oubles
on his frontiers, the incessant schemings and projects going on in his
own pericranium, the memorials, petitions, remonstrances and sage pieces
of advice of respectable meetings of the sovereign people, and the
refractory disposition of his councilors, who were sure to differ from
him on every point and uniformly to be in the wrong, his mind was kept
in a furnace-heat until he became as completely burnt out as a Dutch
family pipe which has passed through three generations of hard smokers.
In this manner did he undergo a kind of animal combustion, consuming
away like a farthing rush-light; so that when grim death finally snuffed
him out there was scarce left enough of him to bury.

PETER STUYVESANT

Peter Stuyvesant was the last, and, like the renowned Wouter Van
Twiller, the best of our ancient Dutch Governors, Wouter having
surpassed all who preceded him, and Peter, or Piet, as he was sociably
called by the old Dutch burghers, who were ever prone to familiarize
names, having never been equaled by any successor. He was in fact the
very man fitted by nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of her
beloved province, had not the Fates, those most potent and unrelenting
of all ancient spinsters, destined them to inextricable confusion.

To say merely that he was a hero would be doing him great injustice; he
was in truth a combination of heroes; for he was of a sturdy, raw-boned
make, like Ajax Telamon, with a pair of round shoulders that Hercules
would have given his hide for (meaning his lion's hide) when he
undertook to ease old Atlas of his load. He was, moreover, as Plutarch
describes Coriolanus, not only terrible for the force of his arm, but
likewise of his voice, which sounded as though it came out of a barrel;
and, like the self-same warrior, he possessed a sovereign contempt for
the sovereign people, and an iron aspect which was enough of itself to
make the very bowels of his adversaries quake with terror and dismay.
All this martial excellency of appearance was inexpressibly heightened
by an accidental advantage, with which I am surprised that neither Homer
nor Virgil have graced any of their heroes. This was nothing less than a
wooden leg, which was the only prize he had gained in bravely fighting
the battles of his country, but of which he was so proud that he was
often heard to declare he valued it more than all his other limbs put
together: indeed, so highly did he esteem it that he had it gallantl