It would seem that, as Nature has given its periods to the stages of animal life, it has also set limits to all moral and political ascendency.  While the city of the Medici is receding from its crumbling walls, like the human form shrinking into “the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,” the Queen of the Adriatic sleeping on her muddy isles, and Rome itself is only to be traced by fallen temples and buried columns, the youthful vigor of America is fast covering the wilds of the West with the happiest fruits of human industry.

By the Manhattanese, who is familiar with the forest of masts, the miles of wharves, the countless villas, the hundred churches, the castles, the smoking and busy vessels that crowd his bay, the daily increase and the general movement of his native town, the picture we are about to sketch will scarcely be recognized.  He who shall come a generation later will probably smile, that subject of admiration should have been found in the existing condition of the city:  and yet we shall attempt to carry the recollections of the reader but a century back, in the brief history of his country.

As the sun rose on the morning of the 3d of June 171-, the report of a cannon was heard rolling along the waters of the Hudson.  Smoke issued from an embrasure of a small fortress, that stood on the point of land where the river and the bay mingle their waters.  The explosion was followed by the appearance of a flag, which, as it rose to the summit of its staff and unfolded itself heavily in the light current of air, showed the blue field and red cross of the English ensign.  At the distance of several miles, the dark masts of a ship were to be seen, faintly relieved by the verlant back-ground of the heights of Staten Island.  A little cloud floated over this object, and then an answering signal came dull and rumbling to the town.  The flag that the cruiser set was not visible in the distance.

At the precise moment that the noise of the first gun was heard, the door of one of the principal dwellings of the town opened, and a man, who might have been its master, appeared on its stoop, as the ill-arranged entrances of the buildings of the place are still termed.  He was seemingly prepared for some expedition that was likely to consume the day.  A black of middle age followed the burgher to the threshold; and another negro, who had not yet reached the stature of manhood, bore under his arm a small bundle, that probably contained articles of the first necessity to the comfort of his master.

“Thrift, Mr. Euclid, thrift is your true philosopher’s stone;” commenced, or rather continued in a rich full-mouthed Dutch, the proprietor of the dwelling, who had evidently been giving a leave-taking charge to his principal slave, before quitting the house—­“Thrift hath made many a man rich, but it never yet brought any one to want.  It is thrift which has built up the credit of my house, and, though it is said by myself, a broader back and firmer base belongs to