The Road to Monticello

by Hayes, Kevin J. ;

  Jefferson gradually realized that the study of law and languages went hand in hand. Knowledge of Latin was essential for reading such fundamental works as Justinian’s Institutes, the compilation of Roman civil law that formed the basis for virtually every legal system throughout Europe. He continued to believe that lawyers should read Latin and regretted that its knowledge was falling from use. When American jurist Thomas Cooper presented him a copy of his annotated English translation, The Institutes of Justinian, in the early nineteenth century, Jefferson thanked him but interjected a sardonic comment on the state of legal education in America: “Your edition will be very useful to our lawyers, some of whom will need the translation as well as the notes.”5

  The study of other archaic languages facilitated the study of English law. In Britain, Anglo-Norman had remained the language of court and Parliament into the sixteenth century. Though it slowly fell from use, legal proceedings and treatises continued to be published in Law French, as it was called, into the eighteenth century, when its use was finally abolished by statute. Young men training for the bar in the eighteenth century still needed to know Law French to read many of the most fundamental treatises in English law.

  George Wythe (1876), by John Ferguson Weir, after John Trumbull. (Independence National Historical Park)

  Knowledge of Anglo-Saxon let serious students extend their expertise in English law further back in time. Jefferson traced his interest in Anglo-Saxon to his law student days. Reading John Fortescue-Aland’s edition of Sir John Fortescue’s Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy, as It More Particularly Regards the English Constitution, Jefferson recognized the value of Anglo-Saxon for understanding legal terminology. In his introductory essay, Fortescue-Aland also suggested that knowledge of Anglo-Saxon was important for the well-rounded gentleman. The days of the week, for example, took their names from Anglo-Saxon. It would be unbecoming a man of letters to use words derived from Anglo-Saxon on a daily basis without knowing their origins. Furthermore, knowledge of Anglo-Saxon helps people better understand the etymology of many current English words. Words derived from Anglo-Saxon often convey their meanings more precisely than those derived from Greek or Latin.6

  Fortescue-Aland’s edition of his kinsman’s work confirms the value of learning Anglo-Saxon. His annotations gloss the origins of numerous words used in the text. Placing a dagger adjacent to the word gastful, for instance, he noted that the word came from the Anglo-Saxon word for spirit or ghost: “So the Words, Gastly, or Gastful, in our Tongue, came to signify any thing that look’d frightful, as a Ghost, Spirit, or Apparition is said to do. From thence comes the usual Expression in the West of England, when a Man appears affrighted, that he is agast.”7

  Inspired, Jefferson began studying Anglo-Saxon using The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, an elementary textbook by Elizabeth Elstob, the woman who took Jonathan Swift to task for his ignorance of Anglo-Saxon. Elstob’s work remains important to literary history. She emphasized the profound influence Anglo-Saxon had on the development of English literature.8 Jefferson would deepen his study of Anglo-Saxon with many other scholarly works. The footnotes to Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy name several standard reference works, and Fortescue-Aland also included a thorough bibliography. Jefferson would acquire many of the listed titles for his personal library, including several by George Hickes, whom he would call “the great Restorer of the A.-S. dialect from the oblivion into which it was fast falling.”9 Chasing down the references in Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy to deepen his knowledge, Jefferson engaged in a pattern of scholarly behavior he would frequently repeat.

  His study of law and languages by no means hindered his interests in other fields of knowledge. His mentors in Williamsburg encouraged him to diversify his studies as much as possible. Jefferson would frequently join Small and Wythe as they met Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier at the Governor’s Palace for dinner and pleasant intellectual discourse. He appreciated the Governor’s Palace more from the inside than the out. He found its interior both “spacious and commodious.”10

  Fauquier exemplified the well-rounded gentleman whom his contemporaries called amiable, enlightened, generous, good-natured, and sensible. He was a man of science who appreciated literature and culture and who enjoyed sharing his interests in an atmosphere of conviviality that combined intellectual conversation with good food and drink. In recognition of his accomplishments as a scientist, he had been made a Fellow of the Royal Society (F.R.S.) in 1753. When proposed for membership the year before, he was identified as a “Gentleman of great merit, well versed in Philosophical and Mathematical inquiries, and a great promoter of usefull Learning, and the Advancement of Natural Knowledge.”11

