Thomas Jefferson Papers

From Thomas Jefferson to Nicolas Gouin Dufief, 23 March 1802

To Nicolas Gouin Dufief

Washington Mar. 23. 1802

Sir

I recieved yesterday your letter of the 20th. and catalogue. I remark on it a work Jaques le fataliste par Diderot. if it be really by Diderot I shall be glad to recieve it with Chaptal, as also the Systeme de la Nature par Mirabeau, unless you should know that there exists an edition in petit form. in which case I would rather await your return from France, when you could perhaps bring me the petit format edition. Accept my best wishes

Th: Jefferson

I ask the favor of mr Dufief to bring me from France the following books.

Le Philosophie d’Epicure par Gassendi, which Lavocat (Dictionnaire) says was published in 3. vols, but does not say of what size, nor whether in French, or in Latin. I would prefer them in French rather than in Latin and of small size rather than large.

Moralistes Anciennes. I have this work as far down as 1794. when it was resumed, & the Apothegmes of the Lacedemonians were published, which I have. I wish the sequel. he there promises the Morals of Plutarch, Aristotle, Epicurus & Tacitus. I would wish them stitched only that I may have them bound uniform with the other volumes.

Oeuvres d’Helvetius, in petit format. I have them in 8 vo. but wish the petit format edition.

In the Parallele de l’Architecture antique et Moderne par Errard et Chambray edited by Jombert, which I possess in 8 vo. he speaks of this as only the 4th. volume of his Bibliotheque portative d’architecture, and promises a 5th. volume containing les elemens d’Architecture, painture, & sculpture, and a 6th. under the title of le Manual des artistes. I should be glad to possess the whole work compleat.

Anatomie comparative de Cuvier (I am not sure this is the title) it is in 2. vols. 8 vo. but I shall be glad to recieve whatever else he has published in the anatomical line.

Geoponica Bassi. Gr. Lat. 2. v. 8 vo. Niclas. Lipsiae. 1781.

PrC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Dufief”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso.

In addition to his nonfiction works, Denis DIDEROT, the compiler of the great Encyclopédie, wrote plays and novels. In Jacques le fataliste et son maître, a satire that was only published after the author’s death in 1784, Diderot, an admirer of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, addressed the reader directly and played with conventions of plot and structure (Wesley D. Camp and Agnes G. Raymond, Jack the Fatalist and His Master: A New Translation from the French of Denis Diderot [New York, 1984], ix-xii, 183–6; Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, trans. J. Robert Loy [New York, 1959], vii-xxiii).

SYSTEME DE LA NATURE: when Baron d’Holbach published his Systême de la Nature. Ou Des Loix du Monde Physique & du Monde Moral, a critique of religion, in 1770, he did so under the pretense that it was the work of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud. TJ later acquired an English translation published in Philadelphia in 1808 (Dictionnaire description begins Dictionnaire de biographie française, Paris, 1933–, 19 vols. description ends , 17:1265–6; Biographie universelle description begins Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, new ed., Paris, 1843–65, 45 vols. description ends , 28:354–5; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends No. 1260).

In the seventeenth century, Pierre GASSENDI, a French astronomer and philosopher of science, devoted considerable attention to the study of the materialism of Epicurus and published Philosophiae Epicuri syntagma. TJ mentioned that work and indicated his admiration for the moral doctrines of Epicurus in a letter to William Short, 31 Oct. 1819 (DSB description begins Charles C. Gillispie, ed., Dictionary of Scientific Biography, New York, 1970–80, 16 vols. description ends , 5:284–90; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends No. 4914).

LAVOCAT (DICTIONNAIRE): the Dictionnaire historique et bibliographique portatif of Jean Baptiste Ladvocat. TJ purchased multiple editions of it in 1789, one of which was probably for Madison. TJ cited Ladvocat’s work in 1795 as a source of information about particular books, and in 1800 he included it on a reading list for Joseph C. Cabell (Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends No. 146; Vol. 16:495; Vol. 28:358; Vol. 32:177). See also Notes on the Doctrine of Epicurus, Vol. 31:284–5

MORALISTES ANCIENNES: TJ associated the Collection des moralistes anciens with Pierre Charles Lévesque, who was a contributor to the series of volumes published under that title by Pierre Didot beginning in 1782. Works by Lévesque on the Apophthegmes des Lacédémoniens, the Pensées morales of plutarch, and aphorisms of the Greek philosophers were among the volumes in the Collection. In 1788, TJ bestowed a book from the series on a young Catherine Church, writing on the flyleaf that she would enjoy “this collection of the Antient Moralists” when she was older, “when the giver will no longer exist but in the memory of a very few.” TJ ordered a 14-volume edition in “petit format” from Paris in 1795 and recommended the series to Cabell in 1800 as an 18–volume collection in that size (Biographie universelle description begins Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, new ed., Paris, 1843–65, 45 vols. description ends , 24:400; Vol. 14:28; Vol. 28:358; Vol. 32:179).

BIBLIOTHEQUE PORTATIVE D’ARCHITECTURE: Charles Antoine Jombert did project six volumes of his Bibliothèque portative d’architecture, but only four volumes were published (in Paris, 1764–66). The fourth volume of the set was the Parallèle de l’architecture antique et de la moderne of Charles Errard and Roland Fréart de Chambray, which first appeared in 1650. Errard and Fréart de Chambray also collaborated on a translation of Andrea Palladio’s work from Italian to French, which Jombert made the second volume of his Bibliothèque (Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends Nos. 4215, 4216; Dictionnaire description begins Dictionnaire de biographie française, Paris, 1933–, 19 vols. description ends , 12:1402; 14:1135–6; 18:763).

A year earlier, TJ had seen a copy of the Leçons d’Anatomie Comparée of Georges CUVIER that Thomas Peters Smith had sent from Europe for the American Philosophical Society. TJ declared the two volumes to be a “capital” and “precious” achievement, informing Benjamin Rush that it was “probably the greatest work in that line that has ever appeared.” To Bishop James Madison he wrote that “nothing like it as to extent of plan or accuracy of performance has ever yet appeared in the world.” TJ did not acquire Cuvier’s work until 1805 (Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends No. 999; Vol. 33:437, 438n, 511, 512n; Vol. 34:68).

TJ described the GEOPONICA as a work on “the state of Agriculture in Greece in the time of Constantine Porphyrogeneta.” It drew on works of Cassianus Bassus. TJ had tried to get the book in 1795, but had not managed to obtain it as late as December 1809. GR. LAT.: that is, in Greek and Latin (Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends No. 690; RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004–, 6 vols. description ends , 2:81–2, 83n; Vol. 28:358).

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