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RECOLLECTIONS OF ALBANY. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DXtlVEBED BEFOBE THE 
 
 gating 3©^u'0 IsBoriatk of lllianq, 
 
 FEBRUARY 7th, 1854. 
 
 WILLIAM KENT. 
 
 VAN NORDEN & AMERMAN, PRHTTERS, 
 
 No. 60 WlLUiM-STBEET. 
 
 1854. 
 

ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. Pbesident and Gentlemen : 
 
 In asking your attention for a few minntes to the recollec- 
 tions of an old Albanian, I may remark that I was drawn to 
 this subject, less by the hope of affording to you instruction or 
 amusement, than by an impulse, which it would have been 
 difficult to resist. 
 
 It is now thirty years, since in early manhood I left Albany 
 as a permanent residence ; I return to it — such is the inevita- 
 ble effect of time — a stranger. The intervening period, which 
 would not be unimportant in a nation's history, is almost the 
 allotted term of an individual's life. Ties, once close and 
 dear, — interests once inseparable, — friendships and affections, 
 which absorbed the whole heart, have yielded to the influence 
 of time ; and still the birth-place — ^the home of the happy 
 child and light-hearted boy, radiant in the memory with all 
 that is glowing and beautiful in youth and health and in- 
 nocence, becomes dearer and brighter as " the abbreviation of 
 time and the failure of hope begin to tinge with a browner 
 shade the evening of life." 
 
 In the few observations, which I shall have the honor to 
 offer, you will, of course, not anticipate any intrusion into 
 private life, even long gone by. My design is only to attempt 
 a slight sketch of some of the phases of Albany, during the 
 few years when the present century was commencing its 
 eventful course. 
 
 Before entering upon my especial subject, I would advert, 
 for a moment, to the immense alteration which forty years 
 have caused in the relative importance of nations, and even of 
 
4 
 
 continents. Forty years ago, for example, there was, prac- 
 tically, no western coast of North America. It was peopled 
 by roving tribes of fierce barbarians, and we heard of it only 
 in the massacre of traders, or in the report of some daring ad- 
 venturers, like Lewis and Clark, who traversed the Rocky 
 Mountains. Mexico and South America, closed to the world 
 by colonial restrictions, were dozing under the dull tyranny 
 of Spanish and Portuguese vice-royalties. Australia and its 
 immense adjacent islands, now offering indications of national 
 power and empire, so similar to our own, were known to us 
 only by the narratives of voyagers, like Cook, who coasted 
 their shores, or the gallant La Perouse, who perished among 
 their savage inhabitants. These were indeed sufficient to de- 
 mand the attention and attract the interest of men both of 
 Europe and America ; — and who can recognise in the proud, 
 self-confident and arrogant nation, now presenting an aggres- 
 sive front to all the world, that long suffering and patient 
 people, who endeavored, forty years ago, by neutrality and 
 seclusion, to escape the violence and wrongs of Europe ? 
 
 If Europe shall be involved, as is now probable, in universal 
 war, what regard will the American people pay to an order 
 of the Enolish government, declaring a large portion of the 
 coast of Europe in a state of blockade, when all its navies, from 
 the time of the Armada, could not make such a blockade 
 legal ? How long shall we remain passive under a decree of 
 Napoleon III, declaring the British Islands in a state of 
 blockade, and confiscating American merchantmen, if searched 
 involuntarily by an English cruiser, when the whole naval 
 force of the Emperor shall be a few predatory privateers, 
 scudding like solitary sea-gulls over the ocean ? Nay, will a 
 proclamation of non-intercourse be our only retaliation, when 
 a foreign frigate, in profound peace, in the waters of the 
 Chesapeake, shall overpower by force a national vessel, and 
 tear by violence our seamen from its decks ? I recall these 
 few incidents of times not very remote, to illustrate more 
 forcibly than mere description can do, the quiet and unob- 
 trusive character of Americans of the preceding generation, 
 and to show how our respect, admiration, and even awe, were 
 
inspired by Europe, then convulsed by the wars proceeding 
 from the French revohition. 
 
 It was indeed a fearful and sublime spectacle, the condition 
 of Europe before the final peace of 1815, and presenting 
 singular contrasts to the events of the present day. "We saw 
 the English fleets and armies defending the Turks against the 
 invasions of France ; and then, by a sudden shifting of the 
 dramatis personse, it was the French, under Sebastiani, who 
 pointed the artillery of the Dardanelles against an English 
 squadron. Italy was then rising in fruitless insurrection 
 against French oppression. Austria was fighting the battles 
 of national independence ; and the Hungarians, enthusiastic in 
 loyalty, were charging foremost in the imperial squadrons the 
 legions of Moreau in the plains of Lombardy, or turning the 
 tide of victory against Napoleon himself, in the bloody day of 
 Aspern. Eussia was then defending her territories against 
 the overwhelming forces of a foreign power, and with wild 
 and heroic patriotism burning her capital to wrest a foothold 
 from the invader; and Spain, rising, for a brief period, above 
 the profligacy of its court and corruption of its government, 
 was resisting the modern Hannibal, with more than its ancient 
 valor, in the ruins of Gerona and Saragossa. 
 
