means? Our hall at Sweetbrier is as large as the Christ Church refectory, and handsomely proportioned and decorated. A wide stage runs across the end. We found some ample curtains of crimson, set off with a heavy yellow silken border of quite rich material, which had been used to drape a window that had disappeared in the course of repairs. This, stretched from side to side, made a wall of brilliant color against the gray tint of the room; and possibly Roger Ascham, seeing our audience-room before and after the hanging of it, might have had a thought of Antwerp. The stage is the one thing in the world privileged to deceive. The most devoted reader of Ruskin can tolerate shams here. The costumes were devised with constant reference to Charles Knight, and, to the eye, were of the gayest silk, satin, and velvet. There was, moreover, a profusion of jewels, which, for all one could see, sparkled with all the lustre of the great Florentine diamond, as you see it suspended above the imperial crowns in the Austrian SchatzKammer at Vienna. The contrasts of tint were well attended to. Pedro was in white and gold, Claudio in blue and silver, Leonato in red; while our handsome Benedick, a youth of dark Italian favor, in doublet of orange, a broad black velvet sash, and scarlet cloak, shone like a bird of paradise.

There was a garden-scene, in the foreground of which, where the eyes of the spectators were near enough to discriminate, were rustic baskets with geraniums, fuchsias, and cactuses, to give a southern air. In the middle distance, armfuls of honeysuckle in full bloom were brought in and twined about white pilasters. There was an arbor overhung with heavy masses of the trumpet-creeper. A tall column or two surmounted with graceful gardenvases were covered about with raspberry - vines, the stems of brilliant scarlet showing among the green. A thick clump of dogwood, whose large white blossoms could easily pass for magnolias, gave background. The

green was lit with showy color of every sort, handfuls of nasturtiums, now and than a peony, larkspurs for blue, patches of poppies, and in the gardenvases high on the pillars (the imposition !) clusters of pink hollyhocks which were meant to pass for oleander-blossoms, and did. It was brought in at sundown, still wet with the drops of the afternoon shower, which had not dried away when all was in place. First, it was given under gas; then, the hall being darkened, a magnesiumlight gave a moon-like radiance, in which the dew on the buds glistened, and the mignonette seemed to exhale a double perfume, and a dreamy melody of Mendelssohn sung by two sweet girl- voices floated out about the "pleached bower," like a song of nightingales. Then toward the end came the scene of the chapel and Hero's tomb. No lovelier form was ever sculptured than that of the beautiful Queen Louisa of Prussia, as she lies in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg, carved by Rauch, asleep on the tomb in white purity. To the eye, our Hero's tomb was just such a block of spotless marble seen against a background of black, with just such a fair figure recumbent upon it, whose palms and lids and draping the chisel of an artist seemed to have folded and closed and hung, - all idealized again by the magic of the magnesium-light. As the crimson curtain was drawn apart, an organ sounded, and a far-away choir sent into the hush the "Ave Verum " of Mozart, low-breathed and solemn.

It was not Munich, Fastidiosus. They were American young men and young women, with no resources but those of a fresh-water college, and such as their own taste and the woods and gardens could furnish; but the young men were shapely and intelligent, and the young women had grace and brightness; their hearts were in it, and in the result surely there was a measure of "sweetness and light," for them and those who beheld.

You fear it may beget in young minds a taste for the theatre, now

hopelessly given over in great part to abominations. Why not a taste that will lift them above the abominations? Old Joachim Greff, schoolmaster at Dessau in 1545, who has a place in the history of German poetry, has left it on record that he trained his scholars to render noble dramas in the conscientious hope "that a little spark of art might be kept alive in the schools under the ashes of barbarism." "And this little spark," says Gervinus, "did these bold men, indeed, through two hundred years, keep honestly until it could again break out into flame." Instead of fearing the evil result, rather would I welcome a revival of what Warton calls "this very liberal exercise." Were Joachim Greffs masters in our high schools and in the English chairs in our colleges, we might now and then catch a glimpse of precious things at present hidden away in never-opened storehouses, and see something done toward the development of a taste that should drive out the opera-bouffe.

Here, at the end, Fastidiosus, is what I now shape in mind. Henri Taine, in one of his rich descriptions, thus pictures the performance of a masque: "The élite of the kingdom is there upon the stage, the ladies of the court, the great lords, the queen, in all the splendor of their rank and their pride, in diamonds, earnest to display their luxury so that all the brilliant features of the nation's life are concentrated in the price they give, like gems in a casket. What adornment! What profusion of magnificence! What variety! What metamorphoses! Gold sparkles, jewels emit light, the purple draping imprisons within its rich folds the radiance of the lustres. The light is reflected from shining silk. Threads of pearl are spread in rows upon brocades sewed with thread of silver. Golden embroideries intertwine in capricious arabesques, costumes, jewels, appointments so extraordinarily rich that the stage seems a mine of glory."

