With few other options, Brunt continued to roam the country, working as an itinerant printer and bookseller. In 1804, he was in Frankfort, Kentucky, where he printed Extracts from Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding. He sent a copy of this pamphlet to Jefferson, too. Jefferson kept it and had it bound with numerous other contemporary political pamphlets. Reprinting Locke for a popular audience was a worthy endeavor, but Brunt was not content to stop there. He appended his own writings to Locke’s. Brunt again lashed out against the speculators and viciously attacked his other great enemy, scheming women.
Leaving Monticello after his brief visit in September 1807, Brunt made his way to Lynchburg, where he worked in the local printing office for a day and a half before going to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he could not find regular work but managed to print another pamphlet to keep him going. He reached Augusta, Georgia, by the end of November, when he wrote President Jefferson again, urging him to have Congress “obtain restitution for the personal injuries I have received in America from evil-disposed persons.” But Jefferson could do nothing to remedy Brunt’s phantom grievances. In January 1808, the forlorn Jonathan Brunt was back in North Carolina, where he was robbed of what little money he had on him.7
Brunt was one of many office seekers who approached Jefferson during his administration. Jefferson could do little for those seeking personal favors, but he took a passionate interest in literary men with ideas that could contribute to scholarship and to the public good. He gave Brunt a few dollars in charity, but he did much more to help serious writers who approached him during his presidency.
John Daly Burk, another colorful character who sought President Jefferson’s help, had considerably more presence of mind than Jonathan Brunt. Born in County Cork, Ireland, Burk attended Trinity College until he began aggressively advocating Irish independence. Expelled from college, Burk became embroiled in further controversy that obliged him to leave Ireland. He immigrated to Boston, where he began the city’s first daily newspaper and wrote political plays exemplifying Republican values. He continued as newspaperman and playwright after removing to New York, where he took over the Time Piece, Philip Freneau’s staunchly Republican paper. Attacks on President Adams led to Burk’s indictment for sedition and libel. He fled to Virginia to avoid prosecution.
Aware of Burk’s literary talents and Republican values, Jefferson encouraged him to write the history of Virginia. With Jefferson’s election to the presidency, Burk, like so many others, no longer needed to worry about being prosecuted for libel. He settled in Petersburg, became an American citizen, and began writing his most substantial work, The History of Virginia.8
In early 1803, Burk asked Jefferson if he could borrow books relating to Virginia history from his personal library. Jefferson responded cordially, describing his collection of Virginia laws and statutes and the near-complete file of the original Virginia Gazette he had obtained from Parson Willie three decades earlier. Jefferson gave Burk free use of his books, offered to help in any other way he could, and asked to subscribe to the History of Virginia.9
Burk did not take advantage of Jefferson’s offer right away, but when he began drafting the second volume of his history, he reached the point where Jefferson’s materials would be most useful. In 1805, he wrote again to reiterate his request. Jefferson agreed to send his priceless collection of Virginia newspapers to his old friend John Page, who was now serving as governor of Virginia. Burk would be able to access them at the Governor’s House in Richmond. Writing to Burk, Jefferson emphasized the rarity of his collection: “These also being the only collection probably in existence, I purchased and cherish it with a view to public utility. It is answering one of its principal objects when I put it into your hands.”10
Since Burk had sent him a copy of the first volume of the History of Virginia, Jefferson acknowledged its receipt but apologized for not reading it and for not being able to help him even more:
Altho’ I have not yet had time to peruse the volume you have published (for indeed my occupations permit me to read almost nothing) yet occasional recurrence to parts of it, and the opinions of others who have read it, occasion me to regret that I am not in a situation to give you the benefit of all my materials. Were I residing at home I could do it, and would with pleasure: and should a 2d edition be called for after my return to live at Monticello, I am persuaded it will be in my power, as it is certainly in my wish, to furnish you with some useful matter, not perhaps to be found elsewhere.11
Burk greatly appreciated Jefferson’s help and dedicated the volume to him. In his dedication, Burk observed, “The History of Virginia, by a sort of national right, claims you as its guardian and patron and I inscribe it to you because I conceive you to be the first and most useful citizen of the republic.”12
The third volume of Burk’s history, which took the story of Virginia to 1775, appeared in 1805. He planned a fourth volume but never finished it. Attending a dinner in 1808, Burk denounced the French government and called the French people a “pack of rascals.” Incensed with Burk’s remarks, Felix Coquebert, a Frenchman living in Virginia, challenged him to a duel. On April 11, 1808, Coquebert shot and killed the historian of Virginia.
