The week after writing Charles Macpherson, Jefferson left Monticello for Williamsburg, where he attended the Assembly in March and the General Court in April. Other important meetings would be taking place outside the judicial and legislative chambers that spring. The movement toward American independence was gaining momentum, and Jefferson and his fellow burgesses were doing what they could to advance the cause of liberty. When he and Patrick Henry met privately with others at the Raleigh Tavern, they decided to propose the establishment of intercolonial committees of correspondence.
Dabney Carr had just begun serving in the House of Burgesses as a representative from Louisa County. Through Jefferson’s influence, Carr was chosen to move the resolutions, which he did in a forceful and eloquent speech. The plan was adopted, and Carr was appointed a member of the first committee. Sadly, he did not live to witness the stirring events that would occur over the next few years. On May 16, 1773, two months after making his remarkable speech, Dabney Carr died suddenly. He was twenty-nine.
Jefferson coped with the loss, it would seem, by reading Ossian, whose works could function therapeutically in much the same way as Drelincourt’s Consolations or Sherlock’s Practical Discourse Concerning Death. A tone of contemplative sadness pervades the works of Ossian, who often voices his grief as he remembers absent friends. Ossian’s verse embodies the sympathetic pleasure a sorrowful tale can evoke.
Jefferson’s reading also shaped his ideas for Carr’s tombstone. One inscription he drafted conflates two different passages from Temora:
This stone shall rise with all its moss and speak to other years ‘here lies gentle Carr within the dark and narrow house where no morning comes with her half opening pages.’ When thou, O stone, shalt fail and the mountain stream roll quite away! Then shall the traveller come, and bend here perhaps in rest. When the darkened moon is rolled over his head, the shadowy form may come, and, mixing with his dreams, remind him who is here.
On second thought, Jefferson decided against this inscription, but he did have Carr buried at Monticello beneath an old tree where, legend has it, the two used to study together. The inscription he eventually chose, less ornate in its language, is nonetheless heartfelt:
To his virtue, good sense, learning and friendship
this stone is dedicated by
Thomas Jefferson
who, of all men loved him most.8
Beyond its emotional impact, Carr’s death greatly altered the day-today life of the Jeffersons. Jefferson’s sister, Martha Carr, came to Monticello in late May and brought her children with her—all five of them. The children ranged in age from the oldest, six-year-old Jane, to Dabney Junior—born just three weeks before his father’s death. Jefferson became their guardian and personally supervised the boys’ education.
As they grew from children into adults, Jefferson continued recommending books to them. His letters to Peter Carr contain some of his most valuable comments on literature. When Peter was fifteen, his uncle recommended reading Ossian, not only for personal enjoyment but also as a literary model he could use to develop his writing style. Dutifully obeying his uncle, Peter read Ossian but was unimpressed. He responded, “You also advise me to read the works of Ossian, which I have done and should be more pleased with them if there were more variety.”9
Peter’s criticism is understandable to anyone who has attempted to read the Ossianic prose-poems since they have passed from popularity. Though disheartened by Peter’s lack of enthusiasm, Jefferson could not have been too disappointed because, after all, he had encouraged his nephews to read critically and think deeply about what they read. Though Peter recognized a repetitive quality in the poems of Ossian, he failed to understand what his uncle had, that carefully crafted literary repetition can have great rhetorical and emotional impact. Jefferson knew that patterns of recurrence can intensify ideas and emotions, and he would use such rhetorical repetition in some of his most persuasive and impassioned political writings.10
Before the month of May was out, the family endured another death when John Wayles passed away. With this death, Jefferson came into possession of thousands of acres of land and a large number of slaves. He also inherited Wayles’s debts. Consequently, he had to sell more than half the land in order to meet the obligation. Poplar Forest, the only property of those he inherited from Wayles that he kept, would become Jefferson’s vacation retreat. Before long, those who purchased land from Jefferson would pay off their notes in depreciated Revolutionary currency. For years to come he would struggle to liquidate his debt to Wayles’s creditors.
