Page images
PDF
EPUB

NEW-YORK, JANUARY, 1936.

Merchants' Exchange. THIS magnificent edifice was totally destroyed by that devouring element-Conflagration, on the night of the 16th December, 1835. That era in the history of the City of New-York, will be long remembered by the inhabitants of that portion of our city, which is now laid a barren waste-presenting as the scene does, an uninterrupted view from Wall street, to the east river, and thence to Coenties slip. The prospect is one of awful grandeur, as far as the eye can reach; here and there the sight is only obstracted by the ruins of towering edifices, which were, but yesterday, the boast of the wealthiest, and now stand as if" in proud defiance" of the surrounding desert.

him, holding a scroll in the left hand resting on the thigh, and a scarf partly covering the body. We have not been able to ascertain the probable cost of this statue.

Attached to the Rotunda, were several large rooms,-one was occupied as the Exchange Reading-Room; in the rear, was that used for auction sales of real estate, shipping and stocks, and to the right of this, after ascending a flight of stairs, the saloon, in which the Board of Brokers assembled daily, presented itself to the spectator. The Post-office occupied the easterly portion of the basement.

The fire reached the dome of the Exchange, about half-past one o'clock, after having raged in the vicinity for five long hours. It crept silently and secretly along, till it burst forth in volumes of The basement and the roflames and smoke. tunda, were entirely covered with goods, which had been carried there for safety, no one imagining for a moment that the fire could extend so far. The flames spread with fearful rapidity, and at four o'clock, the dome had fallen with a tremendous crash, burying all beneath it, in a gulf of burning, smoking ruins, and shrouding forever from view, the noble statue of Hamilton.

The Merchants' Exchange was one of the largest structures ornamenting the city, situated on the south-side of Wall street, occupying one hundred and fifteen feet front, between William and Hanover streets, extending in the rear to Exchange Place. It was three stories in height, exclusive of the basement and attic. The southwest front, one hundred and fourteen feet on Exchange Place; and the main front on Wall street was of Westchester marble. The first and second stories of the Ionic order, from the temple of Minerva Polias, at Prigne, in Ionia. A recessed elliptical portico of Arrangements have been completed for the reforty feet wide introduced in front. A screen of building of the Merchants' Exchange, upon an exfour columns and two antæ, each thirty feet high, tended plan, taking in those lots to the west, as and three feet four inches in diameter above the far as William street, and it is contemplated, that a base, composed of a single block of marble, ex-square forty-feet wide shall surround the edifice.

tended across the front of the portico, supporting an entablature of six feet in height, on which rested the third story, making a height of sixty feet from the ground. The columns are now splintered and mutilated from top to bottom, looking as picturesque as a Greek temple in ruins.

[ocr errors]

The principal entrance to the Rotunda and Exchange Room was by a flight of ten marble steps. with a pedestal at each end. On ascending to the portico, three doors opened to the vestibule in front, while one on each hand opened to offices. The vestibule was of the Ionic order from the little Ionic temple of Illyssus. The Exchange Room, which was the Rotunda, represented in the accompanying view, measured seventy-five feet long, fifty feet wide, and forty-two feet high.

In the centre of the Rotunda, was lately erected by the liberality of our Merchants, a statue of General Alexander Hamilton, which is pictured at length in the view, sculptured by Ball Hughes, and on it inscribed:

ERECTED TO THE

MEMORY OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON,
By the Merchants of the City of New-York,

IN THE EXCHANGE, IN WALL-STREET.

The statue was about fifteen feet high, including the base on which it was elevated, and chiselled from the whitest marble. The figure represented

ORIGINAL.

The Spirit of War!

THE Spirit of War!

Hath aroused in its might,
It spreadeth afar,

Like the darkness of night;
It cometh in madness,
In fury and wrath,
It bringeth but sadness,

And death in its path.
The Spirit of War!

It rolls like the flood;
Sacked cities shall stream,
In rivers of blood;
The dying and dead,

The mangled and slain,
Who for liberty bled,

Shall be strew'd o'er the plain.

The Spirit of War!
The Spirit of War!
It triumphs in blood,
It revels in gore,
There is woe in its flight,
There are tears in its train;
Like the meteors of night,
May its glories soon wane.

J. E

A NIGHT

IN THE

BY W. J. SNELLING.

WOODS.

proceedings would be reckoned unlawful, I guess; for no one can be held in custody without a warrant, and sufficient reason. If ever I get back, I wont be caught in such a scrape again.