Though Burk died before he could complete the fourth volume of his history, it was continued by Skelton Jones and finally completed by Louis Hue Girardin. Much as Jefferson invited Burk to his home, he also invited Girardin, who took full advantage of the invitation. When he published the final volume of Burk’s history, Girardin also dedicated it to Jefferson. Expressing his gratitude, Girardin explained, “During my residence in the vicinity of Monticello, I enjoyed the incalculable benefit of free access to Mr. Jefferson’s Library; and, as his historical collection was no less valuable than extensive, that happy circumstance proved of infinite service to my undertaking.”13
Abiel Holmes, a New England historian, similarly took advantage of President Jefferson’s aid when compiling his American Annals; or, A Chronological History of America. Initially Holmes did not ask for his help. Instead, he wrote the president to inform him of the work. Jefferson responded with a lengthy discussion on the value of chronology as a genre of history writing and complimented Holmes on his ambitious project. A thorough chronological history of America, Jefferson said, would be “precious to the man of business.”14 While Jefferson believed that people should grow up reading history, he realized that history-reading could be difficult for modern men whose fast-paced lifestyle left little time for pleasure reading. As a genre of history-writing, the chronology provided an ideal solution.
Jefferson specifically recommended three titles to Holmes for his research. Memoires de l’Amerique, a four-volume work containing much information about the exploration and settling of North America, was, in Jefferson’s view, the fullest available compilation of French materials pertaining to American history. He also recommended Bishop White Kennett’s Bibliothecae Americanae Primordia—the first systematic attempt to create a bibliography of American literature—and The American and British Chronicle of War and Politics, which detailed events in British–American relations from 1773 to 1783. Jefferson offered to loan Holmes his copies of any or all of these works.15
Holmes appreciated Jefferson’s offer. He had a copy of Bishop Kennett’s bibliography but lacked the other two. He wrote back to Jefferson, explaining his own research in more detail and asking to borrow both. Jefferson realized that the Memoires de l’Amerique would be more useful to him and promised to send it along. Jefferson also agreed to loan Holmes his copy of The American and British Chronicle of War and Politics, but he hesitated to send it until Holmes really needed it. Jefferson explained, “I do not propose [to send] it now because it is a manual to which I am constantly turning.”16
Upon the publication of his American Annals, Holmes wrote President Jefferson an affectionate letter of thanks: “Your early approbation of the plan of my work, and your valuable contribution of materials towards its execution, were a great encoura
gement to me during the labours of it. In the favourable reception which it has met abroad, as well as at home, I cherish a grateful sense of the patronage afforded it by the literati of our own country, and particularly by the President of the United States.”17
Jefferson’s old friend Charles Thomson was another man of letters who benefited from the president’s literary advice. After serving as secretary to the Continental Congress for fifteen years, Thomson had left public life and retired to Harriton, his wife’s family estate, where he devoted much time and effort to scholarly pursuits. He translated the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) and the New Testament, too.
Jefferson had lost touch with Thomson, but he was greatly pleased to see an advertisement for his translation of the Bible in the newspapers. The advertisement detailed plans to publish the book in quarto and asked for subscribers. Eager to subscribe, Jefferson hoped Thomson would reconsider the format: “Folios and Quartos are now laid aside because of their inconvenience. Every thing is now printed in 8vo 12mo or petit format. The English booksellers print their first editions indeed in 4to because they can assess a larger price on account of the novelty, but the bulk of readers generally wait for the 2d edition which is for the most part in 8vo. This is what I have long practised myself. Johnson of Philadelphia set the example of printing a handsome edition of the bible in 4 v. 8vo I wish yours were in the same form.”18 Here, Jefferson refers to the edition of The Holy Bible published in 1804 by the prolific Philadelphia printer Benjamin Johnson, who deserves recognition for reprinting much English belletristic literature and literary biography in the United States.
Thomson respected Jefferson’s advice and agreed to alter the format. The first two octavo volumes reached the President’s House in December 1808, the month after Madison was elected president and just a few months before Jefferson would leave office. Jefferson thanked Thomson for the book and looked forward to reading it upon his retirement: “I thank you, my dear and antient friend, for the two volumes of your translation which you have been so kind as to send me. I have dipped into it at the few moments of leisure which my vocations permit, and I perceive that I shall use it with great satisfaction on my return home. I propose there, among my first emploiments, to give to the Septuagint an attentive perusal, and shall feel the aid you have now given me.”19
Thomson’s advertisement was just one of many literary items in the newspapers that President Jefferson noticed. Throughout his time in office, he regularly scanned papers from across the nation and enjoyed reading the original American poetry and reprints of English verse. Not only did he read the papers from all the major cities on the eastern seaboard; he also read papers from Kentucky, Louisiana, and Ohio. Furthermore, he read several British papers and periodicals, including the London Sporting Magazine. He frequently clipped verse from the newspapers, pasted them onto loose scraps of paper, and sent them home for his grandchildren, who turned them into scrapbooks.20
Anne, his oldest granddaughter, was the recipient of the earliest poems he sent from Washington. As her younger sisters grew, their grandfather sent them poems for scrapbooks of their own. Sending Ellen some verse, Jefferson wrote, “As I expect Anne’s volume is now large enough, I will begin to furnish you with materials for one. I know you have been collecting some yourself; but as I expect there is some tag, rag, and bobtail verse among it you must begin a new volume for my materials.”21
Jefferson’s words sound nonchalant: he supposes that Anne’s volume has grown large enough to warrant a new volume. But the date of this letter to Ellen belies her grandfather’s nonchalance. He wrote her on March 4, 1805, the day he was inaugurated for his second term as president. Insisting she exclude whatever miscellaneous materials she had collected to that point, Jefferson was ensuring that Ellen’s scrapbook would be a record of his second term as president just as Anne’s was a record of his first. Later, he decided to divide his second term as president in half to give their younger sister Cornelia a chance to start a scrapbook of her own. The first week of March 1807—two years after directing Ellen to start a scrapbook—Jefferson sent some newspaper verse to Cornelia.22 As they survive, the poems are arranged somewhat differently. Jefferson himself may have reorganized the scrapbook material once he retired from the presidency. The existing state of the scrapbooks suggests that Jefferson, just as he did with The Anas, recognized that juxtaposing two different texts could give rise to new ideas not present in either of the texts individually.