Less complicated and more gratifying were the books he inherited or otherwise acquired from the estate of his father-in-law. The month after Wayles died, Jefferson traveled to Poplar Forest, where he inventoried his father-in-law’s substantial library. By Jefferson’s count, the Wayles library contained 669 volumes. Making a record of it on one of the blank leaves bound within the center of his almanac, Jefferson subdivided the books into format from large to small—folio, quarto, octavo, duodecimo. He did not list titles individually. Few other documents survive to record the contents of Wayles’s estate, so it is impossible to say how many of these volumes came into Jefferson’s possession. Titles that have turned up since the detailed catalogue of Jefferson’s great library was prepared suggest that he owned many more volumes from the Wayles collection than the catalogue indicates. The most up-to-date evidence shows that his father-in-law’s books significantly augmented Jefferson’s personal library.11
Law books dominated Wayles’s library. Given Jefferson’s interest in the laws of Virginia, the most important law book he received from the Wayles estate was John Purvis’s Complete Collection of All the Laws of Virginia. This statute collection, formerly in the possession of William Byrd II of Westover, contains a long and unique manuscript appendix. Other law books Jefferson received from the estate included works treating such subjects as equity pleading, fraud and conspiracy, and parliamentary jurisdiction. He also received reports of cases, collections of important trials, and some individual ones such as Elizabeth Canning’s sensational trial. Canning was a young London woman who had gone missing for weeks only to reappear, claim she had been abducted, and then be accused, tried, convicted, sentenced, and transported to America for perjury.
Jefferson acquired books from Wayles’s library treating a number of other subjects. Wayles had an idiosyncratic collection of controversial religious literature, as well as a fairly standard collection of books pertaining to business matters, ranging from such practical works as ready-reckoners and currency converters to more theoretical treatises. One such book was Henry Pollexfen’s Of Trade, which defined and explained how to determine the balance of trade, discussed the price of gold and its relationship to paper credit, and examined the trade among England, Europe, the East Indies, and Africa. Wayles’s library also contained several volumes of music. For example, Lyric Harmony, a musical score Jefferson acquired from Wayles’s estate that survives at the University of Virginia, contains eighteen ballads, including one titled “To a Lady, Who, Being Ask’d by Her Lover for a Token of Her Constancy, Gave Him a Knife.”
In terms of Jefferson’s literary interests, Wayles’s copy of René Rapin’s Critical Works may be the most relevant book he received from the estate. Rapin was one of the best-loved literary critics of seventeenth-century France. He advocated a traditional aesthetic that emphasized the value of literature for teaching proper moral conduct, an idea Jefferson shared. Rapin also contributed to the Ancients versus Moderns debate, coming out firmly on the side of the Ancients. His critical works consisted of a series of comparative essays contrasting multiple pairs of ancient orators, poets, historians, and philosophers: Demosthenes and Cicero, Homer and Virgil, Thucydides and Livy, Plato and Aristotle. As the notes on Ossian in his commonplace book show, Jefferson was deeply engaged in the practice of comparing ancient literature from different cultures, an approach this newly acquired volume reinforced.
