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depreciated. But what the natives were at a loss to decide, the British may be said to have decided for them. The burning of the Capitol and the President's house during last war, has settled the question, and it seems to be now ascertained to the satisfaction of speculators, that Washington is to continue, at least for a considerable time to come, in the undisturbed enjoyment of her metropolitan privileges. How an event so disastrous should lead to consequences so propitious, may seem to be in some measure a paradox, but it is one of easy explanation. When the rebuilding of these edifices came to be the subject of deliberation in Congress, the question as to the removal of the seat of the legislature was necessarily discussed; national feeling however co-operated powerfully with other considerations to influence the decision, the proposal was at once scouted, and the requisite amount was enthusiastically voted to efface the memorials of British triumph. Preparations were instantly made to rebuild the Capitol and President's house with more than their original splendour, the value of building ground and of houses took an immediate start, and Washington now exhibits abundant proof of the enterprize and elasticity of the national character.

The original plan of the city was on a most extensive scale. A parallelogram more than four miles and a half long, and two miles broad, was regularly divided into streets, avenues, and squares,

and should the anticipations of its founders be realized, this will after all be but the nucleus of the future metropolis. The streets are laid out towards the cardinal points, crossing each other at right angles; the avenues intersect these diagonally, so as to avoid the tiresome sameness which is observable in Philadelphia, and extensive squares are to be placed at the crossings of these transverse lines. The avenues are from 130 to 160 feet wide, the streets from 80 to 110.

To lay out the plan of a city however is one thing, and to build it is another; of all the regularity and system which the engraved plan exhibits, scarcely a trace is discernible upon the ground. Instead of beginning this gigantic undertaking in a central spot, and gradually extending the buildings from a common focus, they appear to have commenced at once in twenty or thirty different places, without the slightest regard to concentration or the comforts of good neighbourhood; and a stranger looking round him for Washington, sees two houses here, and six there, and a dozen yonder, scattered in straggling groups over the greater part of three or four square miles. Hitherto the city does not contain above fourteen thousand inhabitants, but these have taken root in so many different places, that the public crier, a black man whom I have just seen performing the duties of his calling, is obliged to make the circuit on horseback. Pennsylvania Avenue is almost

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the only place where the line of communication can be traced. This stretches from the Capitol to the President's house, a distance of rather more than a mile, with double rows of gravel walks and poplar trees, and a good many buildings have been erected on both sides of it, with considerable attention to neatness and continuity. This however is but a small portion of the intended avenue, which according to the plan is to stretch out in both directions, till it is eventually about four miles in length.

A short way from the Capitol, Pennsylvania Avenue is crossed by the Tiber, a little muddy stream, or creek according to American phraseology, which filters through flags and rushes into the Potowmak. A wooden bridge is thrown over it, but the stage driver who brought me from Baltimore preferred fording the stream, to cool the feet of his horses. Moore in one of his poetical epistles dated from the Modern Rome,' makes a sarcastic allusion to this classic stream, but, if Weld is correct, the name was given it by some early settler, before the site was chosen for the Federal city, and therefore its founders are not answerable for what at first seems a piece of ridiculous affectation.

As the Capitol and the President's house are both of freestone, we are rather disappointed to find them covered with white paint. The grain of the stone is indeed rather coarse, and a good

many hard white pebbles are imbedded in it, yet the walls would certainly have looked better in their natural colour. The truth is, the buildings were both originally unpainted; but the unceremonious usage which they received from our troops at the capture of the city, so effectually begrimmed their visages that it was found impossible to eradicate the defilement. To have demolished and rebuilt the walls, would have been a very costly expedient, and as the least of two evils, the painter's brush was resorted to; here and there however, above some of the windows, the black wreathings of the smoke are still discernible through the white covering.

Of all the errors committed on our part during that unhappy war, this was undoubtedly one of the greatest. Setting aside the question as to its abstract defensibility, on the ground of retaliation or otherwise, it is obvious that it was in the highest degree impolitic; because its immediate effect, as might have been anticipated, was to break down party spirit among the Americans, and to unite them as one man in support of the measures of their government. The firebrand was no sooner applied to their Chief Magistrate's Palace, and the National Senate House, than thousands who had from the beginning maintained a systematic opposition to the contest, at once came forward and took up arms to maintain it; their national feelings were roused into powerful excitement, and

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they joined in one loud voice of execration at the destruction of their national edifices. Our ministers, had such been their object, could not have devised a more effectual way of strengthening Mr. Madison's hands. Had our troops recorded their triumph upon the front of the buildings, and left them uninjured, the indignant feeling of humiliation would have wreaked itself on those by whose imbecility the capture of the city had been occasioned, and who escaped so nimbly when it fell into the enemy's hands. But the burning of the buildings saved Mr. Madison; a thirst for revenge of the insult overcame every other feeling, and the war became thenceforward, what it had not been before, decidedly popular and national.

No more than the wings of the Capitol had been completed when the city was captured. They have risen from their ashes, and are again roofed in; the centre also is beginning to appear above the ground. Each wing is pretty nearly square, and consists of a basement and principal story, surmounted with a low circular dome bearing a small lantern. The basement is rusticated, and alternating with the windows of the principal story is a row of Corinthian pilasters. The centre is to resemble the wings in its general features, but will project considerably beyond them. The building wants simplicity.

The House of Representatives will occupy a