I was once so unfortunate as to be benighted while hunting the buffalo. I started early in the morning, though it was so cold that each particuJar hair of my whiskers accreted a portion of my vital moisture in the form of an icicle, and a stran- Grief does not last forever; neither does angerger might have taken me for the Genius of Winter, and my janitor, either forgetting his resentment, direct from the North Pole, on a visit. Neverthe- which, to say the truth, was not altogether groundless, I kept on the even tenor of my way, though less, or thinking it was useless, or tired of his selfthe temperature was lower than human charity-imposed duty, or for some reason or other, bid me confiding in my Indian mittens and hunting shirt. farewell with a loud bellow, and walked away to a I wandered far into the bare prairie, which was little oasis that was just in sight, and left me to my spread around me like an ocean of snow, the gen-meditations. I picked up my gun and followed; the undulations here and there having no small re- he entered the wood, and so did I, just in time to semblance to the ground swell. When the sun see him fall and expire.

took off his night-cap of mist (for the morning was The sun was setting, and the weather was getting cloudy) the glare of the landscape, or rather snow-colder and colder. I could hear the ground crack scape, was absolutely painful to my eyes; but a and the trees split with its intensity. I was at least small veil of green crape obviated that difficulty.-twenty miles from home; and it behoved me, if I Toward noon I was aware of a buffalo, at a long did not wish to wake in the morning and find myself distance, turning up the snow with his nose and feet, dead, to make a fire as speedily as possible. Inow and cropping the withered grass beneath. I al-first perceived that, in my very natural hurry to esways thought it a deed of mercy to slay such an cape from my shaggy foe, I had lost the martin-skin old fellow, he looks so miserable and discontented wherein I carried my flint, steel and tinder. This with himself. As to the individual in question, I was of little consequence; I had often made a fire determined to put an end to his long, turbulent and by the aid of my gun before, and I drew my knife, and began to pick the flint. Death to my hopesat the very first blow I struck it ten yards from the lock and it was lost forever in the snow.

evil life.

say,

equa

had a skin like a buffalo! Necessity is the spur as well as the mother of invention; and, at these last words, a new idea flashed through my brain like lightning, verily believe that I took off the skin of f my victim in fewer than ten strokes of my knife. Such a hide is no trifle; it takes a strong man to lift it; but I rolled the one in question about me, with the hair inward, and lay down to sleep, tolerably sure that neither Jack Frost nor the wolves could get at me through an armor thicker and tough

To this effect, I approached him as a Chinese malefactor approaches a mandarin-that is to prone, like a serpent. But the parity only existed Well, said I to myself, I have cooked a pretty ketwith respect to the posture; for the aforesaid male-tle of fish, and brought iny cale's head to a fine marfactor expects to receive pain, whereas I intended ket. Shall I furnish those dissectors, the wolves, to inflict it. He was a grim-looking barbarian with a subject, or shall cold work the same effect and, if a beard be a mark of wisdom, Peter the Her-on me that grief did upon Niobe? Would that I mit was a fool to him. So when I had attained a suitable proximity, I appealed to his feelings with a bullet. He ran-and I ran; and I had the best reason to run-for he ran after me, and I thought that a pair of horns might destroy my usual nimity and equilibrium. In truth, I did not fly any too fast, for the old bashaw was close behind me, and I could hear him breathe. I threw away my gun, and, as there was no tree at hand, I gained the centre of a pond of a few yards area, such as are found all over the prairies in February. Here Ier than the seven-fold shield of Ajax. stood secure, as though in a magic circle, well Darkness closed in, and a raven began to sound knowing that neither pigs nor buffaloes can walk his note of evil omen from a neighboring branch. upon ice. My pursuer was advised of this fact Croak on, black angel, said I; I have heard croakalso and did 10: venture to trust himself on so slip-ing before now, and am not to be frightened by any pery a footing. Yet it seemed that he was no gen- of your color. Suddenly a herd of wolves struck tleman; at least he did not practise forgiveness of up at a distance, probably excited by the scent of i juries. He perambulated the periphery of the the slain buffalo. Howl on, said I; and, being pond till I was nearly as cold as the ice under me. among wolves, I will howl too-for I like to be in It was worse than the stone jug or the black hole at the fashion; but that shall be the extent of our intiCalcutta. Ah! thought I, if I had only my gun, I macy. Accordingly I uplifted my voice, like a pewould soon relieve you from your post. But dis-lican in the wilderness, and gave them back their content was all in vain. Thus I remained, and thus he remained, for at least four hours. In the mean while, I thought of the land of steady habits; of baked beans, and pumpkins, and codfish on Saturdays. There, said I to myself, my neighbor's

noise, with interest. Then I laid down again, and moralized. This, thought I, is life. What would my poor mother say, if she were alive now? I have read books of adventures, but never read any thing like this. I fell asleep without further ado.

