Wolferts Roost and Miscellanies | Page 4

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 portfolio; 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.
* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Worthy Sir: In a preceding communication, I have given you some
brief notice of Wolfert's Roost, the mansion where I first had the good
fortune to become acquainted with the venerable historian of the New
Netherlands. As this ancient edifice is likely to be the place whence I
shall date many of my lucubrations, and as it is really a very
remarkable little pile, intimately connected with all the great epochs of
our local and national history, I have thought it but right to give some
farther particulars concerning it. Fortunately, in rummaging a
ponderous Dutch chest of drawers, which serves as the archives of the
Roost, and in which are preserved many inedited manuscripts of Mr.
KNICKERBOCKER, together with the precious records of
New-Amsterdam, brought hither by Wolfert Acker at the downfall of
the Dutch dynasty, as has been already mentioned, I found in one
corner, among dried pumpkin-seeds, bunches of thyme, and pennyroyal,
and crumbs of new-year cakes, a manuscript, carefully wrapped up in
the fragment of an old parchment deed, but much blotted, and the ink
grown foxy by time, which, on inspection, I discovered to be a faithful
chronicle of the Roost. The hand-writing, and certain internal evidences,
leave no doubt in my mind, that it is a genuine production of the
venerable historian of the New-Netherlands, written, very probably,
during his residence at the Roost, in gratitude for the hospitality of its
proprietor. As such, I submit it for publication. As the entire chronicle
is too long for the pages of your Magazine, and as it contains many
minute particulars, which might prove tedious to the general reader, I
have abbreviated and occasionally omitted some of its details; but may
hereafter furnish them separately, should they seem to be required by
the curiosity of an enlightened and document-hunting public.
Respectfully yours, GEOFFREY CRAXON.
* * * * *
A CHRONICLE OF WOLFERT'S ROOST.
FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH
KNICKERBOCKER.

About five-and-twenty miles from the ancient and renowned city of
Manhattan, formerly called New-Amsterdam, and vulgarly called
New-York, on the eastern bank of that expansion of the Hudson, known
among Dutch mariners of yore, as the Tappan Zee, being in fact the
great Mediterranean Sea of the New-Netherlands, stands a little
old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable-ends, and as full of
angles and corners as an old cocked hat. Though but of small
dimensions, yet, like many small people, it is of mighty spirit, and
values itself greatly on its antiquity, being one of the oldest edifices, for
its size, in the whole country. It claims to be an ancient seat of empire, I
may rather say an empire in