AMUSING DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

189

with how much delight we may fancy. They never came again.

A Virginian accustomed to the service of slaves, as the President of the United States, Jefferson blacked his own boots. A foreign functionary, a stickler for etiquette, paid him a visit of ceremony one morning, and found him engaged in this pleasing employment. Jefferson apologized, saying, that being a plain man, he did not like to trouble his servants. The foreign grandee departed, declaring that no government could long survive, whose head was his own shoe-black. Jefferson gave great offense to the English Minister, Mr. Merry, because he took Mrs. Madison, to whom he happened to be talking, into dinner instead of Mrs. Merry. Mr. Merry made it an official offense which was reported to his government. Mr. Madison wrote to Mr. Monroe, who was then Minister to England, that he might be ready to answer the call of the British government for explanations. Mr. Monroe wrote back that he was glad of it, for the wife of a British under-secretary had recently been given precedence to Mrs. Monroe, in being escorted to the dinner table. Nevertheless, Mrs. Merry's nose never came down from the air, and she never again crossed the threshold of the President's house.

The same year Jefferson aroused the ire of Thomas. Moore, then twenty-four years of age, and without fame,. save in his own country. The President, from his altitude of six feet two-and-a-half inches, looked down on the curled and perfumed little poet, and spoke a word and passed on. This was an indignity that London's and Dublin's darling never pardoned, and he went back to lampoon, not only America, but the President. One of his attacks came into the hands of Martha Randolph, who,

deeply indignant, placed it before her father in his library. He broke into an amused laugh. Years afterwards, when Moore's Irish melodies appeared, Jefferson, looking them. over, exclaimed: "Why, this is the little man who satirized me so! Why, he is a poet after all. And from that moment Moore had a place beside Burns' in Jefferson's library.

John Randolph, her father's political foc, said of Martha Jefferson: "She is the sweetest creature in Virginia," and we all know that John Randolph believed that nothing "sweet" or even endurable existed outside of Virginia. In adversity and sorrow, in poverty and trial, in age as in youth, the steadfast sweetness of character, and elevation of nature, which made Martha Jefferson remarkable in prosperity, shone forth with transcendent lustre when all external accessories had fled. The daughter of a man called a free-thinker, she all her life was sweetly, simply, devoutly religious. In her letters to her daughter, "Septimia," she draws up nearer to her tender soul in its heavenly love and charity. This daughter, to his latest breath, was to Jefferson, the soul of his soul. After his retirement she not only entertained his guests, and ministered to his personal comforts, but shared intellectually all his thoughts and studies. Six months before her death, Sully painted her portrait. Her daughter says:

"I accompanied her to Mr. Sully's studio, and, as she took her seat before him, she said playfully: Mr. Sully, I shall never forgive you if you paint me with wrinkles.'

"I quickly interrupted, 'Paint her just as she is, Mr. Sully, the picture is for me.'

“He said, 'I shall paint you, Mrs. Randolph, as I remember you twenty years ago.'

A LITTLE QUIET FLATTERY.

191

"The picture does represent her younger-but failed to restore the expression of health and cheerful, ever-joyous vivacity which her countenance then habitually wore. My mother's face owed its greatest charm to its expressiveness, beaming, as it ever was, with kindness, good humor, gayety and wit. She was tall and very graceful; her complexion naturally fair, her hair of a dark chestnut color, very long and very abundant. Her manners were uncommonly attractive from their vivacity, amiability and high breeding, and her conversation was charming."

CHAPTER XXI.

WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS.

A Social Queen-" The Most Popular Person in the United States "_" Dolly Madison's "Reign-The Slow Days of Old-A Young Lady Rides Five Hundred Miles on Horseback-Travelling Under Difficulties-Political Pugnacity-A Peaceful Policy-Formality versus Hospitality-Big Dishes Laughed at A Foreign Minister Criticises-Advantages of a Good Memory-Funny Adventure of a Rustic Youth-A Strange Pocketful-Putting Ilim at his Ease-Doleful Visage of a New President-Getting Rid of a Burden-A Brave Lady-She Writes to Her Sister-Waiting in Suspense-Taking Care of Cabinet Papers-" Disaffection Stalks Around Us"-" Col. C." very Prudently "Skedaddles "-One Hundred "Braves" Skedaddle with Him--" French John " Makes a Proposition-He Desires to "Blow up the British "-John "Doesn't See It"-Watching and Waiting-Flight-Unscrewing the Picture-After the War-Brilliant Receptions-Mrs. Madison's Snuff Box-Clay Takes a Pinch-" This is My Polisher!"" Tempora Mutantur"-Two Plain Old Ladies from the West-"If I Jest Kissed you "-They Depart in Peace-Days of Trouble and Care Manuscripts Purchased by Congress-The "Franking Privilege" Conferred upon Mrs. Madison-Honored by Congress-Last Days of a Good Woman-Mrs. Monroe-A Severe and Aristocratic Woman"La Belle Americaine"-Madame Lafayette in Prison-Fennimore Cooper Expresses an Opinion-Grotesque Anomalies at a Reception-The Crown and the Eagle.

PRETE

RESIDENT JEFFERSON showed his personal appreciation as well as his official recognition of Mrs. Madison, both in his letters to his daughters and in the fact that Mrs. Madison, when the wife of the Secretary of State, presided at Jefferson's table during the absence of his own family. But it was as the wife of the fourth

"ROUGHING IT" SEVENTY YEARS AGO.

193

President of the United States that she inaugurated the golden reign of the President's house.

She was the only woman of absolute social genius, who ever presided in this house. Thus the beneficence and brilliancy of her reign was never approached before her time, and has never been equalled since.

It is a rare combination of gifts and graces which produces the pre-eminent social queen, in any era or in any sphere. Mrs. Madison seemed to possess them all. During the administration of her husband she was openly declared to be "the most popular person in the United States;" and now, after the lapse of generations, after hosts of women, bright, beautiful and admired, have lived, reigned, died, and are forgotten, "Dolly Madison" seems to abide to-day in Washington, a living and beloved presence. The house in which her old age was spent, and from which she passed to heaven, is every day pointed out to the stranger as her abode. IIer face abides with us as the face of a friend, while her words and deeds are constantly recalled as authority, unquestioned and benign.

When she began her reign in Washington, steamboats were the wonder of the world; railroads undreamed of; turnpike roads scarcely begun; the stagecoach slow, inconvenient, and cumbersome. The daughter of one senator, who wished to enjoy the delights of the new capital, came five hundred miles on horseback by her father's side. The wife of a member rode fifteen hundred miles on horseback, passed through several Indian settlements, and spent nights without seeing a house in which she could lodge. Under such difficulties did lowly women come to Washington, and out of such material were blended the society of that conspicuous era.