The Road to Monticello

by Hayes, Kevin J. ;

  This essay is classic Jefferson. In some ways, his idiosyncratic literary theory follows the standard dictates of Augustan verse, but he departed from prevailing rules of prosody by introducing new terms that precisely define and identify the individual components of a poem. He observed, “It is the business of the poet so to arrange his words as that, repeated in their accustomed measures they shall strike the ear with that regular rhythm which constitutes verse.”37 His emphasis on the regularity of poetic meter aligns him with the common practice of his day.

  He challenged the system of prosody outlined by Samuel Johnson, who had applied the rules of Greek prosody to English verse. In ancient Greek, poetic feet are determined by their combination of long and short syllables. Consequently, Johnson had sought to break down English verse into poetic feet composed of long and short syllables. Finding the system inadequate, Jefferson observed: “I am not satisfied whether this accented syllable be pronounced longer, louder, or harder, and the others shorter, lower, or softer. I have found the nicest ears divided on the question.” Instead, Jefferson modified Johnson’s system of prosody by substituting accent for quality. Usage has established which syllables of a multisyllabic word are stressed or unstressed. “That the accent shall never be displaced from the syllable whereon usage hath established,” he explained, “is the fundamental law of English verse.”38

  So far, so good. Jefferson went awry, however, by trying to introduce new terminology for describing the differently accented poetic feet. He borrowed his terms from Greek and Latin grammar. Trochaic verse, where the accent falls on the odd syllables, he called imparisyllabic verse. Iambic verse, where the accent falls on the even syllables, he called parisyllabic verse. Anapestic verse, which incorporates poetic feet consisting of three syllables with an accent on the last, Jefferson called trisyllabic verse. Though he illustrated each of these types of poetic feet with quotations from the British poets—Thomas Gray, William Collins, William Shenstone, Edward Young—his argument in favor of the new terminology is unconvincing.

  Quoting lines from Pope’s “Epitaph: On Himself” and Swift’s “To Mr. Sheridan, Upon His Verses Written in Circles,” Jefferson called these two poems “pieces of sport on which they [their authors] did not mean to rest their poetical merit.”39 Here he implicitly acknowledged that verse can be classified in terms of levels of seriousness and importance. Making this distinction, Jefferson anticipated a literary aesthetic that would not emerge until the nineteenth century, the idea of art for art’s sake. For the most part, Jefferson accepted the prevailing critical dictate that literature should both delight and instruct. Acknowledging the possibility of poems written for “sport,” he was suggesting that some verse could be written purely for delight without regard to its instructive value.

  Another section of “Thoughts on English Prosody” describes rules for accenting English. The rules for accenting syllables are so capricious that it would be easier to learn the accent of every word than the rules that govern the placement of accents. Reading English poetry offers a good way to learn how to accent English words. If the reader knows the accent of one word in a piece of poetry, that knowledge often provides the key to correctly reading the entire piece. Learning how to accent English words is only a part of the process because there are also different shades of emphasis.

  Among native English speakers, not everyone masters the degrees of emphasis, which depend not only on judgment but also on physical ability. For support, Jefferson used the example of Samuel Foote, who was “known to have read Milton so exquisitely that he received great sums of money for reading him to audiences who attended him regularly for that purpose.” The significance Jefferson placed on individual pronunciation in “Thoughts on English Prosody” anticipates a defining aspect of Romantic literature, specifically, the importance of the personal voice.40

  To facilitate learning the different shades of emphasis, Jefferson outlined a clever way of recording differences of degree in writing. Instead of single accent marks to denote emphasis, he suggested using multiple accent marks—up to four—to denote the degree of emphasis. Read in isolation, an individual word can be scanned in only one way, but placed within two different lines of verse, its emphasis subtly changes according to where it occurs in the line and what other words surround it. In the history of English literary criticism, Jefferson is the first to describe a system for denoting different levels of emphasis. Modern literary critics have lamented that scansion does not record pitch.41 Jefferson’s method of scansion does. Still, it seems too demanding. Requiring those who scan poetry not only to identify the accented syllables but also to discriminate four different degrees of emphasis may be too complex for practical purposes. Jefferson’s theory of prosody manifests an impulse that shows in other aspects of his creative life, especially his architectural drawings: precision regardless of practicality.

