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first English settlement in Virginia, by the Indian Princess 
Pocahontas; another is an allegory, representing the landing of 
European emigrants. Behind this hall is a large saloon, conti¬ 
guous to the balcony, which contains the library of Congress. 
During the English incursion in 1814, the library was destroyed 
by fire 5 the present library has been gradually collected since, 
and consists in great part of the late President Jefferson’s books. 
Under the large hall is a small one, supported by three rows of 
columns, not unlike a family tomb. It receives its light from 
above, by a round opening in the floor of the large hall, and 
serves as a passage. It has been proposed to place there the cof¬ 
fin of the great Washington. No principal staircase is yet built, 
but a great number of smaller ones. The interior is altogether 
very angular. Columns and corridors arc numerous in all the 
lateral galleries and saloons; the capitals of the columns are mostly 
of Egyptian taste, and the models seem to have been taken from 
the u description de l’Egypte.” In the corridor leading to the se¬ 
nate chamber, are columns, the shafts of which represent a bunch 
of stalks of Indian corn, and the capitals the fruit of the same 
plant. In the wings on the right hand side from the entrance, is 
the senate chamber, the offices belonging to it, the office of the 
president, and session room of the supreme court of the United 
States. This, and the senate chamber, are built in a semicircular 
form. In the centre is a place for the presiding officer. The mem¬ 
bers of the senate have their seats amphitheatrically arranged; 
every one has a chair, and before him a small mahogany desk. In 
this wing are hung the four pictures by Trumbull, which are 
hereafter to be placed in the rotunda. One of them represents 
the Declaration of Independence: there is a very fine engraving 
of this picture; another, the surrender of General Burgoyne to 
General Gates, near Saratoga; the third, the capitulation at York- 
town, and the filing off of the English between the American and 
French army; the fourth, the resignation of General Washington, 
and laying down of his commission to congress on the 23d of De¬ 
cember, 1783. The portraits are said to be striking likenesses. 
As to the composition and execution of these pictures, the first 
makes one think of the pedantic school of Benjamin West, and 
the other looses by faint colouring. The painter was, moreover, 
placed under restraint by want of taste in his countrymen for the 
fine arts, who resemble, in that respect, their English ancestors: 
the posture of almost every single person having been prescribed 
him. 
In the other wing of the building is the hall of representatives, 
likewise in form of an amphitheatre, and the offices belonging to 
it. In this hall is a full length portrait of General La Fayette. The 
ceiling of this saloon, like that of the senate chamber, and su~ 
Vol. I. 23 
