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cree of death to the whole system; the public at once saw that property in papermoney was wholly precarious and illusory, and from the next day every body refused it at any rate.

The Regent, seeing the melancholy result of this arrêt, revoked it six days afterwards; he enhanced the nominal value of specie, and reestablished that of notesbut these measures had become futile. The depreciation of the notes became such, that the holders accepted the offer of the Government, to pay interest on one half of their nominal amount. The overthrow of the bank crushed in its fall all individuals who had connected their affairs with its operations; besides this bankruptcy cost the public creditors an annual amount of interest of more than forty-four millions, and a capital of more than eight hundred and forty-four millions and an half.

If the credit of bank notes could not be sustained, it was yet worse as to the shares. Their value could not be legally fixed, and in addition to this, the king was bound by no guaranty for them, as he was for the notes. The dividend on the shares, uncertain in its nature, depended upon the success of a staggering company, which had undertaken operations too vast and dangerous to afford real and solid profits. Hence the fall of the shares was greater and more rapid than that of notes.

What pen could succeed in describing the ruin and disorder of France on the fight of Law? Gold and silver was either concealed, or had been carried abroad. Dutot himself acknowledges, that he had carried more than five hundred millions out of the kingdom, at sixty-five livres per mark; but when the decline of bank notes and shares became public—when even nine thousand livres of paper were paid for a mark of gold, how much was then transported abroad? A mere cashier of the company remitted twenty millions of florins to Holland, and left the kingdom!

All public and private credit was annihilated; distrust became the greater, since individuals were reciprocally ignorant of the condition of each others' property. It was well known that the greater number were wholly ruined, but it was impossible to distinguish those who had the good fortune to escape in this general shipwreck. The price of the necessaries of life were tripled and quadrupled; it was no longer possible for those who lived upon interest money, pensions, or fixed income of any kind, to exist without invading their capitals. Artizans were without work-manufactures and commerce prostrated-interest, dividends, wages and pensions were not paid-every class of society was made to suffer the evils of actual poverty, while a small number were overgorged with wealth.

The condition of the public finances was not less deplorable. There was not a farthing in the public chests. The king was without revenue, and all the public resources for a long period in advance had been wholly dissipated. Hence, although the present was horrible, the future appeared still more frightful. The discharge of debtors was the only benefit which the system had produced-but this had brought ruin upon creditors, and impoverishment upon the whole kingdom. These consequences of the SYSTEM enlightened the French as to the nature and consequences of paper-money.

STANZAS,

ON HEARING AN OLD REMEMBERED SONG.

Oh, sing not to the exile's ear,

And deem to soothe his bitter doom,

The music he once loved to hear

Within his childhood's blessed home,

Nor in the captive's dreary cell,

Songs of bright sunshine, birds and flowers, Of joys that once could charm so well

His happy freedom's vanish'd hours.

Then breathe no more that strain to me,
Tho' sweet as perfum'd zephyr's sigh,
Each note hath its own memory,

That dims with saddest tear mine eye.

Yet dear, tho' keen, that tender pang

The exile's lonely heart that wrings, When the wild air his brothers sang Some stranger's careless accent sings. And still such song the captive loves, And listening half forgets his chain, Till, music-led, his spirit roves,

In joy and freedom forth again.

Then breathe once more that strain to me, 'Tis sweet as perfum'd zephyr's sigh, Dear still each waken'd memory,

Tho' saddest tear may dim mine eye!

SONNET.

TO A LADY.

Thou fair Enigma !—at thy joyous speech,
Thy laughing eye and all thy winning ways,
I feel too well the potent charm with which

Delightful, dear, provoking woman sways
Our hearts-but when before my raptured gaze

Thy pure blood mantles through the purer snow,
And from those lips grave thoughts of solemn praise
And heavenly pensive contemplation flow,

I half believe some cherub here below

Comes heaven-directed from a holier sphere.

Oh Syren Seraph! deign to let us know,

What art thou, and what homage suits thee here?
Maiden or Saint? Inform us, I implore thee,-
And whether we must love thee or adore thee.

E.

A SHORT NOTICE OF THE ATTACK UPON COLONEL DUANE IN DAVIS'S "MEMOIRS OF BURR."

[The following paper has been handed to us, from a quarter in which a keen sensibility on the subject was to have been expected, that we might do the justice to the memory of Col. Duane required by the attack upon it, which is here repelled. Without making the book alluded to the subject of another Article, we simply publish the paper in the form in which handed to us, referring the reader desirous of a more full explanation of the subject-matter to which it relates, to the Review of Davis's Life of Burr, in our Number of January, 1838.]

MATTHEW L. DAVIS, the author of the "Memoirs of Aaron Burr," has introduced in the Second Volume of that work (page 85, &c.,) an attack upon the late Col. Duane, of Philadelphia, Editor of the Aurora. The charge which he brings forward is briefly this, that "while publicly giving currency to "what Matthew L. Davis is pleased to call "calumnies," in relation to Aarou Burr's conduct in suppressing Wood's History of John Adams' Administration, "Mr. Duane was privately writing [to] Colonel Burr, and approving of his conduct in suppressing the work."

