Washington. The pride of the nation has endeavored to sustain the
character of its chosen metropolis. There has been no rival,
soliciting favor on the strength of other charms. The country has
all been agreed on the point since the father of the country first
commenced the work. Florence and Rome in Italy have each their
pretensions; but in the States no other city has put itself forward
for the honor of entertaining Congress. And yet Washington has been
a failure. It is commerce that makes great cities, and commerce has
refused to back the general's choice. New York and Philadelphia,
without any political power, have become great among the cities of
the earth. They are beaten by none except by London and Paris. But
Washington is but a ragged, unfinished collection of unbuilt broad
streets, as to the completion of which there can now, I imagine, be
but little hope.

Of all places that I know it is the most ungainly and most
unsatisfactory: I fear I must also say the most presumptuous in its
pretensions. There is a map of Washington accurately laid down; and
taking that map with him in his journeyings, a man may lose himself
in the streets, not as one loses one's self in London, between
Shoreditch and Russell Square, but as one does so in the deserts of
the Holy Land, between Emmaus and Arimathea. In the first place no
one knows where the places are, or is sure of their existence, and
then between their presumed localities the country is wild,
trackless, unbridged, uninhabited, and desolate. Massachusetts
Avenue runs the whole length of the city, and is inserted on the
maps as a full-blown street, about four miles in length. Go there,
and you will find yourself not only out of town, away among the
fields, but you will find yourself beyond the fields, in an
uncultivated, undrained wilderness. Tucking your trowsers up to