opposite fault, we have yet lived long for self-sacrifice whenever necessary, would alone suffice to disprove the im- There is, indeed, but little that is dazzling or picturesque in such men, -the wonders of the pyrotechnic art make a far more brilliant and beautiful show than the quietly useful and benign flame of the household hearth. But for real public service, for reliability in the hour of need, they are incalculably more valuable than those fire-work politicians, who are for ever aspiring to the skies as rockets, whirling round and round as catharine-wheels, and twisting in and out as fiery serpents, bewildering the ear, meanwhile, with all manner of unexpected explosions and reports. He is charged with a certain coldness of character—with being too cautious, too circumspect,-too uniformly under the control of a cool, collected sagacity of judgment, never either warmed or warped from the line of calculated policy, by any of the disturbing impulses of heart or imagination. This charge (which is one not unfrequently brought against those who deserve it least, from their habit of self-restraint, springing from the very warmth of feeling, and shrinking from display, or even from indulgence of itself) may not be entirely unfounded, though we are assured that the trait it indicates does not proceed further than a point at which it does not yet cease to be a virtue. It is not selfishness-it is not coldness of heart-it is not insensibility to the more generous_emotions and sympathies. Mr. Van Buren is a man of strong and deep friendships. He has had, and has, attached to him with an enthusiastie affection, not a few men of an order of both mental and moral excellence whose regard were an honor to the monarch of any throne on the earth. His domestic life, into which it would be foreign to the proper scope of this Article to cast a glance, than that more quickly ardent temperament, whose superficial emotions exhaust themselves in their own effervescence; a temperament at once common, and commonly overrated. How much the Dutch breed and the half Yankee breeding have had to do in producing this peculiar phase of character, which has been so much misunderstood in Mr. Van Buren, alike by foes and by friends, who have seen him only from a distance, it might be worth while to consider, had we more space and time at command. Shakspere portrays this character with a marked homage of respect and affection, when on the lips of the impulsive and speculative Prince of Denmark he puts the exclamation— We will not pass from this point in Mr. Van Buren's character without re ferring to two instances that happen to occur to our recollection, in which strong circumstances have drawn forth the expression of strong and deep feeling from this supposed heart of ice, in a manner highly and even beautifully pathetic, while still reserved and reguÎated. The one is in his recent letter to the Democracy of the City of New York, in reply to an invitation to preside at a great ratification meeting to confirm the nomination of Mr. Polk. After an earnest commendation of the ticket, formed on the sacrifice of himself—(a commendation well redeeming the pledge we ventured to give for him in our last Number, in the event of the selection of another name by the Convention)—he utters himself personally to the friends who had so long and warmly stood by his side in fair weather and foul, in terms whose very simplicity shows the depth of true feeling from which they proceed : "Having now said all that the occasion calls for, in regard to the general objects of the meeting, I must be indulged in a few parting words to the democracy of the city and county of New York. Never before has a public man been honored by the support of truer, firmer, or more disinterested friends than they have been to me. In prosperity I have scarcely known where to find them—in adversity they have been with me always. Through evil and through good report, I have found the masses of the New York Democracy the same unobtrusive, but unshrinking friends. The happiest, by far the happiest day in my whole political career was that on which, on my return from Washington, they met me on the Battery, in the midst of a storm of wind and rain, which would have kept fair weather friends at home, and extended to me, a private citizen like themselves, their hard hands, and opened their honest hearts in a welcome as cordial as man ever received from man. They need no assurances to satisfy them that I shall be for ever thankful for their unsurpassed devotion to my welfare; they know that I can never cease to cherish with grateful recollections the honored relation of representative and constituent which has existed between us for so long a period, in such varied forms, and which is now for ever closed." There was no small number of manly eyes dimmed by no dishonorable moisture, in the vast assembly to which this letter was read. An intelligent friend remarked afterwards upon it, that if Mr. Van Buren had oftener in his career, let in the public eye to a glimpse into his heart such as was shown by the fact of his remembering the rain on the occasion of his reception in 1841, and the manner of his allusion to it under the circumstances of the present occasion, the prevention of his renomination could not have been ef fected at Baltimore. The other instance referred to is his beautiful tribute to the memory of De Witt Clinton, on announcing his death in a meeting of the New York Senators and Representatives in Congress, assembled at Washington. We quote from Holland's Life of Van Buren: "By the current of events which we have thus briefly related, Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Clinton were arrayed against each other as the distinguished and able leaders of opposite political parties. A most violent contest ensued, and was sustained for years with unabated energy on both sides. To enter minutely into the history of these conflicts would be an ungrateful task, and would extend this portion of the present history beyond its proper bounds. It will suffice to say, that during these conflicts, Governor Clinton was twice driven into retirement, and two of his distinguished supporters, Chief Justice Spencer and Judge Van Ness, both compelled to retire from the bench of the Supreme Court; and, on the other hand, Mr. Van Buren was twice removed from office, and was pursued, for many years, with the most unrelenting party violence. It