ledictions, some replete with denunciations, and others menacing even murder and assassination. I told him my proceeding on reading such communications was to lock them up or to burn them, and to say nothing to any person whatever about the matter. He observed, that it was the right course; for that such writers were cowards and not the objects of dread or apprehension; and that, by keeping the secret inviolable, if any thing was ever said on the subject, it must come from the author or from some one to whom the author had told it. He was exceedingly displeased with the increase of the public debt during the reign of the President who preceded him. He thought the payment of that and the whole amount incurred by the revolutionary war, ought to be made in the shortest possible time. For this every effort should be used. Economy in every department was not only recommended, but actually practised. The army was reduced to an inconsiderable body-the judiciary was retrenched-the public ships were mostly dismantled and laid up in ordinary-and even the military academy at West Point, the school for educating artillerists and engineers, felt, from the diminution of appropriations, decreased ability to impart instruction; and it was not until the next administration, that, on the earnest and active solicitation of the director, Col. Jonathan Wildms, that it was renewed and new-modelled by a special act of Congress. But it was the ruling notion of the day that an economical system of peace should be preserved, and that an embargo and even a nonintercourse should be adopted, rather than the costly alternative of war. His temper was prone at times to mirth and recreative pleasantry. His fondness for antiquarian investigation and literary composition would have been gratified by the following legend alleged to have been derived from the Greek, but which came to hand too late to be transmitted to him. It is now offered. F PYTHAGORAS & SAPPHO: OR, THE DIAMOND AND THE ROSE. One social day, 'tis well expressed, Pythagoras the Seer This question artfully addressed To beauteous Sappho's ear: When hence thou shalt be forced to flee By transmigration's power, Wouldst thou, dear friend, prefer to be A JEWEL or a FLOWER? The Lesbian maid these words returned "The glittering stones, though rich and rare, "No animation know; "While vegetables, fine and fair, "With vital action glow. "The senseless gem no pleasure moves * While flowers enjoy their gentle jes, Then when I shall surmount," she cried, "Rude dissolution's storm; "Oh, let me not be petrified, "But wear a living form. "Those matchless rays the Diamond show's "With promptness I decline; "That I may dwell within the Rose, "And make its blossoms mine." But this effusion is now nothing to him. He has undergone that change which in time will await us all. He has passed to another state of being. What it exactly is, no ; are mortal seems to understand. It is a subject that can never be contemplated without seriousness. To pass from strength to impotence, from life to insensibility, from health to putrefaction, from the mansion to the grave; to quit wealth, titles, and honours; to close the concerns of this anxious world; to bid farewell to them forever; to pass, perhaps, beyond the tomb to some region we know not where, and to be employed in some manner we know not how matters which engage and embarrass the inquiring mind. Yet, puzzling as the theme of our exit is, it is not more so than that of our entrance upon the mundane theatre. Who can explain more satisfactorily, how clustered atoms assunted vitality, than how, after a certain growth and developement, they laid it aside and became unvital again? One is as natural, and, at the same time, as incomprehensible as the other. We tug at the solution in vain. We must wait for regular initiation into these higher degrees of knowledge; we must be patient until the whole scenery, of which we behold here but a few sections, shall, in regular order and due succession, be displayed before us. In estimating the character of our Jefferson, he may be ranked as a highly favoured person. He lived in eventful times. He saw the colonies, provinces, and plantations of his own country (as they were called) rise to independent States. He viewed the stupendous struggle, termed the French revolution, from its commencement prior to the overthrow of the Bourbons, and under the Buonapartean dynasty, to the restoration of the Bourbons again. He beheld the settlements made in America under the crown of Spain abjure the royal despotism, and present themselves to an admiring universe as a brotherhood of nations. He witnessed the unexampled march of science and art evincing the mighty and increasing power of mind over matter. And, above all, he surveyed for half a century the advance and prosperity of the people to whose welfare he was particularly