The fashionable world of our time has little taste for such pleasures. This old splendor we cannot produce; but the words which the magnificent lords and ladies spoke to one another as they blazed, were those that make up the poetry of Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess," Ben Jonson's "Sad Shepherd," and, finest of all, the "Comus " of Milton. They are the most matchless frames of language in which sweet thoughts and fancies were ever set. After all, before this higher beauty, royal pomp even seems only a coarse excrescence, and all would be better if the accessories of the rendering were very simple. Already in my mind is the grove for "Comus" designed; the mass of green which shall stand in the centre, the blasted trunk that shall rise for contrast to one side, and the vine that shall half conceal the splintered summit, the banks of wild-flowers that shall be transferred, the light the laboratory shall yield us to make all seem as if seen through enchanter's incense. I have in mind the sweetvoiced girl who shall be the lost lady and sing the invocation to Sabrina; the swart youth who shall be the magician, and say the lines,

"At every fall, smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled";

and the golden-haired maid who shall
glide in and out in silvery attire, as the
attendant spirit. Come, Fastidiosus,
I shall invite too the editors of "Da-
vid's Harp,” — and you shall all own
the truth of Milton's own words, "that
sanctity and virtue and truth herself
may in this wise be elegantly dressed,"
when the attendant spirit recites :

"Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bowed welkin low doth bend;
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals that would follow me,
Love virtue; she alone is free,
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her."

J. K. Hosmer.

A

TEMPTATION crossed Jefferson's path while the Declaration of Independence was still a fresh topic in Christendom. It was a temptation which was, and is, of all others the most alluring to an American who is young, educated, and fond of art; and it came to him in such a guise of public duty, that, if he had yielded to it, only one person in the world would have blamed him. But the censure of that one would have properly outweighed a world's applause: for it was himself.

This temptation presented itself on the 8th of October, 1776. He had resigned his seat in Congress, and, after spending a few days at home, had proceeded to Williamsburg, where he had taken his seat in the Legislature, and was about to engage in the hard and long task of bringing up old Virginia to the level of the age. His heart was set on this work. He wanted to help deliver her from the bondage of outgrown laws, and introduce some of the institutions and usages which had given to New England so conspicuous a superiority over the Southern Colonies. A Virginian, dining one day with John Adams, lamented the inferiority of his State to New England. "I can give you," said Mr. Adams, “a receipt for making a New England in Virginia: Town meetings, training days, town schools, and ministers; the meetinghouse, school-house, and training-field are the scenes where New England men were formed." Probably Mr. Jefferson had heard his friend Adams say something of the kind. He was now intent upon purging the Virginia statute-books of unsuitable laws, and founding institutions in accord with the new order of things.

Young as he was, he had had some training now in practical statesmanship. That sharp experience in Congress, while his draft of the Declaration of

Independence was edited of its crudities, redundancies, and imprudences, was salutary to him. It completed the preliminary part of his education as a public man, a public man being one who has to do, not with what is ideally best, but with the best attainable; not to give eloquent expression to his own ideas, but effective expression to the will of his constituents. He wrote little that needed severe pruning after July 4, 1776, though he was still to propose many things that were unattainable. A truly wise, bold, safe, competent public man is one of the slowest formations in nature; but when formed, there is only one man more precious,

the philosopher who is the common teacher of legislators and constituents. If there had been such a philosopher in Virginia just then, he would have smiled, perhaps, at the noble enthusiasm of these young Virginians, who were about to try to make a New England out of a State in which the laboring majority were only 120 likely to remain slaves.

But it belongs to the generous audacity of youth to attempt the impossible. Here, at Williamsburg, in this October, 1776, were gathered once more the circle of Virginia liberals who had been working together against the exactions of the king. Patrick Henry was governor now, living in "the palace," and enjoying the old viceregal salary of a thousand pounds a year. George Wythe, from service in Congress, had acquired experience and distinction. It was he who began the constitution-making in which Virginia had been engaged during much of this year. In January, while spending an evening with Mr. John Adams at Philadelphia, and hearing him discourse, in his robust and ancient-Briton manner, of the constitution proper for a free state, George Wythe asked him to put the substance of his ideas upon paper.

Mr. Adams gave him, in consequence, his "Thoughts upon Government"; which were the best thoughts on that subject of Locke, Milton, Algernon Sidney, James Otis, and John Adams. How congenial to Mr. Adams such a piece of work! "The best lawgivers of antiquity," said he, "would rejoice to live at a period like this, when, for the first time in the history of the world, three millions of people were deliberately choosing their government and institutions." Patrick Henry was well pleased with the "Thoughts." "It shall be my incessant study," he wrote to Mr. Adams, "so to form our portrait of government that a kindred with New England may be discerned in it." So thought all the band of radically liberal men in Virginia, who were beginning to regard Thomas Jefferson as their chief.

