-House, near
the Battery, the traitor Arnold was wont to lounge, and in the
neighborhood dwelt the Earl of Stirling's mother. At the corner of
Rector Street was the old Lutheran church frequented by the Palatine
refugees. Beyond or within the Park stood the old Brewery, Pottery,
Bridewell, and Poor-house; relics of an Indian village were often found;
the Drover's Inn, cattle-walk, and pastures marked the straggling
precincts of the town; and on the commons oxen were roasted whole on
holidays, and obnoxious officials hung in effigy. Anon rose the brick
mansions of the Rapelyes, Rhinelanders, Kingslands, Cuttings, Jays,
Bogarts, Depeysters, Duers, Livingstons, Verplancks, Van Rensselaers, De
Lanceys, Van Cortlands, etc.; at first along the "Middle Road," and then
in bystreets from the main thoroughfare down to the rivers; and so,
gradually, the trees and shrubs that made a _rus in urbe_ of the embryo
city, and the gables and tiles, porches and pipes, that marked the
dynasty chronicled by old Diedrich, gave way to palatial warehouses,
magnificent taverns, and brown stone fronts.

The notes of old travellers best revive the scene ere it was lost in
modern improvements. Mrs. Knight, who visited New York in 1704, having
performed the journey from Boston all the way on horseback, enjoyed the
"vendues" at Manhattan, where "they gave drinks"; was surprised to see
"fireplaces that had no jambs" and "bricks of divers colors and laid in
checkers, being glazed and looking very agreeable." The diversion in
vogue was "riding in sleighs about four miles out of town, where they
have a house of entertainment at a place called the Bowery." In 1769 Dr.
Burnaby recognized but two churches, Trinity and St. George, and "went
in an Italian chaise to a turtle feast on the East River." In 1788,
Brissot found that the session of Congress there gave great _eclat_ to
New York, but, with republican indignation, he laments the ravages of
luxury and the English fashions visible in Broadway,--"silks, gauzes,
hats, and borrowed hair;... equipages rare, but elegant." "The men," he
adds, "have more simplicity of dress; they disdain gewgaws; but they
take their revenge in the luxury of the table";--"and luxury," he
observes, "forms a class dangerous to society,--I mean bachelors,--the
expense of women causing matrimony to be dreaded by men." It is curious
to find the French radical of eighty years ago drawing from the life of
Broadway inferences similar to