is a point of bright relief in this dark picture, that amid all the collisions of party violence, the two great antagonists retained their confidence in the personal integrity of each other, and each expressed his respect for the private uprightness and honesty of his rival. Such, at least, are said, on the best authority, to have been the sentiments of Governor Clinton, almost in the last moments of his life; and the following affecting and eloquent testimony of Mr. Van Buren to the public services and private worth of his illustrious competitor, is publicly on record. At a meeting of the Senators and Representatives in Congress, from the State of New York, held at Washington, on the 19th of February, 1828, to express their feelings on the sudden demise of Governor Clinton, Mr. Van Buren, then a member of the Senate, introduced some appropriate resolutions with the following remarks: "MR. CHAIRMAN-We have met to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of our late Governor and distinguished fellow-citizen, De Witt Clinton. Some of our brethren have been so kind as to ask me to prepare a suitable expression of our feelings; and I have, in pursuance of their wishes, drawn up what has occurred to me as proper to be said on this occasion. Before I submit it to the consideration of the meeting, I beg to be indulged in a few brief remarks. I can say nothing of the deceased that is not familiar to you all. To all he was personally known, and to many of us, intimately and familiarly, from our earliest infancy. The high order of his talents, the untiring zeal and great success with which those talents have, through a series of years, been devoted to the prosecution of plans of great public utility, are also known to you all, and by all, I am satisfied, duly appreciated. The subject can derive no additional interest or importance from any eulogy of mine. All other considerations out of view, the single fact, that the greatest public improvement of the age in which we live, was commenced under the guidance of his councils, and splendidly accomplished under his immediate auspices, is, of itself, sufficient to fill the ambition of any man, and to give glory to any name. But, as has been justly said, his life, and character, and conduct, have become the property of the historian: and there is no reason to doubt that history will do him justice. The triumph of his talents and patriotism cannot fail to become monuments of high and enduring fame. We cannot, indeed, but remember that, in our public career, collisions of opinion and action, at once extensive, earnest, and enduring, have arisen between the deceased and many of us. For myself, sir, it gives me a deep-felt, though melancholy, satisfaction to know, and more so, to be conscious, that the deceased also felt and acknowledged, that our political differences have been wholly free from that most venomous and corroding of all poisons, personal hatred. "But, in other respects, it is now immaterial what was the character of those collisions. They have been turned to nothing, and less than nothing, by the event we deplore, and I doubt not that we will, with one voice and with one heart, yield to his memory the well-deserved tribute of our respect for his name, and our warmest gratitude for his great and signal services. For myself, sir, so strong, so sincere, and so engrossing, is that feeling, that I, who, whilst living, never,-no, never,—envied him anything, now that he has fallen, am greatly tempted to envy him his grave with its honors. "Of this, the most afflicting of all bereavements, that has fallen on his wretched and desponding family, what shall I say? Nothing. Their grief is too sacred for description; justice can alone be done it by those deep and silent, but agonizing feelings, which, on their account, pervade every bosom.” ” But enough on this head;-we will pass from it with the single remark, that while he himself has both appeared and been far less moved from his usual equanimity than most of his intimate or late Convention, some scenes of irreattached friends, by the events of the pressible manifestation of feeling have been witnessed among the latter, more truly honorable to the individual for whom they sprang, than all the public distinctions or applauses which have crowned his political career. The resolution adopted by the Convention, in the very act of consummating the sacrifice which was so richly garlanded with praises glowing with all the flowery hues of southern eloquence, ought not to be omitted in this place. No one who was present on that occasion is likely ever to forget the torrent of enthusiasm by which every individual was hurried away, on the first mention of his name after the completion of the nomination, when the whole body rose, amidst the waving of handkerchiefs and cheers whose uproar seemed destined never to subside: "Resolved, That this Convention hold in the highest estimation and regard, their illustrious fellow-citizen, Martin Van Buren, ren, of New York; that we cherish the most grateful and abiding sense of the ability, integrity, and firmness, with which he discharged the duties of the high office of President of the United States; and especially of the inflexible fidelity with which he maintained the true doctrines of the Constitution, and the measures of the Democratic Party, during his trying and nobly arduous Administration; that in the memorable struggle of 1840 he fell a martyr to the great principles of which he was the worthy representative, and we revere him as such; and that we hereby tender to him, in his honorable retirement, the assurance of the deeply seated confidence, affection, and respect, of the American Democracy." true character was illustrated by several such experiments, on the pulse of the popular heart, as that made in Feliciana county in Ohio; where the Democratic electors being called upon to signify their presidential preferences by noting opposite to their names in a book opened for the purpose, the candidate of their choice for the nomination, upwards of nine-tenths were for Mr. Van Buren. His own State, with all the influence of its greatness and power, held scrupulously back from any movement to bring him again before the Democracy of the Union; nor was it till after sixteen other States had emphatiSome of Mr. Van Buren's opponents cally declared for him, that New York have urged against him the charge of added the expression of her