The books from the library of Reuben Skelton that Jefferson acquired also came through the estate of John Wayles. Skelton had owned an excellent collection of biographical literature, which greatly enhanced Jefferson’s library, including Archibald Bower’s History of the Popes; Edward Harwood’s Biographia Classica, a collection of biographical sketches of Greek and Roman historians, orators, and poets; Plutarch’s Lives; and Thomas Stanley’s The History of Philosophy, which presented biographical and critical sketches of philosophers throughout Western history. These works reinforced Jefferson’s recognition of the importance of biography as a literary genre. He also acquired Reuben Skelton’s copy of the twenty-volume Universal History. As far as general reference books went, the Universal History was, in Jefferson’s words, “the most learned, and most faithful perhaps that ever was written. Its style is very plain, but perspicuous.”12
He did not come into possession of Wayles’s books until the following year, as one surviving volume verifies. The flyleaf of Wayles’s copy of Voltaire’s History of Charles XII contains a rare dated autograph: “Thos. Jefferson 1774.”13 Though Wayles’s books greatly augmented his collection, Jefferson remained dissatisfied with the rate his library was growing. It seemed as if he could hardly accumulate books fast enough. His accounts for 1773 indicate that he was buying and selling books not only for himself but also for his friends and neighbors. In Williamsburg the week after Wayles’s death, for example, he picked up a copy of a Latin–English dictionary for a neighbor.14
At the same time, he acquired another book for himself, a copy of James McClurg’s Experiments upon the Human Bile, which included a lengthy but self-effacing introduction advocating medical and scientific experimentation. Though Jefferson’s scientific interests prompted him to assemble a good collection of European medical treatises, his acquisition of this homegrown medical book was personally motivated. After studying medicine at Edinburgh, its author, a native Virginian, had returned home to practice medicine. McClurg, like Jefferson, had become active in Virginia’s Philosophical Society for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge. Jefferson’s purchase of McClurg’s book gave him a way to support his friend and patronize the study of science in America. Another personal factor motivated Jefferson’s acquisition of McClurg’s study of human bile: Dabney Carr’s death had been attributed to bilious fever.
Despite these new acquisitions, Jefferson longed to expand his library on a much grander scale. To that end, he visited Westover, the stately manor of William Byrd III, whose library had the reputation of being the finest in Virginia. Byrd III, whose personal tastes ran more toward such works as John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, had little to do with amassing this impressive collection of books. The Byrd library was started by his grandfather and made great by his father. William Byrd II willed the library to his son, who, sadly, turned out to be a drunk, a profligate, and a gambler. It was mainly through the efforts of his mother, Maria Taylor Byrd, that the library remained intact after her husband’s death: she prevented her son from selling the books for ready cash. After her death in 1771, William Byrd III, chronically in debt, began considering the sale of the library.15
Jefferson, who was Byrd’s attorney, had been familiar with the collection for years, but he began looking at it differently once his client started contemplating its sale. One day, he carefully scrutinized Byrd’s library and estimated its value, which he noted in his almanac. As he had with Wayles’s library, he listed the number of volumes by format and their estimated value. Even though he greatly underestimated the value of the collection, he still could not afford it.
Another memorandum Jefferson made in that year’s almanac indicates the size of his own collection:
Aug. 4. 1773. My library.
vols.
In the Mahogany book case with glass doors 510
Walnut bookcase in N.W. corner of room 180
Walnut bookcase in N.E. corner of room 224
Shelves in N.W. corner of room 151
Shelves in N.E. corner of room 131
Lent out 42
Lying about 18
in all 1256 vols.
Note this does not include vols. of Music; nor my books in Williams-burgh.16
The total is amazing, especially considering that it had only been three years since the fire at Shadwell. The number of books lent out and lying about show that Jefferson was encouraging others to read and reading much himself that summer. The books lent out were mainly law books: Jefferson was currently overseeing the legal education of several young men. Those lying about suggest that there were eighteen books that he and his wife were reading, all in various stages of completion. The books they were reading were compelling enough that they refused to return them to the shelves before finishing them, not even for purposes of taking inventory.
For the moment, Jefferson did not make a detailed list of the titles his library contained, but his friend Edmund Randolph drafted a good description of the library as it was constituted around this time, using it to help assess Jefferson’s personal character:
He had been ambitious to collect a library, not merely amassing number of books, but distinguishing authors of merit and assembling them in subordination to every art and science; and notwithstanding losses by fire, this library was at this time more happily calculated than any other private one to direct to objects of utility and taste, to present to genius the scaffolding upon which its future eminence might be built, and to reprove the restless appetite, which is too apt to seize the mere gatherer of books.17
In other words, despite the large number of volumes Jefferson was amassing, he was not buying books indiscriminately. Rather, he was assembling a fine collection that reflected his practical interests, his tastes, and his quest for knowledge.