Many of the selected poems take current events for their subject. Some concern the much-dreaded embargo. Jefferson’s dismay with the depredations of British ships had reached the breaking point after the Leopard–Chesapeake affair. He decided to punish the foreign powers through the use of an embargo. In other words, he would deprive other nations of American goods by keeping American vessels at home. Though well intended, the embargo significantly damaged the business of American merchants who made their livelihood in the shipping trade. Given the animosity toward the policy among many Americans, especially Jefferson’s natural enemies in New England, who relied heavily on the merchant trade, enforcing the embargo proved difficult. Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison devoted extraordinary efforts toward its enforcement. So did Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, even though he was privately opposed to it. Although the embargo had little effect on the foreign powers, Jefferson’s forward-thinking policy anticipated modern approaches toward solving international disputes through economic coercion.
Not surprisingly, newspaper commentary on the embargo split along party lines: the Republican papers supported the embargo while the Federalist papers criticized it. Contemporary criticism often took the form of verse. Jefferson clipped poems supporting the embargo, and to his credit, he even clipped some of the negative ones. One of the negative poems Jefferson clipped ends with the following lines:
Our ships all in motion,
Once whiten’d the ocean,
They sail’d and return’d with a cargo;
Now doom’d to decay,
They have fallen a prey
To Jefferson, worms and Embargo.
Corresponding with her grandfather the president, eleven-year-old Ellen broached the subject of the embargo. The last week of January 1808, she reported to him a comment her Aunt Virginia had made: “She says that the embargo has thrown the dissipated inhabitants of Williamsburg in great confusion. The Ladies say they cannot give up tea and coffee and the gentlemen wine.” In his response to Ellen, Jefferson wrote, “You give a bad account of the patriotism of the ladies of Williamsburg who are not disposed to submit to the small privations to which the embargo will subject them. I hope this will not be general and that principle and prudence will induce us all to return to the good old plan of manufacturing within our own families most of the articles we need.”23
Several of the poems he clipped from the papers possess a personal dimension. Jefferson himself was the subject of many laudatory poems.
Sometimes he encountered poems that encapsulated ideas he used to guide his life, including one titled “No Place Commends the Man Unworthy Praise.” Now attributed to John Lyly, the sixteenth-century English author who popularized an ornate and convoluted style of writing known as Euphuism, this poem elevates personal qualities above the privilege of birth:
What doth avail to have a princely place,
A name of honour, and a high degree;
To come by kindred of a noble race,
Except we princely, worthy, noble be!
The fruit declares the goodness of the tree.
Do brag no more of birth, or lineage then;
For virtue, grace and manners make the man.
Rarely did Jefferson annotate the poems he clipped, but this poem contains a brief pencil note in his hand: “As good now as when it was written.”24 The titles of several poems in the surviving scrapbooks show how much Jefferson looked forward to retiring from office and returning to Monticello once and for all: “The Happy Firesid
e,” “Home,” “The Pleasures of Retirement,” and “To My Armchair.”
One of the most important and touching pieces he added to his personal collection of verse was a poem by Robert Burns, “To Mary in Heaven.” Jefferson enjoyed the poet’s Scottish dialect and generally characterized his work as “the beautiful poetry of Burns.”25 This particular poem had personal ramifications: Jefferson’s beloved daughter Mary had died in childbirth on April 17, 1804. In some of his lines, Burns almost seemed to be speaking for Jefferson as he lamented the death of his Mary:
Thou ling’ring star with lessening ray,
That lov’st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher’st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear, departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?26
The best account of the death of Mary Jefferson Eppes comes from her niece Ellen. Though only eight years old at the time of her aunt’s death, Ellen remembered the experience well:
One morning I heard that my aunt was dying; I crept softly from my nursery to her chamber door, and being alarmed by her short, hard breathing, ran away again. I have a distinct recollection of confusion and dismay in the household. I did not see my mother. By and by one of the female servants came running in where I was with other persons, to say that Mrs. Eppes was dead. The day passed I do not know how. Late in the afternoon I was taken to the death-chamber. The body was covered with a white cloth, over which had been strewed a profusion of flowers. A day or two after, I followed the coffin to the burying-ground on the mountain side, and saw it consigned to the earth.27
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