54 MISCELLANEOUS AND LAW AUTHORS. [CHAP. II. each branch of study. Again, a great inequality is observable in the vigor of the mind at different periods of the day. Its powers at these periods should therefore be attended to, in marshalling the business of the day. For these reasons I should recommend the following distribution of your time: 'Till Eight o'clock in the morning, employ yourself in Physical Studies. Ethics, Religion, natural and sectarian, and Natural Law, reading the following books: Agriculture. Dickson's Husbandry of the Ancients; Tull's Horse-hoeing Hus- Anatomy-John and James Bell's Anatomy. Zoology.-Abrégé du Système de la nature de Linné par Gilibert; Manuel d'Histoire Naturelle by Blumenbach, Buffon, including Montbeiliard and La Cepède; Wilson's American Ornithology. Botany.-Barton's Elements of Botany; Turton's Linneus; Persoon's Synopsis Plantarum. Ethics and Natural Religion.-Locke's Essay; Locke's Conduct of the Mind in the Search after Truth; Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind; Enfield's History of Philosophy; Condorcet, Progrès de l'Esprit Humain; Cicero de Officiis, Tusculanae, de Senectute, Somnia Scipionis; Seneca Philosophica; Hutchinson's Introduction to Moral Philosophy; Lord Kames' Natural Religion; Traité Elémentaire de Morale et Bonheur; La Sagesse de Charron. Religion Sectarian.-Bible: New Testament, Commentaries on them by Middleton in his Works, and by Priestley in his Corruptions of Christianity and Early Opinions of Christ; The Sermons of Sterne, Massillon and Bourdaloue. Natural Law.-Vattel, Droit des Gens; Rayneval, Institutions du Droit de la Nature et des Gens. From Eight to Twelve read Law. The general course of this reading may be formed on the following grounds. Lord Coke has given us the first views of the whole body of law worthy now of being studied; for so much of the admirable work of Bracton is now obsolete that the students should turn to it occasionally only, when tracing the history of particular portions of the law. Coke's Institutes are a perfect digest of the law in his day. After this, new laws were added by the Legislature, and new developments of the old law by the judges, until they had become so voluminous as to require a new digest. This was ably executed by Matthew Bacon, although unfortunately under an alphabetical instead of analytical arrangement of matter. The same process of new laws and new decisions on the old laws going on, called at length for the same operation again, and produced the inimitable Commentaries of Blackstone. In the department of the Chancery, a similar progress has taken place. This must be understood, with some qualification, as applying to the skillful manner in which Blackstone handled his subject. He was not, as we shall again and again have occasion to see, a favorite of Mr. Jefferson as a law expounder-as authority-at least on certain great leading theories he maintains of the British Constitution. Mr. Jefferson looked upon him among law writers, as he did on Hume among historians-as a man whe brought great abilities and an admirable style and manner to the support of unsound political principles. Mansfield, as a law writer, was included in the same category. Coke was his great favorite. CHAP. II.] POLITICS AND HISTORY. 55 Lord Kames has given us the first digest of the principles of that branch of our jurisprudence, more valuable for the arrangement of matter than for its exact conformity with the English decisions. The reporters from the early times of that branch to that of the same Matthew Bacon are well digested, but alphabetically also in the abridgment of the cases in equity, the second volume of which is said to be done by him. This was followed by a number of able reporters, of which Fonblanque has given us a summary digest by commentaries on the text of the earlier work, ascribed to Ballow, entitled 'A Treatise on Equity.' The course of reading recommended then in these two branches of law is the following: Common Law.-Coke's Institutes; Select Cases from the Subsequent Reporters to the time of Matthew Bacon; Bacon's Abridgment; Select Cases from the Subsequent Reporters to the Present Day; Select Tracts on Law, among which those of Baron Gilbert are all of the first merit; the Virginia Laws; Reports on them. Chancery.-Lord Kames' Principles of Equity, 3d edition; Select Cases from the Chancery Reporters to the time of Matthew Bacon; the Abridgment of Cases in Equity; Select Cases from the Subsequent Reporters to the Present Day; Fonblanque's Treatise of Equity. Blackstone's Commentaries (Tucker's edition) as the best perfect digest of both branches of law. In reading the Reporters, enter in a common-place book every case of value, condensed into the narrowest compass possible, which will admit of presenting distinctly the principles of the case. This operation is doubly useful, insomuch as it obliges the student to seek out the pith of the case, and habituates him to a condensation of thought, and to an acquisition of the most valuable of ail talents, that of never using two words where one will do. It fixes the case, too, more indelibly in the mind. From Twelve to One read Politics. Politics, General.