  Discussing line length, Jefferson concurred with the prevailing belief that pentameter verse made the best poetry. Pentameter is the only metrical form with “dignity enough to support blank verse,” which Jefferson considered the most precious part of English verse. His defense echoes Milton’s preface to Paradise Lost. As an advocate for blank verse, Jefferson argued its value over rhymed verse: “The poet, unfettered by rhyme, is at liberty to prune his diction of those tautologies, those feeble nothings necessary to introtrude the rhyming word. With no other trammel than that of measure he is able to condense his thoughts and images and to leave nothing but what is truly poetical.”42

  To prune the prevailing diction of its tautologies: Jefferson had used this idea to guide his reformation of legal language the decade before. Here is yet another similarity Jefferson saw between law and literature: both should express their ideas with elegant simplicity.

  Beyond its value as literary criticism, “Thoughts on English Prosody” also provides a good indication of Jefferson’s literary tastes. Like the extracts he recorded in his literary commonplace book, the lines he quoted in “Thoughts on English Prosody” indicate the English authors he enjoyed. The essay quotes William Shenstone more than any other author, but it also includes lines from many popular seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors. Jefferson obviously found the apostrophe to liberty from Joseph Addison’s “Letter from Italy” inspiring. He quoted the passage to illustrate parisyllabic verse, but his quotation goes much further than necessary to illustrate the literary point he was making:

  Oh liberty! thou goddess heav’nly bright

  Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight

  Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,

  And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;

  Eas’d of her load subjection grows more light,

  And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;

  Thou mak’st the gloomy face of nature gay

  Giv’st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.

  The fact that Jefferson wrote “Thoughts on English Prosody,” his only sustained piece of literary criticism, in Paris confirms the liveliness of the intellectual milieu in which he found himself. The literary and social circles he traveled in offered the opportunity to talk about literature, and such talk prompted him to think and eventually write about literature. “Thoughts on English Prosody” may not occupy a prominent place in the history of literary criticism, but in the story of Jefferson’s life, the essay shows how intellectually stimulated he was during his time in Paris.

  CHAPTER 22

  London Town

  One snowy February day in 1786, Jefferson received a visit from William Stephens Smith, secretary of the American legation in London, good friend of John Adams, and fiancé to his daughter Abigail. Smith had come to Paris expressly to deliver an urgent message from Adams to Jefferson. Since their joint commission to negotiate treaties of amity and commerce between the United States and other nations would end in May, the two had the responsibility to do as much as they could before its expiration. Though any further efforts in this regard had see
med fruitless, new and unexpected opportunities for negotiating treaties with Portugal, Tripoli, and possibly other nations of the Barbary Coast arose that winter. In recent weeks, Adams had been meeting with Abdrahaman, the envoy of the Sultan of Tripoli.1 Adams went so far to endear himself to the Tripoline ambassador that he actually began smoking a hookah in his presence. The incongruous sight of this staid New Englander puffing away at a hookah prompted Abdrahaman’s secretary to exclaim, “Monsieur, vous êtes un Turk!”

  After three such meetings, Adams remained hopeful that a diplomatic agreement between the United States and Tripoli could be hammered out, provided he and Jefferson acted quickly. From Adams’s view, a treaty would prevent a grim alternative, “a universal and horrible War with these Barbary States, which will continue for many Years.” He felt quite strongly about the matter and conveyed his feelings in an urgent letter to Jefferson. “I am so impressed and distressed with this affair,” Adams wrote, “that I will go to New York or to Algiers or first to one and then to the other, if you think it necessary, rather than it should not be brought to a Conclusion.”2

  Jefferson was more skeptical than his fellow commissioner when it came to negotiating with Tripoli. He suspected, shrewdly, that the nation wanted money before it would sign a treaty, and more money than the United States could or should pay. From Jefferson’s perspective, the situation with Portugal was more promising, and this, more than Adams’s fervent remarks about Tripoli, motivated him to go to London.

