A thorough knowledge of human nature dictated the policy of placing this hall on the ground-floor, the brazen door of which opens into a thoroughfare passage through the Stadt-house. I never passed by this door without seeing numbers of the lower orders of people gazing through the rails of it upon the emblematical objects within, and apparently in melancholy meditation, reflecting upon the purposes to which this hall is applied, and upon the ignominious results of deviating from the paths of virtue. On one side of this chamber is a a grand double staircase, which leads to the Burghers’, or Marble Hall: it is 120 feet long, about 57 broad, and 80 high, and is entirely composed of white marble, as are the galleries, which are 21 feet wide on each side, into which the entrances to the different courts of justice, the chamber of domains, of insurance, of orphans, the council-room, the offices of the bank, &c. open. This magnificent room and the surrounding galleries were seen to great advantage, on account of their having been cleaned previous to the coronation of the king, which was intended to have taken place in it about a month after I visited it. A great number of workmen had been employed in scraping, washing, and polishing their marble sides for several months, and their appearance was equally grand and beautiful: the bronze gates and railing which form the grand entrance of the hall are massy, yet exquisitely executed: over this entrance is a colonade of Corinthian pillars of red and white marble. At one end is a colossal figure of Atlas supporting on his shoulders the globe, attended by Vigilance and Wisdom. The roof is painted with allegorical figures. Upon the floor, the celestial and terrestrial globes are delineated in brass and various coloured marbles, arranged in three large circles twenty-two feet diameter; the two external ones representing the hemispheres of the earth, and the centre the planisphere of the heavens. The _Burgomaster’s_ Cabinet, as it is still called, is a handsome apartment, the entrance of which is adorned with some beautiful carving, emblematical of the use of the apartment. The chimney-piece in this room, representing the triumphs of Fabius Maximus, is worthy of notice. To the left of the Burgomasters’ chamber is a gallery, ten feet deep and thirty broad, where, after the ringing of a bell to give notice, all proclamations, law sentences, and municipal regulations, are promulgated. The chamber of the treasury ordinary contains a picture of Mary de Medicis as large as life; a chart of Amsterdam as it appeared when first walled round in 1482; and on the bookcases are some curious effigies of the ancient Earls and Countesses of Holland.