present century it seemed just as likely that the Santa Casa of Loretto should take a new flight and descend on the point, as that the improvement that has actually been made should in truth occur at that out-of-the-way place.  It required, indeed, the keen eye of a railroad projector to bring this spot in connection with anything; nor could it be done without having recourse to the water by which it is almost surrounded.  Using the last, it is true, means have been found to place it in a line between two of the great marts of the country, and thus to put an end to all its seclusion, its simplicity, its peculiarities, and we had almost said, its happiness.

It is to us ever a painful sight to see the rustic virtues rudely thrown aside by the intrusion of what are termed improvements.  A railroad is certainly a capital invention for the traveller, but it may be questioned if it is of any other benefit than that of pecuniary convenience to the places through which it passes.  How many delightful hamlets, pleasant villages, and even tranquil county towns, are losing their primitive characters for simplicity and contentment, by the passage of these fiery trains, that drag after them a sort of bastard elegance, a pretension that is destructive of peace of mind, and an uneasy desire in all who dwell by the way-side, to pry into the mysteries of the whole length and breadth of the region it traverses!

We are writing of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nineteen.  In that day, Oyster Pond was, in one of the best acceptations of the word, a rural district.  It is true that its inhabitants were accustomed to the water, and to the sight of vessels, from the two-decker to the little shabby-looking craft that brought ashes from town, to meliorate the sandy lands of Suffolk.  Only five years before, an English squadron had lain in Gardiner’s Bay, here pronounced ‘Gar’ner’s,’ watching the Race, or eastern outlet of the Sound, with a view to cut off the trade and annoy their enemy.  That game is up, for ever.  No hostile squadron, English, French, Dutch, or all united, will ever again blockade an American port for any serious length of time, the young Hercules passing too rapidly from the gristle into the bone, any longer to suffer antics of this nature to be played in front of his cradle.  But such was not his condition in the war of 1812, and the good people of Oyster Pond had become familiar with the checkered sides of two-deck ships, and the venerable and beautiful ensign of Old England, as it floated above them.

Nor was it only by these distant views, and by means of hostilities, that the good folk on Oyster Pond were acquainted with vessels.  New York is necessary to all on the coast, both as a market and as a place to procure supplies; and every creek, or inlet, or basin, of any sort, within a hundred leagues of it, is sure to possess one or more craft that ply between the favourite haven and the particular spot in question.