The

sallied forth to view the lions. The Capitol stands on elevated ground, and it consists of a centre and wings. It is covered with whitewash, which the Americans say was necessary to hide the smoke of the conflagration in 1814. This is nonsense. smoke-marks, instead of injuring, would probably have improved the effect of the building, and diminished that rawness of aspect, which is so strongly opposed to architectural beauty. The structure is certainly imposing, both from situation and magnitude, though full of faults. The greatest is want of simplicity and definite character. The different parts of the building are good, but I could not help feeling that there was a general deficiency of congruity and adaptation. Like a volume of the Elegant Extracts, it contains a great many fine things, without any assignable affinity to account for their collocation. In the principal front—the western— the façade is broken from the wings being thrown back. This is unfortunate, and the effect is still further injured by the basement of the centre being brought too prominently into view. The vestibule opens on a large circular hall, which occupies the

centre of the building, and is lighted by the dome, This spacious apartment is adorned by four pictures by Colonel Trumbull, a gentleman distinguished both as a patriot and an artist. He bore, I believe, considerable part in the contest of the Revolution, and has since been employed by the General Government to commemorate, by his pencil, those triumphs to which he contributed with his sword. The subjects he has selected, are the surrender of Burgoyne, the Declaration of Independence, the surrender of York.. Town, and Washington's resignation of his command at the termination of the war. Regarding these pictures merely as works of art, it is impossible to compliment Colonel Trumbull on his success. The truth is, the subjects are unmanageable. In the Declaration of Independence, we have a respectable congregation of decent farmer-looking men, staring quite as vacantly, from under their periwigs, as the solemnity of the occasion could possibly demand. A few are seated or standing at the table, which displays a large scroll of parchment. The rest are seated on benches, waiting apparently with exemplary pa

26

PICTURES IN THE CAPITOL.

tience the completion of the important document. Out of such materials Titian himself could not have made a picture. The subject admits of no action, nor of strong emotion of any kind. Then the quantity of canvass which is devoted to coat, waistcoat, and breeches, and the rows of clumsy legs without one bit of drapery to conceal them!

The other pictures are better, though they too involved great difficulties of management. The artist has patriotically given to Burgoyne a certain craven look, which has at least the fault of being commonplace in conception. In the figure of Washington, however, Colonel Trumbull has been very successful. There is a calm and unobtrusive grandeur about him, which satisfies the imagination. We are content to believe that the soul of the hero animated such a form as that we gaze on in Colonel Trumbull's canvass, and our interest is heightened by the knowledge, that the artist has given us a faithful portrait of the great man with whom in early life he enjoyed the privilege of personal intercourse.

Having reached the Rotunda, I enquired the way

F

HALL OF REPRESENTATIVES.

27

to the House of Representatives, and following the directions I received, found myself at the bottom of a narrow stair which led directly to the gallery appropriated for strangers. On ascending, I entered a splendid semicircular saloon, round the arc of which is a range of anomalous columns, composed of breccia, found in the neighbourhood, with a highly-decorated entablature of white marble. In the centre of the chord is the chair of the Speaker, from which radiate seven passages to the circumference, and the desks and seats of the members are ranged in concentric rows. Behind the chair is a sort of corridor or gallery, with a fireplace at either end, and furnished with seats and sofas, which serves as a lounging place for the members and strangers to whom the Speaker may think proper to grant the privilege of entré.

On my entrance I found the House in animated debate, and listened with much interest to the first specimens of American eloquence I had enjoyed the opportunity of hearing. At five o'clock the House adjourned, and I returned to the hotel.

28

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

In the evening I accompanied a member of Congress, whose family I had known in Baltimore, to a ball given by a lady of his acquaintance, to whom he obligingly assured me that my intrusion would be welcome. On arriving, I found a very large party crowded into narrow compass, the houses at Washington being generally on a smaller scale than in the other cities I had visited. During the evening I had to pass through a formidable array of introductions to distinguished individuals, and after four hours of almost unbroken conversation, much of which could not be carried on without considerable expenditure of thought, I confess I did feel somewhat tired, and about three in the morning rejoiced to find myself stretched in a comfortable bed at Gadsby's.

The capital of the Federal Union is situated on a point of land formed by a bifurcation of the Potomac, about a hundred and twenty miles from the sea. Attached to it is a territory ten miles square, called the district of Columbia, which, in order to secure the complete independence of the