rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms."

Unhappily, the last two lines of this beautiful stanza no longer
appropriately describe the quiet and peaceful condition of these then
harmless arms,--one hundred and fifty thousand of them having been
literally stolen from this arsenal by Floyd during the last year of his
secretaryship at Washington, and sent South in anticipation and
furtherance of the Rebellion, and the remainder issued to the loyal
troops raised for the defence of the Union. Thus these grim messengers
of death, of whom the poet so sweetly sings, have forced

"The cries of agony, the endless groan,"

from Northern and Southern warriors alike, and rung the

"loud lament and dismal Miserere"

within the homes of every part of our once happy and peaceful land.

The arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of the
burnished arms within, in the magnificent panorama of the surrounding
country seen from the summit of the tower. This tower, which occupies
the middle of the front of the building, is about ninety feet high by
thirty square, affording space upon the top for a large party of
visitors. Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the view
presented from this point during the spring and summer months. At your
feet are the beautiful armory-grounds, mingling with the treeskirted
streets of the city; while beyond, the broad and luxuriant valley of the
Connecticut is spread out to view, with its numerous villages, fields,
groves, bridges, and railways, and the whole landscape framed by blue
mountain-ranges, among which Mounts Tom and Holyoke rise in towering
majesty.

The arsenal is used for the storage of the muskets during the interval
that elapses from the finishing of them to the time when they are sent
away to the various permanent arsenals established by Government in
different parts of the country, or issued to the troops. This edifice
was constructed about a dozen years ago, and has, until recently, been
designated as the new arsenal, there being two or three other buildings
which were formerly used for the storage of finished muskets, called the
old arsenals, but which, since the Rebellion, have been relieved of
their contents and supplied with machinery for the manufacture of arms.
A portion of the new arsenal is now used for finishing barrels and
assembling muskets, and other parts for