Nowhere in A Political Romance or, for that matter, in any of his published writings does Sterne use the phrase Jefferson attributes to him: “A coat of arms may be purchased as cheap as any other coat.” The saying is Jefferson’s, and it offers a sample of how his mind worked. Recognizing a similarity between Sterne’s fictional coat and a tradition of inheritance that privileged wealth over virtue and talent, Jefferson associated the two in a pithy and memorable phrase.
Ultimately, he decided against using an ostentatious armorial bookplate. Instead, Jefferson marked his books with a few strokes of the pen. In his day, printers commonly placed consecutive alphabetical characters at the bottom of the first page of every gathering of leaves in a book. The term “signature” not only referred to the character printed on the first leaf of each gathering, but also became synonymous with the individual gatherings. Jefferson used these signatures as the basis for his marks of ownership: he placed a cursive T preceding the printed J on the first page of the J-signature, and a cursive J after the printed T on the first page of the T-signature.
Jefferson was not the only one who coded his books in this manner. Philip Bliss, the Oxford antiquary, similarly marked the B- and P-signatures of his books with manuscript P’s and B’s.13 A few collectors who subsequently acquired volumes from Jefferson’s library appreciated his system of identifying his books so much that they, too, inscribed the signatures of their books similarly.
These signature inscriptions do more than serve as a discreet way of identifying a book’s owner. Whereas armorial bookplates pasted inside the front cover and autographs on the title page and flyleaf adorn a book’s periphery, signature inscriptions like Jefferson’s are embedded deeply within each book. They give the impression of a book owner who is intensely engaged with the books he owns. Jefferson’s marks of ownership graphically symbolize a central fact of his life: his personal identity was inextricably tied to his books.
In addition to its defaced title-page inscription, Jefferson’s copy of the Book of Common Prayer also contains these signature inscriptions. Once he devised the new method of initialing the first page of the J- and T-gatherings, he marked his prayer book in this manner and then tried to efface the title-page inscription. Books Jefferson acquired a few years after he inherited his father’s Book of Common Prayer contain no title-page inscriptions in his hand. Clearly, he abandoned this early method in favor of inscribing the J- and T-signatures.
With the books he acquired throughout his adult life, he continued the practice of inscribing the J- and T-signatures—though late in life he did make a small alteration. For his retirement library, which he started assembling upon selling his great library to Congress, he quit using cursive and began inscribing his T’s and J’s in block capitals—a deliberate effort to distinguish his retirement library from the collection he had sold to Congress.14
Because Jefferson stopped inscribing the title pages of his books before the Shadwell fire, surviving books containing title-page inscriptions in his hand must have been in his possession already and, therefore, had escaped the conflagration. But these few survivors add only a modest amount of information regarding his early intellectual development.
His copy of Bishop Thomas Wilson’s Short and Plain Instruction for the Better Understanding of the Lord’s Supper, for example, survives with the title-page inscription “Ex Libris Thomae Jefferson.” The fact of his ownership of this book hardly distinguishes Jefferson from his peers: nearly all Anglican youth of his generation used such works while studying for their catechism. Bishop Wilson’s was among the best—readers appreciated the “elegant simplicity of its language, and its unaffected piety.”15 Although designing his work for young communicants, Wilson did not talk down to them. He approached his subject with a serious attitude and a scholarly air. Presenting the order for administering the Lord’s Supper, for instance, Wilson supplied both the order and accompanying explanations in parallel columns, a technique Jefferson appreciated and would use himself in his legal and scholarly writing.
Other surviving volumes with similarly inscribed title pages show that Jefferson accumulated books useful for his study of Latin and Greek. A copy of Basil Kennett’s Antiquities of Rome suggests that his intense study of Latin was prompting a general interest in the history and culture of ancient Rome. Similarly, his copy of John Potter’s two-volume Antiquities of Greece supplied much information about Greek art, culture, and civilization. Potter’s work also contained many well-executed engravings. Both volumes had handsomely rubricated title pages, which Jefferson made his own by inscribing his name on them.
