“His habits were as regular as his person.  He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty.  Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,—­a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world.  He had lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know whether 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 sceptre, 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 . . . .

     “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,
     from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was a lineal
     descendant.