which I have from time to time given to the world, permit me to relate a few particulars of our early intercourse. I give them with the more confidence, as I know the interest you take in that departed worthy, whose name and effigy are stamped upon your title-page, and as they will be found important to the better understanding and relishing divers communications I may have to make to you.

My first acquaintance with that great and good man, for such I may venture to call him, now that the lapse of some thirty years has shrouded his name with venerable antiquity, and the popular voice has elevated him to the rank of the classic historians of yore, my first acqaintance with him was formed on the banks of the Hudson, not far from the wizard region of Sleepy Hollow. He had come there in the course of his researches among the Dutch neighborhoods for materials for his immortal history. For this purpose, he was ransacking the archives of one of the most ancient and historical mansions in the country. It was a lowly edifice, built in the time of the Dutch dynasty, and stood on a green bank, overshadowed by trees, from which it peeped forth upon the Great Tappan Zee, so famous among early Dutch navigators. A bright pure spring welled up at the foot of the green bank; a wild brook came babbling down a neighboring ravine, and threw itself into a little woody cove, in front of the mansion. It was indeed as quiet and sheltered a nook as the heart of man could require, in which to take refuge from the cares and troubles of the world; and as such, it had been chosen in old times, by Wolfert Acker, one of the privy councillors of the renowned Peter Stuyvesant.

This worthy but ill-starred man had led a weary and worried life, throughout the stormy reign of the chivalric Peter, being one of those unlucky wights with whom the world is ever at variance, and who are kept in a continual fume and fret, by the wickedness of mankind. At the time of the subjugation of the province by the English, he retired hither in high dudgeon; with the bitter determination to bury himself from the world, and live here in peace and quietness for the remainder of his days. In token of this fixed resolution, he inscribed over his door the favorite Dutch motto, Lust in Rust,' (pleasure in repose.) The mansion was thence called Wolfert's Rust' Wolfert's Rest; but in process of time, the name was vitiated into Wolfert's Roost, probably from its quaint cock-loft look, or from its having a weather-cock perched on every gable. This name it continued to bear, long after the unlucky Wolfert was driven forth once more upon a wrangling world, by the tongue of a termagant wife; for it passed into a proverb through the neighborhood, and has been handed down by tradition, that the cock of the Roost was the most hen-pecked bird in the country.

This primitive and historical mansion has since passed through many changes and trials, which it may be my lot hereafter to notice. At the time of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker, it was in possession of the gallant family of the Van Tassels, who have figured so conspicuously in his writings. What appears to have given it peculiar value, in his eyes, was the rich treasury of historical facts here secretly hoarded up, like buried gold; for it is said that Wolfert Acker, when he retreated from New Amsterdam, carried off

with him many of the records and journals of the province, pertaining to the Dutch dynasty; swearing that they should never fall into the hands of the English. These, like the lost books of Livy, had baffled the research of former historians; but these did I find the indefatigable Diedrich diligently deciphering. He was already a sage in years and experience, I but an idle stripling; yet he did not despise my youth and ignorance, but took me kindly by the hand, and led me gently into those paths of local and traditional lore which he was so fond of exploring. I sat with him in his little chamber at the Roost, and watched the antiquarian patience and perseverance with which he deciphered those venerable Dutch documents, worse than Herculanean manuscripts. I sat with him by the spring, at the foot of the green bank, and listened to his heroic tales about the worthies of the olden time, the paladins of New Amsterdam. I accompanied him in his legendary researches about Tarrytown and Sing-Sing, and explored with him the spell-bound recesses of Sleepy Hollow. I was present at many of his conferences with the good old Dutch burghers and their wives, from whom he derived many of those marvellous facts not laid down in books or records, and which give such superior value and authenticity to his history, over all others that have been written concerning the New Netherlands.

But let me check my proneness to dilate upon this favorite theme; I may recur to it hereafter. Suffice it to say, the intimacy thus formed, continued for a considerable time; and in company with the worthy Diedrich, I visited many of the places celebrated by his pen. The currents of our lives at length diverged. He remained at home to complete his mighty work, while a vagrant fancy led me to wander about the world. Many, many years elapsed, before I returned to the parent soil. In the interim, the venerable historian of the New. Netherlands had been gathered to his fathers, but his name had risen to renown. His native city, that city in which he so much delighted, had decreed all manner of costly honors to his memory. I found his effigy imprinted upon new-year cakes, and devoured with eager relish by holiday urchins; a great oyster-house bore the name of 'Knickerbocker Hall;' and I narrowly escaped the pleasure of being run over by a Knickerbocker omnibus!

