mission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords States
General of the United Netherlands and the privileged West India Company.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long
line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives
and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam, and who had
comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety that they
were never either heard or talked of; which, next to being universally
applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and
rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in
the world--one by talking faster than they think, and the other by
holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first many a
smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other
many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be
considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual
remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to
Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself,
like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables; but then it
was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his
gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the
whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered
in his presence that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed
to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to
inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the joke was
made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe in
silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, "Well! I
see nothing in all that to laugh about."

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and
proportioned, as though it had been molded by the hands of some cunning
Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was
exactly five feet, six inches in height and six feet, five inches in
circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous
dimensions that Dame Nature with all her sex's ingenuity would have been
puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she
wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his
backbone just between the shoulders. His body was oblong and
particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by
Provide