elves of every occasion
when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models
for their study and imitation? Pray try if you can effect the slopping
of this work. I have written also to E. R. on the subject. The loss will
be only of the laying the bricks already laid, or a part of them. The
bricks themselves will do again for the interior walls, and one side
wall and one end wall may remain, as they will answer equally well for
our plan. This loss is not to be weighed against the saving of money
which will arise, against the comfort of laying out the public money for
something honorable, the satisfaction of seeing an object and proof
of national good taste, and the regret and mortification of erecting a
monument of our barbarism, which will be loaded with execrations as long
as it shall endure. The plans are in good forwardness, and I hope will
be ready within three or four weeks. They could not be stopped now,
but on paying their whole price, which will be considerable. If the
undertakers are afraid to undo what they have done, encourage them to it
by a recommendation from the Assembly. You see I am an enthusiast on the
subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed,
as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase
their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and
procure them its praise.

I shall send off your books, in two trunks, to Havre, within two or
three days, to the care of Mr. Limozin, American agent there. I will
advise you, as soon as I know by what vessel he forwards them. Adieu.

Yours affectionately,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CX.--TO EDMUND RANDOLPH, September 20,1785

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Paris, September 20,1785.

Dear Sir,

Being in your debt for ten volumes of Buffon, I have endeavored to
find something that would be agreeable to you to receive, in return. I
therefore send you, by way of Havre, a dictionary of law, natural and
municipal, in thirteen volumes 4to, called _Le Code de l'Humanite_. It
is published by Felice, but written by him and several other authors of
established reputation. It is an excellent work. I do not mean to say,
that it answers fully to its title. That would have required fifty times
the volume. It wants many articles which the title would induce us to
seek in it. But the articles which it contains are well written. It is
better than the voluminous _Dictionnaire Diplomatique_, and be