Your tall barques dot the dangerous seas;
My "ship's come home"-to rest,
Safe anchor'd from the storms of life,
Upon one faithful breast.

And it would cause nor start, nor sigh,
Nor thought of doubt or blame,
If I should teach our little son,
Our Cousin Robert's name.

That name-however wide it rings,
I oft think, when alone,

I rather would have seen it graved
Upon a church-yard stone-

Upon the white sunshiny stone

Where Cousin Alick lies;

Ah, sometimes, woe to him that lives!
And blessed he that dies!

O Cousin Robert, hot, hot tears,
Though not the tears of old,
Drop, thinking of your face last night,
Your hand's pathetic fold:

A young man's face-so like, so like
Our mothers' faces fair;

A young man's hand, so firm to hold,
So resolute to dare.

I thought you good-I wish'd you great;
You were my hope, my pride:
To know you good, to make you great,
I once had happy died;

To tear the plague-spot from that heart,
Place honor on that brow,

See old age come in crownèd peace,
I almost would die now;

Would give-all that's now mine to give,
To have you sitting there,
The Cousin Robert of my youth-
A beggar with gray hair.

O Robert, Robert, some that live
Are dead, long ere grown old:
Better the pure heart of our youth
Than palaces of gold.

A

JEFFERSON AND HIS TIMES.

MID the excitement accompanying dauger, or the tumult of hostile conflict, it is impossible to form a correct estimate of public men. The daring general who leads his forces on to a murderous and unsuccessful assault, is immediately pronounced incompetent to command. But when the smoke of the battle has blown away, and the assault is examined more thoroughly and calmly, the first decision in reference to its leader is often reversed.

When the hurricane is lashing the sea into fury, and threatening instant destruction to the trembling ship, the crew may anathematize the commander who casts off the provisioned boats, in which they were preparing to escape. But when the storm has abated, and the ship is brought safely into port, none will be louder than they in praising the sagacity and courage of the captain.

Our great Republic was launched upon a stormy sea, amid the tumult of revolution, and for twenty years was exposed to the most imminent peril. The men at the helm during that period of experiment and agitation, were cool, energetic, and daring. But while the waves of popular excitement ran so high, and partisan feelings were so rancorous, neither their wisdom nor patriotism could be justly appreciated.

Those stormy days have passed away. The political tempest is lulled. The sea is smooth. The sun of prosperity now shines upon us; and on the dark canvas of the departing clouds, it paints in beauty the arch of our country's triumphs and future hopes. We may now calmly review the stormy period, and take the true estimate of the skill and worth of those who then presided over our nation's destinies.

Among them Thomas Jefferson occupied a distinguished position. And yet in the angry strifes of succeeding years no man was more bitterly denounced than he. A perpetual torrent of obloquy was poured upon him and his administration. He was accused of betraying his native state; of slandering Washington; of being hostile to the Constitution; of aiming at the annihilation of all law, order, and government; and of introducing general anarchy and licentiousness. He was branded an

atheist, a demagogue, a disorganizer, who sought to undermine the foundations of virtue and religion.

Referring to this abuse, he wrote to a friend as follows: "You have seen my name lately tacked to so much of scurrility, that you hardly thought it meant your old friend of '76. Indeed I did not know myself under the pens of either friends or foes."

In vindicating Jefferson against the abusive and unmanly assault of Quincy of Massachusetts, made on the floor of Congress, January, 1813, the eloquent and magnanimous Henry Clay said: "Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse assault of party malevolence. No, sir: in 1801 he snatched from the rude hands of usurpation the violated Constitution of his country; and that is his crime. He preserved that instrument in form, and substance, and spirit; and for this he can never be forgiven. When the gentleman, to whom I have been compelled to allude, shall have been consigned to oblivion, the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, his memory will be honored and cherished as the second founder of the liberties of the people, and the period of his administration will be looked back to as one of the brightest and happiest epochs in American history."

It is our purpose, in this brief sketch, to group together the leading incidents of Mr. Jefferson's life, to present a summary of his public acts, and to offer our estimate of the true character and worth of the man.

