Before the Revolution, there were Queen Street and Pearl Street,
together forming a line continuous though not exactly straight. After
the Revolution, the whole line was named Pearl Street. King Street and
Duke Street were others that rightly underwent re-christening. But,
with equal propriety, many old names smacking of the English regime
were retained, and serve as memorials of the English part of the
city's colonial history: such names, for instance, as William Street,
Nassau Street, Hanover Square, Kingsbridge; not to mention New York
itself. The old Dutch rule, too, remains marked in the city's
nomenclature--for ever, let us hope. I say, "let us hope;" for there
have been attempts to have the authorities change the name of the
Bowery itself, that renowned thoroughfare which began, in the very
morn of the city's history, as a lane leading to Peter Stuyvesant's
_bauer_. I scarce think this desecration shall ever come to pass: yet
in such matters one may not be sure of a nation which has permitted
the spoiling (by the mutilation of headlands and cliffs, for private
gain) of a river the most storied in our own land, and the most
beautiful in the world.
NOTE 2 (Page 34).
In 1595 was published in London: "Vincentio Saviolo his Practise. In
two Bookes. The first intreating the use of the Rapier and Dagger. The
second of Honour and Honourable Quarrels." (Etc.) The celebrated
swordsman sets forth only the Italian system, and has naught to say
upon the French.
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