 These were the topics of conversation, and the all-absorb- 
 ing objects of interest, forty years ago ; nor was it wonderful 
 that our domestic diflTerences should have been tame in com- 
 parison, and that even onr political parties should have been 
 influenced by the two great central figures in this melee of 
 nations, on the result of whose antagonism, the issue of the 
 contest depended. Was it surprising that admiration and 
 partisanship even should be excited by France, repulsing coa- 
 litions of kings, and in turn assailant, entering as conqueror 
 every capital of Continental Europe — placing a Frenchman 
 on the throne of Naples, a Frenchman on the throne of Spain, 
 a Frenchman as monarch in "Westphalia, a French soldier in 
 the Scandinavian Peninsula, as successor of Gustavus Adol- 
 phus ; binding the unwilling nations of Europe in commercial 
 bonds against her great opponent, and controlling this mighty 
 combination by her innumerable legions of martial Gauls, 
 
6 
 
 trained in Roman discipline, and guided by Carthagenian 
 genius ? Nor was it wonderful that opposing zeal and feeling, 
 even in America, should gather around the great opponent 
 of this mighty alliance, whose policy some might dislike, but 
 to whom none could deny the grandeur of attitude and the 
 wonders of power ; whose subsidies supported the armies of 
 the continent ; whose fleets controlled every sea ; whose armies 
 led the van of every insurrection ; and whose commercial 
 enterprise and manufacturing industry clothed her, in the 
 midst of this dreadful conflict with the garments of peace, 
 " whose richness surpassed the woof of Ormus and the purple 
 of Tyre !" 
 
 Albany, in the first decade of the present century, was a 
 quiet and quaint little town, which, in the intervals of the 
 sittings of the legislatm-e, when an unwonted bustle was in- 
 troduced among us, Washington Irving would have loved to 
 describe. I have resorted to no statistical tables to fix your 
 population, or the material circumstances of your city. I 
 speak from the indelible impressions of childhood, which may 
 make a few anachronisms, but which defy the wear of time. 
 They are daguerreotypes on the memory engraved by the 
 morning sunbeam. They are the pictures of a mighty master, 
 and grow more vivid by years. 
 
 It was then an isolated town. Schenectady lay a day's 
 journey distant, over the sandhills. Greenbush, a little ham- 
 let, was visited with diflBculty, and rarely visited at all ; while 
 Bath, our nearest neighbor, was a mystery to us all, and re- 
 mains to me a mystery still. We knew that a road led 
 through it to Sand Lake, which we heard of as one hears of 
 Lake Tchad or Lake Baikal, in Africa and Asia, and I confess 
 my notions of its locality are scarcely more precise now. I re- 
 member, in the daring enterprise of seven or eight years of age, 
 commencing my travels by an excursion to Bath, determined 
 to see, close at hand, the storehouse and buildings, which I 
 had gazed at so often from the right bank of the river ; and I 
 well remember finding, when I reached the centre of that com- 
 mercial emporium, as I have too often since found in life, that 
 distance had lent the enchantment. Within our city, the pre- 
 
dominant characteristics of architecture, manners, and even 
 language, were those of Holland. Emigrants had indeed come 
 among ns ; and the Yankees, of course, were not absent. I 
 myself came from that nomadic and interloping race. It was 
 at a later period, when they waxed numerous and bold, and 
 built their own church, and placed audaciously their national 
 emblems on its steeple. But the high places in our city were 
 conceded to, and incontestably held by the Dutch. They 
 were the lauded aristocracy. Their villas overhung our hill- 
 tops. Nay, one of them was as much a noble, in hereditary title 
 and estate, and in every thing, except political privilege, as a 
 Duke of Devonshire or of I^orfolk. He was the last survivor of 
 expiring feudality ; and never did its representative better en- 
 title himself to affection and respect by an unassuming de- 
 portment, unobtrusive charity, the discreet exercise of the in- 
 fluence of his station, and all the virtues of domestic life. 
 
 The architecture of Holland and ancient Albany was not 
 that of Virtuvius or Palladio ; but I hope you all regret with 
 me that the sweep of modern improvement has unnecessarily 
 abolished every vestige of those queer, but interesting build- 
 ings, which marked an epoch in our history, and the predomi- 
 nance of national characteristics, now submerged for ever in 
 the mingling of the people, forming new America. I sup- 
 pose there is scarcely a person in this assembly who remem- 
 bers, as I do, the old Dutch Church at the foot of State-street. 
 I cannot help regretting this curious structure, although I 
 admit, that no modern architect could erect so ugly a building, 
 and although its removal has created, perhaps, the noblest 
 street in an American city. But why was the old Yander- 
 heyden Palace, with its quaint gables, and elaborate, if fan- 
 tastic, ornaments, allowed to disappear? And where were 
 the archaeologists of Albany, when innovators tore down the 
 harmless old building atLydius's Corner, constructed of bricks 
 brought years and years ago from Holland ? 
 
 It is, I know full well, useless to resist or lament change and 
 innovation. Yet an old inhabitant returning, after years of 
 absence, to Albany, sighs for the departed beauties of its envi- 
 rons. Where is the Patroon's Creek, once umbrageous with 
 
8 
 
 shade, and intricate with sylvan labyrinth ? It is turnnd into a 
 conduit ! Where is the beautiful cascade, which we, rather 
 ambitiously, styled the Falls of Tivoli? It has become a 
 water-tank. Where are the sanded beach and the willowy 
 banks of the river ? They have become a rail-road depot and 
 a canal basin. What has become of the Cataract of the Co- 
 hoee, so secluded, so solitary, so awe-inspiring, where, as 
 Thomas Moore sings, 
 
 " From rise of moin 'till set of sun, 
 He saw the mighty Mohawk run ?" 
 
 It is metamorphosed to a woollen factory. 
 
