He realized what had gone wrong and wrote Froullé to explain the situation: “It happened unfortunately that being shipped from Havre in the winter, the books, as always happens in a winter passage, had been much wetted, and lying wet in America for a twelvemonth before they were opened, were some of them completely rotted. In this way the volumes of plates to the Encyclopedie suffered more than any others, because being larger than the rest, they were laid in the top of the box, and received the first and greatest effect of the salt water.”11 To prevent subsequent shipments from similar damage, Jefferson insisted that all books be packed in a good solid trunk and covered with sealskin.
During his tenure as secretary of state, he had brought a good portion of his library to Philadelphia. When he relocated to his small Schuylkill cottage, he returned many books to Monticello. Upon vacating the cottage, he sent home the remaining books. Still, some of his books stayed in Philadelphia, those he had loaned to friends who had not returned them. Jefferson’s experience was not dissimilar to that of Benjamin Franklin, who joked “that a man lost 10 per cent. on the value, by lending his books.”12 Anxious to get his entire library back together, Jefferson asked a friend and neighbor who was going to Philadelphia to retrieve what books he had lent to others.
Jefferson solicited Madison’s help in this matter, too, asking him to collect some of the books that had gone astray. Edmund Randolph, who had taken over as secretary of state upon Jefferson’s retirement, had borrowed books in such diverse fields as agriculture, geology, history, law, and philosophy. The books Randolph had borrowed included a standard agricultural treatise Jefferson sorely needed in his role as farmer: Jethro Tull’s Horse-Hoeing Husbandry. Randolph was embarrassed upon receiving Jefferson’s request for the return of this volume: he could not find the book anywhere. He ended up buying Jefferson a replacement copy of Jethro Tull.
Few contemporary comments survive to show what Jefferson was doing in the mid-1790s to organize his library, but a remark he made two decades later suggests that he was thoroughly working his way through the entire collection, systematically putting his books in order.13 Generally speaking, each case contained three shelves, and he stacked three cases atop one another to make standing cases nine feet tall. He carefully arranged his books according to the system of organization he had established in 1783, pasting labels listing the shelf number of each volume onto the spine.
Once he had a handle on his collection and restored a degree of order to his books, Jefferson realized that his law library contained several unnecessary duplicates. Most came from the libraries of John Wayles and Peyton Randolph and mainly consisted of reports of cases in equity and common pleas. He also had a duplicate of that great classic of English law, Coke upon Littleton. With shelf space at a premium, he decided to hold a sale. He compiled a list of law books he wished to sell, cross-checked this list with John Worrall’s Bibliotheca Legum, and composed a newspaper advertisement. Neither the list nor the advertising copy survives, but his correspondence shows that he was selling his extra copy of Coke upon Littleton. With the 1639 fourth edition of Coke upon Littleton in his library, he found Francis Hargrave’s modern edition unnecessary.
Jefferson never did publish his advertisement or hold a public sale of these books, but he wrote friends to let them know what he had to sell. Archibald Stuart, who had read law with Jefferson, was one person who needed books and would put them to good use. Jefferson sent Stuart a copy of the advertisement he had drafted and let him know that he could have whatever books he desired from the list and pay for them whenever he wished. Stuart accepted the offer and acquired several law books from his mentor, mostly reports of cases.14
Jefferson was paring down his library, but this did not mean that he planned to stop buying books. Still suffering from bibliomanie, he sent a long list of desired titles to Froullé with special instructions. His requests indicate his wide-ranging interests and depth of learning. Having acquired the first two volumes of Christian Gottfried Shütz’s edition of Aeschylus at Strassbourg, he asked Froullé for the third in order to complete the set.
He also requested from Froullé a copy of the Geoponica, which shows how deep his interest in agricultural books went. Known in a Greek and Latin text dating from the tenth century, the roots of this early treatise on farming went back several centuries further. As Jefferson explained, the Geoponica “gives the state of Agriculture in Greece in the time of Constantine Porphyrogeneta to whom it has been ascribed. The age and country make it curious.”15 Froullé came through, locating a good edition of the work. Jefferson later acquired other editions of the Geoponica.
