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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 execra tions as long as it shall endure. The plans are in good forward ness, 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 pro cure 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 mem. Adieu.
Yotir s affectionately,
TH: JEFFERSON.
LETTER CX.
TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.
Paris, September 20, 1785.
DEAR SIR,
Being in your debt for ten volumes of Buffbn, I have endea vored to find something that would be agreeable to you to receive, im eturn. I therefore send you, by way of Havre, a dictionary of law natural and municipal, in thirteen volumes 4to., called le Code de I 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 better also than the same branch of the Encyclopedic methodique. There has been
