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before the Committee clearly shows that whatever negligence there was, occurred years before he came into office, and that the time necessary to supply the arrears in the register would have made it impossible, even if a clerk had occupied his whole time upon that subject, to have discovered by those means, at an earlier period than was done, the defalcation in the bond account of 1837. "Culpable negligence" is also charged on the First Comptroller of the Treasury, an officer who had been but a few months appointed, because, in revising the accounts of the Auditor, he did not adopt a system which was not either required by the plain construction of the law designating his duties, or ever adopted, so far as appears, from the commencement of the Government; but which the Committee assume to be sufficient for detecting the fraudulent accounts of Swartwout. Page after page is devoted to an elaborate argument to prove that the weekly returns, made to the Secretary of the Treasury for the purpose of ascertaining the situation of the revenue for financial purposes, should have been used for the detection of defaulters; and the "conclusion" drawn is, that the negligence of the Secretary is a primary cause of the delinquency of Swartwout having been so long undiscovered. So in regard to the defalcations of Price. Although it is well known that the laws regulating District Attorneys are so loose as to make every check upon them next to impossible; although the testimony before the Committee expressly stated that the principal means by which Price proceeded in his frauds, was receiving money in a manner contrary to the directions of the Solicitor of the Treasury; and although the evidence showed that he had made rapid collections from suits which the law placed under his control, and then suddenly fled from the United States; yet the causes of his defalcation are pronounced to be "continued neglect at the office of the Solicitor of the Treasury." Nay, more, it must have been known to the Committee, that the District Attorney was among those officers, receiving large amounts of public money, from whom no bonds were required, and no examination of whose accounts was legally provided for; that this was a defect in the law, expressly pointed out by the Solicitor of the Trea. sury, and submitted to Congress by the President, in his very first annual message, with a view to legislative amendment; and that, had this been accorded, the delinquency of Price would not have occurred or, if occurring, would have been attended with no loss. Such is the extreme injustice, the partizan character by which this report is distinguished from first to last. Instead of a document resulting from the investigations of this Committee, in which are disclosed the defects of existing laws, the manner in which the public treasure has been abstracted, and the changes suggested by experience to counteract the ingenuity of fraud, we have a volumi

nous electioneering pamphlet. The defects in our financial system, which the testimony establishes in instance after instance, are suppressed or explained away, because, if admitted, they might sustain the propriety of charges that have been suggested by those in Congress to whose political sentiments the Committee were opposed; or because they might relieve the Executive and public officers from the abuse that has been heretofore lavished in debate, and the charges that are now elaborately specified. That there are many people in the United States who will wade through this enormous and ill-digested mass, we do not believe; but if there were, we would willingly submit to them, after such examination when candidly made, the whole issue between the Democratic and Whig parties in regard to the safe-keeping of the public money. Every page of this document goes to show that the defalcations of Swartwout and Price could not have been perpetrated; or if perpetrated, could not have been concealed had that separation in the collection and keeping of the revenue; that absolute limitation of disbursements to such as are warranted by previous appropriation; that periodical scrutiny into the accounts of all revenue officers; and that subjection of defaulters to the punishment of felons—all of which have been so repeatedly urged by the Democratic members, and so uniformly thwarted by the Whigs-been permitted to pass into the laws, and form a portion of the existing regulations of the public Treasury.

A REVERIE.

BY S. W. CONE.

Why, at twilight's silent hour,

Come memory's thoughts with stronger power?

The tall trees sighed to the ev'ning's breath,
As it passed on its viewless way,

And the sky was moist'ning, with gentle tears,
The grave of a buried day.

There seemed in the wind, as it hurried on,

A low and mournful tone,

Like the sigh wrung forth from the lonely breast,
For the loved and early gone ;

Or the heart's low moan, when the tempest strife
Of passion hath passed it by,

And it only feels that it still exists
In the throb of its agony!

I sat alone,-around, were rock and wood,
And with soft murmuring, a mountain flood,
Now shrunk by summer, to the twilight air
Babbled in music sweet; as though there were
In every thing inanimate a beam,

Holding communion with each kindred gleam
Of the great spirit of the beautiful,

Which felt, though seen not, still pervades the whole !

And I, too, felt it—but 'twas sadly sweet,

For all that love me, or whose love I meet
With a full heart's acceptance and return,
Were far away; and as my breast would yearn
For but one draught of those deep joys that lie
Within the fount of love and sympathy,

Fond memory painted, thro' the twilight's haze,
My father's look, my mother's earnest gaze-
Such as I've seen her, when, while all others slept,
Unto my couch of pain she softly crept,
To soothe the anguish of her sickly boy;
No thought of self, no grain of base alloy
Within her breast, one fretful line to trace,
Or cloud the brightness of that angel face!-
Oh, no! her soul, as glorious as the gem
That brightest gleams in seraph's diadem,
Still shone through all, with love's immortal ray,
Though mixed with matters base, and set in clay!

