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capital of North Carolina, the other by Chantrey for the town of Boston.2

The Baltimore monument is a plain column rising from a square base, to be surmounted by a colossal statue by some artist whose name I have not heard. The work has advanced as yet but a short way, so that it is impossible to form a correct idea of the ultimate effect; the situation however is commanding and it must eventually form a conspicuous object in the distant prospect. The fabric is brick within, and white marble without, with a spiral staircase in the centre. No loop holes have been left for the admission of light; the stair is consequently very dark, and when the column attains to its full height will be somewhat disagreeable to ascend.

We

2 A writer in the North American Review thus writes with regard to these rival statues and their sculptors. "With respect to this statue, the only work of Canova, as far as we are aware, which our country can boast, if indeed it has already reached Raleigh, we can speak only of the model in clay. The likeness is certainly not strong, and the artist complained of the want of materials to deduce it from; a circumstance the more to be regretted, as no countenance is better ascertained than Washington's, and if materials were not put into his hands, it could not be because they do not exist. apprehend, moreover, that the costume of the statue will not suit the American taste. Gen. Washington is represented sitting, with a tablet supported by his left hand, on which he is about to write the constitution of America, with a style which he holds in his right. Though thus occupied as a civil legislator, he is clad in the Roman military dress with the brazen cuirass, half of the thigh, the knees and legs bare, and military sandals. It seems to us that this dress is in itself unbecoming, besides being inconsistent with the legislative or

The Battle Monument is also of white marble, but much smaller. It consists of a reeded column with a crossed fillet at the top and bottom, erected upon a square base tapering in the Egyptian style and rusticated. The shaft is not unlike the Roman fasces, without the axe; one side of the base exhibits a door, which in a very hot day suggests the luxurious idea of an ice house; the other sides contain slabs on which are to be inscribed the names of all those who fell in defence of their altars and hearths,' as yeomanry express it. The erection are for the present suspended; the base has been built, and the materials for the column lie scattered around it, but the carved blocks are still in the packing frames in which they were brought

the helmets of our operations on this

civil occupation represented. The only costume that we can imagine less becoming than the ancient military dress, is the modern military dress, the hussar boots, faced coat, and hair clubbed up with pomatum, in which we understand Mr. Chantrey will dress Gen. Washington in the statue designed for Boston, according to the theory of the English School, which enjoins the closest possible imitation of nature, and adherence to historical truth. Neither of these principles is just in the art. Nature is to be imitated, only in her noble, select, and pleasing parts, and historical truth adhered to no further than it adds to the beauty, grandeur, and charm of the work; provided that the deviation be not such as to shock our judgments. Look at the statue of the Queen before St. Paul's in her hoop and toupet. We would have had Gen. Washington's statue in the true classical dress, the ancient civil senatorial robe, call it Roman or Greek, alike removed from the indelicate bareness of the Roman armour, and the fantastical cuts and folds of our modern tailoring." North American Review, No. XXVII. p. 385

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from Italy. In architectural design this monument is so perfectly anomalous that we cannot but regret its premature erection; in a few years, probably, the citizens will learn to regard it with the same feelings which are now excited by the Edinburgh monument to Nelson. Its situation however is well chosen, the material is beautiful, and so far as these go even strangers will regard it as an ornament to the city. The event which it commemorates will always secure it the affections of the natives.

Fort M'Hendry at the end of the peninsula saved the town from capture during last war, although it was then but ill prepared for an attack; the batteries were in a poor condition, it had no covered ways, and the magazine was not bomb-proof. A shell struck the corner of the magazine in a slanting direction, and shattered the wall; had it penetrated, the capture of the fort would have been inevitable. Since that period the works have been greatly strengthened, and bomb-proof barracks, covered ways, and magazines, have all been erected. The fortification is of a pentagonal form, and consists of an inner and outer line of batteries. The inner line is of brick and is mounted with the lighter guns; the outer breastwork is of turf and the guns are of a large size. Between the lines are furnaces for heating shot. The old walls still exhibit the scars of the attack, and several deep

hollows in the ground show where shells had buried themselves.

Behind the principal fort are two small batteries at a short distance from each other. The British squadron sent out a detachment of boats during the night, hoping to effect a landing behind Fort M'Hendry, which they succeeded in passing unobserved; not aware that there were other batteries beyond it, the sailors set up a premature shout of triumph, which immediately brought down upon them an unexpected cannonade; several of the boats were sunk and the rest compelled to return.

Fell's Point is like other sea ports somewhat dirty; and the yellow fever when it was prevalent, committed great ravages here, while Baltimore was comparatively healthy. In the harbour at present is a beautiful sharp built schooner, evidently intended for warlike purposes, and pretty well known to be fitted out for the coast of South America; she will carry about a dozen of guns. The Baltimore ship builders particularly excel in the construction of such vessels, and it was their astonishing fleetness of sailing which enabled the privateers to pick up so many of our merchantmen during last war. They are very low in the water, and broad in the beam; the masts are sloped very much backwards, and they sail exceedingly close to the wind. Very few of them were captured by our cruisers, and those generally in consequence of some accident. Two instances of this kind I

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have heard of. A very fine privateer brig of this description left New York on her first cruize, the weather was very foggy, and at no great distance from Sandy Hook she descried a pretty large vessel which she supposed was a merchantman; she of course ran down upon it with all speed, but discovered when it was too late that the anticipated prize was a British seventy-four gun ship:-the crew were constrained to surrender without firing a gun. Another privateer of a similar description, happened to fall in at sea with one of our large frigates; trusting to her superiority of sailing she made no haste to get out of the way, but tacked about till the frigate had got nearly within gun shot, when she stretched upon the wind and bore off. Out of the frigate's reach she again lay to, awaiting her pursuit; at that critical moment the wind which had hitherto blown pretty fresh died suddenly away, and her sails flapped against the masts, the frigate's boats were instantly manned, the privateer lay in helpless inactivity on the water, resistance was in vain, and the fable of the hare and the tortoise was again realized.

The harbour of Baltimore presents I understand but a very dull scene now to what it once did. During the European continental war, when America engrossed the carrying trade of nearly the whole world, a flourishing commerce crowded the harbour with vessels, and the custom-house with business; but Mr. Madison's proclamation of war was