NE of the most charming stories in

ONE

"the Arabian Night's Entertainments" tells us how Aladdin, rising from his bed in the morning and looking out of the window, sees the stately and gorgeous palace which the Genii had erected for him during the preceding night, glittering in the sunlight with its jewelled walls and pinnacles, on a spot which the day before had been a barren plain.

To us, who in more modern times and in a more practical age, look at the City of New-York through our editorial windows, and recall by the aid of History the barren plain, the marshy hollows, and the stony slopes which but yesterday, as it were, offended the eyes that are now delighted by her growing magnificence, the story of Aladdin seems hardly a fable. And indeed, what has romance to offer us which does not fade before the reality? At the call of the Fortunate Child, the Genius of the Lamp brought the treasures of the earth and laid them at his feet. No wish of his heart, however wild, remained unfulfilled; at his command space dwindled to a footstep, time became an inappreciable point, the rough earth sparkled with gems like solid dew-drops, the walls of his cabin, coarser than the shell of the chrysalis, were folded in Indian shawls and embroidered muslins, more gorgeous than the rarest moth, and all common vessels and

utensils, turned to gold and silver, like the gray twilight clouds beneath the shafts of the setting sun. By night also, a magic realm was created for him, and though there were neither moon nor star, yet a myriad lamps sparkled from unseen sources, filling the enchanted groves and gardens, which had risen unseen, unplanted, at his word," as with the quintessence of flame," while he himself, but yesterday the poorest boy in Bagdad, now walks unabashed before princes, and bestows favors, passing the wealth of kings, upon the great and noble.

Yet this story which dazzled our childhood's eyes with unimaginable splendors, grows daily tamer and tamer, before the passing wonders of the days in which we live. We also are Aladdins, and for us the Genii of the lamp are working. For us too the farthest Indian shores and the Eastern isles yield their treasures gladly, gold, frankincense and myrrh, diamonds and pearls, rubies, chrysopras and carbuncle; shawls whose threads are precious, and whose colors feast the eye with Woven sunsets, carpets in which the foot sinks as in moss, perfumes that load the winter air with summer, vases in whose lucid clay the furnace-heat seems to have developed the seeds of unearthly flowers, and dainties which make our democratic tables, groan with the profusion of Lucullus and the splendor of Al Raschid.

VOL. I.-9

The home reader does not need to be informed that New-York city is not wholly ideally magnificent. The foreigner, whose eye may happen to glance over these pages, will perhaps smile at the dazzling nature of the comparison which the introductory paragraphs would seem to institute. That comparison, however, holds good more with regard to the rapidity with which New-York has grown, than to her actual attainments in splendor, great as they unmistakably are. The energy of her sons, aided by their immense and increasing wealth, has successfully commenced the work of lining her streets with structures of stone and marble worthy of her pretensions as the metropolis of the Union; while her magnificent and unique geographical position secures the steady and rapid progress of the already enormous commerce which is daily drawing the wealth of the Indies to her warehouses. All this, too, in spite of the mean and unsuitable docks and markets, the filthy streets, the farce of a half-fledged and inefficient police, and the miserably bad government, generally, of an unprincipled commoncouncil, in the composition of which ignorance, selfishness, impudence, and greediness seem to have an equal share. That a great city like this should still grow and prosper under such rulers, is a fact which goes to show that even bad government may be only relatively mischievous. When New-York rouses herself-shakes off this incubus, chooses honest and capable men for her servants and comptrollers, and imitates the order and cleanliness of London, or of Boston, what may not be expected from her future career?

A certain preacher commenced all his sermons with the history of the creation; and our illustrious predecessor, Mr. Knickerbocker, has learnedly and lucidly traced the early annals of our city, back to the times of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, completely exhausting that portion of the subject. We will therefore only give a passing glance at some of the landmarks in the growth of the town, by way of introduction to the "swelling theme" before us, viz., the present state and prospects of New-York, architecturally considered. Such a retrospect which would hardly be necessary in writing about most European cities, slow-growing oaks, whose yearly rings are only to be counted by the microscope, becomes absolutely essential to the proper appreciation of the Night-blooming Cereus of our metropolis, which can only be truly enjoyed by those who saw the bare and naked stalk from which it grew, and

watched the dry husk of a bud as it swelled and swelled, putting out leaf after leaf, until at length it reached its present state of half-developed beauty. Some of our citizens can remember when Canalstreet was really traversed by a canal, and when what is now Franklin-street was the site of the gallows, being at a retired distance from town. One old lady of our acquaintance remembers when the maids washed their clothes in a stream which ran through Maiden Lane; and when also it was their favorite place for milking the cows, which had browsed all day in the meadow, a part of which we now call "the Park." In the youth of men still living, the Hospital, whose little inclosure of turf now cheers our dusty Broadway in summer, was an out of town resort--a public garden, to which the denizens of the city resorted. This was about the year 1768. In 1767, the inhabitants kept their cows in town; in the mornings they were driven to their daily ruminations, in the pastures about Grandstreet. Fancy indulges herself with supposing them employed in bovine prophecies, as to whether their descendants would hear "the milkmaid singing blythe." in that same region; or, perhaps, as they were honest, long-horned Dutch cattle. and therefore little used to speculation of any kind, we ought rather to suppose them chewing the cud of sweet complacency, in the assured belief that their milk and that of their descendants, drawn from them year after year, in that same meadow, would feed generation after generation, of stereotyped little Dutch men and women, till Time itself should be no more. At the same period, the city proper, with its business streets and stores, and handsome town residences, lay below Trinity Church. Higher up, the houses were poor, and occupied by poor people; until at length, above the present Park, the true country began, sprinkled with taverns, gardens, wooded land, and much marshy ground.

"On the west side of the middle road, now Broadway, above what is now Bleecker-street, John Jacob Astor had a country residence, and beyond him again William Nielson. These were yet country residences, till after the close of the war of 1812. At the earlier period of 1801, a pale fence stretched across Broadway, at about Astor Place, there beginning the farm of Randall, which constitutes, by a most noble bequest, the endowment of the Sailors' Snug Harbor."* From Longworth's Almanack, published in 1800, I gather the following statistics, with which to conclude the present ne