Journeying into Philadelphia we shall find hidden away in the midst of a cheap, _bourgeois_ neighborhood in South Eighth Street another Morris house (Plate XXXVI) belonging to the grand epoch. This stunning relic is rarely photographed, and then the professional photographer sets up his camera directly in front of it, uses his wide angle lens, which is sure to distort, and he cannot avoid cutting off part of its base line, and foreshortening the dormer windows. This Morris house has outlived all the friends and acquaintances of its youth. Down by the Delaware River there may linger a vestige, here and there, of the old-time gentry; but most of the architecture which may be called “old,” in Philadelphia proper, belongs to a later generation. Again, let us turn in the direction of Annapolis, not PLATE XXXII. [Illustration: MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN.] [Illustration: WISTER HOUSE, GERMANTOWN.] because it is an irresistible magnet that the student of architecture feels, more or less, all his life, but because he cannot afford to miss Alexandria. And I do not mean Alexandria itself, for it is pathetically decrepit. The Carlyle house[2] is a wreck, and the Fairfax house is ugly. But I mean to say he cannot afford to miss Mount Vernon, which is usually reached via Alexandria. If time is limited in Washington, cut out the new Library of Congress, which is a _political_ job, one degree more vulgar than a _commercial_ one. Indeed, if worse comes to worse in the matter of time, cut out everything but the Capitol, only, be sure to see Mount Vernon! (Plates XXVII and XXVIII.) Familiar as everybody is with its pillared portico high above the Potomac, and good as many of the modern photographs are of this effective view of the mansion-house, he who has never visited Mount Vernon can form no idea of the enchanting beauty of that Colonial estate. The ride on the electric road from Alexandria is through a country scrubby enough and rough enough to send dismay to the most persevering tourist; but do not dismay, for at the end a transformation scene awaits you which you will never forget, and if you be an architect, will supply inspiration worth many times your travelling expenses. Walking out upon the magnificent stretch of greensward that overlooks the river, one cannot but agree with Washington in preferring Mount Vernon to every other country seat of America. I can think of none that equals it naturally, while architecturally, it is thoroughly admirable from stylobate to cupola. Within, the wainscots, cornices and chimney-pieces are models of excellence; and if, perhaps, we could nowadays achieve better success in ventilating bedrooms than was achieved by Washington with his, we must own, we are still largely the debtor party by the amount of education we imbibe relating to what Eliza Southgate calls--in her edifying book of letters of a girl written eighty years ago, bound between samplers, concerning Sunswick, the Delafield house on Long