history of the day, a little theology, so ill assorted as to suggest gifts
rather than purchases, a miscellany of contemporary politics, and a very
little belles-lettres. In political science the only works in the
slightest degree noticeable are Smith's "Wealth of Nations," "The
Federalist," and Rousseau's "Social Compact," and, as the latter was in
French, it could not have been read. In lighter literature Homer,
Shakespeare, and Burns, Lord Chesterfield, Swift, Smollett, Fielding, and
Sterne, and "Don Quixote," are the only ones deserving notice. It is
worthy of mention that Washington's favorite quotation was Addison's "'Tis
not in mortals to command success," but he also utilized with considerable
aptitude quotations from Shakespeare and Sterne. There were half a dozen
of the ephemeral novels of the day, but these were probably Mrs.
Washington's, as her name is written in one, and her husband's in none.
Writing to his grandson, Washington warned him that "light reading (by
this, I mean books of little importance) may amuse for the moment, but
leaves nothing solid behind."

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S BOOK-PLATE]

One element of Washington's reading which cannot be passed over without
notice is that of newspapers. In his early life he presumably read the
only local paper of the time (the _Virginia Gazette_), for when an
anonymous writer, "Centinel," in 1756, charged that Washington's regiment
was given over to drunkenness and other misbehavior, he drew up a reply,
which he sent with ten shillings to the newspaper, but the printer
apparently declined to print it, for it never appeared.

After the Revolution he complained to his Philadelphia agent, "I have such
a number of Gazettes, crowded upon me (many without orders) that they are
not only expensive, but really useless; as my other avocations will not
afford me time to read them oftentimes, and when I do attempt it, find
them more troublesome, than profitable; I have therefore to beg, if you
Should get Money into your hands on Acct of the Inclosed Certificate, that
you would be so good as to pay what I am owing to Messrs Dunlap &
Claypoole, Mr. Oswald & Mr. Humphrey's. If they consider me however as
engaged for the year, I am Content to let the matter run on to the
Expiration of it" During the Presidency he subscribed to the _Gazette of
the United States_, Brown's _Gazette_, Dunlap's _American Advertiser_, the
_Pennsylvania Gazette_, Bache's _Aurora_, and the