 All those things are doubtless useful, necessary perhaps, 
 certainly utilitarian and money-making, but it is a relief to 
 the old Albanian to gaze on the bolder features of your land- 
 scape, and at last recognise landmarks,which defy the puny en- 
 croachments of man. He is sincerely grateful, that you can- 
 not shut out the Green Mountains ; that you cannot level the 
 Helderberghs ; that you cannot essentially alter the majestic 
 sweep of your matchless river ; and that no engineer can dig 
 down the everlasting Catskills. 
 
 The isolation of Albany, in the antediluvian days, before 
 steamboats and rail-roads, is never so forcibly brought to my 
 mind, as on the evening of a general election. It is indeed 
 an astonishing fact, that before the midnight of that day, we 
 may often tell with certainty, not only the Governor elect, but 
 the future President of the United States. It was not so in 
 Albany in the early periods of this century. We poor Fede- 
 ralists, always hoping, bravely voting, and invariably defeated, 
 had, at least, the consolation of being long in dying. It was 
 really believed by some of the deeply disappointed among us, 
 that, in the eastern part of Long Island they kept on voting 
 after the election day, until they had voted in the Governor. 
 At all events, we always had, after the election, a fortnight of 
 chequered fortunes, and alternate hopes and fears, gradually 
 growing black. There were plausible grounds for betting, 
 though this proved ultimately not pecuniarily advantageous 
 to us. It took a long time before oriental Suffolk, and inac- 
 cessible Delaware, and remote Chenango, and hyperborean 
 
St. Lawrence, before, in sLort, the North and the South, the 
 East and the "West, combined to give the coup-de-grace to our 
 sufferings. 
 
 The post of an old inhabitant has some compensation for 
 the penalties of advanced life ; and it is with pensive pleasure, 
 that I recall some of the successive innovations which have 
 made Albany almost the centre of the Union. Each innova- 
 tion, I remember, was received with incredulity, and was 
 regarded by the prudent as pregnant with danger. It is 
 something of a distinction to remember the first steamboat 
 on the Hudson — the first steamboat in the world — the har- 
 binger of a greater revolution than conqueror or army ever 
 wrought. It appeared in very humble guise. The ricketty 
 little boat, with uncovered wheels and machinery, looked 
 much like a saw mill, and impressed very few of the citizens 
 of Albany with reverence for the illustrious stranger that had 
 appeared among them. I remember, in the second year of 
 its existence, embarking for New- York with a select party of 
 conservative gentlemen, who smiled at the chimeras of Liv- 
 ingston and Fulton. We sailed in the good sloop, the Oneida 
 Chief, Sherman, master, and had a prosperous voyage. We 
 passed safely the Hogenbarack, lay only a half a day on the 
 Overslaugh, sailed without peril by the Dunscammer and 
 through the Tappan Zee, and entered New- York triumphantly, 
 on the evening of the fourth day ; but beaten by the despised 
 steamboat about sixty hours. The Schenectady Turnpike 
 was an improvement of a different kind. That was deemed 
 practicable and sure ; and the same conservative gentlemen 
 placed their capital in the enterprise as perfectly safe by the 
 calculations of the coolest sagacity. Safe in one sense the 
 stock has proved, as I have some of it now, very much in its 
 original condition, undisturbed by speculations, and undi- 
 minished by dividends. Another lesson to human foresight 
 was given by the Canal, which was opposed by many on 
 what were deemed the soundest principles. It owed, if not 
 its existence, certainly its early adoption to a casting vote in 
 the Council of Revision by the Chancellor, accepting it 
 avowedly as an alternative of greater evil. But it was borne 
 up by mighty energy ; and its name will ever be associated 
 
10 
 
 with his, whose prescience foresaw its benefits, whose elo- 
 quence urged its construction, whose high courage staked his 
 fortunes on its issue, and whose skill and wisdom guided it 
 to success. 
 
 Keeping pace with these great innovations, which affected 
 the whole country, I saw those civic alterations begin, which, 
 if they did not find Albany brick and transform it to marble, 
 at least changed it from a rural town to a beautiful city. The 
 descendants of the Hollanders became gradually inferior in 
 numbers, and the Dutch expired as a written and even spoken 
 language among us. Slavery became extinct, though that 
 institution had never existed in a milder form, and it is diflS- 
 cult for an Albanian of mature years to work himself tip to 
 the current philanthropic zeal on the subject. If I were called 
 on to designate any privileged class in old Albany, I should 
 indicate the negroes. There was tyranny, but it was the 
 tyranny of the blacks over their good old Dutch masters. 
 They were like the lilies ; they toiled not, neither did they 
 spin. They were pampered, and full of family pride, and 
 lazy ; and these are qualities which we are apt to ascribe to 
 an hereditary [Noblesse. They disappeared in a good degree 
 with their emancipation. What has become of them, and 
 what has been the cause of their extinction, are questions 
 worthy of serious examination. 
 
 Albany gradually expanded and improved in its architect- 
 ure. I did not remain to see your Capitol-square assume its 
 present splendid appearance, but I saw the commencement 
 of the improvements which have redeemed it from a vast 
 and dreadful sand-bank, which used to engulf man and horse. 
 I saw the Capitol commenced, and used to gaze at its lofty 
 columns and majestic dome, with emotions of awe which I 
 have not felt in the Portico of the Pantheon. I must confess 
 they seem strangely shrunken and diminished now ; and the 
 returning traveller, in comparing them with his boyish recol- 
 lection, is reminded of poor Hood's melancholy lines : — 
 
 " It waa a childish ignorance— 
 
 But now there is little joy, 
 To know Tm further off from heayen 
 
 Than when I was a boy." 
 
