known for the many and important services he rendered to his country at a very early period of its existence, but particularly for his having acted as one of the commissioners in settling the boundary line, between Virginia and North Carolina, in the year 1747, and who left his son Thomas, besides an affluent fortune, the still more enviable inheritance of an honourable name.

Mr. Jefferson, while very young, was placed under the care of an able instructor, for the purpose of acquiring the rudiments of his education. I have been informed by those in connection with the family, that he distinguished himself at this early period, by habits of close application and unwearied research. It has been frequently remarked, and we think the remark a very just one too, that trifling occurrences during childhood and youth, often influence our future lives. There is one in the life of Mr. Jefferson, which, however trifling it may appear, ought not to be entirely omitted in this place. I recollect, says a relative, during a visit I paid to Peter Jefferson, that a Mr. Mc Graw, a professional man of some eminence, from a neighbouring county, who, by dint of hard study, and unremitted attention to business, had raised himself to affluence and even independency, called at a store in the villiage but a short distance from the father's, and was regailing himself, first with one thing; then with another, until at length he took a pine apple, and deliberately sliced and ate it,. The embryo statesman had his eyes all this

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time revitted upon him, until his mouth even watered, and he observed to his relative, if I assiduously study my Latin and Greek, shall I not be able at some future day, as well as Mr. Mc Graw to earn money enough to lounge about in fruitshops, and eat oranges, and pine apples as well as eh? he further continued: "I will study hard; and did so"-He has since remarked that however trifling the anecdote may appear, he firmly believed it was the chief cause which induced him to follow up his studies with such unabated ardour until he entered upon his professional career.

*

At the age of thirteen, he was admitted a member of William and Mary's College, at Williamsburg Virginia: he received the honours of this institution in the seventeenth year of his age. "His favourite studies while at College, were classics, history, philosophy, general literature, and from the speculative turn of his mind, it might be inferred, that he had a pretty strong attachment to metaphysics; at least, so far as they go towards clearing the judgment and strengthening the understanding, but no further. This pursuit, however he afterwards relinquished, convinced, as he said, that it was of doubtful utility, tending neither to make men better nor happier; but rather the reverse. His opinions, both of

*This statement is taken from a letter to the author, from Doctor James of Virginia, of the 17th of August, 1826. I had long been impressed with the idea that Mr. Jefferson was graduated sometime in the eighteenth year of his age. But the Doctor observes, "I have been personally acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, and intimate in his family, for upwards of twenty years, and, in this respect, could not have been mistaken."

many of our own and of the ancient writers, were formed at an early period; admiring more especially those which imparted the greatest knowledge of human nature, of the springs of human motives and human actions, and an acquaintance with human manners; and on this principle used not only to observe, "that a good novel was a good book," but frequently to amuse the social fire-side, particularly the Ladies, by perusing a few of the most celebrated; adopting fully the sentiments of Pope, that man is the proper study of man."

"Bacon's essays he read diligently, and always characterized them as the greatest works of that great man. Shakspeare, Addison, Le Sage, Fielding, and a Smollett, were his constant companions in every interval from graver studies. Richardson, contrary to the opinion of Johnson, he thought much inferior to Fielding as a describer of human nature. Demosthenes was his favourite orator. Plutarch's writings he professed to admire beyond those of any other. He preferred Euripides to Sophocles among the dramatists; and the Greek historians generally to the Latin. Of Horace, Lucretius, and Virgil, he was particularty fond; maintaining the superiority of the Æneid as a poem over the Illiad, while he admitted the general excellence of Homer's genius in invention, force, and sublimity, over that of Virgil."

Soon after his leaving college, he entered himself as a student at Law in the office of the Hon. George Wythe, the late venerable chancellor of

the state, a profession which he afterwards practized with uncommon success. From the nature of our government, and the peculiar situation in which this country had long been placed, all our distinguished men, and particularly those who were intended for the profession of the Law, had made politics their study. They not only discussed principle, but disseminated their opinions through every part of the state. These shrewd observers well understood what manner of men their fellow citizens were, and they knew what reliance could be placed on them in difficulty and danger. The most ordinary man in the most obscure hamlet, could repeat something that had fallen from the lips of these oracles of law and politics; and observer frequently found that bold sentiments of liberty, sharp observations and sometimes pointed and severe sarcasms against the mother country, were most readily caught and treasured up by the people in general. Perhaps these men who powerfully influenced and felt the public pulse, had not a distant plan, nor at that time thought of absolute independence for their country; but this they certainly had in view, that as encroachment might follow encroachment, and irritation for a long time continue, that the public mind should be enlightened, and the nerves of the people braced against any evil that might happen. They well knew that an illuminated man is always a friend to just and equal laws, and an inveterate enemy to arbitrary power in every form that it may assume.

It will not be denied by any reflecting mind, that they did much in opening those fountains of political knowledge, whose streams continued widening and deepening as they rolled on in their rapid course, and, like the Ohio, or vast Mississippi, distributing their overflowing currents in numerous channels, enriching the public intellect, and causing to spring up those opinions, and principles, which carried on and finished the revolution.

While war for independence continued, the young Gentlemen intended for the bar, had an excellent opportunity of storing up information for they could not enter into any business during these turbulent times. But the moment war had ceased, the talents and acquirements of this new generation were developed; they were full of life and action in forming constitutions of govenment, in establishing courts, and in making laws for the public good. They had been learning, while others had been fighting, and reflecting, while others were acting; and on the first opportunity discovered to their country that they had much of the wisdom of years, without the prejudices of old

men.

Many of the aged actors in the revolution, who had not much acquaintance with the new generation, were fearful that our national glories would be lost for want of a high minded race to complete the work of freedom. But these fears were altogether visionary: the new race, like the chariot coursers of the ancients, exhibited a vigor and a fire in pro