Prominent among the portraits of early officers is an interesting picture of Thomas Jefferson, who was third president of the Philosophical Society, as well as of the United States. This painting, which well portrays the intellectual and spirited face of the original, was executed at Monticello by Mr. Sully, who was invited there for this purpose. Jefferson, who would have been a great scientist had he not been called upon by his country to use his powers as a statesman, naturally took a warm interest in the Philosophical Society, and was a member long before he was made its president in 1797. While abroad he disputed the arguments of the learned Count de Buffon on the degeneracy of American animals, and finally made his position secure by sending the astonished Frenchman the bones, skin, and horns of an enormous New Hampshire moose. Equally convincing was this, and more agreeable than the manner in which Dr. Franklin answered a similar argument on the degeneracy of American men, by making all the Americans at table, and all the Frenchmen, stand up. As those of his compatriots present happened to be fine specimens physically, towering above the little Gauls, the good doctor had the argument all his own way. It seemed, indeed, as if these two great men, who so harmoniously combined the ideal and the practical, were born to prove to the world that genius of the highest order, in science, letters, and statecraft, is not incompatible with the same sort of ability that is essential to the success of a Western farmer or a skilled mechanic. Hence, if Dr. Franklin employed his leisure hours in inventing an improved stove, or explaining to the Philosophical Society why certain chimneys smoked; Mr. Jefferson used his in designing a plough, for which he received a gold medal from France, and in calculating the number of bushels of wheat to the acre, at Monticello. One day, he is interesting himself in the importation of seed-rice from Italy, from the Levant, and from Egypt; while on another, he is helping the Philosophical Society to frame instructions for the guidance of André Michaux in his Western explorations. It was life that interested them both,--life in the smaller details that affect home comfort, as well as in the broader issues that bear upon the happiness of states and nations. In Mr. Jefferson’s minute directions regarding the education of his daughters, and in his grasp of the details of farming, we recognize the same sort of practical common sense that so eminently distinguished Dr. Franklin, of whom his latest biographer says, in his own forcible and epigrammatic style,--“Whatever he has said on domestic economy, or thrift, is sound and striking. No other writer has left so many just and original observations on success in life. No other writer has pointed out so clearly the way to obtain the greatest amount of comfort out of life. What Solomon did for the spiritual man, that did Franklin for the earthly man.