Surely, nothing but the hallowed air of Mount Vernon could have prevented the Prince of Darkness from bodily carrying off so precious a gem for his cabinet. One side of the great drawing-room was ornamented with a sculptured mantel in Italian marble, presented by Lafayette, the other was covered with cases containing books of high toned selection, while, from the third, its green silk curtain drawn aside, was suspended a portrait of the present family, by Chapman. The figures of the portrait, as large as life, presented a lady of middle age, clad in mourning, surrounded by a group of children advancing into youth. It was well executed, and in the dignified and saddened serenity, in the simple and natural grouping, and the pure and unaffected expression of the countenances, an American in any part of the world, would have at once recognised a family group of the more intellectual and refined of his own country. As we walked through the various rooms, from which the family had withdrawn, we were so overcome with the illusion, the work-basket with its scissors and thread—the half-opened book lying upon the table, the large Bible prominently, not ostentatiously, in its place, the portraits on the walls, the busts on their pedestals,—all causing such a vivid impression of present life and being, that we almost expected to see the towering form of the General entering the doorway, or passing over the green lawn spread between us and that Potomac which we had so often viewed from the same windows. We were at first disappointed at not seeing in some conspicuous place, the sword, which had so often been extended by the hand whose pulses quickened not in the hour of extremest peril, as it marshalled the road of human liberty; but our disappointment turned to admiration, and our hearts beat still higher, as we were referred to, and read this clause in his last testament: “To each of my four nephews, I bequeath one of the swords of which I may die possessed. These swords are accompanied with the injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof.”