I am delighted to see that the University of Virginia has been built through your care and will open very shortly. Together we all say: Hail, fair houses of the Olympian Muses, in which good habits and natural character, sitting together on their thrones, will have authority. The professors of this University will clearly be most blessed and honored, for numbered among its overseers will be renowned and venerable men, especially Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. As the democratic scion of Ireland that I am, I would like very much to be a teacher in this University.

If I detain the guardian of America, who has so many concerns,

A good and great adviser, in long letters,

May I bear difficult troubles for the common good—

Aged Jefferson, your fame will never perish.

Thomas Cooper, an educated man and president of the University in South Carolina, wrote a letter to me, and I think that I will get the chair of Greek and Latin language in it. However, I would prefer, if it is possible, to accept one in your University. Following this one I send four letters for you to read, written by Robert Garnett, of Virginia, a good man and practiced in letters, and Thomas Cooper, and myself.