Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
The apt and excellent quotation from Horace’s epistles, in your
letter of 26th: ulto: made me
turn over all the editions and translations of the old poet, that came within my
reach, to find the context—1 When once
a man takes up Horace, it is not easy to lay him down again— So in turning over the
leaves, I stumbled by the strangest accident imaginable upon the fourth Ode of the
second book— But what is yet more surprizing, and indeed almost incredible to my self,
is, that upon opening the book again, the enclosed imitation, drop’d out from between the leaves— I send it you for your opinion
with regard to its authenticity; and also of its merit as an imitation— It strikes me
that if it be really genuine, Pain’s poetry is better than his 226 prose— But
The great difficulty seems to be that the tender tale of
Sally has not yet been long enough known to have made its way across the Atlantic, and
back again— But indeed Pain being so much in the philosopher’s confidence may have
been acquainted with the facts earlier than the American public in general—2 In short I cannot find my way out of the
critical labyrinth, and leave it to your taste and ingenuity to discover the clue.
I have read the life of Gifford, in some of our newspapers, extracted from his book; and it gives me a very favourable opinion of the man— The tale of Genius bursting into light through the petrified shell of poverty and neglect, is always pleasing, and few instances of the kind, so extraordinary as that of Gifford have ever come to my knowledge— His Juvenal I shall certainly purchase as soon as it shall undress itself enough to meet the level of my finances—3 I have been so much used to find myself out-done in poetical translation, that I shall feel no mortification, at being once more excell’d by him— Sotheby has made me callous upon that score; and if my Vanity wanted a backdoor to retreat from, it would immediately suggest, that my translation was a hasty and unfinish’d production, not intended for publication, and his, by his own account the labour of twenty years.—4 I am willing to impute it therefore to your indulgence or partiality that you thought the American version would in any respect bear a comparison with the other.
The whale-oil for which you write is too rank, because too stale
to send you— Political disquisitions like those in our newspapers, are flowers of a
day, and turn to mere chaff and straw, unless you catch them at the hour of their
bloom— The pieces to which I refer appeared in the Boston
Gazette, nearly a month ago— They are therefore dead and gone— Nor shall you
misspend your time so much as to read them— The National Intelligencer has republished
a garbled extract from the last number only, (there were 6 in all) but he has taken
special care not to publish the two first numbers, which contained his dressing— He
thinks the author a verbose critic, and complains that he
liberally quotes the antient poets, and proves every
thing from them—5 Poor thing— If
the enclosed Ode should ever meet his eye, he will find more proved from the antient
poets than will be welcome to him.
Our friends here and at Quincy are all well— My George only excepted— He breeds his teeth with much pain and difficulty; and for the last four months has scarcely had a week’s respite— We are not 227 without some cases of malignant fever here; but as the season is advancing we hope it will very speedily subside wherever it has appeared upon the continent.
Bradford the printer, I observe, advertises a subscription for a complete edition of Burke’s works—to be comprized in eight volumes octavo— I want you to put my name down as a subscriber—6
Ever faithfully your’s
This letter was prepared to be sent you by Mr: Walter, a young Gentleman who has just completed his
course of legal studies, and is going to make a tour of some weeks, as far as
Washington—7 He bears a very good
character as a scholar, and is a particular friend of Shaw.— But he goes off very
early in the morning, and perhaps I shall miss the opportunity by him— In that case I
shall send it by the mail—
RC (DLC:John Quincy Adams Papers); internal address: “T. B. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed: “J. Q Adams Esqr:
/ 5th: Octr: 1802 / 19th: Do: Recd: / 20th Do Answd:.”
Not found.
JQA, using the pseudonym “Thomas Paine,” penned the
poem “Horace, Book II, Ode 4. To Xanthia Phoceus,” which was published in the Port Folio, 2:344 (30 Oct.). In the original ode, Horace
writes of Xanthia’s love for the enslaved woman Phillis. JQA’s version
was directed toward Thomas Jefferson, whose relationship with the enslaved Sally
Hemings was recently publicized in James Thomson Callender’s Richmond, Va., Recorder, 1 September. Hemings (1773–1835) was the daughter
of Elizabeth Hemings, an enslaved woman, and Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles.
Sally accompanied Jefferson’s daughter Mary to Europe in 1787. While there she served
as one of the family’s household staff and as maid to Martha Jefferson. She later
worked in the household at Monticello and gave birth to several children fathered by
Thomas Jefferson.
