to assume the animation of life � their eyes to pursue me in every movement i carried away by the of fancy i almost myself surrounded by the shades of the and holding sweet with the of antiquity i ah i bom in a age abandoned to the of a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native land with no weeping wife nor of helpless children but doomed to wander neglected through those crowded streets and by foreign from those where once thine ancestors held sovereign empire i let me however lose the historian in the man nor the recollections of age to overcome me while dwelling with fond on the virtuous days of the � on those sweet days of simplicity and ease which never more will dawn on the lovely island of the renowned or walter van was descended from a long line of dutch who had away their lives and grown t upon the bench of in and who history of had themselves with such wisdom and propriety that they were never either heard or talked of r which next to being a d be the object of ambition to all sage and r his of is said to be a corruption of the original t which in english means a name admirably descriptive of his habits for though he was a man shut up within himself like an and of such a turn that he scarcely ever spoke except in yet did he never make up his mind on any doubtful point this was clearly accounted for by his affirmed that he always conceived every subject on so comprehensive a scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it so that he always remained in doubt merely in consequence of the astonishing magnitude of his ideas there are two opposite ways by which s men get into one by talking a vast deal and thinking a little and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all by the first many a superficial the reputation of a man of quick parts � by the other many a vacant like the owl the of birds comes to be by a world with all the attributes of wisdom this by the way is a mere casual remark which i would not for the universe have it thought i apply to governor van on the contrary he was a very wise for he never said a foolish thing and of such invincible gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the course of a long and prosperous life certain however it is there never was a matter proposed however simple and on which your common narrow minded mortals would determine at the first glance but what the renowned put on a mighty m vacant kind of look shook his head and new having smoked for five minutes with earnest ness observed that he had his doubts about the matter � which in process of time gained him the of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed on the person of this illustrious old gentleman was a formed and nobly as though it had been by the hands of some cunning dutch as a model of majesty and grandeur he was exactly five feet six inches in height and six feet five inches in his head was a perfect sphere far in magnitude that of the great who thence called or head � indeed of such dimensions was it that dame nature herself with all her sex s ingenuity would have been puzzled to a neck capable of supporting it wherefore she wisely declined the attempt and settled it firmly on the top of his back bone just between th shoulders where it remained as as a ship of war in the mud of the his body was of an form particularly at bottom was wisely ordered by providence seeing that he was a man of habits and very averse to the idle his legs exceeding ere sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer barrel standing on his that in index of the mind presented a vast p or by any of those and which the human countenance is termed ex two small grey eyes feebly in the midst like two stars of lesser ma in a and his fed cheeks which seemed to have taken toll of every thing went into his were curiously and with dusky ce � af le his were as regular as his person he daily history of took his four stated meals exactly an hour to each he smoked and doubted hours and he slept the remaining twelve of the four and twenty such was the renowned van a true her for his mind was either elevated above or settled below the cares and of world he had lived in it for years without feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun round it or it round the sun and he had even watched for at least half a the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling without once troubling his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed his brain in for its rising above the surround ing atmosphere in his council he presided with great state and he sat in a huge chair of solid oak in the celebrated forest of the by an experienced of and curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact of gigantic claws instead of a he swayed a long pipe wrought with and which had been presented to a of holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty powers in this stately chair would he sit and this magnificent pipe would he smoke shaking his right 