chief of Amsterdam, in New Netherlands, now called New York, and the Dutch West India Islands. Died, August, A.D. 1682, aged eighty years.'

St. Mark's Church, seen on the left in our little sketch, now ranks among the older church edifices in the city. It was built in 1799, and several of the descendants of Peter Stuyvesant have been, and still are, members of the congregation. When erected, it was more than a mile from the city, in the midst of pleasant

mansion was yet standing, and the 66 'Bowery Lane" (now the broad street called the Bowery), and the old Boston Port road, were the nearest highways. Near it, on the Second Avenue, is seen a Gothic edifice-the Baptist Tabernacle-by the side of which is a square building of drab freestone, belonging to the New York Historical Society. The latter is one of the most flourishing and important associations in New York, and numbers among its membership-resident, corresponding, and honorary-many of the best minds in America and Europe. It has a very large and valuable library, and an immense collection of manuscripts and rare things; also the entire collection of Egyptian antiquities brought to the United States by the late Dr. Abbott, several marbles from Nineveh, and a choice gallery of pictures, chiefly by American artists.†

STUYVESANT'S HOUSE.

* Peter Stuyvesant was a native of Holland: he was bred to the art of war, and had been in public life, as Governor of Curaçoa, before he assumed the government of New Netherlands. He was a man of dignity, honest and true. He was energetic, aristocratic, and overbearing. His deportment made him unpopular with the people, yet his services were of vastly more value to them and the province than those of any of his predecessors. He was "Peter the Headstrong" in Knickerbocker's burlesque history of New York, written by Irving, who describes him as a man "of such immense activity and decision of mind, that he never sought nor accepted the advice of others." .... "A tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate, leather-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited old governor."

†The New York Historical Society was organised in December, 1804. Its fire-proof building, in which its collections are deposited, was completed in the autumn of 1857.

In a cluster, a short distance from St. Mark's, are the Bible House, Cooper Institute, Clinton Hall, and Astor Library,* places which intelligent strangers in the city should not pass by. The first three are seen

in our sketch, the Bible House on the right, the Cooper Institute on

* The New York Society Library, in University Place, is the oldest public library in the United States. It was incorporated in the year 1700, under the title of "The Public Library of New York." Its name was changed to its present one in 1754. It contains almost 50,000 volumes.

the left, and Clinton Hall in the distance. Place.

The open area is Astor

The Bible House occupies a whole block or square. It belongs to the American Bible Society. A large portion of the building is devoted to the business of the association. Blank paper is delivered to the presses in the sixth story, and proceeds downwards through regular stages of

manufacture, until it reaches the depository for distribution on the ground floor, in the form of finished books. A large number of religious and kindred societies have offices in this building.

The Cooper Institute is the pride of New York, for it is the creation of a single New York merchant, Peter Cooper, Esq. The building, of brown freestone, occupies an entire block or square, and cost over

300,000 dollars. The primary object of the founder is the advancement of science, and knowledge of the useful arts, and to this end all the interior arrangements of the edifice were made. When it was completed, Mr. Cooper formally conveyed the whole property to trustees, to be devoted to the public good. By his munificence, benevolence, and wisdom displayed in this gift to his countrymen, Mr. Cooper takes rank among the great benefactors of mankind.

Clinton Hall belongs to the Mercantile Library Association, which is composed chiefly of merchants and merchants' clerks. It has a membership of between four and five thousand persons, and a library of nearly seventy thousand volumes. The building was formerly the Astor Place Opera House, and in the open space around it occurred the memorable riot occasioned by the quarrel between Forrest and Macready, to which allusion has been made.

Near Astor Place, on Lafayette Place, is the Astor Library, created by the munificence of the American Croesus, John Jacob Astor, who bequeathed for the purpose 400,000 dollars. The building (made larger than at first designed, by the liberality of the son of the founder, and chief inheritor of his property) is capable of holding 200,000 volumes. More than half that number are there now. The building occupies a portion of the once celebrated Vauxhall Gardens, a place of amusement thirty years ago.

Let us now ride down the Bowery, the broadest street in the city, and lined almost wholly with small retail shops. It leads us to Franklin Square, a small triangular space at the junction of Pearl and Cherry Streets. This, in the "olden time," was the fashionable quarter of the city, and was remarkable first for the great Walton House, and a little later as the vicinity of the residence of Washington during the first year of his administration as first President of the United States. That building was No. 10, Cherry Street. By the demolition of some houses

The chief operations of the Institute (which Mr. Cooper calls The Union") are free instruction of classes in science and the useful arts, and free lectures. The first and second stories are rented, the proceeds of which are devoted to defraying the expenses of the establishment. In the basement is a lecture-room 125 feet by 82 feet, and 21 feet in height. The three upper stories are arranged for purposes of instruction. There is a large hall, with a gallery, designed for a free Public Exchange.

I

between it and Franklin Square, it formed a front on that open space. In 1856, the Bowery was continued from Chatham Square to Franklin Square, when this and adjacent buildings were demolished, and larger edifices erected on their sites. There Washington held his first levees, and there Mr. Hammond, the first resident minister from England sent to the new Republic, was received by the chief magistrate of the Republic.

The chief attraction to the stranger at Franklin Square at the present time, is the extensive printing and publishing house of HARPER and BROTHERS.

The Walton House, now essentially changed in appearance, was by far the finest specimen of domestic architecture in the city or its suburbs.