Beyond a few title-page inscriptions, documentary evidence regarding the contents of the Shadwell library is spotty at best. By one estimate it contained three or four hundred volumes, and by another, five hundred.16 No complete inventory of its contents survives. Three partial lists do: (1) a list of the titles in Peter Jefferson’s library that forms a part of his detailed estate inventory, (2) a list of books Thomas Jefferson either purchased from or had bound by the offices of the Virginia Gazette in 1764 and 1765, and (3) an invoice of several books he received in one particular shipment from a London bookseller in 1769.17 The manuscript notebooks that survived the Shadwell fire offer a handful of additional clues regarding the books in Jefferson’s possession.
Surviving volumes, combined with the scant documentary evidence, do permit some surmises regarding the general contents of the Shadwell library. History and law were well represented. Jefferson owned numerous books of both ancient and modern history written in both ancient and modern languages. His fairly extensive law collection included manuals of criminal procedure, civil procedure, and equity pleading; compilations of laws and statutes, including the most up-to-date collections of Virginia laws and older collections of English statutes; reports of cases; collections of trials; and books of forms.
His library also contained a number of belletristic works: essays by Joseph Addison, whom Jefferson ranked among the most eloquent writers in the English language; several editions of periodical essays; the collected works of many English poets from Mark Akenside to Edward Young, including a handsomely bound and gilt folio edition of John Milton’s Works; and a few novels, too. In addition to Sterne’s collected works, Jefferson owned an English translation of Salomon Gessner’s popular novel, The Death of Abel, the most widely known work of German literature in colonial America.
Though he prided himself on his knowledge of classical languages, Jefferson enjoyed current English translations of classical works, too. Shelved among his books at Shadwell were an English translation of The Commentaries of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus and Thoughts of Cicero, a compilation of extracts from the great Roman orator and philosopher treating a variety of different subjects: conscience, eloquence, friendship, old age, passion, religion, and wisdom.
Published in an attractive duodecimo format, Thoughts of Cicero suited the hand as well as the eye. Besides being a convenient reference, it was also a good tool for learning languages: its text was printed in Latin and French in parallel columns on the even pages and English on the odd pages. The heavily annotated English text gave Jefferson much additional miscellaneous information, updating Cicero’s ideas with quotations from prominent eighteenth-century thinkers such as Francis Hutcheson and John Locke. Over the ensuing decades, Jefferson would add many more polyglot editions of classic texts to his library.
As testament to his wide-ranging religious, legal, and cultural interests, he also owned a copy of the Qur’an, specifically, George Sale’s English translation, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed. Being, as Muslims believe, the revealed word of God, the Qur’an not only constitutes the sacred scripture of the Islamic faith, but also forms the supreme source of Islamic law. Reading the Qur’an helped Jefferson broaden his legal studies. The Qur’an also helped him continue studying the history of religion. His curiosity about Islam is consistent with his curiosity regarding how traditional religious customs an
d beliefs are passed from one culture to another.18
Jefferson also owned many practical works for home and garden, including The Theory and Practice of Gardening, John James’s English version of the influential work of landscape gardening and architecture by Antoine-Joseph Dézallier d’Argenville. More than merely translating the French text, James had reworked it to suit English climate, English flora, and English tastes.19 This work helped determine the direction British pleasure gardens took during the eighteenth century. It would shape Jefferson’s theories of gardening, too.
The library at Shadwell contained books about homes as well as gardens, including James Gibbs’s Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture. Though heavily influenced by Palladian architecture, Gibbs was not a strict Palladian. He disliked being held to any particular style and incorporated elements of the Italian baroque and ideas from Christopher Wren as part of his architectural designs.20 Gibbs’s aesthetic, which emphasized intuitive feelings over taste, significantly influenced Jefferson’s aesthetic, not just in terms of architecture but also in terms of art and literature.