11 
 
 None of the changes of Albany imprcBS me more than yonr 
 existing Post Office arrangements, with the appliances and 
 apparatus of modern communication. In my time, it was 
 kept by excellent Dr. Mancius, in the corner of an apothecary's 
 shop. There, of a winter's night, four or five of us, boys and 
 messengers, used to wait for the arrival of the heavy, rumbling 
 New-Tork stage, weary with fifty hours of continued wheeling, 
 and clogged with all the clay of the Highlands. Do not 
 fancy, however, that the news it brought was commensurate 
 with this humble carriage. No — no ! Through that little 
 Post Office — the size of a showman's box — we had views of 
 the foreign world which the present time cannot equal. We 
 saw there Hamilton fall, basely cut off in the midst of his 
 unfinished labors ! We beheld there Nelson expire, amid the 
 thunders of Trafalgar ! Step by step, we watched the won- 
 derful march of Napoleon, and saw his gleaming Eagles, now 
 fanned by Italian breezes, now floating on Sarmatian storms, 
 now wheeling in wavering circles on the Elbe, and now tearing 
 with ensanguined taloHs, the fatal field of Waterloo ! And 
 finally, we saw that " Babylon the great had fallen, and Paris, 
 the proud city of philosophy, had bowed its neck to the Con- 
 queror ! " 
 
 In a retired, and what is now a very obscure part of your 
 town, there was formerly a quiet, and rather secluded nook, 
 to which I find an increasing tendency to return in recollection. 
 The heart, worn with the scofik of life, turns, like the hunted 
 animal in the chase, to the beginning of its morning career. 
 This little nook was aside from the crowded thoroughfare, and 
 removed from the business and bustle of the city. It posses- 
 sed almost rural beauty ; at least it seems so to me now. It 
 was near the suburbs, and within reach of peaceful and soli- 
 tary walks. It had its over-shadowing trees. How often, in 
 an autumnal evening, I have listened to those testy little dog- 
 matists, the Katydids, among their foliage ! The river flowed 
 close by, unobstructed and untormented by man, rolling its 
 crystal waters, clear as when they issued from their mountain 
 lakes. I know nothing of this place now, but it appears sadly 
 dimmed and desecrated. Forty years ago, it was the centre 
 
12 
 
 of elegant society, — of letters and refinement, and social in- 
 tercourse, and was the residence of men who attracted the 
 regards of the nation. I cannot attempt to mention all : one 
 I dare not name. Some of them will rise at once to the re- 
 collection of those that hear me. Many of you will recall the 
 graceful amenity, the dignity, the thoughtful countenance 
 and elegant nature of Sutheeland — a brilliant lamp too early 
 quenched! And many a heart in your city will be touched 
 and melted in its deepest and holiest emotions, as it remem- 
 bers the Bweet-sonled piety of Chestek ! I can permit myself 
 to linger a moment on the names of two others only of that 
 brilliant collection — two natives, and life-long residents of 
 Albany, whose talents and virtues have added to its fair re- 
 nown : — I allude to Mr. Henkt and Mr. Yak Yechten. 
 
 It may be that events and characters of the past begin to as- 
 sume, with me, unreal magnitude, or it may be that there is an 
 actual change in the relative position of classes among us ; but 
 at any rate, the position of the lawyer appears to me to be less 
 elevated than it was forty years ago. I think the change is actual. 
 New professions divide the public attention ; and men of letters, 
 of the arts and sciences, receive, not undeservedly, the atten- 
 tion and respect which, in a former stage of national progress, 
 was given to the profession, which formerly engrossed most of 
 the practiced oratory of the times. Mr. Henet was a lead- 
 ing member of the bar, when to be a great lawyer indicated 
 more than the possession of learning and talent, and implied 
 a high and aristocratic station in society. It implied polished 
 manners, a high demeanor, the nicest sense of honor, and 
 scrupulous observance of the rules of etiquette. Under this 
 finished exterior lay qualities, which, in any time, must have 
 raised him to the first rank in his profession. Deep legal 
 learning, powers of protracted investigation, a terse and epi- 
 grammatic style, and close and perspicuous logic distinguished 
 him among his contemporaries ; and when the occasion re- 
 quired it, when fraud was to be exposed and innocence made 
 manifest, I have seen him rise into the region of lofty and ef- 
 fective oratory. Such he was to the world : to me he was 
 more. I was reared almost at his feet. I partook of his ele- 
 
13 
 
 gant hospitality. I was cheered by his daily smile, and ad- 
 mired with boyish enthusiasm his gallant bearing. Ifone felt 
 more sorrow at his death, by the almost appointed end of the 
 over- worked lawyer, when the brain, worn by midnight study, 
 at once gives way, and the silver chord is suddenly loosened, 
 and the wheel of life is broken at the fountain. "Then 
 cracked a noble heart !" Better wish can I form for none 
 than that, as a neighbor, a citizen, an accomplished lawyer, 
 and a high-spirited gentleman, he may bear resemblance to 
 John Yeenob Henet. 
 
 By the side of Mr. Henry, in a long professional life, was a 
 rival, yet a friend, of marked characteristics, contrasted, 
 rather than opposed. "Who that ever saw Abraham Vak 
 Veohten can forget his serene and dignified countenance ? 
 "Who. that ever knew him, failed to admire his simple and 
 beautiful character ? We may well doubt, if another man. 
 like him, can arise among us. "We may have men of more 
 brilliant talents, not of greater wisdom ; men of greater 
 learning, not of cooler sagacity ; men of more polish of man- 
 ner, not of more dignity of deportment. He was, it may be 
 truly said, the most influential and esteemed of our citizens — 
 consulted in every civil emergency, guiding with wise and 
 moderate counsel his numerous clients, discharging with fidel- 
 ity the public trusts ; and, marked in his walk through life by 
 his Doric simplicity of demeanor, his quiet firmness, his un- 
 obtrusive piety, he seemed to belong peculiarly to the early 
 stage of a republic, and to resemble, under the diflference of 
 manners, race, and religion, one of the early Patricians of old 
 Eome, who tilled his little farm among the Sabine Hills, in the 
 intervals of public service with the Legion, or in the Senate 
 House. 
 