  The lieutenant governor’s library reveals both his personality and his intellect. Though Fauquier had left much of his personal library in England, the books he brought with him formed a tasteful and well-chosen collection. His Virginia library contained works written in a variety of fields—belles lettres, biography, history, poetry, philosophy. The gem of the collection may have been a two-volume edition of Observations on Man, David Hartley’s pioneering psychological study, which ingeniously applied the theory of association to explain the workings of the mind. Fauquier’s was a presentation copy from Hartley himself.12 Despite the personal value of this presentation copy, Fauquier did not safeguard it as a keepsake. Rather, he loaned this and other books to Virginia friends curious to read them. His willingness to loan books from his personal library affirms Fauquier’s generosity and his desire to encourage the progress of knowledge.

  There may be no better evidence of Fauquier’s personality than a contribution he made to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Titled “An Account of an Extraordinary Storm of Hail in Virginia,” the article relates an event from July 1758, the month after he arrived in Williamsburg to serve as lieutenant governor. Fauquier’s powers of description bring the experience alive. The second Sunday of the month, about four that afternoon, thunder sounded and lightning flashed. Dark clouds passed over Williamsburg from the northwest. “The hailstones, or rather pieces of ice, were most of them of an oblong square form; many of them an inch and half long, and about three fourths of an inch wide and deep; and from one side of most of them there proceeded sharp spikes, protuberant at least half an inch.” He gathered as many hailstones as he could and used them to make ice cream and to cool his wine—he especially enjoyed hock and madeira. The number and size of the hailstones were sufficient to last through Monday night and thus to let him keep his wine chilled for a second day in the middle of a hot Williamsburg summer.13

  Recalling the dinner gatherings at the Governor’s Palace during Fauquier’s term of office, Jefferson said that he had never “heard more good sense, more rational and philosophical conversations, than in all my life besides. They were truly Attic societies. The Governor was musical also, and a good performer, and associated me with two or three other amateurs in his weekly concerts.”14 Fauquier, who knew Händel personally, owned two violins, a viola, and two cellos and could play them all. The social contacts Jefferson established around the governor’s dinner table exposed him to a much broader base of knowledge than his college coursework had and did so in a pleasant and convivial way.

  Save for Jefferson’s appreciative comments, little additional evidence survives to document what may have transpired during these frequent dinners. Small likely played the same role in Williamsburg he would play in Birmingham, England. There, he formed a comfortable center around which other members of a group of intellectuals known as the Lunar Circle gathered. Largely uninterested in joining formal scientific organizations or contributing to their Transactions or Proceedings, Small contributed to the history of science by serving as a facilitator, someone who brought men of learning together and created a sociable atmosphere that made the exchange of ideas both enjoyable and productive.

  Small made friends
easily and created enduring personal relationships. Within a few months from the time he left Virginia and arrived in Birmingham, he became close friends with Erasmus Darwin and Matthew Boulton, both of whom relied heavily on his advice. In a letter to Boulton, Darwin made reference to “our ingenious Friend Dr. Small, from whom and from you, when I was last at Birmingham, I received Ideas that for many days occurred to me at the Intervals of the common Business of Life, with inexpressible Pleasure.” Similarly, John Keir confided the results of his scientific experiments to Small within the first few months of their friendship. Thomas Day, more man of letters than man of science, gained Small’s confidence and respected his judgment. Small advised Day against taking up medicine as a career and even introduced him to an attractive woman he thought would be right for him. Day took his advice: he avoided medicine and married the woman.15

  Describing Small’s role among the men of the Lunar Circle, Richard Lovell Edgeworth—the father of popular novelist and children’s author Maria Edgeworth—stated, “Dr. Small formed a link which combined Mr. Boulton, Mr. Watt, Dr. Darwin, Mr. Wedgwood, Mr. Day and myself together—men of very different character but all devoted to literature and science.”16 Linking literature and science, Edgeworth’s statement provides the key to understanding both the Lunar Circle of Birmingham and what can be termed Small’s Williamsburg circle.

