which had conferred such distinguished excellence upon their country. He replied, in a style of Roman heroism, "The only birthday which I recognize, is that of my country's liberties." In August, 1803, he received a similar communication from Levi Lincoln, in behalf of a certain association in Boston, to which he replied: "Disapproving myself of transferring the honors and veneration for the great birth-day of our Republic, to any individual, or of dividing them with individuals, I have declined letting my own birthday be known, and have engaged my family not to communicate it. This has been the uniform answer to every application of the kind."
On the paternal side, Mr. Jefferson could number no titles to high or ancient lineage. His ancestors, however, as far back as they can be traced, were of solid respectability, and among the first settlers of Virginia. They emigrated to this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowden, the highest in GreatBritain. His grand-father was the first of whom we have any particular information. He lived in Chesterfield county, at the place called Ozborne's, and owned the lands, afterwards the glebe of the parish. He had three sons; Thomas, who died young; Field, who resided on the waters of the Roanoke, and left numerous descendants; and Peter, the father of the subject of these Memoirs, who settled in Albemarle county, on the lands called Shadwell. He was the third or fourth settler in that region of the country. They were all gentlemen of property and influence in the Colony.
But the chief glory of Mr. Jefferson genealogy was the sturdy contempt of hereditary honors and distinctions, with which the whole race was imbued. At a period when birth was the principal circumstance which decided rank, such a raciness and unsophisticated tone of character, in an influential family, whose wealth alone was sufficient to identify them with the aristocracy, could not but be regarded as a novel and decisive peculiarity. It was a strong genealogical feature, pervading all the branches of the primitive stock, and forming a remarkable head and concentration in the individual who was destined to confer immortality upon the name. With him, indeed, if there was any one sentiment which predominated in early life, and which lost none of its rightful ascendency through a long career of enlightened and philanthropic effort, it was that of the natural equality of all men, in their rights and wants; and of the nothingness of those pretensions which 'are gained without merit and