Other volumes in the Shadwell library treated the domestic arts. For example, his father’s copy of William Ellis’s London and Country Brewer became one of several books about brewing beer he would own. More a connoisseur of fine wines than a beer drinker, Jefferson nevertheless developed expertise as a brewer. He brewed malt liquor to serve at his table, and he believed in the healthful properties of drinking porter, which he called “peculiarly salutary for your stomach.”21
Perhaps no other work in the Shadwell library was more important in terms of Jefferson’s intellectual development than one by Sir Francis Bacon. When he had his copy of Bacon rebound in Williamsburg during the mid-1760s, the clerk at the printing office identified the volume in his daybook as a folio titled “Bacon’s Philosophy.” This short title stood for The Advancement of Learning, a work that exerted a profound influence on Jefferson. He considered Bacon one of the three greatest minds in history, along with Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke. Jefferson eventually adapted the faculties of the mind Bacon posited in The Advancement of Learning—memory, reason, and imagination—to organize his books. The three major groups into which Jefferson subdivided his library—history, philosophy, and fine arts—directly correspond to Bacon’s faculties of the mind.
In contrast to the heartfelt emotions Jefferson expressed at the loss of his books and papers in the Shadwell fire, his lack of emotion at the loss of the mansion house stands out in bold relief. The letter he wrote Page about the fire identifies the structure as “my mother’s house” and conveys little regret at its loss. Jefferson’s description of the house reveals his characteristic precision. Technically, the house was his mother’s. Peter Jefferson had willed it to his wife, so she was the legal owner. The house was hers in spirit, too.
When Peter Jefferson had married Jane Randolph in October 1739, he was already intending to build a plantation in the Virginia Piedmont. He had acquired land there sometime before their marriage. During their early years together, Peter and Jane Jefferson lived at Fine Creek, where their first two daughters were born, Jane in 1740 and Mary the following year. Sister Jane would become a special favorite of young Thomas, who fondly remembered her singing psalms to him. After Mary’s birth, Peter Jefferson relocated his family to the Piedmont plantation, which he named Shadwell, in honor of his wife, who had been born in Shadwell parish, London. Here Thomas Jefferson was born on April 2, 1743, or, reckoned by the new-style calendar, April 13, 1743. The following year Mrs. Jefferson gave birth to Elizabeth.
Then a part of Goochland County, the area containing Thomas’s birthplace would become a part of Albemarle County when Goochland was partitioned. Peter Jefferson began building Shadwell on the north side of the Rivanna River in much the same way other contemporary Virginia plantations were built. Their first home, the one in which Thomas was born, was built using local materials and erected on a stone foundation. A passel of outbuildings were constructed on the premises. Once Peter Jefferson had established himself sufficiently, he turned his attention to the task of constructing the mansion house, which was erected during the early to mid 1750s.22
The term “mansion house” may be an overstatement. When it was constructed, Shadwell lacked the grandeur of the best Tidewater mansions, yet Peter Jefferson’s house became the finest in the region upon its completion. At his death in 1757, Shadwell contained a substantial group of buildings. After the fire, the family relocated to one of the smaller ones, likely the original home in which Thomas had been born.
During his boyhood, Thomas spent less time at Shadwell than he spent elsewhere. When he was two years old, his father’s good friend William Randolph of Tuckahoe, died unexpectedly. Randolph’s will named Peter Jefferson executor. A codicil contained the unusual request that his friend take charge of both his plantation and the education of his children. Given his diligence and profound sense of responsibility, Peter Jefferson complied with Randolph’s dying wish and removed his own family to Tuckahoe.
Thomas’s early memories, therefore, are associated with Tuckahoe, not Shadwell. Here, Martha, his fourth sister, was born. Jane Jefferson would give birth to five more children, three surviving into adulthood: Lucy, Anna Scott, and Randolph. Twelve years younger than his older brother, Randolph Jefferson remains a shadowy presence in Thomas’s life. Peter did not bring his growing family back to Shadwell for several years. By the time he did, he had already arranged to board young Thomas with a local minister, where the boy could attend school. After his father’s death, Thomas did not remain at Shadwell but went to study at another small local school. Through his adolescence and teenage years, therefore, he spent relatively little time at Shadwell.
