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THE BENEFACTRESS.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

Who asks if I remember thee?-or speak thy treasured name?
Doth the frail rush forget the stream from whence its greenness came?
Or the wild, lonely flower, that sprang in some rude, rocky dell,
Forget the first, awakening smile, that on its bosom fell?

Did Israel's exiled sons, when far from Zion's hill away,
Forget the high and holy house, where first they learned to pray?
Forget, around their temple's wreck with alien step to rove,—
And on its dust and ashes gaze, with agonizing love?

Remember thee!-Remember thee!-though many a year hath fled
Since o'er thy pillow damp and low the uprooted turf was spread,
Yet still doth twilight's musing hour thy graceful form restore,
And morning breathe thy music-tone, like Memnon's harp of yore.
The simple cap that deck'd thy brow, is still to memory dear,
Her faithful echoes guard thy song that lull'd my infant ear,
The book from which my lisping tongue was by thy kindness taught,
Gleams forth with all its letter'd lines, still fresh with hues of thought.
The flowers, the dear familiar flowers, that in thy garden grew,
From which thy mantle-vase was filled, methinks, they breathe anew,
Again, the whispering lily bends, and ope yon lips of rose,
As if some message of thy love, they linger'd to disclose.

'Tis true, that more than fourscore years had bow'd thy beauty low,
And mingled with thy cup of life full many a dreg of woe,
But yet thou hadst a higher charm than youthful bloom hath found,
And balm within thy chastened heart, to heal another's wound.

Remember thee!-Remember thee!-though with the blest on high
Thou hast a mansion of delight, unseen by mortal eye,
Comes not thy wing to visit me, in the deep watch of night,
When visions of unuttered things my slumber make so bright!

I feel thy love within my breast, it nerves me strong and high,
As cheers the wanderer on the deep the pale star in the sky,—
And when my weary spirit quails, or friendship's smile is cold,
Methinks, thine arm is round me thrown, as oft it was of old.
Remember thee!-Remember thee !-while flows this purple tide,
I'll keep thy precepts in my heart, thy pattern for my guide,—
And when life's little journey ends, and light forsakes the eye,
Come near me at my bed of pain, and teach me how to die!

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POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

(No. V.)

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN.

No one who has ever seen the subject of the opposite sketch, on one of the occasions selected by the artist, the delivery of a speech in the Senate, will need the addition of the name, to recognize in it the distinguished Senator from South Carolina whose name heads this page. He has been selected for the fifth number of our Political Portrait Gallery, because he may, at the present moment, be considered to occupy a position more prominent and remarkable, in various points of view, than any of the other public men now on the stage before the eye of the country.

Mr. Calhoun is of Irish extraction, his father having been a native of that land of warm hearts and excitable temperaments, though he left it in early childhood. The family emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1733, from which, after a number of years, they removed to Virginia, and thence finally, in 1756, to South Carolina. He was born in 1782, being the fourth of five children, four sons and a daughter. His father, Patrick Calhoun, was distinguished for his daring spirit manifested in the command of a force of border rangers for the defence of the frontier settlements, against the Indian (especially the Cherokee) hostilities. He married, in 1770, a young lady of the name of Caldwell, of Charlotte county, Virginia.

Mr. Calhoun is therefore now in his fifty-sixth year. He exhibited very extraordinary natural powers of mind at an early age, though his education before the age of eighteen was comparatively but little attended to, the three or four years preceding that age having been spent at home, in the invigorating pursuits of agricul ture, and the sports of the field. He had been taken home by his parents from school, on account of the injury which his health had sustained, from the severe application to which he had been excited by a strong enthusiasm for historical reading, supported by a patient industry rarely exhibited by so young a mind. In 1800 his school education was resumed, and in 1802, two years after his first breaking ground upon the rudiments of the Latin grammar, he entered Yale College in the Junior class;-at the head of which his commanding natural powers enabled him to graduate, with the highest honors. He spent a year and a half at the Litchfield law school; and, completing his legal studies in the office of Mr. Desaussure, in Charleston, was admitted to the bar in 1807, where he immediately took a high rank, on the circuit of his native district, Abbeville.

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From his earliest years, he was remarkable for an enthusiastic devotion to free principles, taking a prominent position on all occasions among the most ardent of the friends of human freedom, and the enemies of strong governmental powers. This seems to have been the general tone and bias of his mind from the earliest age. He entered Congress in 1811, having served two years in the Legislature of his native State. Since that period, he has been always on the front of the stage, deeply engaged, and playing a part second in prominence to none, in all the important public affairs of the times. A distinguished position was immediately conceded to him, by general consent, in the ranks of the Republican party, of which he was of course a member, being one of its most zealous and powerful champions. He was placed second on the Committee on Foreign Affairs; of which he soon became chairman, on the retirement from Congress of Gen. Porter. This post was, it will be remembered, at that time the leadership of the Republican party in the House. His maiden speech was in defence of his report recommending a declaration of war, against a powerful attack by John Randolph; it placed him at once in the first class of parliamentary orators. His extraordinary powers had full scope in that position, which he maintained with all the enthusiasm, energy, and inexhaustible resources of genius, by which he was so remarkably characterized. His patriotic services to the country at that trying time will always constitute a bright page in the record of his biography, which none of the feelings that may have arisen out of subsequent collisions of great parties and interests ought to be permitted to obscure.

His course at this period presents one feature especially worthy of remark, as having some bearing, in the way of illustration, upon the just understanding of his subsequent political life, and his present actual position. He displayed a strikingly bold independence of party obligations, as they are more commonly estimated by public men prominently engaged in the campaigns of party warfare. Though a leading member of the Republican party, he did not hesitate to oppose it in several important measures, to which a distinct and decided party character had been given,-in some instances successfully, and in others in vain;-witness his support of the Navy against a strong tide of party unpopularity, his opposition to the embargo, and the non-importation and non-intercourse acts, -and to the great scheme of the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Dallas) of a non-specie-paying national bank, which was strongly urged as a party measure indispensable for the successful prosecution of the war. No enemy can deny Mr. Calhoun the credit of having manifested on these occasions an independence, and highminded sincerity of views, entitled at least to this passing notice.

The next important measure with which he is associated was the charter of the Bank of the United States. He was at the head of

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