rather wild, expression. The subject upon which he was speaking was not one of particular interest,--an estimate of the amount of French spoliations, by cruizers and privateers, upon the American commerce. The heat of the room was intolerable; and after sitting till I was nearly suffocated, we adjourned to the House of Representatives. On our way thither, we crossed a very beautiful circular vestibule, which holds the centre of the building. It was adorned with sundry memorable passages in American history, done into pictures by Colonel Trumbull. In the House of Representatives we were told we should hear nothing of interest, so turned off, under Mr. ----'s escort, to the Library, which is a comfortable well-sized room, where we looked over Audubon's Ornithology, a beautiful work, and saw a man sitting, with his feet upon the table, reading, which is an American fashion. Met half the New York world there. After we had stayed there some time, we went into the House of Representatives. The room itself is lofty and large, and very handsome, but extremely ill-constructed for the voice, which is completely lost among the columns, and only reaches the gallery, where listeners are admitted, in indistinct and very unedifying murmurs. The members not unfrequently sit with their feet upon their desks. We walked out upon the terrace, and looked at the view of the Potomac, and the town, which, in spite of the enlivening effect of an almost summer's sky, looked dreary and desolate in the extreme. We then returned home. At half-past five, we went to the theatre. We were a long time before we could discover, among the intricate dark little passages, our own private entrance, and were as nearly as possible being carried into the pit by a sudden rush of spectators making their way thither: I wish we had been; I think I should like to have seen myself very much. The theatre is absolutely like a doll's play-house: it was completely crammed with people. I played ill; I cannot act tragedy within half a yard of the people in the boxes. By the by, a theatre may very easily be too small for tragedies which is admirably adapted to comedies. In the latter species of dramatic representations, the incidents, characters, manners, and dresses, are, for the most part, modern,--such as we meet with, or can easily imagine, in our own drawing-rooms, and among our own society. There is little if any exaggeration of colouring necessary, and no great exertion of fancy needful either in the actor or audience in executing and witnessing such a performance. On the contrary, comedy,--high comedy,--generally embodying the manners, tone, and spirit of the higher classes of society, the smaller the space, consistent with ease and grace of carriage, in which such personifications take place, the less danger there is of the actor's departing from that natural, quiet, and refined deportment and delivery, which are, in the present day, the general characteristics of polished society.