The marchioness made several copies of this picture, one of which Washington presented to Mrs. Bingham, of Philadelphia. From another, an engraving was afterward made in Paris, and several impressions were sent to Washington. She

also painted on copper, in medallion form, the profiles of Washington and Lafayette, in miniature, within the same circumference, and presented the picture to Washington. It is now at Arlington House.

Another foreign lady, the wife of Peter J. Von Berckel, of Rotterdam, the first embassador from Holland to the United States, was a great admirer of the character of Washington, and painted an allegorical picture in testimony of her reverence for the Liberator of his country. It was executed upon copper, eighteen by twenty inches in size. The design, intending to be complimentary to Washington, was well conceived. Upon the top of a short, fluted column, was a bust of Washington, crowned

with a military and civic wreath. This stood near the entrance to a cave where the Parcæ or Fates-Clotho the Spinster, Lachesis the Allotter, and Atropos the Unchangeable-were seen, busy with the destinies of the patriot. Clotho was sitting with her distaff, spinning the thread of his life, and Lachesis was receiving it. Atropos was just stepping forward with open shears to cut it, when Immortality, represented as a beautiful youth, seized the precious thread, and gave it to Fame, a winged female, with a trumpet, in the skies, who bore it on to future ages. The latter thought was beautifully expressed

by Thomas Moore, many years later, when he thus sang of a poet's immortality:

"Even so, though thy memory should now die away,

'Twill be caught up again in some happier day,

And the hearts and the voices of Erin prolong,

Through the answering Future, thy name and thy song."

This picture was presented to Washington by Mr. Von Berckel, with the following lines, composed by the fair artist:

"In vain the sisters ply their busy care,

To reel off years from Glory's deathless heir:
Frail things shall pass, his fame shall never die
Rescued from Fate by Immortality."

After the death of Mrs. Washington, the painting became the property of the late G. W. P. Custis, who presented it to the venerable General C. C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, to whose military family he had belonged. While on a visit at Arlington House, a few years ago, Mr. Custis described the picture to the writer, at the same time illustrating his description by a rude pencil sketch, of which the accompanying engraving is a fac-simile on a smaller scale. Such was the impression of the picture upon the memory of that venerable man, after a lapse of fifty years.

-Soon after the departure of the French minister and his party from Mount Vernon, two other French gentlemen, with letters of introduction, visited Washington. These were M. de Warville, and M. St. Frie, who, Washington said, were "intelligent, discreet, and disposed to receive favorable impressions of America." Brissot de Warville was young, handsome, and full of enthusiasm. In his letter of introduction, Lafayette said, "He

is very clever, and wishes much to be presented to you. He intends to write a history of America, and is, of course, desirous to have a peep into your papers, which appears to me a deserved condescension, as he is fond of America, writes pretty well, and will set matters in a proper light.”

Brissot de Warville did not write a history of America, but during the French revolution that soon followed this visit, he became quite a conspicuous object in the history of his own country. He was intensely democratic, and when he returned to France, he appeared in the streets of Paris in the garb of a Philadelphia Quaker, with which he was enamored. In the French revolution he became a Girondist leader. He finally made himself obnoxious to Robespierre and his party by refus ing to vote for the execution of the king, and was doomed to suffer death on the guillotine. He fell on the 30th of October, 1793, and the surviving Girondists were called Brissotins.

In his letters, Brissot de Warville spoke with enthusiasm of America, and after his visit at Mount Vernon, he wrote of Mrs. Washington, saying, "Every thing about the house has an air of simplicity; the table is good, but not ostentatious, and no deviation is seen from regularity and domestic economy. She superintends the whole, and joins to the qualities of an excellent housewife, the simple dignity which ought to characterize a woman whose husband has acted the greatest part on the theatre of human affairs, while possessing that amiability and manifesting that attention to strangers which makes hospitality so charming."

As the year 1788 drew to a close, Washington felt well assured that he would be called by the voice of the nation to the important position of Chief Magistrate of the Republic.

Early in September it had been ascertained that a sufficient number of states had ratified the National Constitution, to make it the organic law of the land, and on the 13th, Congress passed an act, appointing the first Wednesday in January, 1789, for the people to choose electors of a President, according to the provisions of that constitution; the first Wednesday in February following for the electors to meet and make a choice; and the first Wednesday in March for the new government to be organized in the city of New York.

The hearts of all were now turned toward Washington as the man to whom the helm of state should be given, and his friends, well knowing his reluctance to re-enter public life, commenced writing persuasive letters to him. To all of them he expressed sentiments such as he wrote to Lafayette, when he said of the proffered office-"It has no fascinating allurement for me. At my time of life and under my circumstances, the increasing infirmities of nature and the growing love of retirement do not permit me to entertain a wish beyond that of living and dying an honest man on my own farm. Let those follow the pursuits of ambition and fame who have a keener relish for them, or who may have more years in store for the enjoyment of them."

The election was held at the appointed time, and Washington was chosen President of the United States for four years from the 4th of March ensuing. He now again yielded his own wishes to the claims of his country, and prepared to leave his beloved home. Meanwhile, office-seekers were sending him letters by scores, and sometimes they came in person to solicit favor for themselves or friends. He had already expressed his fixed determination to enter upon the duties of his office "not