delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses, tending pigs-with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot, from a huge copper tea kettle, which would have mide the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup-and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly over the tea table, by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from inouth to mouth-an ingenious expedient, which is still kept up by some families in Albany; but which prevails without exception in Communipaw, Bergen, Flat-Bush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages. 'At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deport ment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting-no gambling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones-no self satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets-nor amusing conceits, and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rushbottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say yah Mynher, or yah ya Vrouw, to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things, like decent, well educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seem ed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles, with which the fire places were decorated; wherein sundry passages of scripture were piously pourtrayed-Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet, and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out of the whale, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire. The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy, as could afford to keep a waggon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door: which as it was an established piece of etiquette, done in perfect simplicity and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that time, nor should it at the present-if our great grandfathers approved of the custom, it would argue a great want of reverence in their descendants to say a word against it." The dress of these primitive worthies next engages the attention of the historian. Their hair untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously pomatomed back from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly to their heads. Their petticoats of linsey woolsey were striped with a variety of gorgeous dyes, rivalling the many coloured robes of Iris-though I must confess these gallant garments were rather short, scarce reaching below the knee; but then they made up in the number, which generally equalled that of the gentlemen's small clothes; and what is still more praise-worthy, they were all of their own manufacture-of which circumstance, as may well be supposed, they were not a little vain. These were the honest days,in which every woman staid at home, read the Bible, and wore pockets-aye and that too of a goodly size, fashioned with patch work into many curious devices, and ostentatiously worn on the outside. These, in fact, were convenient receptacles, where all good house-wives carefully stored away such things as they wished to have at hand; by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed-and I remember there was a story current when I was a boy, that the lady of Wouter Van Twiller once had occasion to empty her right pocket in search of a wooden ladle, and the uten sil was discovered lying among some rubbish in one corner-but we must not give too much faith to all these stories; the anecdotes of these remote periods being very subject to exaggeration. 'Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissars and pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribbands, or, among the more opulent and showy classes, by brass, and even silver chains-indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats; it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted with magnificent red clocks or perhaps to display a well turned ankle, and a neat, though serviceable foot; set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe, with a large and splendid silver buckle. Thus we find, that the gentle sex in all ages, have shown the same disposition to infringe a little upon the laws of decorum, in order to betray a lurking beauty, or gratify an innocent love of finery. From the sketch here given, it will be seen, that our good grandmothers differed considerably in their ideas of a fine figure, from their scantily dressed descendants of the present day. A fine lady in those times, waddled under more clothes even on a fair summer's day than would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball room. Nor were they the less admired by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary, the greatness of a lover's passion seemed to increase in proportion to the magnitude of its object—and a voluminous damsel, arrayed in a dozen of petticoats, was declared by a lowdutch sonnetteer of the province, to be radiant as a sunflower, and luxuriant as a full blown cabbage. Certain it is, that in those days, the heart of a lover could not contain more than one lady at a time whereas the heart of a modern gallant has often room enough to accommodate half a dozen-The reason of which I conclude to be, that either the hearts of the gentlemen have grown 3M ATHENEUM VOL. 7. larger, or the persons of the ladies smaller-this, however, is a question for physiologists to determine. But there was a secret charm in these petticoats, which no doubt entered into the consideration of the prudent gallants. The wardrobe of a lady was in those days her only fortune; and she who had a good stock of petticoats and stockings, was as absolutely an heiress as is a Kamtschatka damsel with a store of bear skins, or a Lapland belle with a plenty of rein deer. The ladies, therefore, were very anxious to display these powerful attractions to the greatest advantage; and the best rooms in the house instead of being adorned with caricatures of dame nature,in water colours and needle work, were always hung round with abundance of homespun garments; the manufacture and the property of the females-a piece of laudable ostentation that still prevails among the heiresses of our Dutch villages. Such were the beauteous belles of the ancient city of New Amsterdam, rivalling in primeval simplicity of manners, the renowed and courtly dames, so loftily sung by Dan Homer-who tells us that the princess Nausica washed the