Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

IMPROVEMENTS. 289
his old days, and be comfortable for the rest of his life." He
was at this time a few years over fourscore; but this was a
common saying of his, with which he usually closed his airy speculations. One would have thought, from the long vista of
years through which he contemplated many of his projects, that
the good man had forgot the age of the patriarchs had long
since gone by, and calculated living a century longer at least.
Hie was for a considerable time in doubt, on the question of roofing his house with shingles or slates: shingles would not last
above thirty years! but then they were much cheaper than
slates. He settled the matter by a kind of compromise, and
determined to build with shingles first; "and when they are
worn out," said the old gentleman triumphantly, "'twill be time
enough to replace them with more durable materials I" But
his contemplated improvements surpassed everything; and
scarcely had he a roof over his head, when he discovered a thousand things to be arranged before he could "sit down comfortably." In the first place, every tree and bush on the place was
cut down or grubbed up by the roots, because they were not
placed to his mind; and a vast quantity of oaks, chestnuts, and
elms, set out in clumps, and rows, and labyrinths, which, he observed, in about five-and-twenty or thirty years at most, would
yield a very tolerable shade, and, moreover, would shut out all
the surrounding country; for he was determined, he said, to
have all his views on his own land, and be beholden to no man
for a prospect. This, my learned readers will perceive, was
something very like the idea of Lorenzo de Medici, who gave as
a reason for preferring one of his seats above all the others,
" that all the ground within view of it was his own;" now,
whether my grandfather ever heard of the Medici, is more than
I can say; I rather think, however, from the characteristic ori13