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, stil! 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 goné,-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. ]

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

* 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 trans

mitting 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

that is great and ennobling in public spirit. Among her number less foibles, the most remarkable was that of being known to her contemporaries, and to posterity, by the title of "the VirginQueen." It was to flatter this weakness of his mistress, that Sir Walter Raleigh named the newly-discovered country VIRGINIA. Spenser's Dedication to her of the first edition of the Fairy Queen is too curious to be withheld from the reader, especially as, for reasons which now can be only conjectured, this dedication was altered in the subsequent edition. It runs as follows:

"TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY

ELIZABETH,

BY THE GRACE OF GOD, QUEEN OF ENGLAND,
FRANCE AND IRELAND,
And of Virginia,

HER MOST HUMBLE SERVANT,
EDMUND SPENSER,

DOTH IN ALL HUMILITY,

DEDICATE THESE HIS LABOURS,

To live with the eternity of her fame."

This may be thought to form a curious anticlimax, but surely not more remarkable than the present regal title-King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and also of-Berwick upon Tweed. In canto the tenth of the Fairy Queen, mention is thus made of America:

"Who, then, can thee, Mercilla, thoroughly praise,

That herein dost all earthly princes pass?
What heavenly muse shall thy great honor raise
Up to the skies, whence first deriv'd it was,
And now on earth itself enlarged has,
From th' utmost brink of the Americ shore

Unto the margent of the Moluccas?

Those nations far thy justice do adere,

But thine own people do thy mercy praise much more."

We have here a just and well-turned compliment both to Elizabeth and to Spenser's friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, to whose kind offices the poet had, during the season of his distress, been deeply indebted.

1599. From Spenser we turn to another poet of the same period, whose name is not so familiar in the mouths of men as it deserves to be. Michael Drayton is a genius, if not of the loftiest, at least of the most pleasing order; there is scarcely any kind of composition, from the sonnet to the domestic epic, which he has not attempted, and with success. His "Polyolbion" stands an indestructible monument of his learning, taste and invention. His sonnets are some of the sweetest and most characteristic compositions of the Elizabethan era, and his "Muses' Elysium," or pastoral pieces, exhibits a play of fancy, and a command of language and