At last the figure was complete; but the dancers did not stand still. They resumed their natural position, and pushed at me with their horns, and flung up their heels at me. A hundred times my nose was grazed by them; but still, as if by a miracle, the skin remained unbroken. My arch enemy seemed to take peculiar pleasure in this pastime, which he practised, I thought, with the same feeling that makes an Indian try how close he can stick his arrows to a prisoner without hitting him. I could do nothing; so I grinned and bore it like a martyr.

The piper struck up again, and the dance recommenced; but the air was now changed for one more lively-and as they vaulted they bellowed in chorus, but still their voices were like the human voice, and I could distinguish the burthen of the ditty:

Then I dreamed—ohı, such a dream! Methought for death; for it seemed inevitable that I must be my slain enemy rose slowly to his feet, skinless as trampled to pumice in the twinkling of an eye. he was, and gave such a look as I have heard They bounded about me, and grazed me at every called a tan-yard grin, in which the double-dis- step. The naked rascal, especially, sprang aloft tilled essence and essential oil of spite seem to be repeatedly, directly over me, and how he failed to concentrated. Anon he approached me, and tried alight on my carcass I cannot tell. I have seen a to gore me with his horns-and turned me over and mountebank dance among eggs without breaking over with his nose and feet. At last he sat down any-and it was wonderful; but how I escaped on my breast, and looking me deliberately in the being trampled upon was still more so. eye, bellowed, 'Give me my skin-give me my skin.' I awoke in a cold sweat; and to enhance iny vexation, I heard an Indian drum, accompanied by several voices, on the other side of the wood. Now, thought I, I have lain down supperless, where there was a wigwam within a quarter of a mile, where I might have claimed hospitality. I strove to rise; but my coverlid was now frozen, and kept me as close as if I had been cased in mortar. I grinned with fretfulness to think that I should be obliged to lie till noon the next day, before the sun would effect my release, and for a moment I thought I would cry to my swarthy neighbors for assistance. Unwilling, however, to be the laughing stock of savages, I summoned all my philosophy, and slept again. It should not be forgotten that the raven kept up his ominous noise all the while, as though he were my evil spirit. I slept, I said; but upon reflection, I recalled the assertion; such a state of the faculties cannot be called sleep. The buffalo rose again and stood beside me. I could feel his hot breath upon my face; methought it savored of sulphur-and I could see every vein and muscle, even the hole where my bullet had en- All things must have an end, and at last the tered, just as my knife had laid them barc. I entertainment was over, and the gambols ceased. strove to cry out; but my utterance was choked by A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.' I a mouthful of wool, and I was compelled to be si- thought the horns of my persecutors straightened lent. My tormentor did not give me much time to and changed into ears, their hoofs dropped off" and reflect; for he suddenly pricked up his ears and gave place to claws, their wool uncurled and beperked up his tail, and bellowed loud and long-came gray, their snouts lengthened, and their tails and at his summons a vast herd of his fellows came grew bushy. In short, they were honest, Lona fide bounding into the wood, and ranged themselves wolves; but still the same fiendish resemblance to around me, and joined in the note of the leader. humanity blasted my eyesight. My arch-enemy Somehow, or other, I thought they were and were was still distinguished by the absence of epidermis not buffalos, at one and the same time. They had and cuticle. Suddenly he howled, long, loud and horns, and shaggy hair, and tails, and four legs shrill. That howl thrills through my brain now, a piece; yet, as I looked at them, I thought I could and I shall never forget it. Then came another discover exaggerated resemblances of the human dance, and the very trees reeled with affright. face divine. One of them looked like Powers, Snapping, snarling and gnashing of teeth succeedwho was hanged for murder. I was frightened at ed; and it was all at me! I would have given the their aspects, and involuntarily looked up at my world to have been able to close my eyes and shut friend the raven. Strange to tell, his beak gradu-out the hideous spectacle-but no, I could not do so ally elongated as I gazed, till it was as long as, and very like a hautbois. How he kept his seat I knew not; but he grasped it with all his claws, which looked like those of a Bengal tiger.

This was enough; I wished to see no more of him; but now, the quadrupeds were quadrupeds no longer. A score or two had reared upon their hinder legs, and each gallantly given his hoof to his partner. All at once the piper on the tree struck up, and the animals began to dance. Fast and furious was their mirth; negroes at a corn-husking are fools in comparison. The creature I had shot was pre-eminent for his superior size and supernatural agility, and remarkable for his bare and beggarly looks, as well as for the vitrified appearance of his eyes, which put me in mind of two burnt holes in a blanket. I shut my eyes, and prepared

"Rouse him about, and touze him about,
And frighten him out of his skin."

