NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. LXXIX. DECEMBER, 1856.-VOL. XIV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. VOL. XIV.-No. 79.-A effect," there is very little doubt; inasmuch as the echo thereof has never ceased to be heard among the hills, through all the two and a half centuries since gone by. Indeed, it has rung, and is ringing, more audibly and more eloquently every passing day; for enchanting as was the vision which dazzled the eyes of the drowsy skipper of the Half-Moon, when the prow of that adventurous craft was first turned toward the waters of the unknown river, yet from that hour to this, still has the wonder grown. The mountains yet stand in their ancient dignity and grandeur, the valleys and glades wear their old sweet smile, and the floods roll on in the same "simple, quiet, majestic, epic flow;" while about all there has gathered many an added grace. Time has embellished the scene, until the silent river and the desert shore are now alike musical with the ceaseless hum of busy, happy life; and the rose blooms and breathes every where in the once trackless forests. Poetry and romance have bewitched it with the enchantment of song and story, and history with thrilling memories of great and gallant deeds; while at this day there is rapidly growing around it a newer and yet sweeter charm, in its close association with the actual life, the daily joys and sorrows of many of those gifted ones whose genius and works have endeared their names to our imaginations and hearts. It is amidst these charmed scenes that our venerable ex-President Van Buren has exchanged the uneasy chair of state for the snug fireside seat in his peaceful retreat of Linden wold. It was in a beautiful home, directly overlooking the Hudson, and commanding the grand panorama of the Catskills, that the lamented painter Cole lived, and labored, and died; and where these noble hills first bless the sight in the ascent of the river, are the broad lawns and slopes of Placentia, where that veteran pioneer in our literature, Paulding, is passing a kindly and genial age in elegant seclusion among kindred and friends. Not far below him is the pleasant abode of Morse, who has snatched the lightning to bear his name and fame through the world. Lossing, the amiable historian, is near by. Yet below, among the Highlands, a whole flock of singing birds have built their dainty nests. Here, in the village of Newburgh, lived the landscape gardener, Downing, to whose genius the river owes so much of its horticultural and architectural adornment. A little distance southward is his own favorite creation, the picturesque villa at Cedar Lawn, the residence of Headley. Poor Downing, who was an ardent lover of the Hudson, was gazing upon its moonlit charms with even more than his wonted delight, as he sat on the piazza here, on the very eve of the fatal day which gave him so early a grave beneath its waters. Between Cedar Lawn and Newburgh there is a charming retreat-once the home of the painter Durand-and in the immediate vicinage of the village, on the other side, Mr. H. K. Brown, the sculptor, is now setting up his household gods. His gifted brother of the chisel, Palmer, lives above at Albany. On his broad and elevated mountain terrace, guarded by the ever-watch Lower yet, at Manhattanville, within the limits of the great city, but as yet unprofaned by its touch, is the revered resting-place of that devoted friend of the feathered world, Audubon. Last, and perhaps the dearest to us of all these household names which come so gratefully to our remembrance, doubling the charms of the scene as we journey up the fair river, is that of Irving, who, of all our authors, here fittingly finds a home amidst the altars upon which he has devoutly offered up the love and worship of a long life, and upon which he has reverently placed many of the sweetest fruits of his genius. ful Storm-king, and peering down, down upon crag and cascade, Willis holds intimate and loving companionship with Nature at Idlewild; while on the opposite shore, in the heart of the Highland group, is beautiful Undercliff, the abode of his friend Morris. The quiet studio of Weir stands upon the grand esplanade of West Point, and within the same evening shadow of the crumbling walls of old Fort Putnam is the island home of the fair sisters of the "Wide, Wide World." Hereabout, too, lives the polished scholar Gulian C. Verplanck. Yet further below, and looking far down upon the broad waters of the Tappan Sea, is Cedar-Hill Cottage, the savory cusine whence come the dainty viands The Hudson, he says, has ever been to him a of the Knickerbocker "Table;" while yet nearer to river of delight; and here, after many wanderthe city, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrowgrass live and re-ings, he has "set up his rest," thanking God that count the pleasant incidents of their simple lives. he was born upon its banks, and brought up in less beautiful, though not so striking in its character as the more renowned Highlands. In historic story it is equally rich, and far more so in romantic association. that companionship with its glorious scenes, | sions, the Tappan Bay. It is a region scarcely from which has come so much of what is best and most pleasant in his nature. It is, he says, in a manner his first and last love, and after all his seeming infidelities he has returned to it with a heart-felt preference over all the other rivers of the world. Through a varied life passed in many climes, he has ever treasured the fondest and most enthusiastic remembrance of the scenes which brightened his dawning life, and which now shed a mellow radiance upon its decline; and cloquent expressions of this noble attachment are to be found every where throughout his works, though written afar off, now in one land, now in another. Mr. Irving has laid his hearth-stone upon the site of his boyhood's haunts, and amidst the carly inspirations of his muse; on the very spot, indeed, which long, long ago he said he should covet, if he ever wished "for a