 The winter season affected Albany formerly even more than 
 it does at present. It changed a provincial town to a capital. 
 It was a busy and eventful season, from the closing of the 
 navigation of the Hudson till the great Albany anniversary of 
 days of yore — usually, in my time, on the 17th of March, St. 
 Patrick's day in the morning, when the Kiver God was wont 
 to awake from his winter sleep, and shaking from his azure 
 
14 
 
 locks the icy shackles, urge forward his coursers, free and un- 
 bound, to the ocean. I can permit myself only a few profes- 
 sional recollections of the times, when Albany was, as it 
 ought to be, the seat of all the great central courts, and 
 attracted hither a large portion of the forensic talent of the 
 State. It was in an old building in Green-street, that one of 
 Hamilton's greatest efforts was made. In the old City Hall, 
 in Court-street, the glittering rhetoric of Chancellor Livingston 
 was exhibited ; and the case, so well known to lawyers, of Le 
 Guen and Governeur, was argued ; and Burr and Hamilton 
 and Morris, stimulated by political and professional rivalry, 
 displayed varied but not unequal talent. In Albany I have 
 seen displayed the depth and subtlety of the genius of Talcott ; 
 Oneida sent us the varied and fertile talents of Stokks ; 
 Dutchess furnished the compact and nervous reasoning of 
 Oaklet ; Columbia the ingenious and elaborate rhetoric of 
 Van Bueebt, and, above all, the wonderful oratory of Elisha 
 Williams, who, after much observation in America and Eu- 
 rope, at the bar, the pulpit and in the Senate chamber, has 
 always appeared to me the most eloquent of men. In listening 
 to him, when his various powers have been fully called forth, 
 and observing his potent sway over the feelings of men, I have 
 recognised the force of the eulogy on Pericles, " on whose lips 
 (it was said) persuasion sat, and he left his sting in the hearts of 
 his audience." Nor was the metropolis without its delegation of 
 lawyers, to whom, I believe, I may say, was generally conceded 
 a deserved pre-eminence. Among them some of you may re- 
 member John "Wells, whose classical features, and form and 
 fascinating rhetoric, were such as we should ascribe to an 
 Hortensius or a Scsevola — ^the all-accomplished orator of 
 Cicero ; and Thomas Addis Emmet, whom tragic events exiled 
 from the land where he would have risen by the side of Grat- 
 tan and Curran ; and gave to America, what he would have 
 devoted to Ireland, " his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his 
 manly courage, and all the splendors of his astonishing 
 eloquence." Nor aught I, in common justice, to forget 
 another New-Yorker, once welcome to the society of Albany, 
 and of whom I can happily afford a better idea than my poor 
 
15 
 
 language can impart — ^you may see among yon this winter, in 
 inherited name and talent, the humor, the playful wit and 
 fascinating address, which, forty years ago, Albany admired 
 in JosiAH Ogden Hoffman. 
 
 I have referred, it will be perceived, in my recollections, 
 exclusively to lawyers, because they are in some degree pub- 
 lic men, and I wish to avoid trespassing in the slightest de- 
 gree on private life. Yet in reviewing the past, two names 
 among many occur, whom, from the peculiarity of their posi- 
 tion, it cannot be improper to mention, 
 
 I cannot avoid alluding, when mentioning the remarkable 
 strangers in Albany, in by-gone times, him, whose guest they 
 were, for many a winter — him, in natural talent the equal of 
 all by the acknowledgment of all — whose wit was wont to set 
 the table in a roar, when fastidious taste and severe criticism 
 were in the assembly. To describe mine Host of the Hill, 
 would require the pencil of Hogarth, or perhaps dramatic 
 power akin to that, which delineated him, whom OKiriTEinDEN 
 resembled in humor and good humor, figure, tact, judgment 
 and convivial powers — ^in everything indeed, except perfect 
 honor and integrity, in which he as much excelled as his pro 
 totype was deficient — in brief, the Falstaff of Shakspeare. 
 
 The other person to whom I allude, was a feature of the 
 times. We had emigrants among us, but those from the con- 
 tinent of Europe were of a different class from such as we see 
 now. It was not the fierce republican, bringing with him the 
 fiery passions and unappeased resentments and rebellious 
 schemes of Europe, but the high-born and dejected noble, 
 looking back to his burning chateau, his monarch dead on the 
 scaffold, and his beautiful France crimsoned with Patrician 
 blood. Some of you must recollect the Marquis du Braille, 
 long resident in Albany, distinguished by the quiet dignity of 
 his demeanor, his exquisite courtesy to the sex, and the calm 
 philosophy with which he endured poverty and obscurity 
 among strangers, whose language he could never learn. 
 There came to him an hour of joy. The Bourbons were re- 
 stored: We all sympathized with the old Emigre, as he 
 walked the streets with the white cockade, and the high-bred 
 
16 
 
 mien with which, perhaps, in his youth, he had moved in the 
 halls of Yersailles. Yet he lived, we are told, to find himself 
 a stranger in France, his indemnity withheld, his king, as he 
 thought, ungrateful ; and more than all,, hope extinguished. 
 He regretted, it is said, the reversal of his exile. 
 
