ur 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 brou