These, say I to myself, are but frail memorials of the mighty
men who flourished in the days of the patriarchs; but who,
alas, have long since mouldered in that tomb towards which my
steps are insensibly and irresistibly hastening! As I pace the
darkened chamber, and lose myself in melancholy musings,
the shadowy images around me almost seem to steal once more
into existence -- their countenances to assume the animation of
life -- their eyes to pursue me in every movement! Carried
away by the delusions of fancy, I almost imagine myself sur-
rounded by the shades of the departed, and holding sweet con-
verse with the worthies of antiquity! Ah, hapless Diedrich!
born in a degenerate age, abandoned to the buffetings of for-
tune -- a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native land -- blest
with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children; but
doomed to wander neglected through those crowded streets,
and elbowed by foreign upstarts from these fair abodes where
once thine ancestors held sovereign empire!

Let me not, however, lose the historian in the man, nor
suffer the doting recollections of age to overcome me, while
dwelling with fond garrulity on the virtuous days of the patri-
archs -- on those sweet days of simplicity and ease, which never
more will dawn on the lovely island of Manna-hata!

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was de-
scended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had
successively dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the
bench of magistracy in Rotterdam: and who had comported
themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that
they were never either heard or talked of -- which, next to be-
ing universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of
all sage magistrates and rulers.

The surname of Twiller is said to be a corruption of the
original Twijfler, which in English means doubter; a name
admirably descriptive of his deliberative habits. For, though
he was a man shut up within himself like an oyster, and of
such a profoundly reflective turn, that he scarcely ever spoke
except in monosyllables, yet did he never make up his mind
on any doubtful point. This was clearly accounted for by his
adherents, who affirmed that he always conceived every ob-
ject on so comprehensive a scale, that he had not room in his
head to turn it over and examine both sides of it, so that he
always remained in doubt, merely in consequence of the aston-
ishing magnitude of his ideas!

There are two opposite ways by which some men get into no

-94-