An incident connected with the history of this piece, seems appropriate here, as illustrative of its excellence. When Wilgus left for Porto Rico, where he now is, he took the portrait of Cole with him. It was seen, upon that island, by a gentleman from Amsterdam, who declared it the first piece he had seen which gave him the slightest ideas of the peculiar characteristics of the Indian race; and he became so interested in the picture that he asked and obtained permission to take it with him, to Europe, for the inspection of his friends. The piece was, by him, carried to Amsterdam, where the admiration of it was universal, and where it would have been retained, at almost any price, had it been for sale. But it was not: the gentleman had promised to return the painting safe to Buffalo; and he has done so, it having arrived here this spring; and it now stands, unostentatiously enough, in the bookstore of the artist’s father, upon Main-street.
Batavia.
The Tonewandas at length consent to have their census taken.
Auburn.
Go with Mr. Goodwin to visit Oswaco lake—Gov. Throop’s place—Old Dutch Church overlooking the lake, &c.
Fort-Hill.—Extensive vestiges of an elliptical work—Curious rectangular fissures of the limestone rock on the Owasco outlet—north and south.
The Indian name of the place, as told by an Onondaga chief—Osco; first called Hardenburgh’s Corners, finally named after Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village”—so that the poet may be said to have had a hand in supplying names for a land to which he once purposed to migrate.
It would have pleased “poor Goldsmith” could he have known that he was the parent of the name for so fine a town—a town thriving somewhat on the principle laid down in the concluding lines of the poem—
“While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.”