family linen, and the fair Penelope wove her own petticoats. The gentlemen, in fact, who figured in the circles of the gay world in these ancient times, corresponded, in most particulars, with the beauteous damsels whose smiles they were ambitious to deserve. True it is, their merits would make but a very inconsiderable impression, upon the heart of a modern fair; they neither drove their curricles nor sported their tandems, for as yet those gaudy vehicles were not even dreamt of neither did they distinguish themselves by their brilliancy at the table, and their consequent rencontres with watchmen, for our forefathers were of too pacific a disposition to need those guardians of the night, every soul throughout the town being in full snore before.nine o'clock. Neither did they establish their claims to gentility at the expense of their taylors-for as yet those offenders against the pockets of society, and the tranquillity of all aspir ing young gentlemen, were unknown in New-Amsterdam; every good housewife made the clothes of her husband and family, and even the goede vrouw of Van Twiller himself, thought it no disparagement to cut out her husband's linsey woolsey galligaskins. Not but what there were some two or three youngsters who manifested the first dawnings of what was called fire and spirit. Who held all labour in contempt; skulked about docks and market places; loitered in the sunshine; squandered what little money they could procure at hustle cap and chuck farthing, swore, boxed, fought cocks, and raced their neighbours' horses-in short, who promised to be the wonder, the talk and abomination of the town, had not their stylish career been unfortunately cut short, by an affair of honour with a whipping post. Far other, however, was the truly fashionable gentleman of those days his dress, which served for both morning and evening, street and drawing room, was a linsey woolsey coat, made, perhaps, by the fair hands of the mistress of his affections, and gallantly be decked with abundance of large brass buttons.--Half a score of breeches heightened the proportions of his figure-his shoes were decorated by enormous copper buckles a low crowned broad brimmed hat overshadowed his burley visage, and his hair dangled down his back in a prodigious queue of eel skin, Thus equipped, he would manfully sally forth with pipe in mouth to besiege some fair damsel's obdurate heart-not such a pipe, good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in praise of his Galatea, but one of true delft manufacture, and furnished with a charge of fragrant Cow-pen tobacco. With this would be resolutely set himself down before the fortress, and rarely failed, in the process of time, to smoke the fair enemy into a surrender, upon honourable terms. 'Such was the happy reign of Wouter Van Twiller, celebrated in many a long forgotten song as the real golden age, the rest being nothing but counter feit copper-washed coin. In that de lightful period, a sweet and holy calm reigned over the whole province. The burgomaster smoked his pipe in peace -the substantial solace of his domestic cares, after her daily toils were done, sat soberly at the door, with her arms crossed over her apron of snowy white, without being insulted by ribald street walkers or vagabond boys-those unlucky urchins, who do so infest our streets, displaying under the roses of youth, the thorns and briars of iniquity. Then it was that the lover with ten breeches, and the damsel with petticoats of half a score indulged in all the innocent endearments of virtuous love, without reproach-for what had that virtue to fear, which was defended by a shield of good linsey woolseys, equal at least to the seven bull hides of the invincible Ajax. Ah blissful,and never to be forgotten age! when every thing was better than it has ever been since, or ever will be again-when Buttermilk channel was quite dry at low water when the shad in the Hudson were all salmon, and when the moon shone with a pure and resplendent whiteness, instead of that melancholy yellow light which is the consequence of her sickening at the abominations she every night witnesses in this degenerate city!' Behold the form of one of the primitive rulers of this primitive race-the great Willhelmus Kieft, commonly called William the Testy, who ascended the Gubernatorial chair of New Amsterdam anno domini 1638. 'He was a brisk, waspish, little old gentleman, who had dried and withered away, partly through the natural process of years, and partly from being parched and burnt up by his fiery soul; which blazed like a vehement rush light in his bosom, constantly inciting him to most valorous broils, altercations and misadventures. I have heard it observed by a profound and philosophical judge of human nature, that if a woman waxes fat as she grows old, the tenure of her life is very precarious, but if haply she withers, she lives for ever→→→ such likewise was the case with Wil liam the Testy, who grew tougher in proportion as he dried. He was some such a little Dutchman as we may now and then see, stumping briskly about the streets of our city, in a broad skirted coat, with buttons nearly as large as the shield of Ajax, an old fashioned cocked hat stuck on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. His visage was broad, but his features sharp, his nose turned up with a most petulant curl; his cheeks, like the regions of Terra del Feugo, were scorched into a dusky red-doubtless in consequence of the neighbourhood of two fierce little grey eyes, through which his torrid soul beamed as fervently, as a tropical sun blazing through a pair of burning glasses. The corners of his mouth were curiously modelled into a kind of fret work, not a little resembling the wrinkled proboscis of an irritable pug dog-in a word he was one of the most positive, restless, ugly, little men, that ever put himself in a passion about nothing. Such were the personal endowments of William the Testy, but it was the sterling riches of his mind that raised him to dignity and power. In his youth he had passed with great credit through a celebrated academy at the Hague, noted for producing finished scholars with a dispatch unequalled, except by certain of our American colleges, which seem to manufacture bachelors of arts, by some patent machine. Here he skirmished very smartly on the frontiers of