right able and successful, tho' well nigh frustrate negotiation.

"Thursday, June 19. "Dressed early, for a walk and in the bar-room met Mr. Calhoun again, who had just called in from his morning's walk. Introduced me to a major — (I could not catch the name) with whom he was conversing; and I left them. Went to Fuller's Hotel, in hopes of breakfasting with my lady fellow-passengers of yesterday- and of seeing Mr. Gurley, champion and secretary of the Colonization Society, who lived there at my last visit. But he had removed thence. Saw Mr. Bowman. The ladies were not there, though the guestbook said they were. Called at the Colon. Office, neither Mr. Gurley nor Mr. Fendall there. After breakfast, saw Miss and her companion, Miss in the stage, bound for Baltimore. Hardly time for 'good morning,' before off it went.

"To Senate chamber at II. Admission to the Lobby, on the Senate floor, through Mr. Clay's means. At 12, Mr. Van Buren as Vice-President, took the chair calling to order by raps with an ivory something upon his table. Mr. Hatch, the spruce chaplain, said a prayer shorter than some graces before meat; and business began. A Report from the Secretary of the Senate, reckoning up the number of memorialists about the Bank and the Deposite question, gave rise to some happy cutting and thrusting between Messrs. Clay and Forsyth. Mr. Webster, Mr. Leigh, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Poindexter were all up for a few moments. Mr. Forsyth has for some time had to stand foremost here, almost alone, as defender of the Administration; and has done so with singular success, considering the overwhelming reputations and abilities arrayed against him. With a smile perpetually on his lips, they launch forth sarcasms of unmatched keenness, and ofttimes arguments of hardly matched power. Poindexter's colleague, Black, very youthful in look: and, if I rightly 'read the mind's construction in the face,' no VOL. XXVII. - NO. 155.

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more senatorial in wisdom than in years one of the many bubbles borne onward, aloft, by the billowy tide of Party-excitement. Sprague of Maine, a right intellectual looking, spare man, who too much affects the tragical, in his oratory. His gesture is palpably, and awkwardly, copied from the introduction and plates to Scott's Lessons, or Enfield's Speaker. For the life of him, he cannot hold his hand or bend his arm naturally or gracefully. Tyler Old Virginia forever! He has no great measure, or force, of intellect: but for a bland, persuasive manner, I speak of tone, head-and-hand gesture, turn of period, and winningness of words and thought Gov. T. has not his superior in the Senate. Clayton of Delaware how fallacious a guide physiognomy is! If nature has written nihil on any front here, it is upon his, when he is not roused by any mental spur. Yet he is a secondrate, at least, in a body where to be 4th rate is no mean praise — and at the head of the Delaware Bar.

"Mr. Calhoun was up for five or ten minutes, upon his own motion to postpone the French-spoliation Bill until the next session. His grounds were, its vast importance, the questions, not only of individual claims against our government, but of international right, which it involved — the immense sum (probably $ 5,000,000) of which it contemplated the expenditure - the diversified and momentous bearings of those questions and that expenditure, upon the yet smouldering fires of the scarcely adjusted Tariff controversy — and the extreme temerity, not to say madness, of taking up a subject of such varied and awful import just at the close of a session, when the detailed examination and discussion it would require were absolutely impossible. — I never heard him in public before - never had a precise idea of his peculiar sort of power. He is one of the purest of originals. Nothing can be more unique than his style, of diction and delivery. Heedless of words, he yet pours out the most apt and forcible in a torrent.

Not one superfluous-his sentences are pared of every redundancy. So rapid seem his conceptions, that his tongue (though of extraordinary volubility) cannot mould them into language fast enough they crowd and choak the vent, like water poured from a narrownecked bottle. Hence perhaps a vicious habit, of clipping his words. The torrent is not a smooth, continuous

one.

