Jefferson began his Presidency with a certain ostentation of democracy. One of the first declarations of his administration was, “_Levées_ are done away.” Remembering what importance was attached to these assemblies by Washington and Adams, and what grand court occasions they were made, we can imagine the disapprobation with which this mandate was received by the “_belles_ of society.” A party of these gathered in force, and, all gaily attired, proceeded to the President’s house. On his return from a horseback ride he was informed that a large number of ladies were in the “_Levée_ room” waiting for him. Covered with dust, spurs on, and whip in hand, he proceeded to the drawing-room. Shade of Washington! He told them he was glad to see them, and asked them to remain. These _belles_ and beauties received his polite salutations with how much delight we may fancy. They never came again. A Virginian accustomed to the service of slaves, as the President of the United States, Jefferson blacked his own boots. A foreign functionary, a stickler for etiquette, paid him a visit of ceremony one morning, and found him engaged in this pleasing employment. Jefferson apologized, saying, that being a plain man, he did not like to trouble his servants. The foreign grandee departed, declaring that no government could long survive, whose head was his own shoe-black. Jefferson gave great offense to the English Minister, Mr. Merry, because he took Mrs. Madison, to whom he happened to be talking, into dinner instead of Mrs. Merry. Mr. Merry made it an official offense which was reported to his government. Mr. Madison wrote to Mr. Monroe, who was then Minister to England, that he might be ready to answer the call of the British government for explanations. Mr. Monroe wrote back that he was glad of it, for the wife of a British under-secretary had recently been given precedence to Mrs. Monroe, in being escorted to the dinner table. Nevertheless, Mrs. Merry’s nose never came down from the air, and she never again crossed the threshold of the President’s house. The same year Jefferson aroused the ire of Thomas Moore, then twenty-four years of age, and without fame, save in his own country. The President, from his altitude of six feet two-and-a-half inches, looked down on the curled and perfumed little poet, and spoke a word and passed on. This was an indignity that London’s and Dublin’s darling never pardoned, and he went back to lampoon, not only America, but the President. One of his attacks came into the hands of Martha Randolph, who, deeply indignant, placed it before her father in his library. He broke into an amused laugh. Years afterwards, when Moore’s Irish melodies appeared, Jefferson, looking them over, exclaimed: “Why, this is the little man who satirized me so! Why, he is a poet after all.” And from that moment Moore had a place beside Burns’ in Jefferson’s library.