Sir, I doubt if you consider enough the character of the edifice in which we are assembled. Possessing the advantage of an incomparable situation, it is among the first-class structures of the world. Surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, with the Potomac at its feet, it may remind you of the Capitol in Rome, with the Alban and the Sabine hills in sight, and with the Tiber at its feet. But the situation is grander than that of the Roman Capitol. The edifice itself is not unworthy of the situation. It has beauty of form and sublimity in proportion, even if it lacks originality in conception. In itself it is a work of art. It should not receive in the way of ornamentation anything which is not a work of art. Unhappily, this rule is too often forgotten, or there would not be so few pictures and marbles about us which we are glad to recognize. But bad pictures and ordinary marbles warn us against adding to their number.
Pardon me, if I call attention for one moment to the few works of art in the Capitol which we might care to preserve. Beginning with the Vice-President’s room, which is nearest, we find an excellent and finished portrait of Washington, by Peale. This is much less known than the familiar portrait by Stuart, but it is well worthy to be cherished. I never enter that room without feeling its presence. Traversing the corridors, we find ourselves in the spacious rotunda, where are four pictures by Trumbull, truly historic in character, by which great scenes live again before us. These works have a merit of their own which will always justify the place they occupy. Mr. Randolph, with ignorant levity, once characterized that which represents the signing of the Declaration of Independence as a “shin-piece.” He should have known that there is probably no picture, having so many portraits, less obnoxious to such a gibe. If these pictures do not belong to the highest art, they can never fail in interest for the patriot citizen, while the artist will not be indifferent to them. One other picture in the rotunda is not without merit: I refer to the Landing of the Pilgrims, by Weir, where there is a certain beauty of color and a religious sentiment: but this picture has always seemed to me exaggerated, rather than natural. Passing from the rotunda to the House of Representatives, we stand before a picture which, as a work of art, is perhaps the choicest of all in the Capitol. It is the portrait of Lafayette, by that consummate artist, who was one of the glories of France, Ary Scheffer. He sympathized with our institutions; and this portrait of the early friend of our country was a present from the artist to the people of the United States. Few who look at it, by the side of the Speaker’s chair, are aware that it is the production of the rare genius which gave to mankind the Christus Consolator and the Francesca da Rimini.