ular
portion of my townsmen, who may have been under a certain delusion on
the subject. As for comparing the Bay of New York with that of Naples on
the score of beauty, I shall no more be guilty of any such folly, to
gratify the cockney feelings of Broadway and Bond street, than I should
be guilty of the folly of comparing the commerce of the ancient
Parthenope with that of _old_ New York, in order to excite complacency
in the bosom of some bottegajo in the Toledo, or on the Chiaja. Our
fast-growing Manhattan is a great town in its way--a wonderful
place--without a parallel, I do believe, on earth, as a proof of
enterprise and of the accumulation of business; and it is not easy to
make such a town appear ridiculous by any jibes and innuendoes that
relate to the positive things of this world, though nothing is easier
than to do it for itself by setting up to belong to the sisterhood of
such places as London, Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. There is too
much of the American notion of the omnipotence of numbers among us
Manhattanese, which induces us to think that the higher rank in the
scale of places is to be obtained by majorities. No, no; let us remember
the familiar axiom of "ne sutor ultra crepidum." New York is just the
queen of "business," but not yet the queen of the world. Every man who
travels ought to bring back something to the common stock of knowledge;
and I shall give a hint to my townsmen, by which I really think they may
be able to tell for themselves, as by feeling a sort of moral pulse,
when the town is rising to the level of a capital. When simplicity takes
the place of pretension, is one good rule; but, as it may require a good
deal of practice, or native taste, to ascertain this fact, I will give
another that is obvious to the senses, which will at least be strongly
symptomatic; and that is this: When _squares_ cease to be called
_parks_; when horse-bazaars and fashionable streets are not called
Tattersalls and Bond street; when _Washington_ Market is rechristened
_Bear_ Market, and Franklin and Fulton and other great philosophers and
inventors are plucked of the unmerited honours of having shambles named
after them; when _commercial_ is not used as a prefix to emporium; when
people can return from abroad without being asked "if they are
reconciled to their country," and strangers are not interrogated at the
second question, "how do you like _our city?_" then may it be believed
that the town is begi