glad and pressing forward upon the Democratic cordial concurrence. This indeed is a party for its renomination. On such fact placed beyond question by the amjudges his Missouri letter, which we plest concessions of those whose oppoknow to have expressed the sincerest sition effected the defeat of his friends sentiments of his heart, disavowing any in the Convention, that prior to the such desire, and declaring his determi- introduction of the new Texas issue nation not to allow his name to be made into the canvass, he was the choice of any occasion of discord in his party, what we may call the universal Demois wholly thrown away. Yet never cracy of the whole Union-the choice, was imputation more unjust. Most of too, of most of the speakers in that body, our readers-all indeed but a very who declared themselves now comfew-will now receive the intelligence pelled, with reluctant regret, under the for the first time, that after his defeat necessity created by the torrent of in 1840, he was only prevented by the popular feeling in their section, on the earnest remonstrances of his friends Texas question, to advocate the selecfrom making a similar positive and final tion of some candidate more in harmony withdrawal as he has now made. Such with that feeling. We advert to this was indeed his decided desire—though point only for the purpose of making as clear then as at any subsequent plain, that it was from the people that period in the prophetic conviction that the call for Mr. Van Buren's renominabefore 1844 the Democratic party would tion proceeded-proceeded in a manner have returned into its habitual and natu- denying to him any right to refuse a ral ascendency. It was well under- response of willing and grateful acstood, too, at Washington, that the ceptance—and not upon the people that letter signed by nearly all the Republi- it was in any way or degree either can members of Congress inviting him forced or pressed. We have it in our to a dinner before his departure from power to declare that no individual can that city, was meant as a formal ex- be found within the waters that encompression of their sense that he should pass our continent, to whom was adnot pursue that course,—and it would dressed. in any mode or form, directly afford food for some curious speculation or indirectly proceeding from Mr. Van to recall now the names of some whose Buren, a single syllable or single act signatures were appended to that call looking towards the end of effecting his upon him then. No: Mr. Van Buren's renomination. All in particular who renomination, as made by the constitu- approached him during his western ent popular bodies which sent their in- tour, must testify of the scrupulous structed representatives to the Balti- steadiness with which he declined all more Convention, was the spontaneous conversation on the subject; while and instinctive movement of the great some of his friends, whose alarm at the masses of the Democracy, acting chiefly state of things known to exist at Washunder the feeling of a desire to fight ington a month or two prior to the the fight of 1840 over again, under the assembling of the Convention, led them same flag and the same leader. Its to desire to use in his favor in that body, counteracting means of influence and combination against those which they believed to be active on the other side -so as to secure the consummation of the purpose for which they considered its members sent there by the people received from Mr. Van Buren himself an emphatic prohibition against any thing of the kind; anything calculated to interfere in the slightest degree with the perfect freedom of action of any member of the body. It cannot be necessary for us to more than allude to the letter in which, in advance of its assembling, he requested his most intimate friend there to withdraw his name, the moment he should become satisfied that it was desirable to do so for the sake of the harmony, union and success of the Democratic party and cause. So far, therefore, as regards that which is the true honor of a renomination, to a candidate fallen in honorable martyrdom under the circumstances which characterized the election of 1840-we mean its expression of the feeling of the popular heart and the just judgment of the popular mind-the laurel of that honor at this moment adorns Mr. Van Buren's brow as undeniably as if that renomination had been carried into formal and practical effect by the Convention, as it had been already virtually made by the people, in a majority which would almost justify us in calling it unanimity. The excellent candidate taken up in his place-a can-, didate well worthy of that selection, and of succession to a place in the noble line of his Republican predecessors in that office-will undoubtedly be elected by a sweeping majority of both the popular and electoral vote; and that election will be almost as complete a reversal of the insane folly of the election of 1840, to the credit of Mr. Van Buren's historical fame, as would have been a formal reëlection in his own person. But enough. It is time now to turn over the leaf, in the book of events, on which we confess that we have found a grateful but melancholy satisfaction in thus for a brief while lingering. It is time to say "Good Night to Marmion !” We take leave of Mr. Van Buren from the stage of political affairs, with emotions which shrink from public utterance. Others may hasten to the mountain-tops to wait in eager impatience for the first ray of the morning's dawn; we are reluctant to withdraw our gaze, of reverential homage and admiration, from the glories streaming over the departure of the sinking, the sunken sun of the day now for ever past. We do not mean to be understood as speaking merely individually, we are but interpreting the sympathies of millions; and well do we feel assured that there are few of our readers, even among those least friendly to Mr. Van Buren, who will not yield, to this farewell tribute to a great and good statesinan, now become historical, a generous approval and response. AVARICE AND ENVY. A TALE, FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. ENVY and Avarice one summer day, Sauntering abroad In quest of the abode Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way— Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended, Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended; For though twin sisters, these two charming creatures, |