 Who, that reviews the past events of his life, can be true 
 to his reminiscences, and omit all mention of the most bril- 
 liant and fascinating of the amusements of his youth — the 
 Theatre ? I remember the Theatre, in its first dingy appear- 
 ance in the little Thespian Hotel, in Pearl-street. Never did 
 Melpomene attire herself in humbler habiliments since her first 
 rustic appearance on the cart of Thespis. I saw her emerge 
 into greater splendor in the new theatre, in Green-street, when 
 a regular company presented themselves to the Albanians, 
 under the skillful conduct of Mr. Manager Bebnaed. 
 
 I am aware that the theatre has become associated in many 
 minds so indissolubly with immorality and vice, that it re- 
 quires some courage to approach a subject that is almost 
 tabooed among the innocent and good. I certainly do not 
 intend now to discuss the question whether the theatre is ne- 
 cessary and hopelessly bad, or whether its defects and vices 
 are accidental and extrinsic, while it may contain within it, 
 that which addresses itself to the highest qualities of the in- 
 tellect and the taste, and might be made — ^under widely 
 different conduct — auxiliary to national cultivation and re- 
 finement. 
 
 But, good or bad, it may be a serious question for the 
 moralist and the legislator, whether the wisest course has 
 been pursued in regard to it. Nothing is more certain in 
 political philosophy, no lesson is more deeply imprinted on 
 History, than that a Government or community can produce 
 in every human subject, be it man, or woman, or tribe, or 
 sect, or clan, or nation, the criminal it severely proclaims it 
 to be. One end is uniformly attained : the object of indis- 
 criminate severity at last stands fiercely at bay. If worm-like 
 'tis trampled, it will, adder-like, revenge. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that the Drama has existed in 
 every civilized nation from Greece to Australia. It has called 
 
17 
 
 forth the very highest exertions of human genius, from Ma - 
 chylus and Sophocles to Shakspeare and Eacine. Must it be 
 that these matchless pictures of human feeling are to be con- 
 templated only in the closet ? Is there indeed an inexorable 
 principle of virtue, which forbids them to glow into life in 
 the impassioned delineations of Siddons and Eachel ? Does 
 relentless morality compel us to prescribe that beautiful art, 
 by which (in the fine expression of Campbell,) 
 
 " Verse ceases to be airy thought, 
 And sculpture to be dumb ?" 
 
 r must admit that this high ideal excellence of the dramatic 
 art was not found in the Thespian Hotel or the Green Street 
 Theatre ; and I am well aware that, at the first opening of a 
 Theatre in a small town, it is apt to become something very 
 like a nuisance. It draws the boys, as it did me, away from 
 school and study. It turns the heads of the young men and 
 makes them moon-struck actors, after the style of Sylvester 
 Daggerwood ; and worse than all, it deceives the gentle feel- 
 ings of the susceptible and fair, and induces them, too often 
 erroneously, to believe that the hero and the true gentleman 
 are concealed under the carmine and the mantle of the tra- 
 gedian. 
 
 It is not my design to attempt the description, already 
 made by Charles Dickens and Charles Lamb, of a boy's first 
 visit to the theatre — an event never to be obliterated by fu- 
 ture years. The early entrance — the empty house, gradually 
 filling — the kindling of the lamps, as they, (in the language 
 of the Eejected Addresses,) 
 
 "Touched by the lamp-lighter's FrometheaD art, 
 Start into light, and make the lighter starts" 
 
 — the mysterious green baize curtain — the mystic bell — the 
 glories of the stage, with castle-tower, and forest, and palace 
 — the robber chief, the clown, the beautiful heroine : — ^o ! 
 After-life is tame to sights like these, and the splendors of 
 the actual world are tarnished and dim to these early visions. 
 The plays of my time were not those of Shakspeare. These 
 were rarely attempted, and only when some wandering star 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 of the New-York stage shone in our northern sky. "We had 
 often the old English comedies ; but the favorite representa- 
 tions were melo dramas — such as Timour the Tartar, and the 
 Forty Thieves, and Theodore Hook's Tekeli, and Monk Lewis' 
 Castle-Spectre, and Sheridan's Pizarro. 
 
 It is useless to recite the names of the actors. They would 
 awaken no interest now. They have long since disappeared — 
 that careless, light-hearted, good-for-nothing race! as irre- 
 vocably faded as their tinsel robes and paste-board palaces. 
 Tou know nothing of Southey, who did the comic parts; or 
 Tyler, who was the genteel comedian ; or of pretty Mrs. Toung, 
 who used to convulse my very heart as Oora or Mrs. Haller. 
 Nor would my own judgment now confirm the opinions and 
 tastes of thirteen ; but one of those actors, unless all my re- 
 collections are fallacies, would even now receive and deserve 
 the praise of enlightened criticism — I mean Beenakd himself. 
 He was an author of some merit; and in high comedy, in Sir 
 Peter Teazle, or old Dornton, in the "Eoad to Euin," and in 
 characters of that stamp, I shall always believe him to have 
 been one of the most finished artists that we have seen in 
 America. 
 
 I cannot close these reminiscences without touching for a 
 moment on the literature of former times, for we had liter- 
 ature then, and books, and reviews and newspapers, though 
 all these were far less numerous than in the present abundant 
 times. 
 
