View Of New York From Weehaven

View Of New York From Weehaven

Reproduced from a 7" x 4¾" Steel Engraving

from a Drawing by W.H. Bartlett

 View Of New York  is Print # 16 of 53 from Volume II

"AMERICAN SCENERY" or LAND,LAKE, AND RIVER

Published in 1839 by George Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, London

NOTE:This is a exact copy of the original 1839 text describing the above Print, from "AMERICAN SCENERY" Volume II "AMERICAN SCENERY" or LAND,LAKE, AND RIVER

 

weehawken is slighted by the traveller ascending to the bolder and brighter glories of the Highlands above; and few visit it except—

" The prisoner to the city's pent-up air,"

 

who, making a blest holiday of a summer's afternoon, crosses thither to set his foot on the green grass, and mount the rocks for a view of our new-sprung Babylon and its waters. There is no part of " the country" which *⁽ God made" so blest in its offices of freshening the spirit, and giving health to the blood, as the rural suburb of a metropolis. The free breath drawn there, the green herb looked on before it is trodden down, the tree beautiful simply for the freedom of its leaves from the dust of the street, the humblest bird or the meanest butterfly, are dis­pensers of happiness in another measure than falls elsewhere to their lot. Most such humble ministers of large blessings have their virtue for " its own reward;" but it has fallen to the lot of Weehawken to find a minstrel, and no mean one, among those for whose happiness and consolation it seems made to bloom. A merchant-poet, whose " works" stand on shelves in Wall Street, but whose rhymes for pastime live in literature, and in the hearts of his countrymen, thus glorifies his suburban Tempe:—

 

" Weehawken! in thy mountain scenery yet,

All we adore of Nature in her wild

And frolic hour of infancy, is met, ^;

And never has a summer morning smiled

Upon a lovelier scene than the full eye .

Of the enthusiast revels on—when high

 

" Amid thy forest-solitudes he climbs

O'er crags that proudly tower above the deep,

And-knows that sense of danger, which sublimes

The breathless moment—when his daring step

Is on the verge o the cliff, and he can hear

 The low dash of the wave with startled ear,

 

" Like the death music of his coming doom,

And clings to the green turf with desperate force,
As the heart clings to life; and when resume

The currents in his veins their wonted course
There lingers a deep feeling, like the moan
Of wearied ocean when the storm is gone.

 

" In such an hour he turns, and on his view

Ocean, and earth, and heaven, burst before him;

Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue

Of summer's sky in beauty bending o'er him;

The city bright below; and far away

Sparkling in light, his own romantic bay.

 

" Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement,

And banners floating in the sunny air,

And white sails o'er the calm blue waters bent,

Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there

In wild reality.    When life is old,

And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold

 

" Its memory of this; nor lives there one

Whose infant breath was drawn, or boyhood's days

Of happiness were passed beneath that sun,

That in his manhood's prime can calmly gaze

Upon that bay, or on that mountain stand,

Nor feel the prouder of his native land." *

 

Weehawken is the " Chalk Farm" of New York, and a small spot enclosed by rocks, and open to observation only from the river, is celebrated as having been the ground on which Hamilton fought his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. A small obelisk was erected on the spot, by the St. Andrew's Society, to the memory of Hamilton, but it has been removed. His body was interred in the churchyard of Trinity, in Broadway, where his monument now stands.

 

It is to be regretted that the fashion of visiting Haboken and Weehawken has yielded to an impression among the "fashionable" that it is a vulgar resort. This willingness to relinquish an agreeable promenade because it is enjoyed as well by the poorer classes of society, is one of those superfine ideas which we imitate from our English ancestors, and in which the more philosophic continentals are so superior to us. What enlivens the Tuileries and St. Cloud at Paris, the Monte-Pincio at Rome, the Volksgarten at Vienna, and the Corso and Villa Reale at Naples, but the presence of innumerable " vulgarians ?" They are con­sidered there like the chorus in a pantomime, as producing all the back-ground effect as necessary to the ensemble. The place would be nothing—would be desolate, without them; yet in England and America it is enough to vulgarize _any—the most agreeable resort, to find it frequented by the " people!"
 

 - * " Fanny," a poem, by Fitz-Greene Halleck.