JQA began the piece: “Dear Thomas, deem it no
disgrace / With slaves to mend thy breed, / Nor let the wench’s smutty face / Deter
thee from the deed,” and continued, “Though nature o’er thy Sally’s frame / Has spread
her sable veil, / Yet shall the loudest trump of fame / Resound your tender tale.” An
editorial note appeared below the poem in the Port Folio:
“The pretence, that Thomas Paine wrote this Ode, is mere poetic fiction. To my certain
knowledge he did not write it, and indeed to speak in the
Gallic idiom, he is incapable of writing such verses”
(Kerber and Morris, “The Adams Family and
the Port Folio,” p. 469–470; Elise Lemire, “Miscegenation”: Making Race in
America, Phila., 2002, p. 18–19, 21–22; Jefferson, Papers
, 38:323–325;
Jefferson’s
Memorandum Books
, 1:686; Jefferson, Papers, Retirement Series
, 3:610–611;
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An
American Controversy, Charlottesville, Va., 1997, p. xxvi, xxvii, 1–2, 23–25).
For Sally Hemings’ stay with the Adamses in London in 1787, see vol. 8:xxiii, 94, 108. See also
TBA to JQA, 30
Nov. 1802, and note 4, below.
British editor and satirist William Gifford (1756–1826), Oxford
1782, published a translation of Juvenal’s satires in London prefaced with an
autobiographical sketch that was printed in the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 6, 7 September. The Philadelphia Gazette, 3 Sept., advertised the publication of a U.S. edition,
and both JQA and TBA subscribed to an edition that was
published the following year. An 1806 London edition is in JQA’s library
at MQA (
DNB
; The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, transl. William Gifford, 2 vols.,
Phila., 1803, 2:[270], Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 4466; CFA, Diary
, 6:140). For the publication of JQA’s translation of
Juvenal’s thirteenth satire in the Port Folio, see vol.
14:286–287, 289–290.
William Sotheby (1757–1833), a British poet, published in London
in 1798 a translation of Christoph Martin Wieland’s 1796 epic poem Oberon, a copy of which is in JQA’s library at
MQA (
DNB
; Catalog of the Stone Library). For JQA’s
translation of the same work, see vol. 14:258.
The Boston Commercial Gazette, 23,
30 Aug. 1802, 2, 9, 13, 16 Sept., published an anonymous six-part series that
responded to the publication of JA’s 1790 letters to Samuel Adams, for
which see
JQA to
TBA, 27 Aug. 1802, and note 2, above. The series criticized
commentary that appeared in other newspapers, including the Washington, D.C., National Intelligencer, and defended JA
against the charge that he was a monarchist. As JQA observed, editor
Samuel Harrison Smith disparaged the series in the National
Intelligencer, 27 September.
From 22 May to 9 Oct. Philadelphia printer Samuel Fisher Bradford
(1776–1837) and publisher and bookseller John Conrad (1777–1851) advertised in the
Philadelphia Gazette of the United States seeking
subscribers for a proposed six-volume edition of Edmund Burke’s writings. Although
subscriptions were collected in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., the
edition was not published (Jefferson, Papers, Retirement Series
, 7:289; Jefferson, Papers
, 39:176).
That is, Arthur Maynard Walter, for whom see vol. 13:334.
