It is a memorable picture, that of the “Cincinnatus of the West,” the renowned statesman, President, general and engineer, planting his theodolite here and there, marking the confines of the capital city, or travelling on horseback to the Georgetown tavern to discuss terms and titles with the owners of the land. The spectacle of Washington laying out the city and presiding at the laying of the corner-stone of its Capitol, appealed to the dramatic sense of Daniel Webster, who in delivering the oration on the occasion of the laying of the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol, July 4, 1851, alluded as follows to the city’s illustrious founder: “He heads a short procession over these naked fields; he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree; he ascends to the top of this eminence, whose original oaks of the forest stood as thick around him as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical worship, and here he performs the appointed duty of the day.” [Illustration: STATUE OF GEN. WINFIELD SCOTT, WASHINGTON.] The planning of the city was entrusted to Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who had been a major of engineers during the Revolution, and later had proved a popular architect both in Philadelphia and New York. He studied the Potomac situation and drew up the plan of a city on so magnificent a scale that it was considered wild and chimerical. Nothing like it existed in the New World, and few cities in the Old equalled the grandeur of his projections. L’Enfant was removed before having progressed far with the work, and Andrew Ellicott of Pennsylvania was appointed in his place. But the present widely admired plan of Washington had its origin in the artistic, creative mind of L’Enfant. In 1792, Congress voted him a sum of five hundred guineas, and deeded him a lot in Washington, as compensation for his services; but the designing of the capital city had been to him a work of art and love, and he rejected all considerations of payment. His dismissal had been brought about by his refusal to submit his plans to the Commissioners, his defence being that if his design were published speculators would seize upon the “vistas and architectural squares and raise huddles of shanties which would permanently disfigure the city.”