And now, on the second day of the session, came a fair excuse for him to leave the "laboring oar," and throw the difficult task of re-creating Virginia upon his colleagues. A messenger from the Honorable Congress reached Williamsburg, October 8th, bearing a despatch for Mr. Jefferson, informing him that he had been elected joint commissioner with Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane to represent the United States at Paris. The temptation was all but irresistible. He relished extremely the delicious society of Dr. Franklin, and was getting into the Franklinian way of dealing with cantankerous man. Paris, too, to which good Americans were already looking as the abode of the blest, where Jefferson could see, at last, after living in the world thirty-three years, harmoniously proportioned edifices, and listen to music such as the Williamsburg "Apollo" had only heard in dreams. The public duty, also, was supposed to be of the first importance. Perhaps it was; but, also, perhaps it was not. Considering the whole case, the young giant might have done better if he had, from the first, made up his mind to fight unassisted. It was a costly business, that French alliance; the heavVOL. XXX. NO. 177.

3

iest item being the habit of leaning upon France, and looking for help, at every pinch, to the French treasury. But this could not have been foreseen in 1776; and happy, indeed, would it have been for Franklin, for the country, for the future, if he could have been seconded by a person so formed to co-operate with him as Jefferson. Franklin would have got Canada at the peace of 1782, if he had had a Jefferson to help, instead of a Jay and an Adams to hinder.

Torn with contending desires, Jefferson kept the messenger waiting day after day; so hard was it to say No to Congress, and to give up an appointment promising so much honor and delight. But his duty was plain. There was a lady upon Monticello who had a claim upon his services with which no other claim could compete. To leave her in the condition in which she was, had been infidelity; and to take her with him might have been fatal to her. Virginia had many sons, but Mrs. Jefferson had but one husband. So, on the 11th of October, the messenger mounted and rode away, bearing the proper answer to the President of Congress :

"It would argue great insensibility in me, could I receive with indifference so confidential an appointment from your body. My thanks are a poor return for the partiality they have been pleased to entertain for me. No cares for my own person, nor yet for my private affairs, would have induced one moment's hesitation to accept the charge. But circumstances very peculiar in the situation of my family, such as neither permit me to leave nor to carry it, compel me to ask leave to decline a service so honorable, and, at the same time, so important to the American cause. The necessity under which I labor, and the conflict I have undergone for three days, during which I could not determine to dismiss your messenger, will, I hope, plead my pardon with Congress; and I am sure there are too many of that body to whom they may with better hopes confide this charge, to leave them under

a moment's difficulty in making a new choice."

As soon as he had reached a decision on this important matter, his colleagues in the Assembly, who had been waiting for it, placed him on a great number of committees; and he began forthwith, on the very day of the messenger's departure, to introduce the measures of reform which he had meditated. Mr. Adams might well regard Virginia as a reformer's paradise; for, owing to the colonial necessity of submitting every desired change to the king, which involved time, trouble, expense, and probable rejection, the Province was far behind even Great Britain in that adaptation of laws and institutions to altered times, which ought to be always in progress in every community. There was such an accumulation, in Virginia, of the outgrown and the unsuitable, that Jefferson and his friends hoped to accomplish in a few months an amount of radical change that would have been a fair allowance for a century and a half.

The law-books were full of old absurdity and old cruelty. Of the four hundred thousand people who were supposed to inhabit Virginia, one half were African slaves; and it was a fixed idea in the Jefferson circle, that whites and blacks could not live in equal freedom in the same community. Besides the intense prejudice entertained by the master race against the servile, and the hatred which had been gathering (as Jefferson thought) in the minds of the slaves from four generations of outrage, he believed that Nature herself had made it impossible for the two races to live happily together on equal

* Like this, for example: "Whereas, oftentimes many brabling women often slander and scandalize their neighbors for which their poore husbands are often brought into chargeable and vexatious suites, aud caste in greate damages: Bee it therefore enacted

terms. He evidently had a low opinion of the mental capacity of his colored brethren. The Indian, with no opportunities of mental culture beyond those of the negro, had acquired the art of oratory, could carve the bowl of his pipe into a head not devoid of truth and spirit, and draw upon a piece of bark a figure resembling an animal, a plant, a tract of country. But never had he observed in a negro, or a negro's work, one gleam of superior intelligence, aptitude, or taste. No negro standing behind his master's chair had caught from the conversation of educated persons an elevated mode of thinking. "Never," says Mr. Jefferson, "could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture." In music they were more gifted, but no negro had yet imagined anything beyond "a small catch." Love, which inspires the melodious madness of poets, kindles only the senses of a black man, not his mind, and has never, in all the tide of time, wrung from him a word which other lovers love to repeat. Mere misery, to other races, has been inspiration. The blacks are wretched enough, but they have never uttered their woes in poetry.

For these and other reasons, Mr. Jefferson was disposed to regard the negro race as naturally inferior; though he expresses himself on the point with the hesitation natural to a scientific mind provided with a scant supply of facts. On the political question, he was clear: the two races could not live together in peace as equals. The attempt to do so, he thought, would "divide Virginians into parties, and produce convulsions which would probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race." Here was a problem

occasioned by the wife as aforesaid, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be soe enormous as to be adjudged at a greater damage than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer a ducking for each five hundred pounds of

tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuse to pay the tobacco."

a precedent to guide them in all the known history of man!

The gross ignorance of the white inhabitants, except one small class, was another too obvious fact. They were almost as ignorant as Europeans, with