Walnut Street front of the State House, by Rittenhouse, many years before, for the purpose of observing a transit of Venus, John Nixon read the Declaration to a vast concourse of people gathered from the city and surrounding country. When the reading was finished, the king's arms over the seat of justice in the court room * were torn down and burned in the street; and at evening bonfires were lighted, the houses were illuminated, and it was not until a thunder-shower at midnight compelled the people to retire, that the sounds of gladness were hushed. Newport, New London, Williamsburgh, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, and other large towns, manifested their great joy; and from every inhabited hill and valley, town and hamlet of the old Thirteen States, arose the melodies of freedom, awakened by this great act of the people's proxies. Thousands of hearts in Europe, beating strongly with hope for the future, were deeply impressed. Bold men caught the symphony, and prolonged its glad harmony, even until it wooed sleeping slaves from their slumbers in the shadows of despot- * The second story of the State House was occupied by the courts; and while the Continental Congress was in session below, the Provincial Assemblies met above. [[[The Principles of the Declaration, and their Effects.--Opinions of Raynal, Mirabeau, and Napoleon.]]] {288}ism forth to the clear light, panoplied in the armor of absolute right. France was aroused, and turning in its bed of submission, like the Titans beneath old Ætna, to look for light and shook thrones, crumbled feudal altars, whereon equality was daily sacrificed, and so rent the vail of the temple of despotism, that the people saw plainly the fetters and instruments of unholy rule, huge and terrible, within the inner court. [Illustration: 9298] They pulled down royalty, overturned distinctions, and gave the first impulse to the revolutions which have since spread from that focus to purify the political atmosphere of Europe. Back to our glorious manifesto the struggling nations look, and, when they wish to arraign their tyrants, that indictment is their text and guide. * Its specific charges against George the Third of course are irrelevant, but the great truths set forth have no limit in their application and appositeness.= ```"Throughout the world its voice is sounding! ````Life and death are in its call! ```Kings and thrones in dust confounding; ````Millions rising o'er their fall! ```Brothers, on! till, bless'd as we, ```They've plenty, peace, and Liberty!" `````Mrs. R. Balmanno.= ```"E'en now the word that rous'd our land ````Is calling o'er the waves, 'Awake!' ```And pealing on from strand to strand, ````Wherever ocean surges break. ```Up to the quicken'd car of toil ```It rises from the teeming soil, ````And bids the slave his bonds forsake. ```Hark! from the mountain to the sea, ```The Old World echoes 'Liberty!' ````Till thrones to their foundations shake." `````Mary E. Hewitt.=