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we that a perfect wisdom will regulate its own expansions and contractions-the effects of which upon the currency are multiplied in an indefinite degree by the very uniformity with which its vast power compels all the rest to follow in the gigantic wake of its example?

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So far as it will go, the operation of the Independent Treasury must prove precisely the kind of regulation' required. The principal fallacy of our paper currency has been its professed convertibility. Five dollars in paper have represented themselves as convertible into specie on immediate presentation, when but one dollar has in truth been held in reserve in the vaults of the bank to discharge that function for them all. But in the season of general prosperity and confidence -precisely when the gradual restraint is required-no one dreams of enforcing this convertibility. The unreflecting confidence of the public becomes the only measure of the extent to which the inflation may be carried, and convertibility comes into play as a reality, only when the mischief has reached a point of excess to which it then applies a severe and sudden check, attended with a rapid reaction, of which we have too often experienced the distressing and fatal effects to leave it necessary for us to dwell farther on them. The misfortune has been that we have had no actual circulation of specie in the currency, with the exception of a trifling amount of mere fractional change. There has been no large dealer, omnipresent throughout all parts of the Union, who, by conducting all his transactions of collection and disbursement in actual specie, has kept a certain quantity always afloat in the round of circulation-familiarizing the people to its use, and holding it up constantly before their eyes, and before the institutions that supply their paper currency, as the one fixed standard of value from which the latter can never allow itself to deviate, without a depreciation immediately detected, and immediately corrected. This is the function which the Independent Treasury will perform as a regulator of the currency. What true friend of legitimate banking can object to it? It is plain that no redundancy of revenue could arise under such a system, to cause an undue accumulation of specie in the vaults of the public Treasury; and that a sum no larger than from five to seven millions of dollars-a small fraction of the specie added to the supply of the country by the Democratic policy of which this measure is the consummation-would be absorbed by the fiscal action of the Govern

ment.

For our own part we only regret the unnecessary graduation which has been applied to the introduction of this great reform-so as to make it three years before it can come fully into play. The measure may be, and doubtless is, susceptible of some improvements which experience will indicate. But we are profoundly assured that it will never be repealed; nor do we not believe that even in the case of the unimaginable possibility of the success of the Whigs in the present struggle, they either could or would dare to repeal it.

THE STREAMLET.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE YEMASSEE," &c.

I.

ONCE more in the old places !—and I glow
Again with boyhood. Once again renew'd,
My wandering feet have found the rivulet's flow,
My eyes pursue old vistas in the wood;
My heart partakes their consciousness,—I hear
Long lost, but well-known sounds, salute mine ear.

II.

The voices of the forest and the stream,

And murmuring flights of wind, that through the grove Come fitfully, like fancies in a dream,

And speak of wild and most unearthly love

Such love, as hope prefigures to the boy,
Crowning each hillock with a sunbright joy.

III.

There gleams the opening path, and there, below, Glimmers the streamlet sparkling through green leaves;

I catch the distant pattering of its flow,

In sudden murmurs, ere mine eye perceives,

Complaining, as it takes its tiny leaps,

To the scooped basin where it sings and sleeps.

IV.

It was my father taught me, when a boy,
The winding way that wins it; and I grew
To love the path with an exceeding joy,

That heeded not the moments, as they flew,
So sweetly were they then beguiled-gay gleams
All green and gold, the garments of youth's dreams.

V.

And, sitting by its marge, my father said,

That streamlet had a language for his ear,
Though vainly did I bend my boyish head,
With him, but nothing could I ever hear;
Yet, as we did return, he still would say,
He was a better man, so taught, that day.

VI.

Yet, surely was there nothing but the flow

Of idle waters, ever more the same-
A sweet, sad pattering, as they went below-
I never heard them syllable a name,
Though much I strove, for in my father's look
I read the serious truth of all he spoke.

VII.

An hundred streams like this the country knows,
From Santee to Savannah-brooks that glide
Through willow tassels-where the laurel blows
In triumph, and the poplar springs in pride;
A slender thread of silvery white, it went,
Winding and prattling in its slow descent.

