pointing to the Constitution of the United States, the work of Franzoni, the sculptor of the History-winged clock, in the old Hall of Representatives. In this room, Daniel Webster made his great speech in the Dartmouth College case, and Horace Binney his argument in the case of the Girard Will. The Librarian’s semi-circular mahogany desk, with its faded green brocade draperies, once stood in the old Senate Chamber and re-echoed to the gavel of every Vice-President who reigned in the Senate from 1825 to 1860. CHAPTER XV. THE HEAVEN OF LEGAL AMBITION—THE SUPREME COURT ROOM. Memories of Clay, Webster and Calhoun—Legal Giants of the Past—Stately Serenity of the Modern Court—“Wise Judgment and Wine-Dinners”—The Supreme Court in Session—Soporific Influences—A Glimpse of the Veritable “Bench”—The Ladies’ Gallery—The Chief Justices of the Past—Taney Left Out in the Cold—His Apotheosis—Chief Justice Chase—Black Robed Dignitaries—An Undignified Procession—The “Crier” in Court—Antique Proclamation—The Consultation Room—Every Man in his Proper Place—Gowns of Office—Reminiscence of Judge McClean—“Uncle Henry and his Charge”—Fifty Years in Office. One of the few rooms in the Capitol wherein harmony and beauty meet and mingle, is the Old Senate Chamber, now the Supreme Court Room of the United States. Here Clay, and Webster, and Calhoun,—those giants of the past, whom octogenarians still deplore with all their remembered and forgotten peers,—once held high conclave. Defiance and defeat, battle and triumph, argument and oratory, wisdom and folly once held here their court. It is now the chamber of peace. Tangled questions concerning life, liberty and the pursuit of personal happiness are still argued within these walls, but never in tones which would drown the sound of a dropping pin. Every thought is weighed, every word measured that is uttered here. The judges who sit in silence to listen and decide, have outlived the tumult of youth and the summer of manhood’s fiercer battles. They have earned fruition; they have won their gowns—which, while life lasts, can never be worn by others. Theirs is the mellow afternoon of wise judgment and wine-dinners.