  Before leaving Paris, he had certain proprieties to observe. For one, he had to present himself at Versailles and apprise the Comte de Vergennes that he would be out of France for some weeks. In the meantime, Jefferson saw no reason to alter his social calendar. Planning to attend a masquerade ball on the evening Smith arrived, he invited his visitor to accompany him. The two became friends almost immediately. Jefferson penned a character sketch of him for James Madison. “You can judge of Smith’s abilities by his letters,” he observed. Jefferson’s words emphasize the importance of being a good writer in his day, a time when people were often judged by the letters they wrote. He compared Smith to James Monroe—no small praise: “For his honesty he is like our friend Monroe. Turn his soul wrong side outwards and there is not a speck on it. He has one foible, an excessive inflammability of temper, but he feels it when it comes on, and has resolution enough to suppress it, and to remain silent till it passes over.”3

  Considering the events that occurred on the evening in question, Jefferson might have given Smith a touch of Yankee naiveté in his character sketch. Though engaged to Nabby Adams, Smith had insufficient experience in the ways of the world to survive a Paris masquerade ball unscathed. When a Dutch baroness approached the two that evening, Jefferson successfully extricated himself from her clutches. Smith was less adept at dealing with a European noblewoman on the prowl. Describing the episode to a correspondent, Smith admitted, “When Mr. Jefferson had made his escape, she had fastened her talons on me.”4

  Upon taking care of a few more pieces of business—acquiring the latest volume of the Encyclopedie Methodique for himself and additional copies for Franklin, Hopkinson, Madison, and Monroe; purchasing some lace and cambric to present to Mrs. Adams; and hiring a cabriolet to take them to Calais—Jefferson was ready to go. They left Paris the first Monday in March. Since the snowstorm of the previous week, the temperature had been hovering around the freezing point. The journey to Calais proved cold and uncomfortable. They nonetheless paused at Chantilly for some sightseeing. The Adamses had passed through there on their way to London the year before and had recommended seeing the chateau. The brisk weather persisted at Calais, and storms delayed their passage to Dover. Happily, the cheery inn where they stayed offered several amenities for its channel-crossing patrons. Jefferson and Smith would wait here a day and a half before the weather settled enough for sailing.

  After a passage of nine and a half hours, they touched at Dover, finally reaching London late Saturday night, “as early as the excessive rigour of the weather admitted.”5 They met with Adams briefly that evening and rejoined him on Sunday. All in all, Jefferson would spend many pleasurable evenings in the company of John, Abigail, and Nabby Adams. John Quincy Adams had since returned to the United States to attend college, but not William and Mary, as Jefferson had recommended. No, William and Mary would not do, not for an Adams. None of their clan could imagine traveling south of the Charles River, let alone the Potomac, for their education. John Quincy Adams was attending Harvard College, of course.

  For his London sojourn, Jefferson found lodgings in Golden Square in the city’s West End. On Sunday, he had a good look around the place. Though he found London generally more handsome than Paris, its architecture was wretched in comparison. David Humphreys, who had visited earlier that year, was also disappointed with its buildings. In a letter to George Washington from London, Humphreys observed, “This City is in extent as well as population considerably larger than Paris, the streets are wider and cleaner, and the appearance of some particular squares perhaps more elegant, tho’ in general I cannot say I like the style of building here so well as in France.”6

  Adams arranged for Jefferson to meet the Marquis of Carmarthen, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, and to attend the levees of King George III and his queen. None of these meetings went well. About the Marquis, Jefferson wrote, “The distance and disinclination which he betrayed in his conversation, the vagueness and evasions of his answers to us, confirmed me in the belief of their aversion to have anything to do with us.”7 Shortly after meeting the king, Jefferson observed that the British monarch was as bitter and obstinate as he had imagined.

