This was a kind of aquatic corps of observation, composed of long, sharp, canoe-shaped boats, technically called whale-boats, that lay lightly on the water, and could be rowed with great rapidity. They were manned by resolute fellows, skilled at pulling an oar, or handling a musket. These lurked about in nooks and bays, and behind those long promontories which run out into the Tappan Sea, keeping a look-out, to give notice of the approach or movements of hostile ships. They roved about in pairs; sometimes at night, with muffled oars, gliding like spectres about frigates and guard-ships riding at anchor, cutting off any boats that made for shore, and keeping the enemy in constant uneasiness. These musquito-cruisers generally kept aloof by day, so that their harboring places might not be discovered, but would pull quietly along, under shadow of the shore, at night, to take up their quarters at the Roost. Hither, at such time, would also repair the hard-riding lads of the hills, to hold secret councils of war with the ocean chivalry;' and in these nocturnal meetings were concerted many of those daring forays, by land and water, that resounded throughout the border.

THE chronicle here goes on to recount divers wonderful stories of the wars of the Roost, from which it would seem, that this little warrior nest carried the terror of its arms into every sea, from Spiting Devil Creek to Antony's Nose; that it even bearded the stout island of Manhattan, invading it at night, penetrating to its centre, and burning down the famous Delancy house, the conflagration of which makes such a blaze in revolutionary history. Nay more, in their extravagant daring, these cocks of the Roost meditated a nocturnal descent upon New-York itself, to swoop upon the British commanders, Howe and Clinton, by surprise, bear them off captive, and perhaps put a triumphant close to the war!

All these and many similar exploits are recorded by the worthy Diedrich, with his usual minuteness and enthusiasm, whenever the deeds in arms of his kindred Dutchmen are in question: but though most of these warlike stories rest upon the best of all authority, that of the warriors themselves, and though many of them are still current among the revolutionary patriarchs of this heroic neighborhood, yet I dare not expose them to the incredulity of a tamer and less chivalric age. Suffice it to say, the frequent gatherings at the Roost, and the hardy projects set on foot there, at length drew on it the fiery indignation of the enemy; and this was quickened by the conduct of the stout Jacob Van Tassel; with whose valorous achievements we resume the course of the chronicle.

THIS doughty Dutchman, continues the sage DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER, was not content with taking a share in all the magnanimous enterprises concocted at the Roost, but still continued his petty warfare along shore. A series of exploits at length raised his confidence in his prowess to such a height, that he began to think himself and his goose-gun a match for any thing. Unluckily, in the course of one of his prowlings, he descried a British transport aground, not far from shore, with her stern swung toward the land, within point

blank shot. The temptation was too great to be resisted; bang! as usual, went the great goose-gun, shivering the cabin windows, and driving all hands forward. Bang! bang! the shots were repeated. The reports brought several sharp shooters of the neighborhood to the spot; before the transport could bring a gun to bear, or land a boat, to take revenge, she was soundly peppered, and the coast evacuated. This was the last of Jacob's triumphs. He fared like some heroic spider, that has unwittingly ensnared a hornet, to his immortal glory, perhaps, but to the utter ruin of his web.

It was not long after this, during the absence of Jacob Van Tassel on one of his forays, and when no one was in garrison but his stouthearted spouse, his redoubtable sister, Nochie Van Wurmer, and a strapping negro wench, called Dinah, that an armed vessel came to anchor off the Roost, and a boat full of men pulled to shore. The garrison flew to arms, that is to say, to mops, broom-sticks, shovels, tongs, and all kinds of domestic weapons; for unluckily, the great piece of ordnance, the goose-gun, was absent with its owner. Above all, a vigorous defence was made with that most potent of female weapons, the tongue. Never did invaded hen-roost make a more vociferous outcry. It was all in vain. The house was sacked and plundered, fire was set to each corner, and in a few moments its blaze shed a baleful light far over the Tappan Sea. The invaders then pounced upon the blooming Laney Van Tassel, the beauty of the Roost, and endeavored to bear her off to the boat. But here was the real tug of war. The mother, the aunt, and the strapping negro wench, all flew to the rescue. The struggle continued down to the very water's edge; when a voice from the armed vessel at anchor, ordered the spoilers to let go their hold; they relinquished their prize, jumped into their boats, and pulled off, and the heroine of the Roost escaped with a mere rumpling of the feathers.

