_May 4th_ was devoted to an inspection of various objects of interest. It was our last day in Washington, and many visits had to be paid and cards left, for in no country in the world are the obligations of courtesy connected with card-leaving more rigidly exacted than in the United States; and perhaps there are no people usually so negligent in such matters as our own countrymen, unless they are connected with diplomacy. English travellers--at least if we are to judge from recent books--seldom come to a capital which is in every way worthy of inspection. In the two latest and best books of travel there is no mention of it at all. It is now incomparably the most beautiful city in the Union; the broad streets, asphalted, or well paved, lined with trees, no longer strike right and left into illimitable distances of unoccupied space, but present long rows of well-built houses. At the time of the advance of the Federals the feeling of Washington was unmistakably Confederate, or "Secesh," as it was called in those days. I scarcely knew a man of any prominence there who was not opposed to the policy of the Government and Mr. Lincoln; always excepting, of course, the senators and the Congress-men then sitting at the Capitol, though even amongst them there were dissidents, for Breckenridge and his friends had not yet left Washington. There were suspects whom it was desirable to intimidate, or necessary to molest; and amongst these were Mr. Corcoran, who is regarded with respect by all who know him, and who now occupies the highest position in the estimation of the society of the city, to which he has been a large benefactor. The Corcoran Gallery owes its origin and its maintenance to his taste, wealth, and public spirit; and the visit which was paid to it to-day was well rewarded by the inspection of a number of very fine paintings and statues of very high order.