Though he wished to limit himself to Monticello and the surrounding region the rest of his days, Jefferson did not plan to limit his mind or his imagination. Content to stay in the Virginia Piedmont, he remained ever curious about the world at large. Books gave him a way to gratify his curiosity. His correspondence of the mid-1790s indicates that he was broadening his knowledge of the Orient. He asked Froullé for a copy of The Fables of Pilpay, a collection of ancient Hindu fables derived from the Sanskrit Pantchatantra. But he did not want just any edition. He asked Froullé specifically for the Greek edition published in Berlin. The request he sent Froullé lists other works pertaining to the Orient: Sharaf al-Din ’Ali’s four-volume Histoire de Timur-Bec; Instituts Politiques et Militaire de Tamerlan, the French translation of Abu Talib al-Husayni’s Persian edition of the Tuzukat; and François Pétis’s Histoire du Grand Genghizcan. Apparently, Jefferson had not finished organizing his library when he placed this order. He already had a copy of the same edition of Pétis’s life of Genghis Khan. He later gave his extra copy to his granddaughter Cornelia to help her learn French.16
In his instructions, Jefferson told Froullé that James Monroe would collect the books from him and pay for them. When he was serving as minister to France, Jefferson had purchased books for numerous friends, including Monroe. Now that Monroe had taken over Jefferson’s former position as minister plenipotentiary to France, he took the responsibility of carrying out Jefferson’s requests. Books were not the only items Jefferson wanted from Europe. He asked Monroe to send him twenty or thirty pounds of macaroni, too.17
During the mid-1790s, Jefferson received several books as gifts. From Paris, William Short sent him a copy of the octavo edition of Don Quixote published in Madrid and sponsored by the Real Academia Española. Short’s gift was a sensitive one showing how well he knew his friend: the Academia edition of Don Quixote was better known in a lavish quarto format, but Short chose the handier octavo. Though smaller in size, the octavo Don Quixote, Short assured Jefferson, contained the identical text as the quarto.
Through John Adams, Jean Jacques Cart presented Jefferson a copy of his Lettres …sur le Droit Public de ce Pays et sur les Événemens Actuels, a work that told a poignant tale of political oppression. Since the canton of Vaud had come under the control of the City of Berne in the sixteenth century, Berne had gradually oppressed the inhabitants of Vaud, effectively turning them into second-class citizens. They were deprived of the basic civil and political rights that citizens of Berne retained. Furthermore, Berne persecuted any inhabitants of Vaud who sympathized with the French Revolution.18 Cart’s moving series of letters impressed many of the day’s foremost thinkers. Hegel translated them into German to inform his countrymen of Berne’s misrule. Cart’s Lettres convinced Adams of Berne’s tyrannical rule, too. On Adams’s recommendation, Jefferson read the book, which also convinced him of the injustice the inhabitants of Vaud suffered. Ever the American patriot, Jefferson told Adams that Cart and the inhabitants of Vaud should follow the example of the United States.19
In 1795, George Wythe presented his former student with a copy of the reports of Virginia legal cases he had compiled, Decisions of Cases in Virginia, by the High Court of Chancery. Thanking Wythe for the volume, Jefferson wrote, “I shall read it with great pleasure and profit, and I needed something the reading of which would refresh my law-m
emory.”20 This exchange initiated a series of letters about books that culminated in their collaboration on a major scholarly, yet public-minded project.
Both Jefferson and Wythe encouraged one another to continue pursuing the study of ancient languages. In October 1794, Jefferson sent his former teacher a copy of a linguistic work by Ludolf Kuster, De Vero Usu Verborum Mediorum apud Grecos. In the cover letter accompanying this book, Jefferson wrote, “I inclose for your perusal a little treatise by Kuster on the use of the Middle voice in Greek. I never saw a copy of it till I met with this, nor had ever heard of it. I presume therefore it may be new to you; and if it gives you half the pleasure it did me, mine will be doubled still. His position is that the middle voice is always intransitive, and is never confounded with either the active or passive in its signification. According to my own observation, since his work suggested the idea, I have found it almost always true, but I think not absolutely always.” Though the two had been peers for what seemed like ages now, Jefferson still liked to show off his linguistic knowledge for his former teacher. He closed the letter by inviting Wythe to Monticello, where he hoped to gratify his taste for books by introducing him to “a collection now certainly the best in America.”21 Jefferson had room to boast. His library was the finest private library in the nation by now, superior even to the one left by Benjamin Franklin.
Busy with legal work, Wythe, nearing seventy, had little time to spare for classical Greek linguistics. Neither did he have the time to visit Monticello. Regrettably, he returned the book unread: “You send Kuster for my perusal. I can peruse nothing but court papers. This employment by habit is become delectable. In it I regret only that I cannot participate [in] the elegant entertainment to which Monticello invites. I return the book, supposing you to possess but one copy, lest by detaining it I should deprive you of a pleasure I am forbidden to enjoy; which, with Aesops leave, would be more than brutish.”22 Ending his letter with a moral reminiscent of Aesop’s Fables, Wythe couched his refusal with reference to one of Jefferson favorite works.