Proud of having associated with a man who had achieved such greatness, I now recalled our early intimacy with tenfold pleasure, and sought to revisit the scenes we had trodden together. The most important of these was the mansion of the Van Tassels, the Roost of the unfortunate Wolfert. Time, which changes all things, is but slow in its operations upon a Dutchman's dwelling. I found the venerable and quaint little edifice much as I had seen it during the sojourn of Diedrich. There stood his elbow-chair in the corner of the room he had occupied; the old-fashioned Dutch writing desk at which he had pored over the chronicles of the Manhattoes; there was the old wooden chest, with the archives left by Wolfert Acker, many of which, however, had been fired off as wadding from the long duck gun of the Van Tassels. The scene around the mansion was still the same; the green bank; the spring beside which I had listened to the legendary narratives of the historian; the wild brook babbling down to the woody cove, and the overshadowing locust trees, half shutting out the prospect of the Great Tappan Zee.

As I looked round upon the scene, my heart yearned at the recollection of my departed friend, and I wistfully eyed the mansion which he had inhabited, and which was fast mouldering to decay. The thought struck me to arrest the desolating hand of Time; to rescue the historic pile from utter ruin, and to make it the closing scene of my wanderings; a quiet home, where I might enjoy lust in rust' for the remainder of my days. It is true, the fate of the unlucky Wolfert passed across my mind; but I consoled myself with the reflection that I was a bachelor, and that I had no termagant wife to dispute the sovereignty of the Roost with me.

I have become possessor of the Roost! I have repaired and renovated it with religious care, in the genuine Dutch style, and have adorned and illustrated it with sundry reliques of the glorious days of the New Netherlands. A venerable weather-cock, of portly Dutch dimensions, which once battled with the wind on the top of the Stadt-House of New Amsterdam, in the time of Peter Stuyvesant, now erects its crest on the gable end of my edifice; a gilded horse, in full gallop, once the weather-cock of the great Vander Heyden Palace of Albany, now glitters in the sunshine, and veers with every breeze, on the peaked turret over my portal: my sanctum sanctorum is the chamber once honored by the illustrious Diedrich, and it is from his elbow-chair, and his identical old Dutch writingdesk, that I pen this rambling epistle.

Here then, have I set up my rest, surrounded by the recollections of early days, and the mementos of the historian of the Manhattoes, with that glorious river before me, which flows with such majesty through his works, and which has ever been to me a river of delight.

I thank God I was born on the banks of the Hudson! I think it an invaluable advantage to be born and brought up in the neighborhood of some grand and noble object in nature; a river, a lake, or a mountain. We make a friendship with it, we in a manner ally ourselves to it for life. It remains an object of our pride and affections, a rallying point, to call us home again after all our wanderings. 'The things which we have learned in our childhood,' says an old writer, 'grow up with our souls, and unite themselves to it.' So it is with the scenes among which we have passed our early days; they influence the whole course of our thoughts and feelings; and I fancy I can trace much of what is good and pleasant in my own heterogeneous compound, to my early companionship with this glorious river. In the warmth of my youthful enthusiasm, I used to clothe it with moral attributes, and almost to give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold, honest character; its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here was no specious, smiling surface, covering the dangerous sand-bar or perfidious rock; but a stream deep as it was broad, and bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted to its waves. I gloried in its simple, quiet, majestic, epic flow; ever straight forward. Once indeed, it turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by opposing mountains, but it struggles bravely through them, and immediately resumes its straightforward march.. Behold, thought I, an emblem of a good man's course through life; ever simple, open, and direct; or if, overpowered by adverse circumstances, he deviate into error, it is but momentary; he soon recovers his onward and honorable career, and continues it to the end of his pilgrimage.

Excuse this rhapsody, into which I have been betrayed by a revival of early feelings. The Hudson is, in a manner, my first and last love; and after all my wanderings, and seeming infidelities, I return to it with a heart-felt preference over all the other rivers in the world. I seem to catch new life, as I bathe in its ample billows, and inhale the pure breezes of its hills. It is true, the romance of youth is past, that once spread illusions over every scene. I can no longer picture an Arcadia in every green valley; nor a fairy land among the distant mountains; nor a peerless beauty in every villa gleaming among the trees; but though the illusions of youth have faded from the landscape, the recollections of departed years and departed pleasures shed over it the mellow charm of evening sunshine.