To make out the first branch of his statement, that of publicly giving currency to calumnious attacks upon the Vice President, in reference to this suppression, Matthew L. Davis refers particularly to three articles in the Aurora, and concludes with a sweeping charge, which I shall notice presently.

"On the twenty-seventh of February, ( says Matthew L. Davis,) the Editor of the Aurora, in his paper, states that a curious fact has lately been brought to light in New York; that Wood had completed his engagement with Ward C. Barlas to furnish a history of John Adams' Administration; and that 1,250 copies were printed, but suppressed at the desire of some person. Mr. Duane then animadverts with harshness, and expresses a wish to get a clew to the names of the person or persons who suppressed the work."

This is all true; but where is the attack upon Aaron Burr? He is not once mentioned or alluded to in the whole article; on the contrary, the question is asked, "has the work been suppressed by the influence of the late Administration?"

Matthew L. Davis continues: "On the thirty-first of May, 1802, the Aurora states, that the American Citizen and the Evening Post have commenced a warfare, of which Mr. Burr is the object; that the principal matter of charge is the suppression of Wood's History of John Adams' Administration, and then adds: We are fully possessed of one side of the subject, and have perused the suppressed book attentively."

Here, again, there is nothing like an attack upon Mr. Burr. The article concludes thus:

"We are always cautious of every thing leading to political division; and we cannot suffer ourselves to believe that Mr. Burr has thrown himself at the feet of Alexander Hamilton; we confide much in his understanding as well as in his pride; the defence of him by Hamilton's paper is sufficiently humiliating, and must have been so calculated; we shall not give Mr. Burr up upon these grounds; we shall wait for better information."

Such language it is difficult to distort into a calumnious attack! Matthew L. Davis then proceeds to give a third quotation from the Aurora. On the twelfth of July, 1802, the Aurora says: "So far as it relates to Mr. Burr, my opinions have been uniform and reiterated to his particular friends, that if the motives for the suppressiou of the book were not satisfactorily explained to the public, lis standing with the republican interest was gone."

Thus does Matthew L. Davis quote from the Aurora of the twelfth of July, 1802, but not thus ran the original, which was as follows: "So far as relates to Mr. Burr, my opinions have been uniform

FROM THE FIRST BLUSH OF THE TRANSACTION; NOT A HIDDEN, soPHISTICAL OPINION, BUT DECLARED TO HIMSELF, and reiterated to his particular friends, that if the motives for the suppression of the book were not satisfactorily explained to the public, his standing with the republican interest was gone."

What shall we think of a man aspiring to the dignity of a biographer, who can descend to such baseness as this? He charges Colonel Duane with writing to Colonel Burr approving of his conduct, and, at the same time, attacking him in his paper; and he garbles an article in the Aurora, which, when printed as in the original, states that the opinions therein maintained had been communicated to Colonel Burr! To have copied the original correctly, would have overthrown Matthew L. Davis's whole attack, and he therefore garbled it to suit his own purpose. Whether this developement "will or will not add to his FAME the reader must determine."

And then our veracious biographer (biographer worthy of his hero) goes on to say: "During the period between February and July, 1802, the Aurora reprinted the slanders of Cheetham against Mr. Burr in relation to the suppressed book, and continued, from time to time, his own attacks upon the Vice President."

A careful examination of the file of the Aurora from February to July, 1802, has enabled me to discover no "slander of Cheetham against Mr. Burr," unless a letter from Baltimore to the Editor of the American Citizen in relation to the suppression, written in a temperate and argumentative style, copied in the Aurora of June nineteenth, can properly be so called; nor any attacks "from time to time" from the Editor of the Aurora, with the single exception of a paragraph in the paper of June sixteenth.

If Matthew L. Davis has in his possession other letters from Col. Duane to the Vice President, as would seem likely from the remark with which he introduces the one he publishes, he has the means of learning whether they contain the opinion of Colonel Duane, that Mr. Burr should explain satisfactorily his motive for suppressing Wood's History, but such a step as the publication of such letters would not have answered Matthew L. Davis's object. He preferred the shorter and more summary method of mutilating a newspaper article to attain his end. Of the weight to be attached to any statement of so faithful a biographer, it is unnecessary to speak.

D.

PHILADELPHIA, November, 1838

KNOW'ST THOU THE HARP.

Know'st thou the Harp whose tuneful tone
Sleeps silent, hush'd, and all but dead-

Whose voice to echo is unknown

From which song seems for ever fled,

Until some kindred spirit stealing

Over its mute and joyless strings,
Wakes all it has of life or feeling,
And forth its buried music brings?

Like to that Harp, within this breast

All song had slept so long unwoke,
That I had deemed no more its rest

On earth by mortal could be broke,
"Till thy sweet image gently wound

Its magic influence round my soul,
And forth the long forgotten sound
Again in rugged cadence stole.

And ever since my musings borrow
All they possess of melody-
Whether they breathe of joy or sorrow,

Or bright and buoyant hope-from thee.
For like those flowers which, as they wave,
Perfume the passing wind along,

Thou to my thoughts their richness gave,

And all its sweetness to my song.

E. B. O.

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