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All the figures of the group ale colossal, being about seven and a half feet in height. A perfect symmetry has been given to the form, and the attitudes are et once graceful and expressive. Viewed with the eye of an anatomist, the minuter parts of the human structure are developed with a distinctness and truth which, while it displays the labor which the artist has directed to the production of these details, exhibits also the extent and correctness of his scientific acquirements. In the draperies of the figures there is great felicity of execution; the fullness, the folds and flow of the mantle, exhibit surpassing excellence.

The eastern entrance to the Rotundb, from the floor of the Portico, is ornamented with two light and beautiful figures, in stone, in the act of crowning with laurel the bust of Washington, placed immediately above the door.

The rotundo is topped by a cupola and balustrade, accessible by means of a stair-case passing between the roof and ceiling. From this elevation the prospect which bursts upon the eye is splendid. Three cities are spread before you: the Potomac on one side, and the Eastern Branch on the running and rolling their waters to the ocean; a range of hills extending in a magnificent sweep around you, and displaying all the richness and verdure of woodland scenery, with here and there beautiful slopes in cultivation — the whole colored by the golden beams of the setting sun, burnishing the reposing clouds, and gilding the tops of the trees, or giving light and shade to the living landscape — form a scene which few portions of the earth can rival, and which none can surpass. The dome of the centre, though nearly a semicircle, does not please the eye of a stranger; it wants greater or less elevation to contrast agreeably with the domes of the wings.

Besides the principal rooms above mentioned, two others deserve notice, from the peculiarity of their architecture — the round apartments under the Rotundo, enclosing forty columns supporting ground arches, which form the floor of the Rotundo. This room is similar to the substructions of the European Cathedrals, and may take the name of Crypt from them: the other room is used by the Supreme Court of the United States — of the same style of architecture, with a bold and curiously arched ceiling, the columns of these rooms are of a massy Dorick imitated from the temples of Paestum. Twenty-five other rooms, of various sizes are appropriated to the officers of the two houses of Congress and of the Supreme Court, and forty-five to the use of committees; they are all vaulted and floored with brick and stone. The three principal stair-cases are spacious and varied in their form; these, with the vestibules and numerous corridors or passages, it would be difficult to describe intelligibly: we will only say, that they are in conformity to the dignity of the, building and style of the parts already named. The building having been situated originally on the declivity of a hill, occasioned the west front to show in its elevation one story of rooms below the general level of the east front and the ends; to remedy this defect, and to obtain safe deposites for the large quantities of fuel annually consumed, a range of casemate arches has been projected in a semicircular form to the west, and a paved terrace formed over them: this addition is of great utility and beauty, and at a short distance exhibits the building on one uniform level — this terrace is faced with a grass bank, or glacis, and at some distance below, another glacis with steps leads to the level of the west entrance of the Porter's Lodges — these, together with the piers to the gates at the several entrances of the square, are in the same messy style as the basement of tile building; the whole area or square is surrounded with a lofty iron railing, planted and decorated with forest trees, shrubs — gravel walks and turf.

EXORDIUM

IN commencing, with the New Year, a New Volume, we shall be permitted to say a very few words by way of exordium to our usual chapter of Reviews, or,