While celebrating the hunt for attributions, I think its a stretch to
attribute this one to Jefferson : A quick online search for a couple of
distinctive words from the VA GAZETTE letter in the Jefferson papers at
Library of Congress - American Memory online shows that
Jefferson doesn't seem to have used/referred to these terms in his LC
correspondence:
- Briareus (two-headed, hundred-handed creatures from the mythic days of
the Titan)
- collision of opposites
- la Grange
- Lord Verulam
and what about the celebration of *populous cities* in 3rd graf . . .
For now, a Scots verdict I think
Jon Kukla
________________
www.JonKukla.com <http://www.jonkukla.com/>
Online interview : http://www.virginiavoice.org/celebrity.html
On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 9:34 AM, Terry Meyers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'm grateful to several people already for help with this question,
> including Linda Rowe, Jon Kukla, and, especially, Bland Whitley, at the
> Jefferson Papers.
>
> Bland tells me that their files show that Douglass Adair, Lyman
> Butterfield, and Julian Boyd discussed the letters by Academicus. They were
> inclined to discount all the letters but one (August 5, 1773)--that one
> Butterfield and Boyd were about to publish in Vol.I of the Papers, but then
> (December 8, 1949) decided that Samuel Henley was the more probable or, at
> the least, the equally likely author. Adair agreed no definitive
> attribution was possible.
>
> But I'm now inclined to think that that one letter may well have
> been by Jefferson, and am working on a piece considering that question (pro
> and con; would be happy to see discussion here, which I'll duly
> acknowledge).
>
> The letter
>
>
> http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/VirginiaGazette/VGImagePopup.cfm?ID=3685&Res=HI
>
> does seem to be in a different voice, more Jeffersonian in tone and scope,
> than the other letters by Academicus. And it's seemingly written by
> someone removed from Williamsburg or someone perhaps just returned to
> Williamsburg, someone who has apparently only recently seen the May 1773
> issue of the VG which he mentions.
>
> I don't think Henley can have written the letter--Robert Doares'
> helpful article
>
>
> http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Autumn03/society.cfm
>
> makes it clear Henley was already an officer of the Philosophical Society,
> as announced in that May issue. The future Bishop Madison might still be a
> candidate, but presumably also having been involved from the start he too
> would seem unlikely to write as the author does.
>
> tlm
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, College of William and
> Mary, Williamsburg Virginia 23187 757-221-3932
>
> http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/
>
> http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Have we got a college? Have we got a football team?....Well, we
> can't afford both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
>
> --Groucho Marx, in
> "Horse Feathers."
>
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