PILGRIM HALL.
Pursuing your way along Court Street, you will first reach Pilgrim Hall, a structure of rough granite, in the style of a Greek temple, the prevailing taste in New England fifty years ago for all public and even for private buildings. Within are collected many souvenirs of the Pilgrims, and of the tribes inhabiting the Old Colony. Lying in the grass-plot before the hall is a fragment of Forefathers' Rock, surrounded by a circular iron fence, and labeled in figures occupying the larger part of its surface, with the date of 1620. In this place it became nothing but a vulgar stone. I did not feel my pulses at all quickened on beholding it.
BREWSTER'S CHEST, AND STANDISH'S POT.
One end of the hall is occupied by the well-known painting of the "Landing of the Pilgrims," by Sargent. To heighten the effect, the artist has introduced an Indian in the foreground, an historic anachronism. A tall, soldierly figure is designated as Miles Standish, who is reported as being short, and scarce manly in appearance. The canvas is of large size, and the grouping does not lack merit, but its interest is made to depend on the figures of Governor Carver and of Samoset, in the foreground—both larger than life. We do not recognize, in the crouching attitude of the Indian, the erect and dauntless Samoset portrayed by Mourt, Bradford, and Winslow. This painting, which must have cost the artist great labor, was generously presented to the Pilgrim Society. I have seen a painting of the "Landing" in which a boat is represented approaching the shore, filled with soldiers in red coats.[171] The late Professor Morse also made it the subject of his pencil.
