efforts; supported, indeed, by able and faithful coadjutors from the ranks of the House, very effective as seconds, but who would not have taken the field as leaders.

"The prohibition of the further importation of slaves was the first of these measures in time.

"This was followed by the abolition of entails, which broke up the hereditary and high-handed aristocracy, which by accumulating immense masses of property in single lines of families, had divided our country into two distinct orders, of nobles and plebeians.

"But further to complete the equality among our citizens, so essential to the maintenance of republican government, it was necessary to abolish the principle of primogeniture. I drew the law of descents, giving equal inheritance to sons and daughters, which made a part of the revised code.

"The attack on the establishment of a dominant religion was first made by myself. It could be carried at first only by a suspension of salaries for one year, by battling it again at the next session for another year, and so from year to year, until the public mind was ripened for the bill for establishing religious freedom, which I had prepared for the revised code also. This was at length established permanently, and by the efforts of Mr. Madison, being myself in Europe at the time that work was brought forward.

"To these particular services, I think I might add the establishment of our University, as principally my work, acknowledging at the same time, as I do, the great assistance received from my able colleagues of the Visitation. But my residence in the vicinity threw of course on me the chief burden of the enterprise, as well of the buildings, as of the general organization and care of the whole. The effect of this institution on the future fame, fortune, and pros

perity of our country, can as yet be seen but at a distance. That institution is now qualified to raise its youth to an order of science unequalled in any other state; and this superiority will be the greater from the free range of mind encouraged there, and the restraint imposed at other seminaries by the shackles of a domineering hierarchy, and a bigoted adhesion to ancient habits."

When Mr. Jefferson was a member of the Colonial Legislature, he made an effort for the emancipation of slaves; but all proposals of that kind, as well as to stop the importation of slaves, were discouraged during the colonial government. The importation of slaves into Virginia, whether by sea or land, was stopped in 1778, in the third year of the Commonwealth, by a bill brought in by Mr. Jefferson, which passed without opposition, and as Mr. Jefferson observes, stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication."* The Act for the Abolition of Entails was not carried without some opposition, and that for the Abolition of the Established Anglican Church was not finally carried till 1778, though before the Revolution the majority of the people had become dissenters from the Church. The reason of the difficulty lay in the majority of the legislature being churchmen.

Mr. Jefferson married, in 1772, Martha Skelton, the widow of Bathurst Skelton. She died ten years after their marriage. One daughter, and a numerous family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, survived him. He was the author of Notes on Virginia, which have been several times printed; but his reputation as a writer rests on his official papers and correspondence, of which latter, we believe, that which

*Act in Hening's Statutes at Large, vol. ix. p. 471. Act declaring tenants of lands, or slaves in taille, to hold the same in fee simple. Hening, ix, p. 226.

is published forms only a part of what he left behind him.

The authorities here used are Jefferson's Memoirs, Correspondence, &c., London, 1829, and part of the forthcoming Life of Jefferson, by Professor Tucker, of the University of Virginia. An article in the Journal of Education, No. 7, by Professor Tucker, contains a full account of the University of Virginia. To these sources we add, as evidence for some opinions expressed, some personal knowledge of Mr. Jefferson during the last two years of his life.

PIERRE SIMON LAPLACE was born at Beaumont en Auge, a small town of Normandy, not far from Honfleur, in March, 1749. His father was a small farmer of sufficient substance to give him the benefit of a learned education, for we are told that the future philosopher gained his first distinctions in theology. It does not appear by what means his attention was turned to mathematical science, but he must have commenced that study when very young, as, on visiting Paris at the age of about eighteen, he attracted the notice of D'Alembert by his knowledge of the subject. He had previously taught mathematics in

*A scanty account in the Biographie des Contemporains, and the Eloge read to the Institute by M. Fourier, form our only materials for the personal life of LAPLACE.

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his native place; and, on visiting the metropolis, was furnished with letters of recommendation to several of the most distinguished men of the day. Finding, however, that D'Alembert took no notice of him on this account, he wrote that geometer a letter on the first principles of mechanics, which produced an immediate effect. D'Alembert sent for him the same day, and said, "You see, sir, how little I care for introductions, but you have no need of any. have a better way of making yourself known, and you have a right to my assistance.' Through the recommendation of D'Alembert, Laplace was in a few days named Professor of Mathematics in the Military School of Paris. From this moment he applied himself to the one great object of his life. It was not till the year 1799 that he was called to assume a public character. Bonaparte, then First Consul, who was himself a tolerable mathematician, and always cultivated the friendship of men of science, made him Minister of the Interior; but very soon found his mistake in supposing that talents for philosophical investigation were necessarily accompanied by those of a statesman. He is reported to have expressed himself of Laplace in the following way:-" Géomètre du premier rang, il ne tarda pas a se montrer administrateur plus que médiocre. Dés son premier travail, les consuls s'aperçurent qu'ils s'étoient trompés. Laplace ne saisissait aucune question sous son vrai point de vue. Il cherchait des subtilités partout, n'avait que des idées problématiques et portait aufin l'esprit des infiniments petits dans l'administration." Bonaparte removed him accordingly to the Sénat Conservateur, of which he was successively Vice-President and Chancellor. The latter office he received in 1813, about which time he was created Count. In 1814 he voted for the deposition of Napoleon, for which he has been charged with ingratitude