th1802
I have not written you a line since I received yours; from the
Yellow Springs, for some time I knew not where you were, and began at last to feel, not
a little anxious untill I was releived by your Brothers informing me that he had
Received a Letter from you, dated at Philadelphia.1 there again I thought you had too Soon return’d,
as the Weather of Sep’br and chiefly since october came in,
has been intensely Hot, and the fever which has been in Boston, tho chiefly confind to
one Street, has been uncommonly fatal—2
Scarcly one seiz’d has recoverd— In Quincy we have been more healthy than for several
years past. we had upon the Farms Six weeks ago a Malignant Dysentery but it was
confined to a few families, all of which with one exception, recoverd.— I now despair of
seeing you here as the Season is so far advanced. I hope you have derived some benifit
from your excursion through the Summer: we have past an agreable one here; your Brothers
Society, and that of his family have added much to our enjoyment. he usually comes out
on Saturdays, and returns on mondays. his family sometime pass the week with us. George
is a lovely Boy, chatters like a Magpye it would have given me sincere pleasure to have
had a visit from you, but journeying is expensive; and you are the best judge whether
You could afford it— Judge Cranch jun’r and family have been
upon a visit to their Friends ever since June. they leave us this week, as well as mrs
Johnson. they will go to Nyork by water and from thence by land, so that you 229 may possibly see them in Philadelphia, unless they should take a vessel at Newyork
for Washingtown— what a scene is opened there? have Americans any feeling left? can they
Submit to the Government of Duane Cheetham Wood, Lyon, Jones,3 and Callender.? fellows who ought to have been
long ago exalted— is there any American Blood in Pensilvana? or can You only make a
bluster and do nothing.? We are indeed a degraded people, unworthy of the blessings we
have enjoyed, and thrown away: You see by the papers that they are bringing your
Brothers Name foremost upon the federal list, and there is no saying them nay, tho he
has opposed it.4 I am averse to it, as
you know but what can you say against the solicitation of Friends. the urgency and what
they term pressing necessity of the case You sir are the only
man we can bring forward to unite the Federal votes &c &c here I am,
sacrifice me for the public, as you have done those who have gone before me. I have only
one hope that they will even fail to carry him, for I cannot see any prospect of
producing any good— true there is yet a Year to run and the present Administration may
not have a Hydra Head—but the Labour of a Hercules will not restore to this people what
they will lose in the short period of four years. I see no chance for quiet no hopes for
Social Harmony. the bitterness of Party thirsts for more than the cooling Stream— the
Spirit of Party, is blind and deaf, but not dumb.
Where we are to land I know not— how mean does Dallas appear with his prostituted name to the address, prostituted it must have been now, or when he united with the Bar in his petition to arresst the repeal of the Judiciary—5 I am ready to ask is there any Principle? any honour any thing like what I call virtue in a Jacobin? The Rogues have fallen out, but will honest Men obtain their Rights? What a Scene does Callender unfold, if still a Lyar. he has the art of wearing the plain unvarnishd tale of truth when writing against the former administrations. he call’d not upon his adversaries to deny his assertions— he dared not challenge them to the contest. he skulked in the dark, and Scatterd his poison only amongst those whom he knew it would opperate upon— I have not a worse, nor so bad an opinion of him, as of his base low mean employer; out upon him, let him be accursed amongst Men and his name a reproach— I have removed every vestage of him out of sight—
You will be weary of my reproaches I have done— I pray you to present my Regards to all the good people of my acquaintance and be assured of the / affection of your / Mother
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “Mr Thomas B Adams / Philadelphia”; endorsed: “Mrs: Abigail Adams / 10th:
October 1802 / 21st: Recd /
24th: Ansd:.”
TBA’s letter to AA has not been found. His letter to JQA was likely that of 26 Sept., not found ( JQA to TBA, 5 Oct., and note 1, above).
JQA reported an alarm of yellow fever in a Boston neighborhood on 1 Sept. and on 22 Sept. wrote that some had left the city due to the report (D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27).
Meriwether Jones (1766–1806) was a prominent
Democratic-Republican in Virginia, where he was the state’s public printer and a
former member of the Va. House of Delegates (Jefferson, Papers
,
40:569).
For JQA’s candidacy in the Massachusetts congressional elections, see AA to TBA, 7 Nov., and note 3, below.
An address “To the Republicans of Pennsylvania” in the
Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 27 Sept., called
on Democratic-Republicans to put aside their differences and elect party members in
the upcoming election or face a return of a Federalist “reign
of terror.” Alexander James Dallas was one of eight Philadelphia
Democratic-Republicans who signed the address, which was immediately published as a
pamphlet. Under JA, the address claimed, “the law itself, assumed the
form of a weapon made for the federalists alone to wield.” When JA made
his late-term judicial nominations, “the midnight hour was invaded, to rivet the last
fetter upon a rival administration” by creating “a judicial fortress, within which the
routed federalists might safely repose, and from which the triumphant republicans
might be successfully annoyed.” Federalists answered in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 2 and 5 Oct., identifying the
author as Dallas and arguing the address was “false in its premises and its
conclusions, from beginning to end” (The Address of the State
Committee of Republicans … of the State of Pennsylvania on the Concerns of the
Election of 1802, [Phila.], 1802, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 2134). For Dallas’ support of the 2 Feb. petition by
members of the Pennsylvania bar opposing the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801, see
TBA to
JA, 15 Feb. 1802, above.