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of his friends. His refusal to retain the office of Attorney General, as likewise to accept one of the Departments of Mr. Van Buren's Administration, has been already noticed. On one occasion only, perhaps, may he now have cause to regret this determination; or if not himself, certainly at least not a few of the latter. We refer to the month of February, 1833, when one of the present Senators in Congress from that State, the Hon. Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, received the caucus nomination of the Legislature of New York by a majority of only seven votes over Mr. Butler,—those who voted for the latter having done so in opposition to his positive wishes and determination, as perfectly understood at the time. Of this a sufficient evidence will appear from the following paragraphs from the Albany Argus of the following day:

"The large vote given to Mr. Butler on the first ballot, when his entire unwillingness to be a candidate was so perfectly understood, was a gratifying compliment, and shows how deeply seated is the confidence of the democracy of the State in its highly gifted and disinterested son.

"It is due to Mr. Butler to say, what is known by every body here to be the fact, that if he had consented to be a candidate, there would have been not only the utmost unanimity in the selection, but that none of the distinguished and justly esteemed citizens for whom votes were cast, would have consented to the use of their names in competition with him."

It is only within a recent period that the violence of partisanship, in the embittered political struggles which have agitated the country, has proceeded to the length of attacking the personal or public character of MR. BUTLER. The manner in which some papers have recently assailed him with abuse, counteracting its own objects by its own excesses, adds, however, another to the many instances already familiar, which prove that no elevated purity of life can protect a public man from such assaults, however harmlessly every envenomed shaft of calumny may fall in the dust beneath his feet. Without any farther notice of this matter-of-course species of. abuse, we shall barely allude to the only definite charge we have heard or read adduced against him, which was by Mr. Bond, of Ohio, in his speech in the House of Representatives at the last session of Congress,-to the effect, that he had in his official capacity as Attorney General, under the express dictation of the President, contradicted a legal opinion before given by him in his private professional capacity. We allude to it, only to pronounce it a miserable calumny-of which more cannot be said than that it is equally base and baseless. And as for the very paltry sneer, so recklessly hazarded in manifest indifference to the truth-to intimate an habitual servile submission to General Jackson's opinions and wishes-we allude to it only to take the occasion to assert the No member of his Cabinet exhibited so often probably as Mr. Butler a firm independence and resolution, in the collisions of opinion occasionally occurring, because his position at the council

reverse.

board as its general legal adviser brought him more often than any other into direct contact with almost every question arising. Numerous instances of this trait might be readily cited-in some of which it seemed carried rather far--were it necessary or proper to do so. The very case adduced by Mr. Bond as his chief ground of attack, contained in fact an evidence of its falsehood. We will but allude to one other act within our own knowledge,—in which when the President had yielded to urgent applications of the strongest personal and political interest, to reinstate a cadet dismissed from West Point, Mr. Butler then Head of the War Department, refused to permit such an interference with the proper duty of his office, which he threatened to resign, if the order should be persisted in. We make this denial and refutation, only from respect to Mr. Butler's fair and spotless fame not to the attack upon it; which we here dismiss without farther notice.

The preceding sketch, hastily thrown together, will after all but imperfectly convey the general idea we would impart, to those of our readers unacquainted with the man, of Benjamin Franklin Butler. Having now retired from public life, we feel at greater liberty to speak freely our high appreciation of his many claims to the respect, confidence and affection of his country and his friends, than might otherwise perhaps have been the case. We repeat, that the Democratic party is amply entitled to feel proud of him, as one of the ablest, and at the same time most disinterested and pure of its members. And such as his past career has been, proving him “an Israelite without guile, in whom there is no reproach"-as a patriot, lofty and pure-as a democrat, sincere and ardent-as a statesman, philosophical and sagacious-as a politician, liberal and disinterested-as an advocate, eloquent, calm, persuasive, and forcible-and as a man, in a general sense, possessing one of those admirably organized minds so rarely met with, in which different qualities of excellence are so harmoniously blended and tempered, without an undue excess of any, as to produce, on the whole, one of the best and purest of characters that we can easily conceive-piety without bigotry-philanthropy without fanaticism-enthusiasm without quixotism-boldness without rashness-firmness without obstinacy-calmness without coldness-sagacity without cunning-all the dignity of self-respect without any of the hauteur of pride-the expansive wisdom of the man of study, reflection and practical experience of life, with the single-hearted simplicity of the child— we cannot use a stronger expression than our conviction, that he fully merits all that high appreciation and attachment, which is most earnestly entertained by those who have had the most intimate opportunities of observing and knowing him, in every aspect of his public and private character.

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How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither sleeps,
And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel tl.e sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not,
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given.

My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer, to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light
Await thee there, for thou hast bowed thy will

In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and rendered good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,

Shrink and consume the heart as heat the scroll, And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell

Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

VOL. V. NO. XIII.-JANUARY, 1839. D

Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?

Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this-
The wisdom that is love,-till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

SONNET.

THE VESTAL LAMP.

'As, far within a temple's solemn dome,

Is one deep shrine where sunbeam entereth not,
Where never common step nor sound may come,
To break the sacred silence of the spot,-
Home of the temple's own divinity,

Whose holy calm no breath profane may stir,
Nor, save its own veiled vestal minister,
May mortal eye its untold mysteries see,—
There ever glows, imperishably bright,

One quenchless lamp before the shrine suspended, By purest essence fed that living light,

By purest hand the heav'nward flame is tended,— Such in my heart's deep shrine one sacred ray, Undimmed, undying, burneth still alway!

ROVINC

TALES OF THE PROVINCE-HOUSE.

No. IV.

OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.

By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Our host having resumed the chair, he, as well as Mr. Tiffany and myself, expressed much eagerness to le made acquainted with the story to which the Loyalist had alluded. That venerable man first of all saw fit to moisten his throat with another glass of wine, and then, turning his face towards our coal fire, looked steadfastly for a few moments into the depths of its cheerful glow. Finally, he poured forth a great fluency of speech. The generous liquid that he had imbibed, while it warmed his age-chilled blood, likewise took off the chill from his heart and mind, and gave him an energy to think and feel, which we could hardly have expected to find beneath the snows of fourscore winters. His feelings, indeed, appeared to me more excitable than those of a younger man; or, at least, the same degree of feeling manifested itself by more visible effects, than if his judgment and will had possessed the potency of meridian life. At the pathetic passages of his narrative, he readily melted into tears. When a breath of indignation swept across his spirit, the blood flushed his withered visage even to the roots of his white hair; and he shook his clenched fist at the trio of peaceful auditors, seeming to fancy enemies in those who felt very kindly towards the desolate old soul. But ever and anon, sometimes in the midst of his most earnest talk, this ancient person's intellect would wander vaguely, losing its hold of the matter in hand, and groping for it amid misty shadows. Then would he cackle forth a feeble laugh, and express a doubt whether his wits-for by that phrase it pleased our aged friend to signify his mental powerswere not getting a little the worse for wear.

Under these disadvantages, the old Loyalist's story required more revision to render it fit for the public eye, than those of the series which have preceded it; nor should it be concealed, that the sentiment and tone of the affair may have undergone some slight, or perchance more than slight metamorphosis, in its transmission to the reader through the medium of a thorough-going democrat. The tale itself is a mere sketch, with no involution of plot, nor any great interest of events, yet possessing, if I have rehearsed it aright, that pensive influence over the mind, which the shadow of the old Province-House flings upon the loiterer in its court-yard.

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