  Recalling the time he met the king and queen after a lapse of forty years, Jefferson reiterated his first impression: “It was impossible for anything to be more ungracious than their notice of Mr. Adams and myself. I saw at once that the ulcerations in the narrow mind of that mulish being left nothing to be expected on the subject of my attendance.”8 Having written in the Declaration of Independence that the “history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations” and having enumerated these injuries as a “Catalogue of Crimes,” Jefferson should not have expected too warm a reception from His Royal Majesty. But now that the war was over and a peace treaty signed, he had expected the king to cast off his animosity toward the United States of America, set aside his stubbornness, and behave with the civility and grace befitting the crown. Apparently, the king saw it differently.

  A few days later, Jefferson encountered a contemporary English celebrity of a different sort. Shortly after mentioning the king in his memorandum book, Jefferson recorded that he saw the “learned pig.”9 He neither elaborated on this encounter nor made any explicit comparisons between it and his meeting with the king, but given his criticism of the king’s obstinate behavior, Jefferson seems to have preferred the oinker’s company: better a learned pig than a mulish monarch.

  The learned pig was a phenomenon of the time. A contemporary advertisement describing its abilities puffed: “He reads, writes, and casts accounts by means of typographical cards, in the same manner that a printer composes and by the same method.” In addition, the pig purportedly could solve complex problems in arithmetic. Like many good shows, the pig and its exhibitors toured the provinces before making their London debut. Samuel Johnson learned of the beast’s intellectual prowess and regaled friends with conjectures of its abilities, which James Boswell duly recorded in his Life of Johnson, thus capturing the pig for posterity. Johnson passed away before the pig’s London debut and never had the opportunity to see the pig in person.10

  Once it reached London, the learned pig was all the rage. Speaking of this renowned porker, one contemporary Londoner observed, “He now draws the attention of the beau monde—women of the first Fashion waited for hours for their turn to see him.” Another observed: “The renown of this prodigy of animals is so established, as I am informed, that the propriet
or is rapidly amassing a fortune, thro’ the sway of fashion, as it would be quite monstrous and ill-bred not to follow the ton and go to see the wonderful Learned Pig; it being the trite question in all polite circles, Pray, my Lord, my Lady, Sir John, Madam, or Miss, have you seen the Learned Pig? If answer is given in the affirmative, it is a confirmation of taste; if in the negative, it is reprobated as an odious singularity!” Nabby Adams, having already seen the dancing dogs, the singing duck, and the little hare that beats a drum, anxiously looked forward to seeing the learned pig, too.11

  During Jefferson’s time in England, the following paean to the pig appeared in the London press:

  Though Johnson, learned Bear, is gone,

  Let us no longer mourn our loss,

  For lo, a learned Hog is come,

  And wisdom grunts at Charing Cross.

  Happy for Johnson—that he died

  Before this wonder came to town,

  Else had it blasted all his pride

  Another brute should gain renown.12

  Ever a man of discriminating tastes, Jefferson usually found such crass verse offensive, but Samuel Johnson was not above his reproach. Jefferson, whose prose has been called superior to Johnson’s verse, had room to complain.13 In addition to critiquing his theory of prosody, Jefferson also found fault with his Dictionary of the English Language. “Johnson, besides the want of precision in his definitions, and of accurate distinction in passing from one shade of meaning to another of the same word, is most objectionable in his derivations,” Jefferson observed. “From a want probably of intimacy with our own language while in the Anglo-Saxon form and type, and of its kindred languages of the North, he has a constant leaning towards Greek and Latin for English etymon.”14 In Jefferson’s view, Johnson should have brushed up his Anglo-Saxon and his Gaelic before drafting his derivations.