Ever and anon there was a dead pause; evidently not for lack of matter, but at once to breathe himself amid the intensity of his mental exercitation, and to give his hearers time to ponder what he had uttered. Very little gesture his hands generally stretched at arms' length down his sides, only now and then raised and put forward, to strengthen the emphasis upon some burning thought, or some flooring argument. I have somewhere seen - it is in Combe's Phrenology-a masterly delineation of a powerful debater's mind, whose words fall, like minute guns, upon the ear'; his faculties acting, at first, slowly, but deeply, like the first heave of a mountain-wave.' But Mr. Calhoun's first onset is the storm itself: at once deep, strong, impetuous, overwhelming. Instead of minute guns, a running broadside would best typify the rapidity of his utterance: gun succeeding gun, as fast as thought, till one side is discharged; and then after a moment's pause, the other side brought to bear with equally fatal effect. Each word at least each sentence is a twenty-four pounder, and each par▲agraph a broadside. He looked mostly, not at the presiding officer, whom Order requires him to address, — but at Mr. Webster, whose arguments he was answering. His lofty port, his mindquelling eye, his self-assured look of conscious truth and conscious power, and his resistless argumentation, held him forth incontestably the master-spirit of the assembly. - Van! little Van! he is not to be named in the same day I am ashamed of bringing him into the same page with Calhoun. Yet there is no denying that he bids fair to reach the highest place first. Animals that

crawl as well as those which fly, attain, the loftiest elevations: and it may well happen, if the eagle's wing be crippled, or if unworthy obstacles retard him, that he may be outstript by the caterpillar.

"isaac hill is diminutive in person, as in morals; and limps in his gait, from some accident, or natural deformity. He has always been writing, when I have seen him in the Senate; commonly, letters-in a large, engrossing handso large, that I have read several words. of one, from the gallery over his head. To-day, he was correcting the proof of a newspaper. Wonder if it was the N. H. Patriot, or a speech of his own, or one of his editorials in the Globe? isaac has a strongly marked physiognomy,—a large and not ill formed forehead, black eyes, and an expression of countenance intelligent enough, but ominous of nothing good.

"The colossal bronze statue, meant for Mr. Jefferson, brought by Lt. Levy from Paris, and given to Congress, stands in the great Rotunda of the Capitol. Not a good likeness, by any means. Too broad-shouldered, and too stout every way. The color, nearly black, conveys unpleasing associations. Some Southerner the other day swore, that it ought to be tossed out of the Capitol; for, said he, " by G.. it makes old Tom a negro !"

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Some pictures were exhibiting in the Rotunda: said to be master-pieces, of eminent artists. I could not understand the plots, or discern the merits, of most. Col. Crockett and some ladies were looking at them, and at the statue. The Col. played the tame! bear very quietly, for the ladies; and seemed to be a pet. I was disappointed at finding him so tame. He should always appear in character — i. e. with hunting shirt and tomahawk-moccasins and leggings of deerskin with the hair on. As it is, he looks like any Christian: you would never suppose him to be the man what can wade the Mississippi, tote a steamboat, whip his weight in wildcats, grin the bark off an oak-knot, — swim further, dive deeper,

and come out drier, than any other man in the Western Deestrict.

"In the H. of R. a debate of no consequence was going forward, in which C. Fenton Mercer, and Mr. Marshall of Kentucky, spoke. The latter is a young man fluent and bold, as what Kentuckian is not? The former-oh, what a falling off, since I heard him in the Va. Convention, 1829! It is impossible now not to be struck with the slight attention paid him. His silver voice and pretty oratory, once so admired, could not command a quorum of listeners, tho' the House was full. His voice, formerly all music, verges upon a cracked treble. But his weight of character has chiefly gone, from his being reputed a visionary. The yeas and nays chancing to be called, the clerk, Franklin, ran them over with such incredible speed, that I could not catch more than one in three though reasonably familiar with them. How the owners could recognize each his own, when thus rattled off, is hard to say.

"Adjourned before the House. On the way home, saw several beggars would not give them 'a single sous.' Called on Mr. Moncure Robinson (Engineer) at Brown's Hotel. We walked out and on returning, whom should we meet at the Hotel door but Mr. W. Pope of Powhatan - Uncle Billy! he 'of infinite jest'. whose gibes, whose gambols, whose songs, whose flashes of merriment' so 'wont to set the table in a roar,' I have so often roared at with the rest! But this evening he seems lifeless.

