On the day of the inauguration of his successor, Jefferson rode on horseback to the Capitol, being accompanied only by his grandson, Jefferson Randolph--then a lad in his seventeenth year. He had heard that a body of cavalry and infantry were preparing to escort him to the Capitol, and, still anxious to avoid all kinds of display, hurried off with his grandson. As they rode along Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Jefferson caught a glimpse of the head of the column coming down one of the cross-streets. He touched his hat to the troops, and, spurring up his horse, trotted past them. He again "hitched his horse to the palisades" around the Capitol, and, entering the building, there witnessed the transfer of the administration of the Government from his own hands into those of the man who, above all others, was the man of his choice for that office--his long-tried and trusted friend, James Madison. Thus closed forever his public career. The perfect harmony between himself and his cabinet is alluded to in a letter written nearly two years after his retirement from office. He writes: The third Administration, which was of eight years, presented an example of harmony in a cabinet of six persons, to which perhaps history has furnished no parallel. There never arose, during the whole time, an instance of an unpleasant thought or word between the members. We sometimes met under differences of opinion, but scarcely ever failed, by conversing and reasoning, so to modify each other's ideas as to produce an unanimous result. A few days before leaving Washington, he wrote to Baron Humboldt: _To Baron Humboldt._ You mention that you had before written other letters to me. Be assured I have never received a single one, or I should not have failed to make my acknowledgments of it. Indeed I have not waited for that, but for the certain information, which I had not, of the place where you might be. Your letter of May 30th first gave me that information. You have wisely located yourself in the focus of the science of Europe. I am held by the cords of love to my family and country, or I should certainly join you. Within a few days I shall now bury myself within the groves of Monticello, and become a mere spectator of the passing events. Of politics I will say nothing, because I would not implicate you by addressing to you the republican ideas of America, deemed horrible heresies by the royalism of Europe. At the close of a letter written on the 8th of March to Mr. Short, he says: "I write this in the midst of packing and preparing for my departure, of visits of leave, and interruptions of every kind." In February the Legislature of Virginia had passed an address of farewell to him as a public man. This address, penned by William Wirt, closes thus handsomely: