PARTING WITH MR. JEFFERSON.

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often, and keeping hold of my hand some time, he said, 'Now let us hear from each other occasionally;' and as long as he lived I heard from him once or twice a year. The last letter I ever had from him was when I wrote him of the death of my wife, soon after I got to this country. He expressed a great deal of sympathy for me; said he did not wonder that I felt completely broken up, and was disposed to move back; that he had passed through the same himself; and only time and silence would relieve me. That is the letter I told you I so much regretted I had lost.

"I am now (1862) in my seventy-seventh year. I have seen a great many men in my day, but I have never seen the equal of Mr. Jefferson. He may have had the faults that he has been charged with, but if he had, I could never find it out. I don't believe that, from his arrival to maturity to the present time, the country has ever had another such a man."

CONCLUSION.

In the preparation of this volume, the author has preferred to confine his labors to a simple presentation of historical facts, leaving his readers to draw their own conclusions from the statements made. Whatever may be our individual views of Mr. Jefferson's public life, or his political or religious opinions, it surely is matter for pride and joy that one who knew him so long and well bears such testimony to his character.

While the author has been engaged in the preparation of this volume, lingering in spirit amid the sacred shades of Monticello, and dwelling upon its hallowed associations, an utterly causeless and wicked rebellion has culminated in the establishment of the so-called Confederate States.

The facts presented in this volume, while they increase our reverence for those master-builders who laid the foundations of our glorious Union, give intensity to our abhorrence of their traitorous successors, who are endeavoring to tear down the magnificent structure.

There could be no more sad and striking illus tration of the folly and madness of this rebellion, than the fact that the home of Jefferson has been confiscated, because its owner is loyal to the Stars and Stripes. The banner of treason-the Confederate flag-now waves over the bones of the author of the Declaration of Independence. If this sad fact does not stir them in their resting-place, it surely will move every loyal heart to the rescue of that hallowed shrine. With all its historic associations, like Mount Vernon, it belongs to the entire nation. With God's blessing on our arms, in the future as in the past, we will associate Monticello with Quincy; Yorktown with Bunker Hill; Eutaw Springs with Saratoga; Marion's men in the swamps of the Santee with those at Valley Forge; and from these and all our old battle-fields we will gather flowers blushing with tints borrowed from the blood of their hallowed dead, with which to entwine wreaths and garlands for our rejoicings over our not distant and not inglorious peace.

And when that day comes,-as come it must, for we have only quicksands beneath our feet until we reach it, when that day comes, and our dear old Ship of State is again moored in peaceful waters, shall we not love her as never before? Then she will have demonstrated not only to us, but to the nations of the earth, that she can sail in

storm as well as calm; a storm such as Ship of State never weathered before, and in which a less gallant crew would inevitably have gone down. Then, with new-born emphasis, we shall say:

"Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge, and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
Fear not each sudden sound and shock;
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea,—

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee! are all with thee !"

APPENDIX.

MR. JEFFERSON'S WILL.

"I, THOMAS JEFFERSON, of Monticello, in Albemarle, being of sound mind, and in my ordinary state of health, make my last will and testament, in manner and form as follows:

"I give to my grandson, Francis Eppes, son of my dear deceased daughter, Mary Eppes, in fee simple, all that part of my lands at Poplar Forest, lying west of the following lines, to wit: beginning at Radford's upper corner, near the double branches of Bear Creek and the public road, and running thence in a straight line to the fork of my private road, near the barn; thence along that private road, (as it was changed in 1817,) to its crossing of the main branch of North Tomahawk Creek; and from that crossing in a direct line over the main ridge which divides the North and South Tomahawk, to the South Tomahawk, at the confluence of two branches where the old road to the Waterlick crossed it, and from that confluence up the northernmost branch, (which separates McDaniel's and Perry's fields,) to its source;