6

design to cease maintaining the constitutionality of Internal Improvements. And now I bethink me, something like it was manifested by Mr. Marshall, in his speech to-day. Whether principle or policy be the motive, the change will be a good one for state-rights. "To bed at 12.

"Friday, June 20.

"Up at 5.- On my walk along Pennsa. Avenue, met Mr. Calhoun. Gen. G. was with me. While we were talking, Campbell P. White came upthe Irish representative from the city of N. Y. He is a merchant - said to be an adept in the mysteries of commerce, exchange, Banking, &c. Next to Cambreleng, he is the foremost administration-member from the city. Stoutly built, with a broad, English face, but Irish mouth and accent.

"At past 8, off for Baltimore. Mr. Calvert's estate, 4 or 5 miles from Washington: mansion house, and porter's lodges at outer gate - All symptomatic of great wealth. Descendant of Calvert, Ld. Baltimore. Remarkable, that so much hereditary wealth should have descended to the 3d or 4th generation. Primogeniture abolished in Md. 1786.

"Bladensburg - miserable, decayed village, on the Eastern Branch. The Battle ground is much flatter than I had supposed. The driver- I sit outside always, when it is practicable — shewed me where our militia valiantly awaited the enemy, till they came within little more than a quarter of a mile; and then-the Bladensburg races began. The Bridge, defended by Barney and his marines, does not look like an advantageous post. There seem several far more defensible, within a mile, than either that, or the militia station. — Country onward from Bladensburg to Baltimore, old Virginia over again. Gullies, red hillsides, bare of soilbroom-sedge persimmon, sassafras, and stunted oak-rickety, ineffectual worm-fences-blue-birds, bee-martins, and red-headed woodpeckers - gave me a vivid reminiscence of my poor, good old commonwealth.

"Several sections of the Balt. and Washn. RIRoad lay in sight as we drove along; its route now and then crossing ours. Several hundred Irish and Dutch laborers on it, at various points; mostly Irish. The Dutch perfectly steady and well disposed. All the turbulence is among the Irish. The scene of their great affray 3 days ago, in which 6 or 7 were killed, is close to the road. The ashes and fragments of the burned and torn down shanties are yet fresh. The rioters are not yet all taken. The militia are out to catch them, and repress apprehended riots. We passed 20 or 30 (militia) in uniform, drilling in a shady wood and about as many more, refreshing themselves at a tavern L by the wayside — their guns not stacked, but leaning at random (quite militia fashion) against the sides of house and porch.

L

ΙΟ

"Crossed the two branches of the Patuxent both, trifling streams. or 15 miles from Balt., passed the site of iron mines, once copious and deeply wrought their ore still discoloring the ground far around. The Frederick railroad and a long train of cars moving on it - the first I ever saw.

"Thunder-cloud impending, 5 or 6 miles from Balt., but some kindly current of air divided it, just as it seemed ready to burst upon our heads; so that scarcely a drop touched us.

"The first view of Baltimore very imposing, though bewildering and unsatisfactory. Three shot towers of immense height, the Washington Monument as high, church steeples God knows how many, and the gas-works smoking like a mountain-sized tar-kiln,

Washington, chancing to learn that I was just thence, asked me to take a drink of wine (which I declined) and then was very inquiring. Told him whatever he asked about things at Washington Mr. Stevenson's nomination as Minister to England - his probable rejection by the Senate - his probable death thereupon and so forth. No letter here for me yet. Miss

promised me one to Cambridge. "In an area just before the Hotel, is the Battle - monument, in memory of the slain on the - of Sept. 1814. White marble.

