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rounding houses; for it was inhabited "whilst yet stags, deer, elk and beaver, at broad daylight, lived in the future streets, church-yards and market-places." Within its walls, too, the prophetic hum of the spinning-wheel was heard long before the manufactories now established were imagined, or even the city itself was planned.

This example, and many like instances of tender care for venerable remains, long ago established Philadelphia's claim to stability, and all were ready to admit her reverence for the past, not less than her sincere beliefin the present and the future. Her neglectful treatment, however, of a far more valuable relic, which I am about to describe, is so at variance with the foregoing rule of conduct, that I am almost inclined to regard this later—I hope sporadic case, as a symptom of the decay of the city's old-fashioned preservatism. By preservatism I do not mean that iconoclastic devil, sometimes called conservatism, which strives to pull down our institutions about our ears, and should not be tolerated in a democratic country; but that spirit of humanity which instinctively defends governments, individuals, and old houses when threat ened with destruction. It is folly to think that because we are citizens of a republic, it becomes our duty to demolish the monuments of the past, and to rush eagerly into the uncertainties of the future. It should be, on the contrary, a sacred privilege to preserve with filial care every vestige remaining to us which may illustrate the condition and modes of life of our ancestors.

The nomadic existence is characteristic of uncivilized and untutored races. The absence of reverence and affection for interesting historical landmarks, is an evidence of defect in the moral organization of a people, not less than of an individual.

The same feeling which led the good City of Brotherly Love to do her utmost to preserve the government of our fathers, during the late struggle, should naturally prompt her to rescue from demolition the home of the founder of Pennsylvania.

It must be that she is temporarily asleep; but while she slumbers the house of William Penn is attacked; and before she has shaken off her lethargy it will be swept from the earth.

Let it be our grateful duty to rescue from decay, at least the memory of this sacred mansion.

*****

There stands—alas! it may be more properly said, before this sentence is printed, there stood not long since—on the south-east corner of South Second street and Norris' alley, in the city of Philadelphia, the most interesting building, historically speaking, to be found in our country.

Built in the infancy of the settlement by Samuel Carpenter, member of the council and Treasurer of the province—"the wealthiest as well as the most public-spirited man in the colony;" inhabited by his partner, the great William Penn; distinguished as the birthplace of John Penn, commonly called "the American," as he was the only one of the proprietary family born in this country; lived in by scholarly James Logan, Secretary of Pennsylvania, who entertained here loose Lord Cornbury, Governor of New York, grandson of the illustrious Clarendon and cousin of Queen Anne; purchased by William Trent, Chief justice of New Jersey, and founder of Trenton; afterwards owned by Isaac Norris, Speaker of the provincial legislature of Pennsylvania, who made it his city residence; inherited, through his wife, by John Dickinson, the authorof the "Farmer's Letters"—this fine old mansion became, some years prior to the Revolution, a boarding-house of great repute in the hands of Mrs Graydon, whose son, Captain Alexander Graydon, relates in his "Memoirs" many interesting anecdotes of distinguished persons who frequented it in his day. Having gradually fallen from its high estate, it became within the present century the abode of a small jeweler, a hat-block moulder, a petty costermonger, and a dealer in shells and discarded rubbish.

I distinctly remember that in my boyhood its venerable walls still retained an