several of the sciences, and made so gallant an inroad in the dead languages, as to bring off captive a host of Greek nouns and Latin verbs, together with divers pithy saws and apothegms, all which he constantly paraded in conversation and writing, with as much vain glory as would a triumphant general of yore display the spoils of the countries he had ravaged.' We cannot, at present, venture upon any more extracts and yet we have done nothing to give our readers a due notion of what Knickerbocker's book contains. We shall return to the volumes again, for we suppose we may consider them as in regard to almost all that read this Magazine, "as good as manuscript." Enough, however, has been quoted to shew of what sort of stuff Mr. Irving's comic pencil is composed-and enough to make all our readers go along with a request which we have long meditated, viz. that this author would favour us with a series of novels, on the plan of those of Miss Edgeworth, or, if he likes that better, of the author of Waverley, illustrative of the present state of Manners in the United States of America. When we think, for a moment, on the variety of elements whereof that society is every where composed the picturesque mixtures of manners derived from German, Dutch, English, Scottish, Swedish, Gothic, and Celtic settlers, which must be observable in almost every town in the republican territories-the immense interfusion of different ranks of society from all these quarters, and their endless varieties of action upon each other-the fermentation that must every where prevail among these yet unsettled and unarran ged atoms-above all, on the singularities inseparable from the condition of the only half-young, half-old people in the world-simply as such--we cannot doubt that could a Smollet, a Fielding, or a Le Sage have seen America as she is, he would at once have abandoned every other field, and blessed himself on having obtained access to the true terra fortunata of the novelist. Happily for Mr. Irving that terra fortunata is also to this hour a terra incognita; for in spite of the shoals of bad books of travels that have inundated us from time to time, no European reader has ever had the smallest opportunity of being introduced to any thing like one vivid portraiture of American life. Mr. Irving has, as every good man must have, a strong affection for his country; and he is, therefore, fitted to draw her character con amore as well as con gentilezza. The largeness of his views, in regard to politics, will secure him from staining his pages with vey repulsive air of bigotry-and the humane and liberal nature of his opin ions in regard to subjects of a still higher order, will equally secure him from still more offensive errors. To frame the plots of twenty novels can be no very heavy task to the person who wrote the passages we have quoted above--and to fill them up with characteristic details of incidents and manners, would be nothing but an amusement to him. He has sufficiently tried and shewn his strength in sketches-it is time that we should look for full and glowing pictures at his hands. Let him not be discouraged by the common place cant about the impossibility of good novels being written by young men. Smollet wrote Roderick Random before he was five and twenty, and assuredly he had not seen half so much of the world as Mr. Irving has done. We hope that we are mistaken in this point --but it strikes us that he writes of late, in a less merry mood than in the days of Knickerbocker and the Salmagundi. If the possession of intellectual power and resources ought to make any man happy, that man is Washington Irving; and people may talk as they please about the "inspiration of melancholy," but it is our firm belief that no man ever wrote any thing greatly worth the writing unless under the influence of buoy ant spirits. "A cheerful mind is what the muses love," says the author of Ruth and Michael, and the Brothers; and in the teeth of all asseverations to the contrary, we take leave to believe that my Lord Byron was never in higher glee than when composing the darkest soliloquies of his Childe Harold. The capacity of achieving immortality, when called into vivid consciousness by the very act of composition and passion of inspiration, must be enough, we should think, to make any man happy. Under such influences he may, for a time, we doubt not, be deaf even to the voice of self-reproach, and hardened against the memory of guilt. The amiable and accomplished Mr. Irving has no evil thoughts or stinging recollections to By from-but it is very possible that be may have been indulging in a cast of melancholy, capable of damping the wing even of his genius. That, like every other demon, must be wrestled with, in order to its being overcome. And if he will set boldly about An American Tale, in three volumes, duodecimo, we think there is no rashness in promising him an easy, a speedy, and a glorious victory. Perhaps all this may look very like impertinence, but Mr. Irving will excuse us, for it is, at least, well meant. THE HERMIT'S SKETCHES. From the New Monthly Magazine. HESE delightful sketches of English manners have a mystery about them which we cannot penetrate even by guesses. The most cursory reader will enquire with eager curiosity by whom they are written. He must have been a votary at once of gaiety and of letters-conversant with all the varieties of society, from its lowest to the most exalted ranks—a trifler and a philosopher-a man of fashion, and a lover of the romantic. He is at home alike in town and in country-at Edinburgh and at London-and hits off with equal felicity the enticements of a backney coachman essaying to procure passengers, and the matrimonial schemes of an accomplished dowager. No one can doubt for a moment that he has long been familiar with the highest and most glittering circles, which he describes with an ease so graceful, and satirizes with a humour so genial and free from gall. Yet it is equally evident that his study of the gayest ranks has not injured his sympathies for those sorrows which are the common lot of his species, or for those errors which destroy the happiness which nature offers. Light and airy, as most of his delineations are, there is more of real heart in them than in many works professedly sentimental: and he often makes us feel seriously and intensely, |