Page:Lamb - History of the city of New York - Volume 3.djvu/24

354 was an exiled wanderer from the land of his birth. Her sister, Mrs. John Watts, resided in Broadway; and during the first session of the first Congress entertained Senator Izard and his family in the spacious Watts mansion. While Mrs. Izard was in London her portrait was painted by Gainsborough. One of Copley’s finest pictures represents both Mr. and Mrs. Izard in a Roman palace, with a window in the background looking out on one of the most interesting parts of the Eternal City.

Washington’s note-book affords further bewitching glimpses of the inner life of the city at this period. On the 10th of December Mrs. Rufus King, Colonel and Lady Kitty Duer, Senator and Mrs. William Few, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, Miss Brown, Oliver and Mrs. Wolcott, Cyrus Griffin, former President of Congress, and Lady Christiana and daughter were guests at the President’s table. On the 12th he "exercised with Mrs. Washington and the children in the coach between breakfast and dinner — went the fourteen miles round.” On the 14th, "walked round the Battery in the afternoon.” On the 16th, “dined with Mrs. Washington at Governor Clinton’s, in company with the Vice-President and Mrs. Adams, Colonel and Mrs. Smith, Mayor Richard Varick (recently elected) and wife, and the Dutch Minister, Van Berckel, who had just returned from Europe with his daughter. It would seem that the President’s family rarely dined alone. On the 17th the company consisted of Chief Justice and Mrs. Jay, Senator Rufus King, Colonel and Mrs. Lawrence, Egbert Benson, Bishop Provost, Rev. Dr. Linn and his wife, and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry. On Christmas, which was Friday, the following entry is characteristic of the great man who penned the lines: “Went to St. Paul’s Chapel in the forenoon. The visitors to Mrs. Washington this afternoon were not numerous, but respectable.” On Saturday, the 26th, the President mentions exercise on horseback, and tells us that Chief Justice Morris, Mayor Varick, and their ladies. Judge Hobart, Colonel Cole, Major Gilman, Miss Brown, Secretary Samuel A. Otis of the Senate, and Mr. Beekley dined with him. On the Tuesday following he records a storm, and “not a single person appearing at his levee.” On the last day of the outgoing year his dinner-table was enlivened by the Vice President and Mrs. Adams, Colonel and Mrs. Smith, Chancellor and Mrs. Livingston, and Miss Livingston, one of the Chancellor’s sisters, Baron Steuben, Elbridge Gerry, George Partridge, Thomas Tudor Tucker, and Alexander White from North Carolina.

New Year’s day brought a cessation of all kinds of labor. During the early morning hours the streets were pervaded with a Sabbath stillness. But as the day waned handsome equipages laden with gentlemen in the showy costume of the day moved rapidly from