THE fear of tiring my readers, who may not take such an interest as myself in these heroic themes, induces me to close here my extracts from this precious chronicle of the venerable Diedrich. Suffice it briefly to say, that shortly after the catastrophe of the Roost, Jacob Van Tassel, in the course of one of his forays, fell into the hands of the British; was sent prisoner to New-York, and was detained in captivity for the greater part of the war. In the mean time, the Roost remained a melancholy ruin; its stone walls and brick chimneys alone standing, blackened by fire, and the resort of bats and owlets. It was not until the return of peace, when this belligerent neighborhood once more resumed its quiet agricultural pursuits, that the stout Jacob sought the scene of his triumphs and disasters; rebuilt the Roost, and reared again on high its glittering weather-cocks. Does any one want farther particulars of the fortunes of this eventful little pile? Let him go to the fountain-head, and drink deep of historic truth. Reader! the stout Jacob Van Tassel still lives, a venerable, gray-headed patriarch of the revolution, now in his ninetyfifth year! He sits by his fire-side, in the ancient city of the Manhattoes, and passes the long winter evening, surrounded by his children, and grand-children, and great-grand-children, all listening to his

tales of the border wars, and the heroic days of the Roost. His great goose-gun, too, is still in existence, having been preserved for many years in a hollow tree, and passed from hand to hand among the Dutch burghers, as a precious relique of the revolution. It is now actually in possession of a contemporary of the stout Jacob, one almost his equal in years, who treasures it up at his house in the Bowerie of New-Amsterdam, hard by the ancient rural retreat of the chivalric Peter Stuyvesant. I am not without hopes of one day seeing this formidable piece of ordnance restored to its proper station in the arsenal of the Roost.

the

Before closing this historic document, I cannot but advert to certain notions and traditions concerning the venerable pile in question. Old-time edifices are apt to gather odd fancies and superstitions about them, as they do moss and weather-stains; and this is in a neighborhood a little given to old-fashioned notions, and who look upon Roost as somewhat of a fated mansion. A lonely, rambling, downhill laue leads to it, overhung with trees, with a wild brook dashing along, and crossing and re-crossing it. This lane I found some of the good people of the neighborhood shy of treading at night; why, I could not for a long time ascertain; until I learned that one or two of the rovers of the Tappan Sea, shot by the stout Jacob during the war, had been buried hereabout, in unconsecrated ground.

Another local superstition is of a less gloomy kind, and one which I confess I am somewhat disposed to cherish. The Tappan Sea, in front of the Roost, is about three miles wide, bordered by a lofty line of waving and rocky hills. Often, in the still twilight of a summer evening, when the sea is like glass, with the opposite hills throwing their purple shadows half across it, a low sound is heard, as of the steady, vigorous pull of oars, far out in the middle of the stream, though not a boat is to be descried. This I should have been apt to ascribe to some boat rowed along under the shadows of the western shore, for sounds are conveyed to a great distance by water, at such quiet hours, and I can distinctly hear the baying of the watchdogs at night, from the farms on the sides of the opposite mountains. The ancient traditionists of the neighborhood, however, religiously ascribe these sounds to a judgment upon one Rumbout Van Dam, of Spiting Devil, who danced and drank late one Saturday night, at a Dutch quilting frolic, at Kakiat, and set off alone for home in his boat, on the verge of Sunday morning; swearing he would not land till he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him a month of Sundays. He was never seen afterward, but is often heard plying his oars across the Tappan Sea, a Flying Dutchman on a small scale, suited to the size of his cruizing-ground; being doomed to ply between Kakiat and Spiting Devil till the day of judgment, but never to reach the land. There is one room in the mansion, which almost overhangs the river, and is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a young lady who died of love and green apples. I have been awakened at night by the sound of oars and the tinkling of guitars beneath the window; and seeing a boat loitering in the moonlight, have been tempted to believe it the Flying Dutchman of Spiting Devil, and to try whether a silver bullet might not put an end to his unhappy cruisings; but, happening to recollect that there was a living young lady in the

haunted room, who might be terrified by the report of fire-arms, I have refrained from pulling trigger.

As to the enchanted fountain, said to have been gifted by the wizard sachem with supernatural powers, it still wells up at the foot of the bank, on the margin of the river, and goes by the name of the Indian spring; but I have my doubts as to its rejuvenating powers, for though I have drank oft and copiously of it, I cannot boast that I find myself growing younger.

GEOFFREY CRAYON.

STANZAS.

COME to my heart! though we long have been parted,
Pilgrims alone on life's shadowy slope;

Through the tears of the past a pure sunbeam has darted,
And prisms before us the rainbow of Hope.

