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Among the valuable pictures burned at the same time were Stuart's paintings of the first five Presidents; an original portrait of Columbus; a second portrait of Columbus; an original portrait of Peyton Randolph; a portrait of Boliver; a portrait of Baron Steuben; one of Baron de Kalb; one of Cortez, and one of Judge Hanson, of Maryland, presented by his family. Between eleven and twelve hundred bronze medals of the Vattemare Exchange, some of them more than two centuries old, were destroyed; also, an Apollo in bronze, by Mills; a very superior bronze likeness of Washington; a bust of General Taylor, by an Italian artist; and a bust of Lafayette, by David.

The divisions of Natural History, Geography, and Travels, English and European History, Poetry, Fiction, and the Mechanic Arts and Fine Arts were all burned. The whole of the Law Library escaped the fire.

It indicates the intellectual vitality of the nation that an appropriation of $10,000 was immediately made for the restoration of the Library, and by the close of the year $75,000 more for the same purpose.

Like most beginnings, that of the Congressional Library was humble in the extreme. The first provision for this great National collection was made at Philadelphia by an act of the Sixth Congress, April 24, 1800, appropriating

5,000 for a suitable apartment and the purchase of books for the use of both Houses of Congress. The first books received were forwarded to the new seat of Government in the trunks in which they had been imported. President Jefferson, from its inception, an ardent friend of the Library, called upon the Secretary of the Senate, Samuel Allyne Otis, to make a statement on the first day of the session, December 7, 1801, respecting the books,

the act of Congress having provided that the Secretary of the Senate, with the Clerk of House of Representatives, should be the purchasers of the books. The Congressional provision for the Library in 1806 was $450.00.

In a report made by Doctor Samuel Latham Mitchell from New York to the House, January 20, 1806, he says:

"Every week of the session causes additional regret that the volumes of literature and science within the reach of the National Legislature are not more rich and ample. The want of geographical illustration is truly distressing, and the deficiency of historical and political works is scarcely less severely felt."

President Madison always exercised a fostering care over the Library and an act approved by him, December 6, 1811, appropriates, for five additional years, the sum of one thousand dollars annually for its use.

The whole number of books accumulated in fourteen years, from 1800 to 1814, amounted only to about three thousand volumes. The growth of the Library may be traced in the relative sums appropriated to its benefit by successive Congresses. In 1818, $2,000 were appropriated for the purchase of books. From 1820 to 1823, $6,000 were voted to buy books.

In 1824, $5,000 were appropriated for the purchase of books under the Joint Committee; also $1,546 for the purchase of furniture for the new Library in the centre building of the Capitol.

The yearly appropriation for the increase of the Library, for many successive years after the accession of General Jackson, was $5,000; these were exclusive of the appropriations made for the Law Department of the Library. In 1832 an additional appropriation of $3,000

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was made for Library furniture and repairs. In 1850 the annual appropriation of $1,000 to purchase books for the Law Library was increased to $2,000. Within a year of the burning of the Library in 1851, $85,000 had been voted by Congress for the restoration of the Library and the purchase of books.

The west hall of the New Library was completed and occupied July 1, 1853. It was designed by Thomas A. Walter, the architect of the Capitol. The appropriation for miscellaneous books alone in the years 1865 and 1866 amounted to $16,000. In 1866, $1,500 were set apart for procuring files of leading American newspapers, and the sum of $4,000 was voted June 25, 1864, to purchase a complete file of selections from European periodicals from 1861 to 1864 relating to the Rebellion in the United States. July 23, 1866, the amount of $10,000 was voted by Congress for furniture for the two wings of the extension. The present magnificent halls of the Library of Congress were built at an expense of $280,500. The main hall cost $93,500, and the other two halls $187,000. The last two have been built under the superintendence of Mr. Edward Clark. Beautiful and ample as these three halls are in themselves, they are already too small to hold the rapidly accumulating treasures of the Library.

The next appropriation will take the Congressional Library out of the Capitol altogether into a magnificent building, built expressly for and devoted exclusively to the uses of the Grand Library of the Nation.

CHAPTER XIV.

A VISIT TO THE NEW LAW LIBRARY.

How a Library was Offered to Congress-Mr. King's Proposal-An Eye to Theology-The Smithsonian Library Transferred-The Good Deeds of Peter Force-National Documents-" American Archives "-Congress Makes a Wise Purchase-Eliot's Indian Bible-Literary Treasures—The Lawyers Want a Library for Themselves-Their "Little Bill" Fails to Pass-They are Finally Successful-The Finest Law Library in the World-First Edition of Blackstone-Report of the Trial of Cagliostro, Rohan and La Motte-Marie Antoinette's Diamond Necklace—A Long Life-Service-The Law Library Building-An Architect Buried Beneath his own Design-" Underdone Pie-crust "-" Justice" Among the Books-Reminiscence of Daniel Webster and the Girard Will.

A LITTLE more than a month after the burning of

the Library by the British in 1814, a letter was read in the Senate, from Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, tendering to Congress the purchase of his library of nine thousand volumes,

The collection of this library had been the delight of Mr. Jefferson's life, and, long before, he had written of it as "the best chosen collection of its size probably in America." Pecuniary embarrassments had already begun to cloud his closing years, and the double hope of relieving these, and of adding to the treasures of his beloved Republic, impelled him to this personal sacrifice. In his letter to the Committee he said:

"I should be willing indeed to retain a few of the books to amuse the time I have yet to pass, which might be valued with

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the rest, but not included in the sum of valuation until they should be restored at my death, which I would cheerfully provide for."

The sum of $23,950 in Treasury notes, of the issue ordered by the law of March 4, 1814, was paid him. The actual number of volumes thus acquired was 6,700. Although a Mr. King, of Massachusetts, more burdened with zeal than knowledge, made a motion which called out a loud and long debate, that all books of an atheistical, irreligious, and immoral tendency should be extirpated from the Library and sent back to Mr. Jefferson, the department of Theology in his library was found to be large, sound, and valuable.

In 1866 the custody of the Library of the Smithsonian Institution, with the agreement of the Regents, was transferred to the Library of Congress. It brought forty thousand additional volumes to the Congressional Library.

When you come to Washington, you will see in the gallery of the Smithsonian Institution the bust of a noble man standing on a simple, plaster column, bearing the name PETER FORCE. He, during his life, did more than any one American to rescue from oblivion the early documentary history of the United States. He came from his native city, New York, to Washington, as a printer, in 1815. In 1820 he began the publication of the National Calendar, an annual volume of national statistics, and also published the National Journal, the Administration organ during the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. In 1833 the

Government entered into a contract with Mr. Force to prepare and publish a "Documentary History of the American Colonies.' Nine volumes subsequently appeared under the title of the "American Archives." In