  In Jefferson’s day, literature and science were much more closely allied than they are now. Literature was not so narrowly defined then.The term embraced any and all kinds of writing, including scientific discourse. Writing well and understanding science were both considered worthy attributes of the proper eighteenth-century gentleman. The finest scientists were often excellent writers, and the finest litterateurs took pride in their knowledge of science. Neither field had yet to emerge as a profession; rather, both provided avenues for gentlemanly endeavor. This was the era of the virtuoso, the educated and refined man who dabbled in the arts and sciences in the capacity of a highly skilled amateur. Much the same can be said about music. The ability to read music and play an instrument constituted another important attribute of the well-rounded gentleman. Jefferson’s ability to play the violin provided an additional way for him to ingratiate himself to the music-loving lieutenant governor.

  The passion for music Jefferson was developing found written expression in his commonplace book, which contains several quotations from a work best known as The Beauties of the English Stage, a compilation that brought together memorable passages from Renaissance through Restoration drama and arranged them topically. Jefferson commonplaced several excerpts pertaining to music, including the following lines from The Merchant of Venice:

  The Man who has not Music in his Soul,

  Or is not touch’d with Concord of sweet Sounds,

  Is fit for Treasons, Strategems, and Spoils,

  The Motions of his Mind are dull as Night,

  And his Affections dark as Erebus:

  Let no such Man be trusted.17

  Copying a passage from Shakespeare that establishes an inverse relationship between music appreciation and political intrigue around the same time that the colonial governor was fueling his passion for music, Jefferson confirmed his love of music and acknowledged a parallel between musical and political harmony. As he cultivated his love of music in company with the governor, Jefferson got other ideas. Before long he was talking about going to Italy, where he might buy himself a good fiddle.

  Small’s Williamsburg circle was more intimate than the Lunar Circle of Birmingham, yet both functioned similarly. The circumference of each was variable and could expand to include visitors. During his visits to England, Benjamin Franklin, for example, befriended several members of Birmingham’s scientific crowd, corresponded with them, and occasionally joined their social gatherings. Similarly, elite travelers passing through Virginia entered Small’s Williamsburg circle. Andrew Burnaby joined the group during his stay in Williamsburg. Besides praising Wythe’s classical learning in the pages of his Travels, Burnaby conveyed his gratitude to Fauquier for supplying the detailed weather data he appended to the book. “In Virginia,” Burnaby admitted, “I have had the pleasure to know several gentlemen adorned with many virtues and accomplishments.”18 The circle widened to include Jefferson. John Page sometimes enjoyed the warmth of Professor Small and friends, too.

  Small’s Williamsburg group was not the only circle in which Jefferson moved during the early 1760s. With Page, he also belonged to the new generation of Virginia’s elite, young people in their late teens and early twenties who enjoyed dancing and flirting, not to mention gossiping about the romantic fortunes and misfortunes of one another. Jefferson’s musical ability transcended the bounds of intellect and served him well regardless of the company he kept. Leaving Williamsburg for Shadwell shortly before Christmas 1762, he made sure to bring the law books Wythe assigned him, but he also packed several pieces of music—a “half dozen new minuets”—for the purpose of providing entertainment at Shadwell and at the homes of others he might visit while away from Williamsburg.19

  Jefferson spent that Christmas at Fairfield, the plantation of a friend who lived an easy day’s ride from Shadwell. Part of Christmas Day Jefferson spent writing a long, fanciful letter to Page.20 Exhibiting the hyperbole characteristic of their correspondence, it nonetheless articulates the differences between Jefferson’s intellectual circle and his social one. The letter makes reference to Sir Edward Coke, whose multipart Institutes deserves its status as the first textbook of modern English common law. The first part of Coke’s Institutes, familiarly known as Coke upon Littleton, contains the text of Sir Thomas Littleton’s Tenures in Law French with commentary by Coke that sometimes becomes so elaborate that it practically usurps the text it annotates. Coke upon Littleton was required reading for all first-year law students. After telling Page he had brought a copy of the work with him to read during the Christmas holidays, Jefferson, speaking with tongue firmly in cheek, doubted whether he would be able to make it through this ponderous work.

