which, the succeeding numbers of this
exquisite miscellany may be early
given to the English public; who, we
are sure, are, at least, as much inclin-
ed to receive them well as the Ameri-
can. Mr Washington Irving is one
of our first favourites among the Eng-
lish writers of this age-and he is not
a bit the less for having been born in
America. He is not one of those
Americans who practise, what may be
called, a treason of the heart, in per-
petual scoffs and sneers against the
land of their forefathers. He well
knows that his "thews and sinews"
are not all, for which he is indebted
to his English ancestry. All the
noblest food of his heart and soul have
been derived to him, he well knows,
from the same fountain-and he is as
grateful for his obligations as he is
conscious of their magnitude. His
writings all breathe the sentiment so
beautifully expressed in one of Mr
Coleridge's Sybilline Leaves.t
Though ages long have past

Since our fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,

O'er untravell❜d seas to roam.
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins ;
And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame,
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?

While the language free and bold
Which the bard of Avon sung,
In which our Milton told

How the vault of heaven rung
When Satan, blasted, fell with all his host;
While these with reverence meet,
Ten thousand echoes greet,
And from rock to rock repeat

Round our coast.

While the manners, while the arts

That mould a nation's soul,

Still cling around our hearts,

Between let ocean roll,

tion. But had he never expressed one sentiment favourable to us or to our country, we should still have been compelled to confess that we regard him as by far the greatest genius that has arisen on the literary horizon of the new world. The Sketch Book has already proved, to our readers, that he possesses exquisite powers of pathos and description; but we recur, with pleasure, to this much earlier publication, of which, we suspect, but a few copies have ever crossed the Atlantic, to shew that we did right when we ascribed to him, in a former paper, the possession of a true old English vein of humour and satire of keen and lively wit-and of great knowledge and discrimination of human nature.

The whole book is a jeu-d'esprit, and, perhaps, its only fault is, that no jeu-d'esprit ought to be quite so long as to fill two closely printed vo lumes. Under the mask of an historian of his native city, he has embodied, very successfully, the results of his own early observation in regard to the formation and constitution of several regular divisions of American society; and in this point of view his work will preserve its character of value, long after the lapse of time shall have blunted the edge of these personal allusions which, no doubt, contributed most powerfully to its popularity over the water. New York, our readers know, or ought to know, was originally a Dutch new settlement, by the style and title of New Amsterdam, and it was not till after it had witnessed the successive reigns of seven generations of brigbreeched deputies of their high mightinesses that the infant city was trans

sun;

Yet still from either beach,

The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,
"WE ARE ONE."

The great superiority, over too many of his countrymen, evinced by Mr Irving on every occasion, when he speaks of the manners, the spirit, the faith of England, has, without doubt, done much to gain for him our affec

consequence of a pretty liberal grant by Charles II. to his brother the Duke of York, and the visit of a few English vessels sent to give some efficacy to this grant, in partibus infidelium. Diedrich Knickerbocker, the imaginary Dutch Herodotus of this city, of course, considers its occupation by the English forces as the termination of its political existence, and disdains to employ the same pen that had cele

C. N.

brated the achievements of Peter the Headstrong, William the Testy, and the other governors of the legitimate Batavian breed, in recording any of the acts of their usurping successors, holding authority under the sign manual of Great Britain. To atone, however, for the hasty conclusion of his history, he makes its commencement as long and minute as could be desired-not beginning, as might be expected, with the first landing of a burgo-master on the shores of the Hudson, but plunging back into the utmost night of ages, and favouring us with a regular deducement of the Batavian line through all the varieties of place and fortune that are recorded between the creation of Adam, and the sailing of the good ship Goode Vrouw for the shore of Communipaw. The description of the imaginary historian himself has always appeared to us to be one of the best things in the whole book, so we shall begin with quoting it. We are not sure that it yields to the far-famed introduction of Chrysal. Our readers are to know that Mr Deidrich Knickerbocker composed his immortal work in the Independent Columbian Hotel, New York-and that having mysteriously disappeared from his lodgings, without saying any thing to the landlord, Mr Seth Handyside, the publican, thought of publishing his MSS. by way of having his score cleared. The program of Mr Handyside contains such a fine sketch of a veritable Dutch portrait, that we cannot help wishing it had

been twice as full as it is.

"It was sometime, if I recollect right, in the early part of the fall of 1808, that a stranger applied for lodgings at the Independent Columbian Hotel in MulberryStreet, of which I am landlord. He was a small, brisk looking old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few grey hairs plaited and clubbed behind, and his beard seemed to be of some eight and forty hours growth. The only piece of finery which he bore about him, was a bright pair of square silver shoe buckles; and all his baggage was contained in a pair of saddle bags, which he carried under his arm. His whole appearance was something out of the common run; and my wife, who is a very shrewd body, at once set him down for some eminent country schoolmaster.

"As the Independent Columbian Hotel is a very small house, I was a little puzzled at

first where to put him; but my wife, who seemed taken with his looks, would needs put him in her best chamber, which is genteelly set off with the profiles of the whole family, done in black, by those two great painters, Jarvis and Wood; and commands a very pleasant view of the new grounds on the Collect, together with the rear of the Poor-House and Bridewell, and the full front of the Hospital; so that it is the cheerfullest room in the whole house.

