to apply the torch. The scene is an imaginary one; the tale is a piece of romance. It is the sort of historical fiction that Lamartine delighted to invent to add dramatic interest to events.
It is unnecessary to resort to imagination to make a vivid picture of the sacking of Washington. By the glare of the burning Capitol the red-coats marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's house. The Palace, as the Federalists called it, was not palatial. The portico had not been built; what was to be the garden was a field of rocks and tree stumps; the interior of the house was crude, and the East Room, since associated with great historical events, had, since the time of Mrs. Adams, been given over to the uses of the laundry.
A second fiction connected with the British raid is that they found a great dinner spread on the President's table and in much glee and derision sat down to devour it. That tale, like the fable of the mock session at the Capitol, was given to a London paper by a merry midshipman.
At midnight a violent thunder-storm checked the four conflagrations. The next day the British renewed the devastation, adding to the
