[[[Picture of the Treaty Tree.--Statue of Washington.--Liberty Bell.--Its History.]]]
{ 272}same size, of La Fayette, taken from life by the late Thomas Sully. The former is a superb picture, and exhibits, in the back-ground, a representation of the Treaty Tree.
Upon the floor stands a statue of Washington, upon a high pedestal, wrought in wood by Mr. Rush, of Philadelphia. Near it is a piece of stone, said to be a part of the door-step of the balcony in the rear of the State House, upon which John Nixon stood and read the Declaration of Independence to the people * for the first time, on the 8th of July, 1776.
These compose the _souvenirs_ of Independence Hall.
I ascended to the steeple, where hangs, in silent grandeur, the "Liberty Bell."
It is four feet in diameter at the lip, and three inches thick at the heaviest part. Its tone is destroyed by a crack, which extends from the lip to the crown, passing directly through the names of the persons who cast it. An attempt was made to restore the tone by sawing the crack wider, but without success; the melody of the "glory-breathed tone" that thrilled the hearts of the people on the birth-day of the nation could not be reawakened. The history of this bell is interesting. In 1752, a bell for the State House was imported from England. On the first trial-ringing, after its arrival, it was cracked. It was recast by Pass and Stow, of Philadelphia, in 1753, under the direction of Isaac Norris, Esq., the then speaker of the Colonial Assembly.
And that is the bell, "the greatest in English America," which now hangs in the old State House steeple and claims our reverence. ** Upon fillets around its crown, cast there twenty-three years before the Continental Congress met in the State House, are the words of Holy Writ, "_Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof_." *** How prophetic! Beneath that very bell the representatives of the thirteen colonies "proclaimed liberty." Ay, and when the debates were ended, and the result was announced, on the 4th of July, 1776, the iron tongue of that very bell first "proclaimed liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof," by ringing out the joyful annunciation for more than two hours, its glorious melody floating clear and musical as the voice of an angel