The poor battered ark of government was left overturned, under the protection of an escort of assassins, in the ensanguined mud, upon the reeking bodies of its former, headless, bearers, until its new supporters had adjusted the rival pretensions of silk and satin, and had consulted the pattern book of the laceman in the choice of their embroidery. On one side of the arch which leads into the antiroom of the legislative assembly, are suspended patterns and designs for tickets of admission to the sitting, elegantly framed, and near the same place, in a long gallery which leads to the dressing-rooms of the legislators, are boxes which contain the senatorial robes of the members. The meetings of our house of commons would inspire more awe, and veneration, if more attention was paid to decorum, and external decoration. A dignified and manly magnificence would not be unsuitable to the proceedings of the sanctuary of british laws, and the seat of unrivalled eloquence. What would a perfumed french legislator say, accustomed to rise in the rustling of embroidered silks, and gracefully holding in his hand, a cap of soft and showy plumes, to address himself to alabaster statues, glittering lustres, grecian chairs, festoons of drapery, and an audience of beings tricked out as fine as himself, were he to be suddenly transported into a poor and paltry room, meanly lighted, badly ventilated, and inconveniently arranged, and to be told that, in that spot, the representatives of the first nation in the world, legislated for her subjects? What would he say, were he to see and hear in the mean attire of jockeys and mechanics, such orators as Greece and Rome never saw or heard in the days of their most exalted glory; unfolding with the penetration of a subordinate Providence, the machinations of a dark and deep conspiracy, erecting elaborate laws to shelter the good, against the enemies of repose, or hurling the thunder of their eloquence against the common foes of their country. The astonished frenchman would very likely say, "I always thought that the english were a strange set of beings, but they now exceed the powers of my comprehension, they can elicit wit in the midst of gloom, and can say such things in a plain unbrushed coat of _blue_ cloth, as all the robes, plumes, and finery of the republic, in her gaudy halls of deliberation, cannot inspire."