Of all the public buildings in the Colonies, the State House in Philadelphia, as the birthplace of our national existence, claims the place of first attention and highest honour in the esteem of all loyal Americans. Architecturally speaking, all the public buildings chosen for consideration in this chapter represent more or less faithfully the local characteristics of the places in which they were built. We naturally expect, therefore, to find in the State House at Philadelphia an example of the Middle Colonies Georgian at its best, nor are we disappointed. From an architectural point of view, the State House was a notable and imposing structure when it was erected in 1733 and, from the same point of view, it would be equally notable and imposing had it been built only yesterday. The scale is so broad and impressive that it dwarfs other buildings of far greater size and loftier structure in the vicinity. In this respect it is comparable to a small person of large presence and much dignity, the scant measure of whose inches is not accounted in the impression created among his fellows. We have all seen such. Though the actual area covered by the State House is inconsiderable--it is only one hundred feet long by forty-four feet in depth, with a tower, on the south side or rear, measuring thirty-two feet by thirty-four--there is such amplitude of proportion in the rooms, in the size of all the central features and in the detail of ornamentation, that the visitor instinctively feels himself in one of the great buildings of the country, altogether irrespective of the brave memories by which its walls are hallowed. Seen from without, the State House is a most satisfying piece of Georgian work. The north front, pierced by a single door and eight broad windows on the lower floor and an unbroken range of nine windows on the upper, has a convincing charm of combined dignity and simplicity. The doorway is severely plain and of proportions characteristic of the date at which the edifice was built. The wide muntins of the small paned windows, the well spaced string courses, and the oblong panels of blue marble beneath the windows of the upper floor, diversify the surface and impart a grace that quite prevents the impression of dumpy stodginess that less carefully managed Georgian façades sometimes give. A white balustrade, running the length of the building and set where the pitch of the roof breaks into a much flattened gambrel to form a deck, affords an additional note of grace and lightness comporting well with the triple chimneys with arch-joined tops at each gable end.