-Locke on Government, Sidney on Government, Priestly's First Principles of Government, Review of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws. De Lolme sur le constitution d'Angleterre; De Burgh's Political Disquisitions; Hatsell's Precedents of the House of Commons; Select Parliamentary Debates of England and Ireland; Chipman's Sketches of the Principles of Government; The Federalist. Political Economy.-Say's Economie Politique; Malthus on the principles of Popu lation; de Tracy's work on Political Economy, now about to be printed, 1814. In the Afternoon read History. History, Ancient.-The Greek and Latin Originals; Select histories from the Uni versal History; Gibbon's Decline of the Roman Empire; Histoire ancienne de Millot. Modern.-Histoire moderne de Millot; Russel's History of Modern Europe; Robert son's Charles V. English. The original historians, to wit: The History of Edward 2nd, by E. F.; Habington's Edward 4th; More's Richard 3rd; Lord Bacon's Henry 7th; Lord Herbert's Henry 8th; Goodwin's Henry 8th, Edward 7th, Mary; Camden's Eliza 56 BELLES LETTRES, ETC. [CHAP. II. beth, James, Ludlow; Macaulay [Catharine]; Fox; Belsham; Baxter's History of England; Hume republicanized and abridged; Robertson's History of Scotland. American.-Robertson's History of America; Gordon's History of the Independence of the U. S.; Ramsay's History of the American Revolution; Burk's History of Virginia; Continuation of do, by Jones and Girardin, nearly ready for the press. From Dark to Bedtime. Belles Lettres; Criticism; Rhetoric; Oratory, to wit: Belles Lettres.-Read the best of the poets, epic, didactic, dramatic, pastoral, lyric, etc.; but among these, Shakspeare must be singled out by one who wishes to learn the full powers of the English language. Of him we must declare as Horace did of the Grecian models, 'Vos exemplaria Græca nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ.' Criticism.-Lord Kames' Elements of Criticism; Tooke's Diversions of Purley. Of Bibliographical criticism, the Edinburgh Review furnishes the finest models extant. Rhetoric.-Blair's Rhetoric; Sheridan on Elocution; Mason on Poetic and Prosaic Numbers. Oratory. This portion of time (borrowing some of the afternoon when the days are long and the nights short) is to be applied also to acquiring the art of writing and speaking correctly by the following exercises: Criticise the style of any book whatsoever, committing the criticism to writing. Translate into the different styles, to wit, the elevated, the middling, and the familiar. Orators and poets will furnish subjects of the first, historians of the second, and epistolary and comic writers of the third. Undertake, at first, short compositions, as themes, letters, etc., paying great attention to the elegance and correctness of your language. Read the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero; analyze these orations, and examine the correctness of the disposition, language, figures, state of the cases, arguments, etc.; read good samples also of English eloquence. Some of these may be found in Small's American Speaker, and some in Carey's Criminal Recorder; in which last the defence of Eugene Aram is distinguished as a model of logic, condensation of matter and classical purity of style. Exercise yourself afterwards in preparing orations on feigned cases. In this, observe rigorously the disposition of Blair into introduction, narration, etc. Adapt your language to the several parts of the oration, and suit your arguments to the audience before which it is supposed to be delivered. This is your last and most important exercise. No trouble should therefore be spared. If you have any person in your neighborhood engaged in the same study, take each of you different sides of the same cause, and prepare pleadings according to the custom of the bar, where the plaintiff opens, the defendant answers, and the plaintiff replies. It will further be of great service to pronounce your oration (having before you only short notes to assist the memory) in the presence of some person who may be considered as your judge. NOTE. Under each of the preceding heads, the books are to be read in the order in which they are named. These by no means constitute the whole of what might be usefully read in each of these branches of science. The mass of excellent works going more into detail is great indeed. But those here noted will enable the CHAP. II.] JEFFERSON ENTERS HOUSE OF BURGESSES. 