His son is the present Bishop Bedell of Ohio. There are scarcely any of the original Richmond county families but claim relationship to the French Protestants either on the father or mother's side. In all the official records are to be found such names as Disosway, Fontaine, (Fountain,) Reseau, Bedell, Rutan, Poillon, Mercereau, La Conte, Britten, Maney, Perrin, (Perrine,) Larselene, Curse, De Puy, (Depuy,) Corssen, Martineau, Morgane, (Morgan,) Le Guine, (Leguine,) Journey, Teunise, Guion, Dubois, Andronette, Winant, Totten, La Farge, Martling, De Decker, (Decker very numerous,) Barton, Ryers, Menell, Hillyer, De Groot, Garretson, Vanderbilt, etc., etc. Few communities are blest with a better population than Richmond county, moral, industrious, thrifty, and religious, and they should ever cherish the remembrance of their virtuous and noble origin. The island is not more than twelve or fourteen miles long, and about three wide, with some thirty thousand inhabitants; and within these small limits there are over thirty churches, of various denominations, each having a regular pastor; and most of the official members in these congregations are lineal branches of the first settlers, the French Protestants. What a rich and glorious, harvest, since the handful of Holland, Walloon, Waldenses, and Huguenot emigrants, two centuries and a half ago, first landed upon the wilderness shores of Staten Island! _RECOLLECTIONS OF WASHINGTON IRVING._ BY ONE OF HIS FRIENDS. The appearance of the first volume of the long-expected _Life of Washington Irving_ has excited an interest which will not be satisfied until the whole work shall have been completed. Its author, Pierre M. Irving, sets forth with the announcement that his plan is to make the patriarch of American literature his own biographer. It is nothing new that this branch of letters is beset with peculiar difficulties. Some men suffer sadly at the hand of their chronicler. Scott misrepresents Napoleon, and Southey fails equally in his Memoirs of Cowper and of the Wesleys. Friendship's colors are too bright for correct portraiture, and prejudice equally forbids acuracy. Mr. Pierre M. Irving, though an admirer of his distinguished kinsman, (and who that knew him could fail of admiration?) avoids the character of a mere eulogist, while at the same time he exhibits none of the obsequiousness of a Boswell, fluttering like a moth about a huge candle. Being a man of independent mind and of high culture, he brings out the character he portrays in aspects true to life, and not exaggerated by excess of tone, while he fully exhibits its exquisite finish.