overbearing and
unjust. This was apt to happen in cases of pretension and any kind of
wrong-doing. Mr. Adams was very impatient of cant, or of opposition to
any of his deeply established convictions. Neither was his indignation
at all graduated to the character of the individuals who might happen to
excite it. He had little respect of persons, and would hold an
illiterate man or raw boy to as heavy a responsibility for uttering a
crude heresy, as the strongest thinker or the most profound scholar."

The same writer makes the following remarks on his general character:
"His nature was too susceptible to emotions of sympathy and kindness,
for it tempted him to trust more than was prudent in the professions of
some who proved unworthy of his confidence. Ambitious in one sense he
certainly was, but it was not the mere aspiration for place or power. It
was a desire to excel in the minds of men by the development of high
qualities, the love, in short, of an honorable fame, that stirred him to
exult in the rewards of popular favor. Yet this passion never tempted
him to change a course of action or to suppress a serious conviction, to
bend to a prevailing error or to disavow one odious truth."

In these last assertions we do not fully concur. They involve some
controverted points of history; however, they may be made with far more
plausibility of Mr. Adams than of the greater portion of political men.

There is much in the life of John Adams worthy of careful consideration.
He rose from poverty to distinction; he was a capable man, capable of
filling the highest place in the estimation of his posterity, yet his
serious faults led to his political ruin. The careful perusal of his
life will enable one to understand the principles of the two great
parties of to-day, modified though they be, the fundamental principles
remaining the same.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

The subject of this narrative was born in Virginia, in the year 1743, on
the 2nd day of April. As young Jefferson was born to affluence and was
bountifully blessed with all the educational advantages which wealth
will bring, many of our young readers may say--well, I could succeed,
perhaps, had I those advantages. We will grant that you could provided
you took means similar to those used by Jefferson, for while we must
admit that all cannot be Jeffersons, nor Lincolns, nor Garfields, still
we are constantly repeating in our mind the words of the poet:--

"Lives