lls an amusing anecdote
of a brandy-drinking Virginian, who wondered how a man of so much taste
could drink cold, sour French wine, and insisted that some night he
would be carried off by it.

No American has ever exerted so great and universal an attraction. Men
of all parties made pilgrimages to Monticello. Foreigners of distinction
were unwilling to leave the country without seeing Mr. Jefferson; men of
fashion, artists, _litterateurs_, _savants_, soldiers, clergymen,
flocked to his house. Mrs. Randolph stated, that she had provided beds
for fifty persons at a time. The intrusion was often disagreeable
enough. Groups of uninvited strangers sometimes planted themselves in
the passages of his house to see him go to dinner, or gathered around
him when he sat on the portico. A female once broke a window-pane with
her parasol to got a better view of him. But no press of company was
permitted to interfere with his occupations. The early morning was
devoted to correspondence; the day to his library, to his workshop, or
to business; after dinner he gave himself up to society.

Making every allowance for the exaggerations of his admirers, it cannot
be doubted that Jefferson was a master of conversation. It had
contributed too much to his success not to have been made the subject of
thought. It is true, he had neither wit nor eloquence; but this was a
kind of negative advantage; for he was free from that striving after
effect so common among professed wits, neither did he indulge in those
monologues into which eloquence betrayed Coleridge and seduces Macaulay.
He had great tact, information, and worldly knowledge. He never
disputed, and had the address not to attempt to control the current of
conversation for the purpose of turning it in a particular direction,
but was always ready to follow the humor of the hour. His language, if
seldom striking, never failed to harmonize with his theme, while, of
course, the effect of everything he said was heightened by his age and
reputation.

Unfortunately, his latter days were clouded by pecuniary distress.
Although prudent and methodical, partly from unavoidable circumstances,
and partly from the expense of his enormous establishment, his large
estate became involved. The failure of a friend for whom he had indorsed
completed his ruin and made it necessary to sell his property. This,
however, was not done until after his death, when every debt was paid,
even to a subscription for a P