it conveys a certain assurance of profitable marketing.

The modern spectator, who wanders through the streets of this populous city, can scarcely form an idea of the different appearance they presented in the primitive days of the Doubter. The busy hum of multitudes, the shouts of revelry, the rumbling equipages of fashion, the rattling of accursed carts, and all the spirit grieving sounds of brawling commerce, were unknown in the settlement of NewAmsterdam. The grass grew quietly in the high ways the bleating sheep and frolicsome calves sported about the verdant ridge, where now the Broadway loungers take their morning stroll--the cunning fox or ravenous wolf skulked in the woods, where now are to be seen the dens of Gomez and his righteous fraternity of money brokers--and flocks of vociferous geese cackled about the fields, where now the great Tammany wigwam and the patrotic tavern of Martling echo with the wranglings of the mob.

In these good times did a true and enviable equality of rank and property prevail, equally removed from the arrogance of wealth, and the servility and heartburnings of repining poverty-and what in my mind is still more conducive to tranquillity and harmony among friends, a happy equality of intellect was likewise to be seen. The minds of the good burghers of New-Amsterdam seemed all to have been cast in one mould, and

to be those honest, blunt minds, which, like certain manufactures are made by the gross, and considered as exceedingly good for common use.

Thus it happens that your true dull minds are generally preferred for public employ, and especially promoted to city honours; your keen intellects, like rasors, being considered too sharp for common service. I know that it is common to rail at the unequal distribution of riches, as the great source of jealousies, broils and heartbreakings; whereas for my part, I verily believe it is the sad inequality of intellect that prevails, that embroils communities more than any thing else; and I have remarked that your knowing people who are so much wiser than any body else, are eternally keeping society in a ferment. Happily for New-Amsterdam nothing of the kind was known within its walls-the very words of learning, education, taste and talents were unheard of—a bright genius was an animal unknown, and a blue stocking lady would have been regarded with as much wonder as a horned frog or a fiery dragon. No man in fact seemed to know more than his neighbour, nor any man to know more than an honest man ought to know, who has nobody's business to mind but his own; the parson and the council clerk were the only men that could read in the community, and the sage Van Twiller always signed his name with a cross.

Thrice happy and ever to be envied little Burgh! existing in all the security of harmless insignificance-unnoticed and unenvied by the world, without ambition, without vain glory, without riches, without learning, and all their train of carking cares-and as of yore, in the better days of man, the deities were wont to visit him on earth and bless his rural habitations, so we are told, in the sylvan days of New-Amsterdam, the good St. Nicholas would often make his appearance, in his beloved city, of a holyday afternoon, riding jollily among the tree tops, or over the roofs of the houses, now and then drawing forth magnificent presents from his breeches pockets, and dropping them down the chimnies of his favourites. Whereas in these degenerate days of iron and brass he never shows us the light of his countenance, nor ever visits us, save one night in the year; when he rattles down the chimnies, of the descendants of the patriarchs, confining his presents merely to the children, in token of the degeneracy of the parents.

Such are the comfortable and thriving effects of a fat government. The province of the New-Netherlands, destitute of wealth, possessed a sweet tranquillity, that wealth could never purchase. There were neither public commotions, nor private quarrels; neither parties, nor sects, nor schisms; neither prosecutions, nor trials, nor punishments; nor were there counsellors, attornies, catch poles

or hangmen. Every man attended to what little business he was lucky enough to have, or neglected it if he pleased, without asking the opinion of his neighbour. In those days nobody meddled with concerns above his comprehension, nor thrust his nose into other peoples' affairs; nor neglected to correct his own conduct, and reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the characters of others but in a word, every respectable citizen eat when he was not hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, and went regular to bed, when the sun set, and the fowls went to roost, whether he were sleepy or not; all which tended so remarkably to the population of the settlement, that I am told every dutiful wife throughout New-Amsterdam, made a point of enriching her husband with at least one child a year, and very often a brace this superabundance of good things clearly constituting the true luxury of life, according to the favourite Dutch maxim, that " more than enough constitutes a feast." Every thing therefore went on exactly as it should do, and in the usual words employed by historians to express the welfare of a country, "the profoundest tranquillity and repose reigned throughout the province."

CHAPTER III.

How the town of New-Amsterdam arose out of mud, and came to be marvellously polished and polite-together with a picture of the manners of our great great grandfathers.

MANIFOLD are the tastes and dispositions of the enlightened literati, who turn over the pages of history. Some there be whose hearts are brim full of the yeast of courage, and whose bosoms do work, and swell, and foam, with untried valour, like a barrel of new cider, or a train-band captain, fresh from under the hands of his tailor. This doughty class of readers can be satisfied with nothing but bloody battles, and horrible encounters; they must be continually storming forts, sacking cities, springing mines, marching up to the muzzles of cannon, charging bayonet through every page, and revelling in gun-powder and carnage. Others, who are of a less martial, but equally ardent imagination, and who, withal, are a little given to the marvellous, will dwell with wonderous satisfaction on descriptions of prodigies, unheard of events, hair-breadth escapes, hardy adventures, and all those astonishing narrations, that just amble along the boundary line of possibility.