Wythe did approach Jefferson to ask his help to compile a complete set of Virginia laws and statutes. He knew no one more qualified. Jefferson now possessed the fullest collection of Virginia law books in print and manuscript ever assembled, and he was happy to help, but he apologized because his collection of laws and statutes was in a chaotic state. Much work was necessary to get then into a usable order. He did not have time to copy law himself, but he was hoping to hire a young man from Charlottesville for the task. The excuse he offered is characteristic of his letters from the mid-1790s: “I am become too lazy, with the pen, and too much attached to the plough to do it myself. I live on my horse from an early breakfast to a late dinner, and very often after that till dark. This occasions me to be in great arrears in my pen-work.”23
After the Virginia Assembly passed a bill calling for a printed collection of state laws, Wythe informed Jefferson that the legislators desperately needed his help. He personally guaranteed Jefferson that if he loaned his collection of Virginia laws to the state that they would be returned in good condition. Unable to refuse his old teacher or, for that matter, unable to resist Virginia when it needed him, Jefferson agreed. He boxed up his law books and sent them to the binder, who bound the collection and then forwarded it to Wythe. Jefferson’s personal collection would eventually form the basis for William Hening’s Statutes at Large, the standard edition of Virginia laws.
The Political Naif
Throughout his correspondence of the mid-1790s, Jefferson celebrated his ignorance of national politics. Sometimes he pretended to know nothing about current political events. After Madison sent him some newspapers from Philadelphia, he responded with a letter of thanks, explaining, “I have never seen a Philadelphia paper since I left it, till those you inclosed me; and I feel myself so thoroughly weened from the interest I took in the proceedings there, while there, that I have never had a wish to see one, and believe that I never shall take another newspaper of any sort. I find my mind totally absorbed in my rural occupations.”24 It’s easy to recognize Jefferson striking a deliberate pose in this passage. In fact, the catalogue of his library listed dozens of volumes of newspapers.
In a letter to George Washington, he observed, “I cherish tranquility too much to suffer political things to enter my mind at all.” Writing Edmund Randolph, he applied his reading to his current situation: “I think it is Montaigne who has said that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head. I am sure it is true as to every thing political, and shall endeavour to estrange myself to every thing of that character.”25 He later reused Montaigne’s metaphor to refer to metaphysical speculations: “I have for very many years ceased to read or to think concerning them, and have reposed my head on that pillow of ignorance which a benevolent creator has made so soft for us knowing how much we should be forced to use it.”26 Jefferson already had one edition of Montaigne’s Essais, but he acquired another when he was in France. His metaphor echoes a passage from the essay, “Of Experience”: “Oh, what a soft, easy, and healthy pillow is ignorance and incuriosity to rest a well-made head!”
Despite Jefferson’s attempt to play the political naif, some of his letters from this period betray his ongoing interest in politics. In the letter to Edmund Rutledge discussing his son’s recent visit to Monticello, Jefferson explained that when young Rutledge came down from Philadelphia, “I pestered him with questions pretty much as our friends Lynch, Nelson, etc. will us when we step across the Styx, for they will wish to know what has been passing above ground since they left us.”27 This clever sentence compares Jefferson’s personal situation with that of someone who has crossed into the next life. His figure of speech gives this letter an aura of nonchalance, but it also reveals that Jefferson remained curious about political events in Philadelphia, despite what he may have claimed in letters to others.
After describing his ignorance of politics in the letter to Edmund Randolph, he admitted there was one political topic that interested him. He wanted to help disclose the “shameless corruption” of some members of Congress and to expose their “implicit devotion to the treasury.” Even from the distance of Monticello, he was keeping a watchful eye on Hamilton and his schemes and hoped that Randolph, as secretary of state, would follow the example Jefferson had set. Staying abreast of such issues, he hoped “to reform the evil on the success of which the form of the government is to depend.”28 Despite his professions to the contrary, Jefferson remained passionately devoted to his nation. He wanted to see it established on a firm footing that would let it endure for centuries.
One of the greatest freedoms he enjoyed upon his retirement was the freedom to speak his mind without worrying about how his political enemies might twist his words. As a private American citizen, he had the right to say whatever he wished. As he informed Pierre Adet, “I am now a private man, free to express my feelings, and their expression will be estimated at neither more nor less than they weigh, to wit the expressions of a private man.”29
The letter from the mid-1790s that best exemplifies Jefferson’s newfound freedom of speech is the one he wrote on April 24, 1796, to his old friend and neighbor Philip Mazzei, who had returned to Italy and was now living in Pisa. As a part of this letter—the “Mazzei letter,” as it would become known—Jefferson critiqued the present state of American government:
The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly thro’ the war, an Anglican, monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however remain true to their republican principles, the whole landed interest is with them, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to b
e officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption and for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were lions in the field and councils when you were here.
Jefferson liked the idea this last sentence expressed but realized he could make it much stronger, so he completely rewrote the second half of it. As revised, the sentence reads, “It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England.”30
Jefferson’s revision is much stronger than his original. Samson made for a more powerful figure than a lion. Continuing this paragraph, he enhanced its literary quality with an allusion to an early-eighteenthcentury work of English literature that was now an established classic, Gulliver’s Travels. Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece had become standard fare for young readers throughout early America. George Washington, for one, read it as a boy.31 Alluding to Gulliver’s Travels, Jefferson wrote: “In short we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve them, and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors.”32
The Road to Monticello Page 56