that preceded this interview had prepared us for something of high and solemn import to follow, and though the opening of the audience had left us nothing to divine respecting the being that thus deigned to accord it, still, when we thus found ourselves beyond all doubt in the actual presence of the great Historian of New-York, the Dutch Herodotus, (as in compliment to the Greek annalist he has been called,) so overcome, so overwhelmed were we with the momentousness of the occasion, that the few incoherent sentences which first escaped us in reply to his address passed from our memory as soon as they were uttered, and we have only now a general impression of the part we took at the opening of this singular conference.
After stating to the sage that he had misconceived our design, in thinking we meditated any thing so presumptuous as supplying his place, as the quondam guardian of his favorite city, and that we had only assumed his name as good catholics when they take the cowl sometimes adopt that of their tutelar saint, we briefly mentioned those details of our design, with which the reader is already sufficiently acquainted from the prospectus, and then went on to observe:—That we well knew our publication must, at starting, owe its chief value and patronage to that pride of citizenship, widely distinct from a narrow cockney spirit, which, though latent, was still strong among the townsmen of the immortal Diedrich; but, that, though confidently relying upon this genial feeling, as the fulcrum of our first endeavors, it was upon broader and more general grounds we placed our hopes of final success. For as the rest of the country naturally looked to this metropolis for the mart of intelligence, as well as that of business, each organ that aided the emanation of literature hence, would tend also to concentrate it here, and—while our pages were open to the contribution of talent generally, when presented in a concise and animated form, provided only that sectarian discussion and party politics were not ingredients—we therefore expected to enlist ability, and consequently patronage, from every part of the country.
And much else did we add to the same purpose, which, dull and uninteresting as it is to the reader, the illustrious shade seemed to take in very good part, and even listen to in a manner highly flattering to us. After readily forgiving us the liberty taken with his name, in consideration of our having restored it to its ancient spelling, a little