retreat, whither he might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remainder of a troubled life." Happily he has not reached his sighed-for haven, wrecked upon the rocks of trouble and disappointment; for, later, we find him writing thence in a spirit of glad content: "Though retired from the world, I am not disgusted with it." Sunnyside, the apposite and familiar name of Mr. Irving's charming cottage, lies hidden among the jealous trees, some twenty-two or three miles up the Hudson, on the eastern shore of that first and greatest of its famous expan In an hour's ride, and at almost any hour, the railway will convey you from New York to the station at Irvington, a little walk below the Sunnyside Cottage; or to Tarrytown, the distance of an agreeable ride above. To see the setting of this sparkling little jewel of a home properly, though, you should make your approach by water, which is at all times, in the river travel, the most enjoyable way. One gets but a very inadequate glimpse of the beauties of the Hudson by the railroad route; indeed, it seems to us that in process of time the popular estimate of the landscape must grow to be very false and unjust; every body imagining that in their railway glance they have learned all about the subject, when really they remain in most profound ignorance. Even the voyage of the steamer fails to give one a fair idea of the scene. This is to be obtained only by long and loving study, afloat and ashore, in the neighboring valleys, and on the near and distant hill-tops. Every new visit which we make to the Hudson assures us that we have it yet to see. It is a glorious sight which greets our eyes, as, leaving the noisy city wharf, we push our way through the crowding sails out into the broad waters, and onward toward the vailed meeting of the distant shores. On one side stretches the seemingly interminable Island It City, and on the other lie the suburban villages | region of stirring incident and interest in the and villas of New Jersey, now crowning rocky days of the Revolution. Then it was scarcely heights, and now nestling by the river's narrow less bustling, both river and shore, than now, marge, until we reach those grand columnal when it has become the environs of a metropowalls, the famous Palisades, happily contrast- lis and the crowded highway of commerce. ed, in all the journey of twenty miles to the lay between the territory of the enemy, who Tappan Bay, by the village and cottage-dotted occupied the city and island of New York, and slopes of the opposite shore. The Palisade the patriot forces encamped under the Highrocks form the speciality of the landscape in this lands at Peekskill, and was the ill-fated Africa part of the Hudson; and so, still, in all the into which both parties carried the war, under views looking south from the vicinage of Mr. the marauding banners of the chivalric SkinIrving's dwelling. They are admirably seen ners and Cow Boys, claiming to serve respectfrom the shore at Irvington, and again, over a ively under carte blanche American and British richly cultivated intervale, from the hill terraces commissions; and with such zeal, says Mr. Irabove. Both situations give equally attractive ving, with his characteristic pleasantry, "as oftglimpses of the river, overlooking that topo- en to make blunders, and to confound the propgraphical will-o'-the-wisp Point-no-Point, the erty of friend and foe, neither of them, in the villages of Irvington and Tarrytown, and the heat and hurry of a foray, having time to ascermystic precincts of Sleepy Hollow. Three miles tain the politics of a horse or cow which they away across the wide bay are the busy little were driving off into captivity; or when wringtowns of Nyack and Piermont, with their back- ing the neck of a rooster, to trouble themground of bold hills, led by the brave Tower selves whether he crowed for Congress or King Rock. Piermont is the river terminus of the George." great Erie Railway, and it was in the sanguine expectation of advantage as a lighter to the freights of this road that the opposite village of Irvington, once Dearman, was laid out. It came to pass, however, that the Erie highway found an outlet elsewhere, and Irvington remains to this day but little more than it was at first-a capital beginning. The neighboring village of Tarrytown has drawn off all its springs of local business, insomuch that it possesses only one small store, and not even an apology for a hotel. Here, in the quiet bay, lay the armed ships of the foe, stealthily watching for an opportunity to slip through the guarded pass of the Highlands, and thus gaining possession of the river, to open a communication with their forces in Canada. With what anxious hearts must not Washington and his brave men, from their threatened position above, have watched the moves of this deadly game-so nearly lost through Arnold's treacherous play. It was in this immediate vicinity, the very spot now Imarked by a monument in the heart of Tarrytown, that the possession of the river was secured to the patriots by the timely arrest of Andrè. This region was the theatre also of the closing scene of the sad drama thus opened Here, just across the river at old Tappantown, hidden from view by the intercepting hills of Piermont, the unfortunate soldier was tried and executed. The house from which he was led to the gallows is still in good condition, and is now a wayside inn, under the name of the "Old Stone House of '76." We visited it last summer on Tarrytown, and all the country round, was a the occasion of a ball given in commemoration Tarrytown, in the reckoning of this fast age, is an ancient burgh, mossed and lichened with old traditions and historic reminiscences. Mr. Irving tells us, in his "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," not, he says, to vouch for the truth, but to be precise and authentic, "that there is a story that in the olden time its name was given to it by the good housewives of the adjacent country from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days." |