  “Well, Page,” he sighed. “I do wish the Devil had old Coke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life.”

  These words reflect less what Jefferson was really thinking and more what the beginning law student typically thought. In terms of both form and content, Coke upon Littleton was a demanding, yet essential work. Once he came to know it, Jefferson would remark that Coke reconciled “all the decisions and opinions which were reconcilable” and rejected what was unreconcilable. “This work,” he continued, “is executed with so much learning and judgment, that I do not recollect that a single position in it has ever been judicially denied. And although the work loses much of its value by its chaotic form, it may still be considered as the fundamental code of the English law.” Another time Jefferson spoke of the “deep and rich mines of Coke and Littleton.” Elsewhere he cautioned that Coke’s opinion “is ever dangerous to neglect.”21

  For law students in Jefferson’s day, reading Coke upon Littleton amounted to a rite of passage. Those who made it through the book not only felt a sense of accomplishment, but also earned the right to belittle students who had not completed it. Overseeing the legal education of his grandson-in-law Charles Lewis Bankhead many years later, Jefferson inflicted Coke upon Littleton on him. He even assigned it to Bankhead the same time of year his teacher had assigned it to him: over the Christmas holidays. With great glee, Jefferson wrote his granddaughter Anne Randolph Bankhead in late December, “Mr. Bankhead I suppose is seeking a Merry Christmas in all the wit and merriments of Coke Littleton. God send him a good deliverance.”22

  Though teachers told their law students they had to read Coke upon Littleton, no one told them they had to enjoy it. Complaining about the work became almost as essential to the rite of passage as reading it. Naming Coke an “old dull scoundrel” in his letter to Page, Jefferson was not expressing his true feelings. Rather, he was striking the pose of the beleaguered law student forced
to read a book whose contemporary value he has difficulty discerning.

  “But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and admired,” Jefferson observed in the letter to Page. Continuing this literary pose, he exclaimed, “Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No: And as for admiration I am sure the man who powders most, parfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired.” Contrasting the advice of the “old fellows” with fashionable behavior, Jefferson implicitly compared his intellectual circle with his social one and questioned the value of reading the books his elders recommended. Before finishing the paragraph, however, he dropped the pose and admitted that the “old fellows” may be onto something: “Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these [the powdered, perfumed, embroidered, nonsense-talking sort], in whose formation, as the saying is, the taylors and barbers go halves with God almighty: and since these are the only persons whose esteem is worth a wish, I do not know but that upon the whole the advice of these old fellows may be worth following.”23

  In this same letter and others to follow, Jefferson struck another pose, that of the distraught young lover. He confessed to Page his love for Rebecca Burwell, the sister of a friend and college classmate. Before leaving Williamsburg that Christmas, Jefferson had become smitten with Miss Burwell. Out of town, he attempted to pitch woo by proxy. He wrote Page: “Remember me affectionately to all the young ladies of my acquaintance, particularly the Miss Burwells and Miss Potters, and tell them that though that heavy earthly part of me, my body, be absent, the better half of me, my soul, is ever with them, and that my best wishes shall ever attend them.”24 In subsequent letters to Page, Jefferson reiterated his fondness for Miss Burwell, often calling her Belinda or even αδvιλεβ—Belinda reversed and transliterated—for purposes of intrigue. Undoubtedly fond of her, Jefferson may not have been as infatuated with Rebecca Burwell as the surviving letters imply. Like the beleaguered law student, the forlorn romantic seems more of a literary persona Jefferson adopted for the amusement of himself and his correspondent than a genuine reflection of his feelings.