ry than their deeds in arms. The
chisel of Phidias carved for him a name of more true renown, than the
sword did for Alexander; and the name of Sir Christopher Wren will live
as long in English history as the Duke of Wellington's. Every patriotic
Gothamite, therefore, should rejoice at each successive indication of
an improvement in architectural taste amongst us. Who knows but the
beauty of the new commercial exchange that is to be, will cause
gladness to those who wept alike over the ugliness and the destruction
of the old! Who knows but that a grinning populace will one day
displace the lions grinning from the gutters at the eaves of the new
stone church in Duane-street! And who knows but that in process of
time, American architects will be found who shall understand the
difference between the Composite and the Corinthian, and that a long
sperm candle was never intended as a model for a Doric column!

The simple-minded reader who imagines that every narrative,
biographical or historical, should read straight on, like Robinson
Crusoe, or a speech of Colonel Crockett, may suppose that a digression
like this in which I have just indulged, must be wholly irrelevant, in
the life of an humble and unpretending individual like Daniel
Wheelwright,--but he will soon discover his mistake--with which
preliminary flourish, the order of my history is resumed.

It was some four or five years before the change in the _don-jon_
just indicated, that the humble writer hereof was informed by a special
messenger, that there was "a gentleman in distress" at the debtor's
prison, who desired to see him. Not for the instant recollecting any
friend who was just then in need of house-room at the public expense,
the writer was entirely at a loss to imagine who could have requested
the interview. But aside from the dictates of humanity, in a country
where every Shylock has a right to imprison such of his debtors as may
have become too poor to pay in any thing but flesh, it is always wise
to answer summonses of this description, since there is no telling
whose turn may come next. And besides, if your friend in the bilboes
has brought himself thither by his own imprudence, there is a chance
that you may have the consolation of seeing him come out a wiser man
than he went in.

No time was lost, therefore, in repairing to the sombre and substantial
mansion already described. It was during the latter days of the
venerable "Poppy Lownds," as the wo