Books: Grave Youth

THE YOUNG JEFFERSON—Claude 6. Bowers—Houghfon, Mifflin ($3.75).

Thomas Jefferson was once young but never youthful. Something—a quality of youthful zest or spontaneity—was left out of his makeup. The lack set him apart from the men of his own age in his own time and left him a lonely figure in the great gallery of American heroes.

He was born a statesman. At 17 he was a friend, on a plane of intellectual equality, of the Royal Governor of Virginia. At 24 he was one of the five most prosperous lawyers in the colony. At 26,...