His fondest memories of Shadwell were not of the fine home his father built but of the surrounding woods: its outdoors, not its indoors. Here he learned tracking, trailing, and hunting. Even when he became more engaged with the world of books during his teenage years, his studies would often take him outdoors for purposes of exercise and contemplation. The pursuit of knowledge, after all, required the same kind of personal discipline as the pursuit of physical fitness. As Jefferson observed, “The faculties of the mind, like the members of the body, are strengthened and improved by exercise.”23 On horseback or afoot, young Jefferson found that his outdoor excursions often led him to a peak on his father’s property located along the ridge of the Southwest Mountains. He would eventually christen it Monticello.
Describing Monticello a decade and a half after he had begun building his home there, Jefferson captured the place in all of its natural beauty. This description occurs in his renowned “Dialogue between My Head and My Heart,” which he wrote as part of a letter to Maria Cosway. Since she was a painter, Jefferson, speaking from the Heart, depicted his home as an ideal place for her to develop her landscape painting. He wrote: “And our own dear Monticello, where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? Mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious Sun, when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and giving life to all nature.”24
Though he recognized the mountain’s natural beauty when he was in his teens, there is no telling precisely when Jefferson began to consider building a home at its top. The idea likely occurred to him before he gave much thought to practical considerations. How, perchance, would a person obtain water on a mountaintop?
Among the books he inherited from his father was one by the influential British landscape gardener Stephen Switzer. This work’s influence on Jefferson has yet to be gauged—mainly because his ownership of it has yet to be noticed. The book perished in the fire at Shadwell. The nearly illegible manuscript title listed in Peter Jefferson’s estate inventory has so far escaped identification, but the book was Ichnographia Rustica,
or, The Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardener’s Recreation. In this work, Switzer provided a detailed set of “rules for laying out a country estate.” The aesthetic he exemplified is similar to the aesthetic that eighteenth-century poets advocated. Landscaping their country estates, Switzer’s readers were told to follow nature.25
Switzer devoted a chapter to the subject of choosing a location for a country seat. He praised homes having good views but identified three basic needs to solve before building a home at a lofty location: wood, water, and proper soil. Sufficient wood and proper soil may have been worth considering in the modest elevations of England, but both were plentiful in Virginia. Water presented Jefferson the only real physical difficulty. Considering the spectacular views Monticello offered and the psychological benefits derived from them, Jefferson decided that building atop the mountain was worth whatever difficulties locating a good source of water presented. As Switzer observed, “A high Scituation has indeed one Consideration to recommend it, as is like to overballance a Thousand Advantages in other Scituations, I mean its Height, and by Consequences the Nobleness of the View, and the Clearness of the Air.”
If Jefferson had not made up his mind to build on Monticello already, what Switzer had to say next surely convinced him:
Those Places being such as will clear and relax the Passages of the Head and Breast, and such from which we view the beautiful Scenes of Nature, and like the great Philosopher from his Eminence in Philosophy, (tho’ not with the same kind of Satisfaction) see the busie World acting their several Parts of their Labour and Toil below, fills the Mind with immense Idea’s, and makes the World below us as our own.26
Visiting a decade after construction had begun, the Chevalier de Chastellux recorded his impressions of Monticello. His words capture Jefferson’s personal explanation as to why he decided to build atop the mountain, an explanation reflecting Switzer’s influence. Chastellux wrote that Jefferson’s “house stands pre-eminent in these retirements; it was himself who built it and preferred this situation; for although he possessed considerable property in the neighbourhood, there was nothing to prevent him from fixing his residence wherever he thought proper. But it was a debt nature owed to a philosopher and a man of taste, that in his own possessions he should find a spot where he might best study and enjoy her … and it seemed as if from his youth he had placed his mind, as he has done his house, on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.”27
The Road to Monticello Page 2