The letter to Dr. Cooper, with this as a supplement, will give you those ideas on a sufficient course of law reading which I ought to have done with more consideration at the moment of your first request. Accept them now as a testimony of my esteem, and of sincere wishes for your success; and the family, _unâ voce_, desires me to convey theirs with my own affectionate salutations. FOOTNOTES: [13] January 16, 1814. [14] Since the date of this letter, a most important and valuable edition has been published of Coke's First Institute. The editor, Thomas, has analyzed the whole work, and re-composed its matter in the order of Blackstone's Commentaries, not omitting a sentence of Lord Coke's text, nor inserting one not his. In notes, under the text, he has given the modern decisions relating to the same subjects, rendering it thus as methodical, lucid, easy and agreeable to the reader as Blackstone, and more precise and profound. It can now be no longer doubted that this is the very best elementary work for a beginner in the study of the law. It is not, I suppose, to be had in this State, and questionable if in the North, as yet, and it is dear, costing in England four guineas or nineteen dollars, to which add the duty here on imported books, which, on the three volumes 8vo, is something more than three dollars, or one dollar the 8vo volume. This is a tax on learned readers to support printers for the readers of "The Delicate Distress, and The Wild Irish Boy". TO TIMOTHY PICKERING, ESQ. MONTICELLO, February 27, 1821. I have received, Sir, your favor of the 12th, and I assure you I received it with pleasure. It is true, as you say, that we have differed in political opinions; but I can say with equal truth, that I never suffered a political to become a personal difference. I have been left on this ground by some friends whom I dearly loved, but I was never the first to separate. With some others, of politics different from mine, I have continued in the warmest friendship to this day, and to all, and to yourself particularly, I have ever done moral justice.