Then came thick crowding fancies from the past,
But, like the shadows that around me cast

Their lengthening gloom, vague and uncertain, fell,
And seemed more of a former state to tell,
Than to be memories from this present life
Of expectation, disappointment, strife,

They were so dim and spirit like :

They pass'd

And twilight's gone,-night comes, like death, at last!

THE ARAB'S HORSE.

[The subjoined sketch is founded on the well-known story of the poor Arab who had agreed to sell his mare to the agent of Louis XIV. Although he had brought her a long distance, he could not endure the pangs of parting with her, but refusing the proffered gold, vaulted on her back, and returned to his desert home with his old companion. ]

I bring thee here my desert steed, Queen of her matchless race! The best that ever joyed to lead The battle's fiery chase.

And well doth she repay my care When chains and death are nigh; The eagle through the trackless air Moves not so fast as I.

How youthful are my courser's charms! My wife beside the lonely well

It seems but yesterday
Since first in all her wild alarms

I taught her to obey.

At first she spurned the desert sand

In high and proud disdain,
But soon she bowed to my command
And owned the practised rein.

The light jerreed above her flies;

It cannot make her quail,
And next before her fearless eyes

Floats Ada's silvery veil.

Then when I found her true of heart,
An Arab void of fear,

I slacked her rein and bade her part
Upon her fleet career.

Like arrow from an archer's hand

She sped away!-away!

A hundred miles of parching sand
Were traversed on that day.

Blazing beneath the burning sun
There lay a lonely pool,

And there, her headlong journey done,
I plunged my steed to cool.

No shiver in her swelling flank

No dimness in her eye!
Unharmed, she of the water drank
Beneath the scorching sky. *

I love her, Christian! She hath braved
The steam of deadly strife-
Think how I love her! She hath saved-
Aye-more than once-my life.
Boston, 1837.

Will make her bitter moan, E'en when the bright red gold I tell,

If I come back alone.

Can gold perform my courser's task;
Replace the peerless gem?
My children for their friend will ask
How shall I answer them?

My Zúlima! and must thou feel

A Christian's strange caress? Or suffer from his goring steel

When faint from weariness?

And canst thou far away from me
Thy food in comfort take?
I know thy heart will cheerless be,
But mine, alas! will break.

Our Arabs' tents adorn the plain--
A plain without a track-
Shall Kings control thy broidered rein--
Or wilt thou bear me back?

Back to our happy desert home

Our fountain and our tree,
Again the fiery waste to roam,
Contented, poor, and free.

My Zúlima! she neighs assent!
She snuffs afar the breeze
That waves the canvass of our tent,

And sings among our trees.

And pleasant voices greet her ear
And pleasant visions shine
Before her eyes-you see, you hear-
Take back your gold!—she's mine.
F. A. D

*The rough method of breaking colts, described in the text, is said to be invariably praetised by the Arabs.

AMERICA AND THE EARLY ENGLISH POETS.

The expeditions to America undertaken in the reign of Elizabeth, and in that of the first James, could not fail to awaken a more than usual interest in the public mind. This interest must have been proportionably increased, when the fact was known that several bands of their adventurous countrymen had obtained a footing in the new world; had formed compacts with the Indian, or driven him back to his native wilds; had established villages and towns, which soon assumed importance from the grant of corporate rights and charters, and other immunities. But then these facts were known to comparatively but few, and it was long before the intelligence found its way to the interior of the country. There were then no Magazines, no Reviews. and above all, no newspapers to circulate intelligence in a few hours from one end of the kingdom to another. Men were content with oral information, which, after it had survived, perhaps, the proverbial nine-days' interest, was suffered to pass into oblivion. As there was no medium for transmitting the information of the day, few, if any, thought of recording it, and hence the absence of any details relative to the social history, literature and biography of these times. What has been qualified as a want of curiosity in the worthy people of the golden days of the good Queen Bess, might, it appears to us, be more properly ascribed to the cause here assigned.

In the absence of other chroniclers, the poets have, from time immemorial, been looked up to as the transmitters, indirectly at least, of the traditionary lore of their age, of its more remarkable events, and of all that most deeply excited its attention and rivetted its interest. It is to these sources that we have looked for materials to throw some light upon the state of the public mind in England, in reference to the early settlement of America, and we are led to hope that enough has been discovered to furnish out an Article which will present a general transcript of the feelings of this interesting period. At all events, it has the merit of novelty.

The first settlement made by the English in America was in Virginia, about the year 1590. In 1592 appeared that great masterpiece of fancy and invention, the FAIRY QUEEN, which its author laid at the feet of his great patroness and friend, Queen Elizabeth. In the character of this extraordinary woman were blended contrasts the most singular-the frivolous and the cruel, the lofty and the mean, all that is humiliating in personal vanity with all VOL. V. NO. XVII.-MAY, 1839. F. F

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