UNITED STATES. 149 
emporium I had just quitted. In few cities will one find more 
that is handsome and less that is magnificent in public and private 
buildings, than at Philadelphia; in fact, if we except the splendid 
pile of the Girard College, (the garden of which is seriously im- 
paired by the disjunction of its colossal component masses,) the 
city does not possess a single edifice of any architectural preten- 
sions. But in the spaciousness and regularity of its streets and 
squares, yet without the monotony of undeviating uniformity, and 
in the skilful combination. of plain with costly materials, (brick 
with marble), to produce elegance of effect without lavish expen- 
diture, the mind of William Penn and his immediate descendants 
1s evinced in his later posterity, by the modern embellishments of 
this the ancient capital of Pennsylvania. The Quakers here have 
discarded much of that peculiar formality of dress which distin- 
guishes the sect in England, and nearly assimilate in their costume 
to that often worn by our clergy of the established church: a plain 
black coat, with a low stand-up collar, being often the only 
mark of recognition, in the absence of the broad-brimmed beaver, 
now pretty generally discarded in favour of a covering of the head _ 
of more conventional and republican form and dimensions. Sydney | 
Smith's sarcastic designation of “the drab-coloured men of Penn- 
sylvania" was as inapplicable, in point of fact, to the Quakers of 
the present day in America, as his imputations on the integrity of 
that respectable body of her citizens are unjust and groundless. 
The country between New York and Philadelphia reminded me 
of some parts of the south of England. The smaller towns and - 
villages here, as, indeed, commonly all over the Union, are 
neat, clean, and pretty, but deficient in picturesque effect, from — 
the comparative newness of all about them, which time has not 
yet softened down to harmonous colouring; nor will wooden — 
tenements, the walls of which are milk-white, picked out, in true 
Dutch fashion, with pea-green doors and windows, submit in 
their gaiety to such sobering effects of age, which may indeed- 
shatter and destroy a “frame-house,” but can never render LE 
venerable, even in ruins. - : abs i. 
NOR a à 3 4 p p 
