The New Hampshire Gazette

From the Columbian Magazine, of July, 1787.

Mr. JEFFERSON.

Let us describe to you a man, not yet forty, tall, and with a mild and pleasing countenance, but whose mind and understanding are ample substitutes for every exterior grace. An American, who, without ever having quitted his own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a geometrician, and astronomer, a natural philosopher, legislator and statesman.--A Senator of America, who sat for two years in the famous Congress which brought about the Revolution, and which is never mentioned without respect, though unhappily not without regret : a Governor of Virginia, who filled that difficult station during the invasions of Arnold, of Phillips, and of Cornwallis : a philosopher in voluntary retirement, from the world and public business, because he loves the world, inasmuch only as he can flatter himself with being useful to mankind.

A mild and amiable wife, charming children, of whose education he himself took charge, a house to embellish, great possessions to improve, and the arts and sciences to cultivate; these are what remained to Mr. Jefferson at the time this character was drawn, after having played a principal part on the theatre of the new world, and which he then preferred to the honorable commission of minister plenipotentiary in Europe.--His knowledge indeed was universal.-Sometimes natural philosophy, at others politics or the arts were the topics of our conversation : and it seems as if from his youth he had placed his mind as he has done his house, upon an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.