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widely circulated that the artist's career was seriously affected by it; and so chagrined was he at this unmerited treatment, that on his death-bed he directed the heads to be sawed off the most important busts and boxed up for forty years, at the end of which period he hoped their exhibition would elicit recognition for their merit and value as historical portraits from life.

The positive statement of Randall, frequently repeated by others, that Browere's cast from Jefferson's face was destroyed, and the indisputable fact that the bust exists and is here reproduced, give the incidents connected with the taking of the original life cast an importance that justifies stating them at length, so that there may remain no possibility for further question or doubt on the subject. My authorities are Jefferson, Madison, and Browere, as preserved in their individual autographs in the State Department at Washington.

Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 and died in 1826, on the semi-centennial of the adoption of the immortal instrument of which he was the recognized father. Through the intercession of President Madison, Jefferson consented, in Browere's words, "to submit to the ordeal of my