Though his collection swelled to more than a thousand volumes that summer, he still felt the need for many more—especially those manuscript compilations of Ossianic verse. When he took this inventory, he had yet to hear from Charles Macpherson. Jefferson’s letter had been delayed for several months, finally reaching its intended correspondent in Edinburgh the last week of July. Charles acted as quickly as he could and relayed his request to his brother. James Macpherson wrote back and, not surprisingly, refused. In justifying his refusal, James gave his brother several reasons why he could not comply with the request, all of which seem a little evasive when read in retrospect.
Writing Jefferson to give him the disappointing news, Charles apologized and enclosed the letter from his brother. Though unable to send Jefferson Gaelic texts of Ossian, Charles did supply him with a copy of the Gaelic New Testament translated from the Greek by a Scottish Episcopalian minister, James Stuart. Tiomnadh nuadh, as this translation of the New Testament was titled, contains a nine-page appendix called “Rules for Reading the Galic Language.” Charles also sent Jefferson a copy of Alexander MacDonald’s Galick and English Vocabulary, a work sponsored by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge and prepared for the use of charity schools in the Scottish Highlands. The work was intended to help local Scots learn English, but it could also be used in the reverse. Jefferson later acquired another work by Alexander MacDonald, a compilation of Gaelic songs and poems with a useful glossary to facilitate the study of the language. His acquisition of this last volume suggests that even though he had been unable to obtain copies of Ossian’s poems in Gaelic, he still pursued the study of the language, which continued to fascinate him for decades.18
Charles ended his letter with a promise to send Jefferson any other Gaelic works that might appear in the future, but he conveyed the unlikelihood of such publications. Charles related this information with sadness. Alas, there were few people left who could properly record the language. The best way for a person to experience poems similar to those of Ossian, he suggested, would be to visit the Highlands and immerse himself within the vestiges of ancient Scottish culture that survived: “In the remote Highlands there are still to be found a number of Ossians
Poems, abounding equally in the tender and sublime, with those with which Mr. Macpherson has favored the public, and these are chanted away, with a wildness a sweetness of enthusiasm, in the true spirit of Song.”19
James Macpherson’s refusal did not dampen Jefferson’s enthusiasm for the poems of Ossian. Even after their authenticity came into question, he continued to read Ossian with fondness. He even named horses after Ossianic characters. He had one horse named Fingal, another named Ryno after Fingal’s son, and a mare named Cuthona after the legendary lover in “Conlath and Cuthona.” Imagine its owner astride Fingal on an unexpectedly cool summer morning. The valley of the Rivanna would be filled with fog, and Jefferson could descend from Monticello into the mist below and picture himself in the Scottish Highlands of Ossian’s day.
Independent testimony confirms Jefferson’s devotion to Ossianic verse. The well-known anecdote the Marquis de Chastellux recorded after his visit to Monticello in 1782 bears repeating. In his Travels in North America, Chastellux wrote:
I recall with pleasure that as we were conversing one evening over a “bowl of punch,” after Mrs. Jefferson had retired, we happened to speak of the poetry of Ossian. It was a spark of electricity which passed rapidly from one to the other; we recited them for the benefit of my traveling companions, who fortunately knew English well and could appreciate them, even though they had never read the poems. Soon the book was called for, to share in our “toasts”: it was brought forth and placed beside the bowl of punch. And, before we realized it, book and bowl had carried us far into the night.20
Jefferson’s surviving copy of Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire contains a transcription from “Carthon,” one of the most popular and influential of the Ossianic prose-poems. The inscription, made in or after 1789 (the year the volume was published), confirms Jefferson’s ongoing devotion to the legendary poet but clashes with Gibbon’s skepticism on the subject of Ossian. Even though Gibbon questioned the authenticity of Ossianic verse, he found Macpherson’s depiction of the ancient Caledonians so alluring that he incorporated it in his history. Favorably comparing the ancient Caledonians to the Romans, Gibbon wrote: “Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern criticisms: but if he could, with safety, indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind.”21
The Road to Monticello Page 19