devoted, notwithstanding his extended benevolence toward the entire family of man. Considering how much he has atchieved for the public and for those whom he found it needful to patronize or assist, he may be ranked among the persons who are, as far as convenient or practicable, the executors of their own wills. I have often meditated with approbation on the conduct, among others, of Mr. Phillips of Boston, Col. Rutgers of New-York, General Van Renssellaer of Albany, and Admiral Coffin in Nantucket, in performing generous and munificent actions during the continuance of their respective lives, instead of leaving them to be done by the trustees or agents named in their testaments. There is so much prudence and propriety in the proceeding, that it is a pity the practice was not more frequent. Among other considerations, this one is prominent-that a man is sure to have the good of it before he ends his mortal career. Upon the supposition that there is no hereafter, such a man is the gainer by all the good emotions he thus secures in the present life upon the calculation that there is a future state, it is probable, from all that has been revealed on the subject, that the condition of the resurgent will be infinitely remote from sublunary cares, or too much engaged to bestow a look or even a thought upon the small concerns of this world. Upon either way of reasoning, the argument is conclusive in favour of procuring for ourselves, while here, as much solace as possible by the performance of good deeds. Under these or the like feelings, Mr. Jefferson appears to have contemplated his end with a composure worthy of those intrepid travellers toward the tomb, Horatio Gates, Joseph Priestley, and Lindley Murray. (See Appendix, Notes H, I, & J.) In fine, if virtuous conduct gives cause for a hope, or more, lays ground for an expectation that heavenly bliss will be its consequence or reward, let us indulge the sentiment, fanciful as some may think it, that the immaterial spirit, quitting its connection with the body, not weak and clumsy like the chick disclosed by the egg, but perfect and active as the butterfly bursting its crysalis, shall wing its course through tracts of sustaining and elemental ether to the Paradise of God, and then be nourished, for a duration without end, by the bread and the water of life. APPENDIX, (NOTE A.) The altitude of Ascutney Mountain in Vermont, and Moose-Hillock in New-Hampshire, ascertained barometrically, by Alden Partridge, Esq. Capt. of Engineers stationed at Governors-Island. Sept. 24th. 1817, and addressed to Sam. L Mitchill. Dear Sir, I take the liberty to transmit on the opposite page, several altitudes which I calculated when absent during vacation in the month of August last. Ascutney is a beautiful insulated, conical mountain, situated in the State of Vermont, in the towns of Windsor and Weathersfield-the summit about five miles southwest from the village of Windsor, and about the same distance west from Connecticut river. Moose-Hillock is the most elevated peat of a long range of mountains, which commences about three miles from NewHaven, in the State of Connecticut, at a rocky precipice called East-rock. From this place the range takes a northeasterly direction, crossing Connecticut river, below North-Hampton in the State of Massachusetts, thence taking a more northerly direction, it passes into the State of New-Hampshire, forming for a considerable distance the height of land, between Connecticut river on the west, and Merrimack river on the east. This range, I believe, is joined, previous to crossing the New-Hampshire boundary, by another range commencing near Lyme in the State of Connecticut, and called the Lyme range of mountains, but which does not attain any considerable elevation. The celebrated White Mountains are a spur from this range, branching off to the north-east. Moose-Hillock is situated about forty-five miles, a little to the east of north, from Dartmouth College, and about fifteen miles east from the village of Haverhill, which adjoins Connecticut river. It is so called in consequence of formerly having been much frequented by Moose. The rocks, and also the fallen 'trees on the sides of the mountains, are covered with a thick bed of moss. Hard timber, such as Beech, Maple, and Birch, intermixed with a few Evergreens, grow around the foot of the mountains, but as we ascend, the Evergreens, Hemlock, Spruce, and Firs, wholly prevail; these, as we approach the summit, dwindle into mere shrubs, about three feet in height. Their branches are so interlocked that it is almost impossible to get through them; the summit of the north peak was burned over a few years ago, and is now entirely bald; a mere mass of bare granite rocks. A silver mine is reported to have been discovered many years ago by some hunters, on the side of the mountain. The position of this re |