University of Virginia Library

14. VIEW OF NEW YORK FROM BEDLOW'S
ISLAND.

If any man would be melancholy and patriotic, let him
take a seat, of a sunny afternoon, upon the old ramparts of
Bedlow's Island, and gaze and mediate. Not that melancholy
and amorpatriæ are natural associates, visiting people
with their spirit, in company; may we never laugh again on
the fourth of July if we intended to say much a thing. But
we are bold to declare, that no gentleman of reasonable taste
and tenderness of heart, can lean against that solitary fort,

and drink in the ocean air playing around it, and lose his eyes
in the blue sky above it, without being lulled into unquestionable
pensiveness. We are further confident to assert that no
scene-hunting American can look upon the panorama that encircles
him, when he stops the sweep of his oar and backs
water ten yards off from that island, and not swell with pride
that this is his bay, and that is his city, and that his country
is the most beautiful, and the freest, and the happiest in the
world. Try it. Ye, whose dyspeptic grief paints everything
in mournful colors, take an oar in your hand on the first
April day when the sweet south-west shall gently blow in the
face of Sol. Try it.

That the artist who painted the picture which draws out
this commentary, felt the power of the scene when he sketched
it, his success well warrants us to believe. One might get
the bay, and harbor, and suburbs of New York by heart, by
studying this engraving. First, on your north lies Gibbet
Island—barren rock—sacred to the rope of the hangman.
The smoke of a steamboat-pipe, to the west, indicates the
watery turnpike which Duch frows of English Neighborhood
travel over, bringing grateful offerings in spring time, fresh
eggs and horse-radish, to Washington-market. Next Paulus
Hook stands revealed, of which nothing better can be said
than that it was whilom the country-seat of “the honorable,
wise and prudent William Kieft, director-general of New
Netherland,” and that he sold it in May, 1638, to Abraham
Planck, for four hundred and fifty guilders. Abraham leased
it to Gerrit Derkson for a tobacco plantation. But the estate
is now out of the family. The glory of the Dutch is departed!
—Further on, we catch a glimpse of the tall cliffs of Weehawken;
Weehawken, glorious in the sublime gloom of
mountain crags and solemn trees—wet with the blood of

Hamilton—honored in the verse of Halleck. The Palisades
next faintly show their ragged precipices, and by their side
runs the river of rivers, bearing to his far source the luxuries
and comforts of foreign commerce. How beautifully distinct
is that scarcely visible fleet of sloops, fading, as it were, gradually
away, until they seem to be only the white wings of
floating sea-fowl, hovering over schools of mummy-chubs, and
dipping up the scholars for their dinners. Turn, now, north-east.
There is your American London. There is your city
of five-hundred oyster-shops. This is the emporium of steamboats
and liberty poles. There is the heart of politics, commerce,
piety, and all manner of iniquity. But who is not
proud of this city? Who can look upon its lofty spires, its
forests of masts piercing the sky, its tribute-bearing sea-servants
crossing its bay and traversing the world, to add to its
wealth and honor,

What is more beautiful than the sunny waters of the East
River, as they run by the frowning castle on Governor's
Island—castle more terrible upon paper than in its crumbling,
rotten stone! Follow it up toward the Sound. Can you believe
that such a pleasant stream is the road to Hell-gate?
Here sentimental gentlemen may moralize a little. Cross to
Brooklyn, and your eye rests upon a young queen, beginning
to be a sister city. With our little sister we will shut our
eyes. We will contemplate the picture no more. We have
seen glory enough.

There is only one other of the several cities that gem our
bay, which we miss from the delineation before us. Does
not the reader's spirit sigh with ours, when we tearfully
whisper, Communipaw! But that city is behind us, reader,
and shares the sublimity of invisibility with the Narrows and

the ocean. But there, industriously toiling in that boat, are the
representatives of the ancient Dutch fish emporium. Yes, doubtless,
those gentleman are the members from Communipaw.
You might know it from the characteristic grasp of the oyster-tongs
in the hands of the one, and from the sable complexion
of the other; only there is a cast of mournful thought
upon the brow of the last, and he does not grin and show his
teeth, as hath been the fashion of Communipaw negroes from
the time whereof the memory of man knoweth not, etc. Perhaps
he hath had bad luck. “Delightful task!” as the poet
says, to scrape and poke all day, that Downing's reputation
as an oyster-caterer may be honored, and the rakers and
scrapers in adjoining Wall-street be made fat! We pause
for the sake of admiration.

Two hundred years ago! That was not much in the times
of the patriachs. It is nothing absolutely wonderful now—
only the length of life of two old people. And yet in those
two hundred years what changes have taken place! The
wilderness has become a city! Nations have been extirpated!
Nothing has remained but the sea, and the everlasting
air. The sea still laves the shore, but it is a shore peopled
with dock-rats, instead of being overhung with foliage
and flowers. The air still plays upon the island of Manhattan;
but, instead of the perfume of roses and sweet fruits,
caught up in green lanes and pleasant groves, it is pregnant
with pepper and snuff in South-street, and driving limestone
dust in Broadway. All, all is changed. It is worse than
was to Rip Van Winkle the transformation of jolly King
George's rubicund face into the buff and blue of General
Washington. Only one resemblance in the physico-moral
world remains. Two hundred years ago the “savages” would

have scalped you; the modern savages of Gotham only
shave you.

Two hundred years hence! O prophecy! we cannot bear
to listen to thee. We will only dare to hope that we may
live to see the year 2000, and that our lots on One hundredth-street
may then be worth principal and interest.