ommission had been appointed, too, with the
object of directing the course of the streets, which up to that time
had grown out of the paths left by the cows in their wanderings to
pasture. The commissioners did their work so that, as time went on,
the highways were laid out to form a city of strict right angles. The
cows certainly did their part in a manner that left far more
picturesque twists and turns than were to be found in the upper part
laid out by the commissioners in such a scientifically uninteresting
way.

Paulding lived with William Irving in the Vesey Street house for nine
years, and then the Irvings moved a few blocks the other side of
Columbia College, to 287 Greenwich Street, and Paulding went with
them. Here began the meetings of a literary set, which in a few months
developed into the "Ancient Club of New York," with Washington, Peter,
and William Irving, Paulding, Henry Brevoort, and Gouverneur Kemble
leading members. Kemble owned some land in New Jersey, on which was
located _Salmagundi's_ Cockloft Hall, and on this account was called
"The Patroon." From one of the informal meetings of the Ancient Club,
Washington Irving, his brother William, and Paulding went secretly to
Irving's house in Ann Street to discuss details of _Salmagundi_.
Paulding wrote his share of _Salmagundi_ on the upper floor of the
Greenwich Street house, while the lower floor was the mill of Pindar
Cockloft, conducted by William Irving.

From this house on many an evening the friends went to dine at Dyde's,
the fascinating eating-house near the Park Theatre, then beginning a
long career with the founders of _Salmagundi_ as a foundation for the
memories that were to cluster around its doors, to be passed over,
years later, to Windust's still more famous resort on almost the same
spot.

Paulding was still living with the Irving family when, in 1807, they
went to live at No. 17 in aristocratic State Street, at the corner of
Pearl, facing the Battery Park. Here, overlooking the blue waters of
the bay dotted with sailboats and rowboats, and beyond to the
stretches of Jersey shore, Paulding wrote his contributions to the
_Analectic Magazine_, edited by Washington Irving from his home little
more than a stone's throw away across the Bowling Green; also, _The
Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan_. Here, too,
replying to an attack on his country, he wrote, _The United States and
England_, a pamphlet that attracted the n