TO WILLIAM COGSWELL.
MAD. MSS.
Montpellier, March 10, 1834.
Dear Sir,—Your letter of the 18th Ult. was duly
received. You give me a credit to which I have no
claim, in calling me "the writer of the Constitution
of the U. S." This was not, like the fabled Goddess
of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought
to be regarded as the work of many heads & many
hands.
Your criticism on the Collocation of books in the
Library of our University, may not be without
foundation. But the doubtful boundary between
some subjects, and the mixture of different subjects
in the same works, necessarily embarrass the task
of classification.
Being now within a few days of my 84th year,
with a decaying health & faded vision, and in
arrears also of the reading I have assigned to myself,
I have not been able sooner to acknowledge
your politeness in sending me the two pamphlets.
The sermon combats very ably the veteran error of
entwining with the Civil an Ecclesiastical polity.
Whether it has not left unremoved a fragment of the
argumentative root of the combination is a question
which I leave others to decide.
With friendly respects & salutations