Life, sunny and short, to the rainbow is given,
But a token we hail, as it fades in the sky;
Hope, finding our meeting the dawn of her heaven,
Is folding her plumes at the portal, to die.

I have tempted the sea; but its billowy mountain,

A terror to all, was no terror to me;

For the breast of the deep to my heart was a fountain,
Gushing with sweet recollections of thee.

When the wind from thy home swept the ocean's dominionɛ,

The wilder its fury, I welcomed it more;

For I knew that thy blessings were sown on its pinions,
And sooner I'd reap the rich harvest they bore.

But no longer I sigh for the turbulent billow,

Though music I found in the hurricane's breath;
For my heart has been lured to a tenderer pillow,

Where fain would I sleep, until wakened by death.
When pain chilled thy rest in the night time of sorrow,
And the cares of thy lonely heart lettered thy brow,
Whispered not Hope of a glorious morrow,

When the altar should witness and hallow our vow?

Yet we needed no tie of the altar to bind us,
And cold were the words of the holy man, then;
For already had GoD sealed the ties that entwined us,
And the covenant needed no sanction of men.
Oh! words mock the heart, in the transport of feeling;
When the senses are all with one ecstasy fraught;
E'en the heaven-born notes from a seraph's harp stealing,
Would mar, in such hours, the rapture of thought!

The sea lifts its brow with a crested commotion,
And chides the rough winds that awake its repose,
But the secrets enshrined in the soul of the ocean,
Its angriest murmurs can never disclose;
And thus, in the heart's lighter moods, we may hear it
Converse of the breathings that ripple its waves,
But who knoweth the ocean-like depths of the spirit,
Save the passions that rage or exult in its caves?

But thy breast will for aye give thy sympathies warning,
Of every emotion that quickens in mine;
And the star that so sweetly illumines our morning,
Will shine on our evening, and gild its decline.
Hand locked in hand, by love's watch-fire lighted,
We'll wander along, like our parents of yore;
Our pathway as brilliant as theirs was benighted;
They left Eden behind - but we have it before!
Camden, (S. C.,) 1839.

B. W. HUNTINGTON.

THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING.

FROM THE GERMAN OF ZSCHOKKE.

'We shall certainly be very happy!' said Lady Louise to her aunt, the evening before her marriage; and her cheeks wore a brighter hue, and her eyes were radiant with inward joy. Every one knows who a young bride means, when she says 'we.'

'I do n't doubt it, Louise,' replied her aunt; your happiness may be enduring.'

and only hope that

Fear not for its continuance. I know myself, dear aunt, and know, that whatever faults I now possess, my love for him will correct. As long as we love, we must be happy; and our love can never change.'

6

'Ah!' sighed her aunt, you speak like a girl of nineteen, on the eve of marriage, with the exhilaration of satisfied wishes, the intoxication of bright hopes, and fond expectations. But remember, my beloved child, that even the heart grows old. The day will come, when the enchantment will be broken, the illusions of love dispersed. When the beauty and grace that charmed us is gone with the freshness of youth, then is it first evident whether we are truly worthy of love. Shadows are ever the attendants of sunshine, even in domestic life. When they fall, then can a wife first know whether her husband is truly estimable; then can the husband first know whether the virtues of his wife are imperishable. The day before marriage, all anticipations and protestations are to me ridiculous.'

I understand you, aunt; you mean that it is only mutual virtue that can preserve mutual affection and happiness. As for myself, I will not boast; but is he not the best, the noblest? Is he not possessed of every quality necessary to insure the happiness of life?

My child,' replied her aunt, I acknowledge that you are right; without flattery, I can say that you are both amiable and excellent. But your blooming virtues have been kindly nurtured in sunshine. No flowers deceive like these. We know not how they can bear the storm; we know not in what soil they take root; neither know we what seed is hidden in the heart.'

'Alas! dear aunt, you make me fearful!'

'So much the better, Louise; I would that some good might result from this evening's conversation. I love you sincerely, and will tell you what I have proved. I am not yet an old aunt; an austere, bigotted woman. At seven-and-twenty, I look cheerfully upon life. I have an excellent husband, and a happy family; therefore you will not consider what I say as the splenetic effusions of disappointment. I will tell you a secret; of something which few speak to a lovely young maiden; something that occupies little of the attention of young men; and yet something of the highest importance to all, and from which eternal love and indestructible happiness alone proceed.'

Louise pressed the hand of her aunt, as she said: 'I know what you would say, and I certainly believe with you, that continued happi