NEW YORK.                                 177
 

CHAPTER III.
 

^
 

How the town of JYew-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 no¬
thing but bloody battles, and horrible encounters;
they must be continually storming forts, sacking
cities, springing mines, marching up to the muz¬
zles of cannon, charging bayonet through every
page, and revelling in gun-powder and carnage.
Others, who are of a less martial, but equally ar¬
dent imagination, and who, withal, are a little
given to the marvellous, will dwell with wonder-
ous satisfaction on descriptions of prodigies, un¬
heard of events, hair-breadth escapes, hardy ad'
ventures, and all those astonishing narrations, that
just amble along the boundary line of possibility.—