VIII.

Where, then, the mystery of its voice, and whence?
Like other forests those which round it grew;
In what the source of that intelligence,

Denied to me, which yet my father knew? Change had not touched its waters,-'twas that morn As small as in the hour when he was born.

IX.

He too, like me, had from its yellow bed
Pluck'd the gray pebble, and beneath its wave
Had plung'd, in summer noon, his aching head,
Glad of the cool delight that still it gave;-
Then he grew up to manhood,-then became
Aged, yet was this little stream the same.

X.

His grave is in the forest, and he sleeps

Far from the groves he loved-his voice no more Is in mine ear; yet through my memory creeps Its echo, and the wild and solemn lore

He taught me, when we walk'd beside that brook, Comes back, as now within its waves I look.

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The shadow'd thought-not desolate nor lone ;— Faint are the images that near me stand,

Yet are they images of things well known:
Years gather to a moment, and inform
The trembling bosom which they fail to warm.

XII.

No longer am I desolate, beside

These green and sacred borders: in my ear,
As down I bend, where the fast waters glide,
Murmurs, from sweetest fancies, do I hear;
Hope takes the swallow's accents, and they bring

So glad the gathering years, a rich and green-eyed spring.

XIII.

And my old sire, he err'd not sure! I feel

As if I were a listener to the spell

Of one whose voice is power! My senses reel!
It is his language,-I should know it well,-
He speaks through these sweet waters which he loved
In boyhood, and where still our footsteps roved.

XIV.

I tremble with a joy-my heart is still,

As, swelling up, the accents break the air;
My spirit, troubled, shrinks, even as the rill
When leaves disturb the sleeping waters there;;
My feet are fastened with a subtle charm,
Soothing but startling-full of sweet alarm.

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XV.

The accents gather to familiar sounds,

And wake anew a lost and well-loved tone,
I hear, the sacred words, while silence rounds
The enchanted circle, and my breath is gone:
They rise melodious, sad, but softly clear,—
My heart receives the music, not mine ear.

XVI.

I have been when thy father dreamed of thee,
I shall be, when thou dreamest of thy child;
Thy children shall be listeners to me,

Whose tones so oft thy father's feet beguiled;
I am thy guardian genius,—from the first
My waters still have slaked thy spirit's thirst.

XVII.

"When thou shall be forgotten, I shall be,

And to the race that shall succeed thee on,

"I will repeat my counsel, as to thee,

And like thy footsteps, now,

shall theirs be won,

From the thick gathering-from the crowded street
With me, within the solitude, to meet.

XVIII.

"And I shall soothe their spirits, as I now

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Soothe that of him, their sire; my streams shall be
A gracious freshness for each burning brow,

While my soft voice shall whisper, sweetly free,
Tempering to calm, the bosom vex'd and bow'd
By the unfeeling clamors of the crowd.

XIX.

"Go forth, fair boy, and happy be thy years,

Forget not soon the lessons, long our theme,
Nor, when the growing Time shall teach thee tears
Desert these shady bowers-this sacred stream;
'Twill be my care, when man has taught thee gloom,
To bring thy worn heart back to all its bloom.

XX.

Look on these waters when thy mood is sad,

Fly to these groves, when close pursued by power ;
These shall restore thee all that made thee glad,
And bring oblivion of the present hour;
Mine is the stream that must forever roll,
A memory not of earth, but of its soul.

XXI.

"I keep affections pure-I save the heart

From Earth's pollutions;-treasured in my wave

Is healing, and the pow'r to make depart

Bad passions, those worse tyrants; and to save
The victim from himself, and still restore
The angel whiteness of the soul once more.

XXII.

"Oh, when the world has wrong'd thee, seek me then, Though, hapless, from thy better self estranged;

Fly to these waters, from the stripes of men,

And gazing in them shall thy heart be changed;

Though years have risen between, and stripe and scorn,
Yet shall thy face, once more, be that thou wear'st this morn."

W. G. S.

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