... "This letter will be conveyed to you by the assistance of our friend Warner Lewis. Poor fellow! never did I see one more sincerely captivated in my life. He walked to the Indian Camp with her yesterday, by which means he had an opportunity of giving her two or three love-squeezes by the hand; and like a true Arcadian swain, has been so enraptured ever since that he is company for no one."
... "Last night, as merry as agreeable company and dancing with Belinda in the Apollo could make me, I never could have thought the succeeding sun would have seen me so wretched as I now am! Affairs at W. and M. are in the greatest confusion. Walker, McClury, and Wat Jones are expelled pro tempore, or as Horrox softens it, rusticated for a month. Lewis Burwell, Warner Lewis, and one Thompson have fled to escape flagellation."
... "I wish I had followed your example and wrote in Latin, and that I had called my dear, Campana in die, instead of αδνιλεβ."—("The lady here alluded to is manifestly the Miss Rebecca Burwell mentioned in his first letter; but what suggested the quaint designation of her is not so obvious. In the first of them, Belinda, translated into dog Latin, which was there as elsewhere one of the facetiæ of young collegians, became Campana in die, that is, bell in day. In the second, the name is reversed, and becomes Adnileb, which for farther security is written in Greek characters, and the lady spoken of in the masculine gender."—Note of Editor.)
... "When you see Patsy Dandridge, tell her, 'God bless her.' I do not like the ups and downs of a country life: to-day you are frolicking with a fine girl, and to-morrow you are moping by yourself. Thank God! I shall shortly be where my happiness will be less interrupted. I shall salute all the girls below in your name, particularly S——y P——r. Dear Will, I have thought of the cleverest plan of life that can be imagined. You exchange your land for Edgehill, or I mine for Fairfields; you marry S——y P——r, I marry R——a B——l, join and get a pole chair and a pair of keen horses, practise the law in the same courts, and drive about to all the dances in the country together. How do you like it? Well, I am sorry you are at such a distance I cannot hear your answer; however, you must let me know it by the first opportunity, and all the other news in the world which you imagine will affect me."
... "With regard to the scheme which I proposed to you some time since, I am sorry to tell you it is totally frustrated by Miss R. B.'s marriage with Jacquelin Ambler, which the people here tell me they daily expect. Well, the Lord bless her! I say: but S——y P——r is still left for you. I have given her a description of the gentleman who, as I told her, intended to make her an offer of his hand, and asked whether or not he might expect it would be accepted. She would not determine till she saw him or his picture. Now, Will, as you are a piece of a limner, I desire that you will seat yourself immediately before your looking-glass and draw such a picture of yourself as you think proper; and if it should be defective, blame yourself. (Mind that I mentioned no name to her.) You say you are determined to be married as soon as possible, and advise me to do the same. No, thank ye; I will consider of it first. Many and great are the comforts of a single state, and neither of the reasons you urge can have any influence with an inhabitant, and a young inhabitant too, of Williamsburg. Who told you that I reported you was courting Miss Dandridge and Miss Dangerfield? It might be worth your while to ask whether they were in earnest or not. So far was I from it, that I frequently bantered Miss J——y T——o about you, and told her how feelingly you spoke of her. There is scarcely any thing now going on here. You have heard, I suppose, that J. Page is courting Fanny Burwell. W. Bland and Betsy Yates are to be married Thursday se'nnight. The Secretary's son is expected in shortly. Willis has left town entirely, so that your commands to him cannot be executed immediately; but those to the ladies I shall do myself the pleasure of delivering to-morrow night at the ball. Tom Randolph of Tuckahoe has a suit of Mecklenburg silk which he offered me for a suit of broadcloth."
... "I have not a syllable to write to you about. Would you that I should write nothing but truth? I tell you I know nothing that is true. Or would you rather that I should write you a pack of lies? Why, unless they were more ingenious than I am able to invent, they would furnish you with little amusement. What can I do then? Nothing, but ask you the news in your world. How have you done since I saw you? How did Nancy look at you when you danced with her at Southall's? Have you any glimmering of hope? How does R. B. do? Had I better stay here and do nothing, or go down and do less? or in other words, had I better stay here while I am here, or go down that I may have the pleasure of sailing up the river again in a full-rigged flat? You must know that as soon as the Rebecca (the name I intend to give the vessel above mentioned) is completely finished, I intend to hoist sail and away. I shall visit particularly, England, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, (where I would buy me a good fiddle,) and Egypt, and return through the British provinces to the northward, home. This, to be sure, would take us two or three years, and if we should not both be cured of love in that time, I think the devil would be in it.
T. Jefferson."
Many of these letters are written from "Devilsburg," which was the college name for the metropolitan city in the days of yore. The reader is referred to the first volume of Mr. Tucker's Life of Jefferson.
We shall make but one addition to our chronicle of those former personages and their boyish pranks, and that shall be a quotation:
"On the 1st of January, 1772, I was married to Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, and daughter of John Wayles, then twenty-three years old."