were yet on
the stage, their chariot-wheels might roll too fast to enable them to
recognize the poor old man by whose early patronage they had been
enabled to purchase their equipage. He therefore preferred the cold
victuals of his prison-house, to the cold charities of the world.

Wheelwright had already taken the preliminary steps to procure relief
under the insolvent law. He should soon be discharged from jail "by
order of the honorable Richard Riker;"--and as "the world owed him a
living," he was quite confident of doing well enough yet.

All that was necessary for his comfort was of course done for him, and
at the time appointed, he was discharged from prison in due course of
law--free from debt--and the wide world all before him where to choose.
His clothes were redeemed from the landlord; and setting his face
northward, he departed, in the first steamboat, for the ancient city of
Albany, and to revisit the scenes of his youth in the valley of the
Mohawk.

CHAPTER IX.

AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

"Who can speak broader than he who has no house to put his head
in?"--_Shakspeare._

"With darkness circled, and an ambient cloud."

Nearly a year elapsed after his release from the old _don-jon_,
before I was enabled again to rejoice in a meeting with my friend
Wheelwright; and our interview happened on this wise: Passing by, or
rather crossing, the foot of Courtland-street, one bright morning in
May, I observed a group of laborers occupied in placing some articles
of heavy iron-machinery on board of an Albany sloop--the General
Trotter, I believe, commanded by Capt. Keeler--a veteran navigator of
the Hudson. And whom should I discover among these men, giving
directions with an authoritative air, and actually bending his own back
to the work, but the veritable Doctor Daniel Wheelwright! It was indeed
no less a personage. From the previous character and habits of my
friend, the reader may judge of my surprise at beholding him thus
engaged--laboring, too, as though his work was made easy by the good
will with which he was performing it. Having exchanged salutations,
mingled with expressions of surprise at finding him thus employed, and
inquired upon what new enterprise he was bent--

"Why havn't you hearn?" was his response.

"No," was the laconic reply.

"What? not of the launch of the 'Lady-of-the-Lake,' on Lake George?"

"Ah--let me see--yes: I think I have seen a paragraph respe