At eleven o'clock, Mr. ---- called. Went with him to see the original of the Declaration of Independence, also a few medals, for the most part modern ones, and neither of much beauty or curiosity. Afterwards went to the War-Office, where we saw sundry Indian properties,--bows and arrows, canoes, smoking-pipes, and, what interested me much more, the pictures of a great many savage chiefs, and one or two Indian women. The latter were rather pretty: the men were not any of them handsome; scorn round the mouth, and cunning in the eyes, seemed to be the general characteristic of all their faces. There was a portrait of Red Jacket, which gave me a most unpoetical low-life impression of that great palaverer. The names of many of them delighted me,--as, _the Ever-awake; the Man that stands and strikes; the North Wind_. One of the women's names amused me a great deal,--_the Woman that spoke first_; which title occasioned infinite surmise among us as to the occasion on which she earned it. After we had done seeing what was to be seen, we went on to the President's house, which is a comfortless handsome-looking building, with a withered grass-plot enclosed in wooden palings in front, and a desolate reach of uncultivated ground down to the river behind. Mr. ---- gave us a most entertaining account of the levees, or rather public days, at the President's house. Every human being has a right to present himself there; the consequence is, that great numbers of the very commonest sort of people used to rush in, and follow about the servants who carried refreshments, seizing upon whatever they could get, and staring and pushing about, to the infinite discomfiture of the more respectable and better-behaved part of the assembly. Indeed, the nuisance became so great, that they discontinued the eatables, and in great measure got rid of the crowd. Mr. ---- assured me that on one of these occasions, two _ladies_ had themselves lifted up and seated on the chimney-piece, in order to have a better view of the select congregation beneath them. Mr. ---- left us to go to the Capitol, and we came home. ----, Mr. ----, and Captain ---- called. We sat discussing names; which, in this country, are certainly more ambitious than in any other in the world.[85] Besides Captain ----'s classical family, Mr. ---- assured us that he knew of a man whose name was _Return Jonathan Meigs_; and ---- swore to one in New York called _Alonzo Leontes Agamemnon Beaugardus_. I have myself seen a _Harmanus Boggs_, _Aquila Jones_, and _Alpheus Brett_; but I have not been favoured with an acquaintance with any such names as they quoted. ---- appears to me altered since I saw him in England. He was always silent, and quiet, and gentle; but there was an air of complacency and contented cheerfulness about him, which I think he has very much lost: he looks sad and careworn. I was sorry to see it. After dinner, sat writing journal. Mr. ---- came in and sat some time with us.