I am unable to say how long the sport continuedi
but at the time, it seemed to last a century.

much as wink; I was fascinated, and could not help staring at these accumulated horrors.

At the conclusion of the dance, they all stood round me in silence. The skinless leader barkel sharply; and at the signal, they all shook them.selves, in the manner of a dog coming out of the water. There they stood, and shook, and shook, till I thought they would shake themselves out of their skins also. At every shake, showers of fleas fell upon me; the atmosphere seemed full of them. Then, at another bark of their leader, the wolves all disappeared.

I had been flea-bitten three times in the course of my life-but that was cakes and gingerbread to what I now suffered. I was stung all over; Ithink the point of a pin placed on any part of my body could not have missed a puncture. I was mad

598259

I

dened with the pain, and prayed mentally for Death to end my misery; but he would not come. thought of the cattle stung in hot weather by horseflies, and my heart pitied them. The worst was yet to come. The flies entered my ears, and devoured my brain. They ascended my nostrils, and thence finding their way down my throat, preyed upon my vitals. The passage being open, keeping my mouth shut was of no avail. I looked upward to the raven; and his duplicate sat beside him-and still as I gazed his figure seemed to multiply, till every branch of the tree bent under a flock of ravens. This was not all; their number still increased, till the air was literally alive with them.— They flew round me, and alighted on my body, and pecked at me, and croaked in every sharp and flat of the gamut: and I had no power to resist. There I lay, bound hand and foot, enduring, what with fleas, and what with ravens, torments than which the Inquisition has no greater; and all for having deprived an old buffalo of his skin. Again I heard the howl; and again the fiend wolves hurried around me. They fell upon me; and my old enemy flew at my throat, and tore out my windpipe, and bolted it before my face; then they shifted the attack to my feet; they tore away the covering and gnawed my toes-nay, they snapped them off, joint by joint, and I could hear them snap and snarl for each as it fell to the ground. I am not sure that I could have survived this treatment much longer; but to my great relief I heard a human voice, and my tormentors fled, as if the mammoth of the Big Bone Licks was behind them. I opened my eyes; and with unspeakable joy beheld a young Indian with whom I was perfectly acquainted, standing over me, and the sun riding high above the tree-tops. He speedily unrolled me, and released me from my durance, laughing heartily all the while. At another time I could have trimmed his ears for his impertinence; but now I was glad even to be laughed at. I rose to

ORIGINAL.

A Song.--To

I wish that I were a cloud to night
Thou beautiful one away,

I would float to thy home in a robe of light,
And over thy pathway stray.

With the world spread out like an open book;
As I calmly sailed above,

I would wait thy smile, and watch thy look,
To follow but thee my love.

For oh! it were bliss on an eve like this,
To dream as I met thy brow.
That dearer to thee might the bright cloud be
Than the eyes which beam below.

Or, I wish that I were an Elfin queen;
Always to linger nigh

Thy footsteps love, yet be never seen

By the glance of a mortal eye.
Over thy head should my gifts be spread,
Thy secret will I'd learn,

And weave the charm, that can shield from harm,
And the true from the false discern.

Or I would that I were a bright, bright star;
Shining alone for thee,

Radiant and clear, as I gleam from far
Like a token of destiny.

And at least had I but an Amulet,

Since none of these things may be,

I should know if thy truant thoughts visit me yet,
If to night thou wilt dream of me!
Brooklyn, January, 1836.

sure,

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

L. H

To those who're still "happy" and "careless" and "gay,"

iny feet with some difficulty, and stamped a reason- The New-Year has come, with its promise of pleaable quantum of caloric into my toes. They were so cold that I did not wonder they had seemed to be bitten off. A further survey convinced me that my other impressions had been not altogether erroneous. A herd of buffaloes had indeed been walking about me all night, as was apparent from their tracks in the snow; and it was marvellous that none had trod on me. There was no need to tell me that the wolves had paid me a visit; for they had devoured my buffalo, and had nearly eaten my counterpane off me, into the bargain.

Ye who have read this tale of truth, take warning by my sufferings, which are engraven on the tablet of my memory with a pen of steel, and are not to be sneezed at. Whenever ye shall hunt buffalo on a cold day, give your flint-screw an ex

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

But oh! let me turn from such prospects, to treasure The memory of scenes past forever away. Forever!-the summer will bring as bright flowers, As beauteous those hills, and that valley may be, The sun of next summer, its moonlight and showers, Will be o'er his grave, who once wander'd with

me.

[blocks in formation]
« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »