606 Mrs, Wright*s Travels in the United States. 
debted for tile first enactment of that 
beautiful penal code which is now the 
admiration of all enlightened political 
economists throughout-the world. In 
retaining the punishment of death even 
for the murderer, his mild spirit seems 
rather to have issued the sentence of 
41 blood for blood” in conformity to the 
divine law, as given in the Old Testa¬ 
ment, than from the argued conviction 
of its propriety. The code of this hu¬ 
mane legislator was cancelled by the 
authority of government, as were 
the tolerant enactments of the liberal- 
minded Calvert. After the revolution, 
by the strenuous exertions of many 
philanthropic, citizens, among whom 
were chiefly conspicuous the venerable 
Franklin, William Bradford, Caleb 
Lowndes, and Dr. Rush, the abrogated 
code of the father of Pennsylvania 
again superseded the bloody statutes of 
England. 
I shall not fatigue you with the enu¬ 
meration and description of the public 
edifices and institutions of this city. 
Innumerable travellers, however un¬ 
willing to see beauty and good order in 
the moral and political frame of Ame¬ 
rican society, bear ample testimony to 
the peaceable virtues and active bene¬ 
volence of the people of Philadelphia. 
It is curious to picture the Philadel¬ 
phia into which the young Franklin 
threw himself, friendless and penny¬ 
less, to seek his fortune, and the Phila¬ 
delphia that now is,—we may say, too, 
the Philadelphia that he left it, when 
he sunk, full of years and honour, into 
the grave. From a small provincial 
town, without public libraries or insti¬ 
tutions of any kind, he lived to see it 
not only the thriving, populous, and 
well-endowed capital of an indepen¬ 
dent state, but the seat of a government, 
the novelty of whose principles fixed 
the eyes of the whole civilized world. 
It has now all the appearance of a 
wealthy and beautiful metropolis, 
though it has lost the interest which it 
possessed as the seat and centre of poli¬ 
tical life. 
I never walked through the streets 
of any city with so much satisfaction 
as those of Philadelphia. The neat¬ 
ness and cleanliness of all animate and 
inanimate things, houses, pavements, 
and citizens, is not to be surpassed. It 
has not, indeed, the commanding posi¬ 
tion of New York, which gives to that 
city an air of beauty and grandeur very 
imposing to a stranger, but it has more 
the appearance of a finished and long- 
established metropolis. ' I am not sure 
that the streets have not too many right 
angles and straight lines to be altoge¬ 
ther pleasing to the eye, but they have 
so much the air of cheerfulness, clean¬ 
liness, and comfort, that it would be 
quite absurd to find fault with them. 
The side pavements are regularly 
washed every morning by the domes¬ 
tics of each house, a piece of out-door 
house-wifery, by the way, which must 
be somewhat mischievous to the ladies’ 
thin slippers, but which adds much to 
the fair appearance, and, I doubt not, 
to the good health of the city. The 
brick walls, as well as frame-work of 
the houses, are painted yearly. The 
doors are usually white, and kept deli¬ 
cately clean, which, together with the 
broad slabs of white marble spread be¬ 
fore them, and the trees, now gay with 
their first leaves, which, with some in¬ 
tervals, line the pavements, give an air 
of cheerfulness and elegance to the 
principal streets quite unknown to the 
black and crowded cities of Europe. 
The public buildings are all remark¬ 
able for neatness, and some for pure 
and classic elegance. Another bank is 
about to be built on as simple a model 
as the Pennsylvania. I trust the citi¬ 
zens will never swerve from the pure 
style of architecture to which they seem 
at present to have attached themselves ; 
above all, I trust they will never at¬ 
tempt the Gothic, a failure in which 
being a failure in the sublime, is of all 
failures the worst. The Academy of 
Arts contains a small, hut well-chosen 
collection of pictures, among which I 
have regarded with most pleasure tw T o 
modern pieces—an exquisite Niobe by 
Rehberg, and a masterly scriptural 
piece by the American artist Allston. It 
is truly surprisinghow prolific th is young 
country has already been in painters. 
West, Leslie, Coppely, Trumbull, and 
Allston, are names known and respect¬ 
ed in botli hemispheres. The last- 
mentioned artist seems destined to rise 
to peculiar eminence. 
The State-house—state-house no lon¬ 
ger in any thing but name—is an inte¬ 
resting object to a stranger, and, doubt¬ 
less, u sacred shrine in the eyes of 
Americans. I know not hut that I 
was a little offended to find stuffed 
birds, and beasts, and mammoth skele¬ 
tons filling the places of senators and 
sages. It had been in better taste, per¬ 
haps, to turn the upper rooms of this 
empty 
