told me of several curious discoveries made under the foundation, in digging for the present cellars. Close by the western wall of the State-house, at the depth of four or five feet, he came to a keg of excellent flints; the wood was utterly decayed, but the impression of the keg was distinct in the loam ground. Near to it he found, at the same depth, the entire equipments of a sergeant-a sword, musket, cartouch-box, buckles, &c.-the wood being decayed left the impressions of what they had been. They also dug up, close by the same, as many as one dozen bomb-shells filled with powder. two of these, as a freak of the mason's lads, are now actually walled into the new cellar wall on the south side. But for this explanation a day may yet come when such a discovery might give circulation to another Guy Faux and gunpowder-plot story!

And

An elderly gentleman requests me to add as supplemental to the State-house and its yard, that the wall along Fifth street was much older than that along Sixth street, and that the ground at Sixth and Walnut, where once stood James Townsend's brick house, was much the lowest part.

He says, that in the first construction of the State-house, there was no place assigned for the stairs, and to remedy the mistake, the great stairs in the rear are made so disproportionate. The Convention which met to form the Constitution of the United States, met up stairs, and at the same time the street pavement along Chestnutstreet was covered with earth to silence the rattling of wheels.

The Declaration of Independence was read publicly on the Sth of July, from the platform of " the observatory" before erected there, by Rittenhouse, to observe the transit of Venus. Captain Hopkins, who read it, belonged to the Navy. It was about twenty feet high, and twelve to fifteen feet square, at fifty to sixty feet south of the house, and fifteen to twenty feet west of the main walk. It seems to have been used occasionally as a stand for public addresses, it being referred to as such by Stansberry, in his militia poem.

STATE-HOUSE INN.

THE crowds of gay passengers who now promenade the line of Chestnut street, especially the younger part, who behold the costly edifices which crowd the whole range of their long walk, have little or no conception of the former blank and vacant features of the street, devoid of those mansions in which they now feel their pride and admiration. It is only forty years ago since the north side of Chestnut street, facing the State-house, now so compact and stately in its houses, had but two good houses in the whole line of the street from Fifth to Sixth street; but one of these now remain-the present residence of P. S. Duponceau, Esq., at the north-east corner of Sixth street. The whole scene was an out-town spectacle, without pavement, and of uninviting aspect. In the midst of this area stood the State-house Inn, a small two-story tavern, of rough-dashed construction, very old, being marked with the year 1693 as its birthyear. It stood back a little from the line of the street, but in lieu of a green court-yard to gratify the eye, the space was filled with bleached oyster shells-the remains of numerous years of shells left about the premises at occasions of elections, &c. It looked like a sea-beach tavern. That single and diminutive inn for a long time gave all the entertainment then taken by the court-suitors, or by those who hung about the colonial Assemblies and the primitive Congress. But desolate as it looked in front and rear, having a waste lot of commons instead of garden shrubbery, and the neighbouring lots equally open and cheerless, there was a redeeming appendage in a range of lofty and primitive walnut trees, which served as distant pointers to guide the stranger to the venerable State-houseitself beyond the verge of common population.

Of those trees we have something special and interesting to say: They were the last remains within the city precincts of that primitive forest which had been the cotemporary of Penn the founder. There they had stood at the infant cradling of our nation, and had survived to see our manhood and independence asserted in that memorable "Hall of Independence" before which they stood.

When Richard Penn first came to this country, and was shown by Samuel Coates these primitive remains of his grandfather's eventful day, the crowd of associations which pressed upon his mind made him raise his hands in exclamation, and his eyes burst forth in tears.

It would have been grateful to have retained those trees, but they came to the axe before their time, to make way for city improvements. The last of them was taken down in 1818, from before the

office of Mr. Ridgway, No. 183, from a fear that its height and heaviness, in case of being blown over, might endanger the houses near it. In falling across the street diagonally, it reached with its branches the eastern end of the State-house-as if to take its last leave of the Hall of Independence there. It was found to be sound, and to have had one hundred and forty-six years' growth. Several snuff-boxes, inlaid with other relic wood, have been made from its remains, and distributed among such as have fellowship with such local recollections.*

As early as the days of William Penn, the inn had been used as an out-town tavern. The ancient black Alice, who lived there, used to tell with pleasure, that Master William Penn would stop there and refresh himself in the porch with a pipe, for which she always had his penny.

In the colonial days it was long known as "Clarke's Inn," at which he had the sign of the "coach and horses." All that we can say of "mine host" is, that he prepared dogs-real dogs!—for cooking the meat of the epicures and gentry! In 1745 he advertises in the public prints, that "he has for sale several dogs and wheels, much preferable to any jacks for roasting any joint of meat." Few Philadelphians of modern times would be likely to understand what was meant. Our modern improvements are so great that we have little conception of the painstaking means they once employed for roast meats. They trained little bow-legged dogs, called spitdogs, to run in a hollow cylinder, like a squirrel, by which impulse was given to a turn-jack, which kept the meat in motion, suspended before the kitchen fire. We pity the little dogs and their hard service while we think of them! As cooking-time approached, it was no uncommon thing to see the cooks running about the streets looking up their truant labourers. What a relief to them was selfmoving jacks! and, still more, what have tin kitchens since produced for us!

Mr. Edward Duffield tells me that when he was a boy he saw the voters of the whole county giving in their votes at Clarke's Inn. On that occasion he saw the whole crowd put in commotion by an accident which befel a horse there. He had been hitched to a fence, and in pulling backward fell into a concealed and covered well of water; after being got up once he fell down a second time, and was again recovered-strange to tell-without injury! Such a covered and concealed well, of excellent water too, was lately discovered near there in the garden of Jacob Ridgway.

After the Revolution the inn was known as the "Half Moon," by Mr. Hassell; and much its attractions were increased by the charms of his only daughter Norah, "passing fair," who drew after her the Oglebies of the day.

Since penning the above publication, "La Fayette in America," Vol. 2, page 232, speaks with much commendation of such a box given to General La Fayette.