Permit me then, Mr. Editor, through the medium of your work, to hold occasional discourse from my retreat, with the busy world I have abandoned. I have much to say about what I have seen, heard, felt, and thought, through the course of a varied and rambling life, and some lucubrations, that have long been encumbering my port-folio; together with divers reminiscences of the venerable historian of the New Netherlands, that may not be unacceptable to those who have taken an interest in his writings, and are desirous of any thing that may cast a light back upon our early history. Let your readers rest assured of one thing, that, though retired from the world, I am not disgusted with it; and that if, in my communings with it, I do not prove very wise, I trust I shall at least prove very good natured. Which is all at present, from

Yours, etc.,

GEOFFREY CRAYON.

THE

DEATH OF

WINTER.

How gladly do we hail the jocund SPRING,
When the eye revels in its first rich green!
When every stream bursts from its icy bonds,
And rioting, resumes its wonted course,
Babbling adown, to gladden all the vale.
The hardy flowerets struggle on the brink;
The violet, sweet Baptist of the spring,
'Prepares the way,' unmindful of repulse,
And faintly breathing, lifts its innocent head;
While, prematurely gay, the impatient bird,
That hastens to proclaim the winter gone,
Aloft careering, shakes his wings of blue!
At last, the stubborn glebe is clothed with green,
And bursting buds appear on every tree,
And to the verdant theatre there comes
A host of warblers, emulous of song;

Some lagging, fearful of the treacherous breeze,
Until the last musician takes his place,
And all the tuneful orchestra is full!

I sometimes think the milder gales of spring,
The vernal breezes, rich with sweet perfume,
Are floating spirits, happily disenthralled,
Who come to visit and review the scenes,
Where once they roamed in their embodied state;
And that the chilling blasts of winter rude,
The tempest's howlings, the tornado's ire,
Are wrathful, guilty, and malignant sprites,
Writhing in strife, and hurtling o'er the world.

SKETCHES OF A TRIP TO LAKE SUPERIOR.

BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

1.

WHAT is Niagara or Saratoga,' said I, 'compared to a peep at the most glorious lake in the world, and inhaling the pure air of Lake Superior, at this most delicious season? I have some inquiries to make in that quarter, of an official character, and I will take you along children, and servants, and all. All the world goes to the Springs, and to the Falls, but it is the privilege of only a few to see the waters of Superior. My life on it, your health will be improved by the air and exercise; and as for views of scenery, there are none equal to it in America.'

The proposal is delightful!' replied a female voice; the very thought is refreshing. I would rather visit that lake, with its Pictured Rocks, than any other part of the continent; but how are we all to get along comfortably, in the boat and on shore?'

'Leave that to me,' was the response; 'I will get a boat of the largest class, and order my tents and other travelling equipage to be aired and got ready. I have already made arrangements to secure a good crew of men. Tell Margaret to prepare the mess-basket, and Julia to pack yours and the children's things, and we will be off, without delay.'

This brief dialogue was held at Mackinac, in the month of July, 1938, and furnishes the history of the origin of the present tour. Our domicil stood on the shores of the romantic bay, at the south end of that beautiful island; and we embarked on the crystal bosom of Lake Huron, on a calm day in that month, setting our faces toward the northeast. There is a traverse of ten miles from Mackinac, across the open lake, in which we have the deep blue waters beneath, and the broad blue sky above. This is often a dangerous pass to travellers, but presented no cause of alarm to us. We passed the first night at Point St. Vital, on the Huron coast, and next morning betimes, turned Point Détour, and ascended the straits of St. Mary's to the Falls, or Sault. Here we were received with open hands and smiling faces, and passed a day or two in some farther preparations for the trip. In the mean time, our boat was drawn by oxen from the foot of the rapids into the millrace; and when we sat out, from the head of this race, above the falls, we left behind us the last flag-staff, and the last village, on the skirts of the civilized world. Other tours have been made from this point, for purposes of scientific discovery, or other grave objects. The present had no such aims. Men, women, and children, had fixed their hearts on seeing sights, and the great object of anxiety was, who should first descry the finest views. We did not expect to see the great mammoth himself, who leaped over the big lakes, as the Indians told Mr. Jefferson, but we were on the qui vive for something grand. Our boat was one of the kind locally denominated a Mackinac boat, of light construction, about twenty-eight feet long, and nine broad, provided with sails, and seats, and an awning over the centre-part, and rowed by nine men. We were supplied with tents, travelling beds,