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by colonnades, each of which divisions separately viewed seems elegant and complete; but there being no symmetry observed in their combination, the general effect is displeasing. Except when viewed from a distance, it appears too much like a number of distinct buildings; a fault which I regard as capital, since whatever can be taken in at one glance should have uniformity and completeness. The plan of a city should be diversified; that of a large edifice correspondent in the parts.

The room in which the House of Representa tives assemble in the Capitol of Washington is one of the finest rooms in the world. This may be thought a strong expression, but I believe that all who have entered it will concur in its justice. It is semicircular; and the speaker's chair being placed in the centre of the diametrical line, the members are ranged in semicircles round him. The roof is supported by marble pillars, crimson curtains hanging in festoons being between them. Over the speaker's chair is a gigantic female figure, which is I believe intended to be emblematical of America. The floor being carpeted, nothing seems wanting to the comfort and convenience of the members, or to the elegant finish of the room. It has however one most unfortu

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nate defect. The voice of the orator who is addressing the house is often lost in reverberation. No corrective has hitherto been found for this defect. I have seen rooms larger and more splendid than this; but I never saw one which seem ́ed more completely to unite beauty and grandeur with utility.

We are indebted to America for great improvements in engraving, and particularly for the application of steel to that beautiful art; yet the number of prints executed in the country is comparatively few. Those which are inserted in the editions of English books republished in New York, Philadelphia and Boston are commonly of very contemptible execution. I was shown however one or two works to which I could not refuse my praise, they being such as would have done honour to any artist. Lithography has been but recently introduced.

CHAPTER XXXI.

MORALS.

A PERSON who after travelling in New England makes his way into Maryland and Virginia, may soon perceive that he is in a district less moral in several particulars than that he has left. How much of this difference is attributable to slavery, I shall not now enquire; but the fact should be remembered. The New Englanders, though very circumspect in their general deportment, are taxed by their southern neighbours with duplicity manifesting itself in low cunning. There may perhaps be good ground for a partial charge of this nature, but I am of opinion that the natives of the southern States, instead of railing against the ambidextrous New Englanders, ought rather to charge themselves with a want of perspicacity, since if they are often duped, the fault is mainly their own. The cause of those of the south entertaining a bad opinion of their northern neighbours, is, that nearly all the pedlers amongst them are from New England; and pedlers being men who in all countries thrive by meanness and trickery, they have been the means

of raising suspicions respecting the character of the natives of New England generally. As far as my observations went, the people of the north taken collectively may vie with those of the other districts; for if it be admitted that they have amongst them a more than medium portion of persons prone to base artifice, the people of the midland and southern States, may be accused of drunkenness and some other vices to an extent beyond that perceptible in New England.

Drunkenness has been said to be the great vice of the Americans. It must however be confined very much to the labouring classes. The upper class appeared to me to be very temperate, the middle bibacious more than health requires, and the lower only, justly chargeable with ebriety. As a people, the Americans are certainly not so sober as the French or Germans, but perhaps are about on a level with the Irish. However a tradesman at Georgetown, who was I believe a druggist though styled a doctor, a man of intelligence and respectability, assured me that it had been ascertained past doubt, that in the District of Columbia there are more pints of whiskey consumed than pounds of flour! If this be the fact, and he told me that I might rely on it, it implies a still lower state of mora

Hity in this particular than I have assigned to them.

Profanity of language prevails to a most shocking extent in all parts. As I was walking in Providence, my attention was arrested by the horrid expressions used by the children at play in the streets. They were as voluble in oaths and curses as hoary sinners; a lamentable degradation, for not correcting which I must think the schoolmasters and clergy are to be blamed. The educated in many places seem as prone to profanity as the ignorant. The Americans want some man amongst them with the energy and zeal of Whitfield, whose abhorrence of such language was so great, that he once, it is said, began a sermon by uttering imprecations on the congregation to convince them of its offensive and impious nature, and then changing his tone after the manner of Sterne's sermon on the house of mourning, thundered denunciations on those who were guilty of it.

I have been surprised to find in some of the publications respecting America, a charge, or at least an insinuation, that honesty is a virtue so little respected amongst the natives, that few of them, even of the upper rank, were to be impli

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