a number of instances they have left the case still open to investigation to the present hour, and among other cases of this kind stands that of Sanctus Klaas, or St. Nicholas. In the mean time, until the question should be finally settled, his anniversary was to be kept in Holland, and the children, in the little hymn they used to sing in his honor, were permitted to address him as “goedt heyligh man”—good holy man. It appears that it was not so much at Christmas, as on the eve of his own festival, that he was supposed to drive his wagon over the roofs, and down the chimneys, to fill little people's stockings. For these facts, our authority is the Benson Memoir. A number of years since, it may be thirty or forty, Judge Benson, so well known to the old New Yorkers as the highest authority upon all Dutch chapters, had a quantity of regular “cookies” made, and the little hymn said by the children in honor of St. Nicholas, printed in Dutch and sent a supply of each as a Christmas present to the children of his particular friends. But though we have heard of this hymn, we have never yet been able to meet with it. Probably it is still in existence, among old papers in some garret or storeroom.
Strange indeed has been the two-fold metamorphosis undergone by the pious, ancient Bishop of Patara. We have every reason to believe that there once lived a saintly man of that name and charitable character, but, as in many other cases, the wonders told of him by the monkish legends are too incredible to be received upon the evidence which accompanies them. Then later, in a day of revolutions, we find every claim disputed, and the pious, Asiatic bishop appears before us no longer a bishop, no longer an Asiatic, no longer connected with the ancient world,