"Went with H. Q. to the Washington monument - ascended it, by a corkscrew staircase within. 187 feet high. W.'s statue on the top is 16 feet high, and weighs 16 tons. Keeper gave us a lamp to ascend by, which went out about half way up - leaving us in perfect darkness such as I never saw before. Hands, even a white handkerchief, invisible within 4 inches of our eyes. At the stairs' head, is a platform where visitors stop. It is edged around by a parapet, 3 or 3 feet high, so as to be safe affording a level space 5 or 6 feet within the parapet, for standing, and walking round the trunk of the monument which rises 8 or 10 feet higher from the platform's centre, to serve as pedestal to the statue. Looking down over the parapet tries the nerves. We had been up only a few minutes, writing our names on the pedestal, and gazing over the immense panorama below and around, when 2 gentlemen and 2 ladies ascended also. One of the ladies, on emerging from the stairway upon the platform, was so struck with unaffected terror at the dizzying prospect, that she shrunk back, almost fainting: and could not be induced again to go out of the stairs' door, which was 5 or 6 feet from the parapet. She lost a magnificent prospect by her weakness the whole city, the Patapsco down to the Bay, Fort McHenry, many a jutting promontory, headland, and swelling hill, the country for many miles round, with countless beautiful farms and dwellings.

"Then to the Catholic Cathedral, large, but not strikingly well planned, or elegant. A sorry plank inclosure and sorrier plank steps, greatly hurt the imposing air of the building, and give token of unprosperous times for the Church. Over each door is a solemn text inscribed, legible from the street. The interior is splendid - gorgeous. Some fine pictures - especially (say connoisseurs) one, representing the taking down of Christ's body from the cross. Two others- visions of saints Nicholas and Augustine—were not bad imbodyings of the phantasies which may be supposed to possess the brain of a saint, ancient or modern. Our cicerone was an old Irish woman, brogued and glibtongued. She showed and explained the pictures the descent from the cross most minutely and took occasion thence to harangue the company

(several ladies and gentlemen, besides us two) upon gospel truth - especially catholic. I hardly ever heard such fluency. She would not tolerate the slightest semblance of disrespect to the holy place where we were. She stepped up to a gentleman of the party, and said something I could not hear: but kis hat instantly came off. I was stupid enough not to take the hint. She presently drew near to me, and in a soft, low voice said, 'Will you take off your hat, if you please, sir?' Of course, it was off, directly. One of the company seemed an Episcopalian or Presbyterian minister and one of the ladies at least was a Presbyterian. The blended marvel, pity, and contempt with which they listened and looked at the old woman as she preached, was very amusing.

"Idle till bedtime, except a chapter or two of Miss E.'s Helen."

"What kind of a time did you have?" "Splendid!" answers Lucy. "De

repeats Frank, desperately.

"Where have you got him?"

"In the kitchen."

"Why in the kitchen ?”

"How's baby?" demands Mrs. Sallie, with the incoherent suddenness of her sex, and running half-way down the steps to meet the nurse. "Um, um, um-m-m-m," sounds, which may stand for smothered kisses of rapture and thanksgiving that baby is not a lost child. "Has he been good, Lucy? Take him off and give him some cocoa, Mrs. O'Gonegal," she adds in her business-like way, and with a little push to the combined nurse and baby, while Lucy answers, "O beautiful!" and from that moment, being warned through all her being by something in the other's tone, casts aside the matronly manner which she has worn during the day, and lapses into the comfortable irresponsibility of young-ladyhood.

thought others might not think so.

"I suppose you found Gloucester a quaint old place."

"O," says Frank, "we did n't go to Gloucester; we found that the City Fathers had chartered the boat for the day, so we thought we'd go to Nahant."

"Then you've seen your favorite Gardens of Maolis! What in the world are they like?"

"Well; we did n't see the Gardens of Maolis; the Nahant boat was so crowded that we could n't think of going on her, and so we decided we'd drive over to the Liverpool Wharf and go down to Nantasket Beach."

"That was nice. I'm so glad on Aunt Melissa's account. It's much better to see the ocean from a long beach than from those Nahant rocks."

"That's what I said. But, you know, when we got to the wharf the boat had just left."