On April 17, 1811, in a letter to Jefferson, Skelton Jones reported that: “Your collection of Newspapers, lent M ^r. Burk, from 1741 to 1760, of which you requested information in a former letter, were carried from this place after the death of Burk, by the late John Page, Esquire, and are now in possession of his widow at Rosewell . . .”

Burk made use of Jefferson’s manuscripts and other materials in Vol. II and III of his work and quotations from the Notes on Virginia , with other references to Jefferson, occur throughout.

In his dedication, which, with the preface, contains criticisms of Stith, Keith, Smith, Beverley and other historians, Burk explains to Jefferson that “ The History of Virginia, by a sort of national right, claims you as its guardian and patron and I inscribe it to you because I conceive you to be the first and most useful citizen of the republic. ”

In Vol. II, page 390, Burk records that after the meeting of the American Congress on September 4, 1774, “ Then was admired the philosophic ardour of Jefferson, smitten with the elegancies of literature, and fired with the passion of making his country the rival of civilized Europe. ”

The fourth volume of this work was issued in 1816, eight years after the death of Burk, by Skelton Jones and Louis Girardin. Skelton Jones issued a Prospectus on August 2, 1808, a copy of which is in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress.

In a letter to Girardin concerning his continuation, dated from Monticello on August 26, 1820, Jefferson wrote of Burk’s volume: “ . . . I am much pleased to learn that you still contemplate the completion of your history of Virginia. the sale of the 1 ^st. vol. was undoubtedly damped by the wretched style of paper and print in which it was published . . . ”

John Daly Burk, c. 1775-1808, historian and dramatist, is said to have been of the same family as Edmund Burke. He came to America about 1796 as a political refugee from Ireland, and eventually settled in Virginia where he was killed in a duel in 1808.

Old calf, rebacked, with a modern bookplate. Initialled by Jefferson at sig. I. On the fly-leaf is written, in an illiterate hand: Jenry (sic) 1791 Mr. Jeffersons his Book.

Bought from the Rev. Samuel Henley, with other books from his library, in March 1785, when Jefferson was in Paris.

George Frere, 1774-1854, [ sic--“1744”?] of Lincoln’s Inn, was the third brother of John Hookham Frere.

Samuel Henley, 1740-1815, from whom Jefferson bought this book, was at one time professor of moral philosophy in William and Mary College, but went to England on the outbreak of the war, and spent the rest of his life there.