"During the whole time that he stayed with us, we found him a very worthy good sort of an old gentleman, though a little room for days together, and if any of the queer in his ways. He would keep in his children cried, or made a noise about his door, he would bounce out in a great passion, with his hands full of papers, and say something about deranging his ideas; which made my wife believe sometimes that he was not altogether compos. Indeed there was more than one reason to make her think so, for his room was always cov ered with scraps of paper and old mouldy books, laying about at sixes and sevens, which he would never let any body touch; for he said he had laid them all away in their proper places, so that he might know where to find them; though for that mat ter, he was half his time worrying about the house in search of some book or writing which he had carefully put out of the way. I shall never forget what a pother he once made, because my wife cleaned out his room when his back was turned, and put every thing to rights; for he swore he would never be able to get his papers in order again in a twelvemonth. Upon this my wife ventured to ask him, what he did with so many books and papers? and he told her, that he was seeking for immortality; which made her think more than ever, that the poor old gentleman's head

was a little cracked.

6

"He was a very inquisitive body, and when not in his room was continually poking about town, hearing all the news, and prying into every thing that was going on; this was particularly the case about election time, when he did nothing but bustle about from poll to poll, attending all ward meetings and committee rooms; though I could never find that he took part with either side of the question. On the contrary, he would come home and rail at both parties with great wrath-and plainly proved one day, to the satisfaction of my wife and three old ladies who were drinking tea with her, that the two parties were like two rogues, each tugging at a skirt of the nation; and that in the end they would tear the very coat off its back, and expose its nakedness. Indeed he was an oracle among the neighbours, who would collect around him to hear him talk of an afternoon, as he smoaked his pipe on the bench before the door; and I really believe he would have brought over the whole neighbourhood to his own side of

the question, if they could ever have found out what it was.

"He was very much given to argue, or, as he called it, philosophize, about the most trifling matter, and to do him justice, I never knew any body that was a match for him, except it was a grave looking gentleman who called now and then to see him, and often posed him in an argument. But this is nothing surprising, as I have since found out this stranger is the city librarian; and, of course, must be a man of great learning; and I have my doubts, if he had not some hand in the following history.

"As our lodger had been a long time with us, and we had never received any pay, my wife began to be somewhat uneasy, and curious to find out who and what he was. She accordingly made bold to put the question to his friend, the librarian, who replied in his dry way, that he was one of the Literati; which she supposed to mean some new party in politics. I scorn to push a lodger for his pay, so I let day after day pass on without dunning the old gentleman for a farthing; but my wife, who always takes these matters on herself, and is, as I said, a shrewd kind of a woman, at last got out of patience, and hinted, that she thought it high time some people should have a sight of some people's money.' To which the old gentleman replied, in a mighty touchy manner, that she need not make herself uneasy, for that he had a treasure there, (pointing to his saddle-bags,) worth her whole house put together. This was the only answer we could ever get from him; and as my wife, by some of those odd ways in which women find out every thing, learnt that he was of very great connexions, being related to the Knickerbockers of Scaghtikoke, and cousin-german to the Congress-man of that name, she did not like to treat him uncivilly. What is more, she even offered, merely by way of making things easy, to let him live scotfree, if he would teach the children their letters; and to try her best and get the neighbours to send their children also; but the old gentleman took it in such dudgeon, and seemed so affronted at being taken for a schoolmaster, that she never dared speak on the subject again.

"About two months ago, he went out of a morning, with a bundle in his hand-and has never been heard of since. All kinds of inquiries were made after him, but in vain. I wrote to his relations at Scaghtikoke, but they sent for answer, that he had not been there since the year before last, when he had a great dispute with the Congress-man about politics, and left the place in a huff, and they had neither heard nor seen any thing of him from that time to this. I must own I felt very much worried about the poor old gentleman, for I thought something bad must have happened to him, that he should be missing so long, and never return to pay his bill. I thereVOL. VII.

fore advertised him in the newspapers, and though my melancholy advertisement was published by several humane printers, yet I have never been able to learn any thing satisfactory about him.

"My wife now said it was high time to take care of ourselves, and see if he had left any thing behind in his room, that would pay us for his board and lodging. We found nothing, however, but some old books and musty writings, and his pair of saddle bags; which, being opened in the presence of the librarian, contained only a few articles of worn out clothes, and a large bundle of blotted paper. On looking over this, the librarian told us, he had no doubt it was the treasure which the old gentleman had spoke about; as it proved to be a most excellent and faithful HISTORY OF NEWYORK, which he advised us by all means to publish; assuring us that it would be so eagerly bought up by a discerning public, that he had no doubt it would be enough to pay our arrears ten times over. Upon this we got a very learned schoolmaster, who teaches our children, to prepare it for the press, which he accordingly has done; and has, moreover, added to it a number of notes of his own; and an engraving of the city, as it was at the time Mr Knickerbocker writes about.

"This, therefore, is a true statement of my reasons for having this work printed, without waiting for the consent of the author; and I here declare, that if he ever returns, (though I much fear some unhappy accident has befallen him,) I stand ready to account with him like a true and honest Which is all at present

man.

From the public's humble servant, SETH HANDYSIDE." Passing over all the details of the first settlement, on the site of the beautiful city of New Amsterdam, we shall make bold to introduce our readers at once into the following graphic and, we doubt not, correct account of the mode of living practised among the inhabitants of this yet unsophisticated colony. Any body that looks upon a Dutchman on his own paternal shore, with his ten pairs of breeches, his big wig, his pipe, and his solid mass of cheek and chin, might primâ facie conclude, that of all human beings he must be the least liable to sudden changes of habit, costume, or customs. Under the burning sun of Java, the enormous Exotic swelters in the same old mass of flannel that had wrapped his infant limbs from the damp breezes of his Beneath the ronative Zuyderzee. mantic moonlight of The Cape, he sits unmoved-with the same charcoal pot smoking between his legs, and the 27