57 student to select for himself such others of detail as may suit his particular views and dispositions. They will give him a respectable, an useful and satisfactory degree of knowledge in these branches, and will themselves form a valuable and sufficient library for a lawyer who is at the same time a lover of science." So far the paper, which I send you, not for its merit, for it betrays sufficiently its juvenile date, but because you have asked it. Your own experience in the more modern practice of the law will enable you to give it more conformity with the present course; and I know you will receive it kindly with all its imperfections, as an evidence of my great respect for your wishes, and of the sentiments of esteem and friendship, of which I tender you sincere assurances. THOMAS JEFFERSON. As a sequel to this letter, the reader will do well to examine those of January 16th, 1814, to Dr. Thomas Cooper, and of February 26th, 1821, to Dabney Terrell (published in the Congress edition of Jefferson's Works), in regard to a course of law studies. Another course of reading-one intended particularly for females, will be found (in the same edition) in a letter to N. Burwell, March 14th, 1818. This last, however, will be published in this work, when reached in its chronological order. Soon after Mr. Jefferson attained his majority, he had been put in the nomination of justices for his county, and at the first general election thereafter-namely, in 1769, was chosen a Member of the House of Burgesses. This body convened in May that year. Lord Botetourt had succeeded Governor Fauquier, and this was the first session called by him. On the reception of the Governor's speech, it was customary to move resolutions, as heads for an address in reply. At the request of Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Jefferson drew the resolutions, and the House accepted them. He was then placed on the committee with Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Nicholas, and some others, to prepare the address. His colleagues desired him to make the draft, and he did so; but Colonel Nicholas objected to it, that it "pursued too closely the diction of the resolutions, and that their subjects were not sufficiently amplified." Nicholas was then requested by his colleagues "to draw one more at large, which he did with amplification enough," and it was accepted. This afforded some mortification to the new legislator!' 1 Jefferson to Wirt, August 5, 1815. 58 FAMILY MANSION BURNT. [CHAP. II. The House proceeded to pass spirited resolutions in regard to the joint resolutions and address to the King which were adopted by the British Parliament, in February, on the subject of the proceedings in Massachusetts. The Burgesses re-asserted the exclusive right of self-taxation—a right to petition for a redress of grievances, and to procure the concurrence of other Colonies therein-the latter, the very measure on the part of Massachusetts, which had most particularly incurred the reprobation of Parliament. They also remonstrated in becoming terms against the recommendation of Parliament to the King to transport persons accused of treason in the Colonies to England for trial, under the provisions of the statute of 35th of Henry VIII. Lord Botetourt, though liberal in his views as a politician, and most amiable man, did not even wait for an official notification of these decided proceedings before he dissolved the Assembly. The following day the members convened at the Apollo-the long room of the Raleigh tavern-and entered into an association, pledging themselves, during the continuance of the act for raising a revenue in America, not to import, nor, after the ensuing 1st of September, purchase various kinds of British merchandise, which they specified; and they recommended the same course to their constituents.' Among the signatures to this instrument were those of Washington, R. H. Lee, Henry, Jefferson, Peyton and Richard Randolph, R. C. Nicholas, and Archibald Cary. It affords a marked proof of the vigor with which the pulse of popular patriotism beat in Virginia, at this epoch, that every member of the dissolved House who signed the association, was reëlected.' At this his first session, Mr. Jefferson introduced a bill giving owners the right, which the laws did not then allow them, to manumit their slaves. It was defeated, nor was such a right given before 1782. On the 1st day of February, 1770, that accident occurred already hinted at, which deprived Mr. Jefferson of the books and papers of his early life. The family mansion at Shadwell, where he resided with his mother, brother, and unmarried sisters, was burned to the ground, with nearly all its contents. 1 Burk's History of Virginia, vol. iii. p. 345, note. a Jefferson's Memoir. |