 I said NEWSPAPEES. but, I believe, we had but one — the old 
 Albany Gazette, which was quiet as the times, and gentle as 
 the manners were of yore. Tou would look in vain in it for 
 the skill and power of the existing gladiators of literature ; for 
 the eloquent invective, the tart reply, the stinging personality, 
 the dextrous argument, and the brilliant repartees of modern 
 journals. These things would have startled the gentle news- 
 mongers of forty years ago. Nor was it crowded with intel- 
 ligence from all Christendom, watching by the hour the nego- 
 tiations of the Eussians and the Turks, kindling and ex- 
 tinguishing insurrections, changing or enlarging the boundaries 
 
19 
 
 of the Republic, examining everything, disturbing everything, 
 and controlling everything. 
 
 Not such was our good Gazette. But it gave us all we 
 wanted to know in reasonable times, and homeopathic quan- 
 tities ; — the deaths and the marriages ; the accidents of 
 storms, and jJood and fire ; advices from Europe two or three 
 months old, and all the simple annals of a primitive and 
 quiet neighborhood. Occasionally a political essay from Ju- 
 nius, Publins, Cato, or some other Eoman patriot, would dis- 
 close to us something rotten in the state of the Eepublic ; and, 
 before the spring election, the address of some Federal meet- 
 ing would declare to us that, if liberty was not absolutely gone, 
 she was packing up her effects for her final departure. "We 
 took all this very calmly ; and the annual crisis of constitu- 
 tional danger, which has become chronic in our politics, 
 passed off very lightly in the good old times. But the Gazette 
 was a sensible and useful paper, and is remembered with 
 respect by the fast diminishing number of its former readers. 
 Nor do they forget the place of its publication, the bookstore 
 vmder the old elm tree at the corner of Pearl-street, where the 
 visitor was always sure of a courteous and affable reception, and 
 where the gentle quidnuncs and elderly politicians of former 
 days used to love to congregate. I have heard discussions and 
 suggestions there, which, if they reached the ears of the Arch- 
 duke Charles and the Emperor Napoleon, would have given 
 them singular views of State policy and the conduct of cam- 
 paigns. But I believe they never reached so far. 
 
 The Gazette disappeared with the times, of which it was the 
 product and reflection. It gave way to hardier and more 
 skillful journals, as untutored labor yields to scientific skill. 
 It left an unblemished name. It had hurt no man's feelings ; 
 it had injured no man's reputation ; it might, like the great 
 Athenian, claim for its epitaph, that no citizen had worn 
 mourning on its account. Light lie the earth on its ashes ! 
 
 I remember the rise, and something of the progress of the 
 modern school of journalists in Albany ; and did time permit, 
 might attempt some sketches of such of the writers as are de- 
 parted, — of the bold character, glowing pen, and ardent 
 
20 
 
 temperament of Solomon Southwick, the editor of the Kegis- 
 ter ; of Haert Ceoswell, the witty and fearless manager of 
 the Balance, then a Federal paper ; of Jksse Buel, the dis- 
 creet and skillful conductor of the dominant democratic 
 journal; and, if personal feelings were permitted, would place 
 a humble chaplet on the tomb of Cajbtee, of the Statesman, 
 accomplished in various learning and warmed with gentle 
 sensibility, which shrank from the fierceness of political strife. 
 
 It were indiscreet to go further, though the temptation is 
 irresistible to allude to a surviving writer, whose pen lent 
 occasional and powerful assistance to the Statesman, one who 
 supports, with unabated strength, the inherited weight of a 
 splendid name ; who stands foremostin our forensic ranks ; who 
 sports with labor, professional, political and legislative, under 
 which other men sink, and whose writing was recognised, like 
 an electric gleam, among the political productions of the day. 
 The contests of 1817 and 1820 were of no ordinary character. 
 The political divinities, as in the wars of Troy, were seen 
 mingling in the combat, and Jupiter himself, from his Olym- 
 pian throne, dispensed his thunders. 
 
 It vrill not be easy, in the compass of a page, to give even 
 the briefest sketch of the literature of Albany, forty years 
 since. Of American writers we had scarcely any : Irving 
 was only commencing his brilliant career. Of the contempo- 
 raneous writers of Continental Europe, we knew nothing. 
 The English fleets blockaded all the ports, and the labors of 
 thoughtful men were unnoticed amidst the glitter of arms. 
 We were scarcely conscious of the existence of Germany, 
 whose philosophic writers have produced within the century 
 revolutions in letters, almost equal to the discoveries in the 
 arts and sciences. SchiUer, who, of all its poets, has most 
 attained a world-wide fame, was known to us only by the pro- 
 ductions of his early youth, while the fruits of his ripened 
 genius, the wisdom and maturity of his "Wallenstein, had not 
 yet been given to the English world. His great rival, the 
 poet of Weimar, had been disclosed to us only by Scott's 
 translation of his slighter poems. We knew nothing — to refer 
 merely to the historians of Germany — oi Savigny^thQn explor- 
 
21 
 
 ing. the dim obscurity of mediaeval jm-isprudence ; or of 
 Niebuhr, his illustrious master, then reforming the chronicles 
 of early Rome, and solving its political problems, and, more 
 than all, teaching the student to explore the minute, but most 
 trustworthy sources of truth, and properly to deduce from 
 them the philosophy of history. One German was indeed 
 known to the world. Late be his return to Heaven ! The 
 lofty intellect oi Humholdt could not be concealed, far visible, 
 like the Andes he loves to describe, across a wide-spread land 
 and an intervening sea. 
 
