TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Paris, September 20,1785.

Dear Sir,

Being in your debt for ten volumes of Buffon, I have endeavored to find something that would be agreeable to you to receive, in return.  I therefore send you, by way of Havre, a dictionary of law, natural and municipal, in thirteen volumes 4to, called Le Code de l’Humanite.  It is published by Felice, but written by him and several other authors of established reputation.  It is an excellent work.  I do not mean to say, that it answers fully to its title.  That would have required fifty times the volume.  It wants many articles which the title would induce us to seek in it.  But the articles which it contains are well written.  It is better than the voluminous Dictionnaire Diplomatique, and better also than the same branch of the Encyclopedie Methodigue.  There has been nothing published here, since I came, of extraordinary merit.  The Encyclopedie Methodique, which is coming out from time to time, must be excepted from this.  It is to be had at two guineas less than the subscription price.  I shall be happy to send you any thing in this way which you may desire.  French books are to be bought here for two thirds of what they can in England.  English and Greek and Latin authors cost from twenty-five to fifty per cent, more here than in England.

I received, some time ago, a letter from Messrs. Hay and Buchanan, as Directors of the public buildings, desiring I would have plans drawn for our public buildings, and in the first place for the capitol.  I did not receive their letter till within about six weeks of the time they had fixed on for receiving the drawings.  Nevertheless, I engaged an excellent architect to comply with their desire.  It has taken much time to accommodate the external adopted, to the internal arrangement necessary for the three branches of government.  However, it is effected on a plan, which, with a great deal of beauty and convenience within, unites an external form on the most perfect model of antiquity now existing.  This is the Maison Quarree of Nismes, built by Caius and Lucius Caesar, and repaired by Louis XIV., which, in the opinion of all who have seen it, yields, in beauty, to no piece of architecture on earth.  The gentlemen enclosed me a plan of which they had thought.  The one preparing here will be more convenient, give more room, and cost but two thirds of that:  and as a piece of architecture, doing honor to our country, will leave nothing to be desired.  The plans will be ready soon.  But, two days ago, I received a letter from Virginia, informing me the first brick of the capitol would be laid within a few days.  This mortifies my extremely.  The delay of this summer would have been amply repaid by the superiority and economy of the plan preparing here.  Is it impossible to stop the work where it is?  You will gain money by losing what is done, and general approbation, instead