He was born April 2, 1743, in Albemarle County, Virginia. His ancestors were of solid respectability, and among the first settlers of that state. They emigrated from Wales, from near the base of Mount Snowden, the highest in Great Britain. The chief glory of this family was their sturdy contempt of hereditary honor and distinctions; and that, too, while in possession of wealth enough to identify them with the highest aristocracy. This contempt of those pretensions which are gained without merit, and forfeited without crime, was largely inherited by the subject of our sketch.

At the age of five years he was placed in an English school, where he remained four years. Thence he was transferred to a Latin school, taught by a Scotch clergy

man.

In this school he continued five years, and acquired considerable knowledge of Latin, Greek, and French. At the age of fourteen he followed his revered father to the grave. Thenceforward he was his own master. But though an heir to immense wealth, and surrounded by the idle and vicious scions of aristocracy, who endeavored to win him to a sportsman's and voluptuous life, he resolved to finish his education and be a man. Hence he studied two years longer under the tuition of another clergyman; and then at the age of seventeen entered William and Mary College, from which, two years later, he was graduated with the highest honors of the institution. While in college he was more distinguished for solidity than sprightliness of intellect. The science of mathematics was his favorite study; but in none was he deficient. Latin, Greek, and French he read with fluency. He also acquired | a competent knowledge of Spanish and Italian, and of the Anglo-Saxon. In architecture, sculpture, and painting, he made himself such an adept as to be accounted one of the best critics of the age. Immediately after leaving college he commenced the study of law, under the direction of George Wythe, one of the most distinguished jurists of his time; a signer of the Declaration of Independence, | a prominent member of the convention which drafted our Federal Constitution, sole chancellor of Virginia for twenty years; a man of warm patriotism, devoted to the natural, equal rights of men, of pure morality and inflexible integrity. Under the guidance of this Mentor, he explored the whole circuit of the civil and common law, examining every topic and fathoming every principle. In this office he acquired that unrivaled facility, neatness, and order in business, which enabled him to perform the labor of a hundred-handed Briareus. The influence of Mr. Wythe upon his pupil was of the purest stamp, and tended to form his eminent character.

When Jefferson was about twenty-two years of age, an incident occurred which evoked the master passion of his soul. In the Virginia Assembly he heard the famous speech of Patrick Henry against the Stamp Act. The spirit of liberty, though writhing under the torture of British tyranny, was, like the blinded and fettered Samson, summoning courage to lay

hold of the pillars of despotism; and it seemed, for the moment, to have an unlimited control of the mind and passions of Henry. He poured out his grand and overwhelming eloquence in one incessant storm. In the midst of that electrifying speech he exclaimed: "Cesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third- -["Treason!" cried the speaker, "Treason! Treason!" echoed through the house. But Henry, faltering not, and rising to a loftier attitude, fixed upon the speaker an eye of determined fire, and finished the sentence with the firmest emphasis] " may profit by their example! If that be treason, make the most of it." The grandeur of that scene, and the triumphant éclât of Henry, swept the patriotic chords of young Jefferson's heart as with a master's hand. From that moment he became a man of one purpose, and longed for the time when he might enroll himself among the champions of an oppressed people.

When twenty-four years of age he was inducted to the practice of law at the bar of the General Court. But his professional career was brief, and unfavored with any occasion adequate to disclose the immensity of his technical preparation. There are, however, still extant, in his own fair and neat hand, a number of arguments which were delivered by him upon some of the most intricate questions of law; and those arguments are sufficient to secure for him high honors in the legal profession. But the outbreak of the Revolution, which was followed by a general occlusion of the courts, trod close upon his introduction to the bar; and while it closed one important avenue to distinction, it ushered him upon a broader and more diversified theater of action.

In 1769 Mr. Jefferson, then twenty-six years of age, took his seat in the Legislature of his native state. And though one of the youngest members, he soon arose, with the moral intrepidity of a martyr, and proposed to that body of inexorable slaveholders a bill for permitting the emancipation of slaves. This was his legislative débût, his first measure of reform, a measure most congenial to his heart. It was the out-bursting of that democratic element for which the Jefferson family was noted. It was the germ of that immortal manifesto of his country which proclaimed on the Fourth of July,