 The bold, bright, glittering literature of Fi-ance was then 
 unobserved in America. We supposed it to be fairly exhibited 
 in the superficial reflections of Madame de Stael, and the fac- 
 titious brilliancy of Chateaubriand. The youthful produc- 
 tions of Yictor Hugo and Lamartine had not reached us, com- 
 posed, as indeed they were, in a singular contrast to their 
 present writings. They were then ultra-royalists, chanting 
 the glories of the Oriflamme, and the restoration of the de- 
 scendants of St. Louis. But above all, we were then uncon- 
 scious that there was living in France the greatest lyric poet 
 since the time of Horace. Born of the people, scorning arti- 
 ficial life, and the conventionalities of the schools, Beranger 
 was uttering the feelings of humanity, as they throb in the 
 heart of the peasant in his field, of the soldier in his retreat, 
 of the artisan at his workbench, of the sempstress in her 
 attic ; varying as a spring morning, now laughing in the sun, 
 now weeping in the shower, he was, like Burns, embalming 
 his name in the common heart of the nation. 
 
 Our contemporaneous writers then were those of England, 
 who exercised a sway not easily to be comprehended now. We 
 were not just nor discriminating. The Edinburgh Eeview 
 made us laugh at Coleridge; and Wordsworth, like Milton, 
 was compelled to receive his reward from a more discerning 
 generation. Two writers of wonderful genius and vast fertility, 
 were the paramount rulers of the literary world. 
 
 Books were not so cheap formerly as now. They were not 
 rained down on you at rail-road stations ; nor could you then, 
 for twenty-five cents, pass a morning in conversation with the 
 
22 
 
 fertile genius of Dickens, or moralize with Thackeray — " Na- 
 ture's sternest painter, yet the best." The works of our favor- 
 ite authors then reached us, somewhat as follows : We saw, 
 by the English papers, that a new work of the author of 
 Waverly was in the press, perhaps Ivanhoe or Kob Hoy. 
 We learned next, at a considerable interval, its arrival in 
 New-York. Finally, it appeared in Albany, entire, and was 
 given to the schoolboy for his two dollars, painfully saved up, 
 and accumulated through many temptations. But the young 
 enthusiast was repaid for his privations, and elevated by the 
 enchanter's spell above all sublunary cares. School, — tasks, 
 ferules, parental admonitions were all forgot, as he roamed 
 with Waverly over the Highlands of Scotland, or charged with 
 Ivanhoe in the lists of Templestowe, or reclined with Saladin, 
 by the Diamond of the Desert, under the sultry sky of Pales- 
 tine. 
 
 I confess that I feel for Walter Scott the debt immense of 
 endless gratitude. I traced his subsequent life with filial 
 interest. I saw him, solitary and old, with high courage, en- 
 counter and subdue the flood of unmerited misfortune. I saw 
 him wither, and watched that singular psychological curiosity 
 — a man's own hand describing, from day to day, the fading 
 of his own mind. He sank into utter darkness. But mercy 
 lingered still ! There came down on his death-bed a ray of 
 light from heaven direct ; and the soul of the good man, in 
 restored serenity, departed to his God ! 
 
 With diflferent feelings, I look back to the wayward, bril- 
 liant and uncontrollable being, who divided with Scott the 
 literary throne. Lord Byron's influence, with the young, was 
 certainly greater, as he uttered, in burning words, the passions 
 of youth, pride and courage, and glowing hate, and fierce re- 
 venge, and daring, tender, reckless and devoted love. His 
 moral defects were partially unknown ; while his rank, his 
 historic name, his ideal beauty, his mysterious melancholy, his 
 self-inflicted exile, threw over him romantic fascination, as 
 he wandered over the beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, 
 and gave new interest to lands consecrated by the Muse of 
 History. From the hills of Genoa, from the valley of the 
 
23 
 
 Arno, among the mouldering palaces of Venice, and amid 
 the crumbling ruins of Rome, arose the notes of that 
 wondrous Lyre, which thrilled all Europe with their melody, 
 and awoke the echoes of the American forest. 
 
 I close here, not for want of materials, these recollections, 
 of whose slight and superficial character, no one can be more 
 conscious than myself. I close, as I began, with a feeling of 
 sadness. 
 
 In a work of enchaining interest — the Confessions of an 
 English Opium Eater — the author describes the sensations of an 
 unknown and destitute wanderer in the streets of London. He 
 places him in Oxford-street, solitary amidst its passing 
 throngs; surrounded by human beings, but not of them ; per- 
 ceiving human feelings, but not permitted to sympathize ; 
 observing family reunions, in lighted rooms and around blaz- 
 ing hearths, in the warmth of all the charities and affections 
 of domestic life, from which the lonely wanderer is uncon- 
 sciously, but sternly, excluded. This, it is said, is a portion of 
 the author's autobiography. It is the every day lot of many 
 a feeling heart in all our cities. 
 
 There is a counterpart to this picture — less highly colored, 
 it may be, and divested often of the qualities of poverty and 
 destitution — but, in other respects, even more profoundly 
 melancholy ; — ^I mean a wanderer in the city of his youth, 
 whom long absence and the separation of ties, have made a 
 stranger in its streets. He walks amid crowds, not unkind, 
 but unknowing and unconscious. He meets a countenance 
 which seems like an apparition of the past; but it encounters 
 bis glance with a careless, unrecognising look. The spell of 
 memory becomes, perhaps, complete. He sees the home of 
 his early years — the play-ground — the school-house — the 
 church. The beings of former days are around him : — " Bright 
 eyes, too bright to wither ; warm hearts, too warm to die." 
 Lost in an ideal world — wrapt in musings and recollections, 
 the visionary stands, till he sees no more, 
 
 " For tears disperse the dream !" 
 
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