dark ages, when superstition stamped her image on all that was human, his virtues and his wisdom might have secured to him the reputation of a saint. In Rome, his love of country and his weight in council would have raised him to to the senate, while in ancient Greece, his intellects, his knowledge, and the varied powers of his mind, would have given him rank in private, and high authority in public life. In the United states where his destiny had placed him, and where talents and industry skilfully directed seldom fail to be productive of influence, he succeeded in ac quiring an almost unbounded love and gratitude, admiration and renown, which the union of goodness and greatness can alone command. The history of his life, which will be an exposition of the means that raised him to this distinguished eminence, it shall now be my business briefly to unfold.

Thomas Jefferson, the subject of this memoir, was born on the 2d. of April, 1743, in the county of chesterfield, and state of Virginia, at a place called Shadwell, a country seat, now in possession of his grand-son, and but a short distance from Monticello, and only half a mile from his celebrated Rivanna Mills. His family are found among the earliest settlers in Virginia, of which colony his grand father, Thomas Jefferson, was a native. He was the second son of Mr. Peter Jefferson, well