r the sun revolved round it,
or it round the sun; and he had watched for at least half a century 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 accounting for its rising above the
surrounding atmosphere.

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a
huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague,
fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously
carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's
claws. Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with
jasmine and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of
Holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary
powers. In this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe
would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and
fixing his eye for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam which
hung in a black frame against the opposite wall of the council chamber.
Nay, it has even been said that when any deliberation of extraordinary
length and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut
his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by
external objects; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind
was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers
declared were merely the noise of conflict made by his contending doubts
and opinions.

It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these
biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts
respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so
questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the
search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would
have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait.

I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of
Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the
first but also the best Governor that ever presided over this ancient
and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign,
that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any
offender being brought to punishment--a most indubitable sign of a
merciful Governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of
the illustrious King Log, f