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At this session Mr. B. made a speech in thorough review and condemnation of the opinion of the Supreme Court of New-York in the case of McLeod and the affair of the "Caroline;" a matter which so much disturbed, and came so near breaking, our relations of peace with Great Britain.

In the recess which followed after this session, in which the Whig party had begun to be Tylerized, a convention of the Whigs of New-York assembled at Syracuse, the object of which was, to re-assert the distinctive principles of the party, and consolidate anew its strength upon them. The paper put forth by that Convention, and called "A Declaration" of its sentiments, was drawn by Mr. Barnard. It was received everywhere with great satisfaction.

Mr. B.'s attention; and next the revenue | bankruptcy.
measures, and the financial and fiscal plans
of the Administration; its sub-treasury
scheme; its treasury note policy, designed
to cover up the debt it was creating, and
to make a treasury bank of irredeemable
paper issues. On all these subjects he
delivered elaborate speeches. In the sec-
ond session of this Congress, (the short
session,) he presented a full and elaborate
exposition of the financial condition of the
Government, and of its debt; all of which
had been ingeniously disguised and mysti-
fied by the Administration and its friends.
In the presidential campaign of 1840, Mr.
Barnard took the field as others did, and ad-
dressed the electors whenever he was in-
vited to do so, in various parts of his own
State, and elsewhere. It was his invaria-
ble custom to discuss the political topics of
the day before the people at great length,
and in the same thorough and sober way,
on the true merits of each question, that
he would have used in the House of Rep-
resentatives. He never failed to find this
sort of compliment to the intelligence of
the people returned and rewarded by the
most patient and eager attention-even in
speeches running, not unfrequently, to the
length of three hours.

The Whigs had the House in the twenty-seventh Congress. Mr. B. was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In the first, or extra session, the questions of Finance, of Revenue, of the Tariff, of Commercial regulations, and of some fiscal agent to fill the place of the condemned Sub-treasury, were mainly to be considered. Mr. B. presented matured and well-studied views on all these subjects. Of that of Banking and its true principles, he entered into the discussion at great length; and while the establishment of a National Bank was under consideration, presented a completely digested plan of a bank which avoided many of the objections to previous plans.

The Bankrupt Bill was carried through at this session under the charge of Mr. B. He made a report upon it, and opened and closed the debate. A Bankrupt Law is always unpopular, because it is not allowed, if created, to stand long enough to work its way clear. He thought it a duty devolved on Congress, by the Constitution, to establish and maintain a system of

In the next session of the twenty-sev enth Congress, Mr. B. was much occupied with the proper duties of the Judiciary Committee. He made several reports from that Committee of considerable importance. The House got into the habit of referring to that Committee matters from other committees upon which legal questions arose.

One of Mr. B.'s reports reviewed, and dissented from, an elaborate opinion of the Attorney-general, Mr. Legaré, in a vital question which had arisen! in regard to the validity of the existing tariff laws.

In this session an important act was passed, requiring the election of Representatives to be by single district throughon: the United States. Mr. B. was a strenuous advocate of this law, and defended its constitutionality, which had been assailed.

Mr. B. spoke also on the Army Bill; o the President's Veto of the Provision. Tariff Bill, or "Little Tariff," as it wa called, and on the great Tariff Bill 1842. He had also charge of an importa measure, the "Remedial Justice Bill." it was called, in its very difficult and structed passage through the House. Ind was a bill to secure and fix the jurisdict over such cases as that of McLeod, grow ing out of the Caroline affair, where it longed, in the Supreme Court of United States. It was a measure of pe and good faith in connection with the g treaty of peace concluded between Webster and Lord Ashburton. But

encountered the most determined hostility. Mr. B.'s speech in its favor was a legal and constitutional argument, as well as an earnest appeal to the justice and right feelings of the House.

At this session Mr. Tyler sent in his famous Exchequer plan: which was a plan for an Executive Bank, to deal in deposits and exchange, and be managed by the Executive, or his clerks and secretaries. There was to be a Board of Exchequer, which was only an Executive Treasury with sub-treasuries.

As antagonistic to this, Mr. Barnard digested and presented a Fiscal plan for the safe keeping of the public money, and for the employment of issues strictly convertible, and which created no Sub-treasury, and no Executive Bank. But the whole subject went over.

On the eve of the election in New York, in the fall of this year, Mr. John C. Spencer, then Mr. Tyler's Secretary of War, came out with a manifesto to the people on the merits of Mr. Tyler and his administration. This was reviewed by Mr. Barnard in an address delivered at a meeting of the citizens of Albany, which was immediately published and widely circulated and read.

In the third session of the twentyseventh Congress, after an ineffectual effort to reject the repeal of the Bankrupt. Law by the same Whig votes which had passed it the year before, Mr. Barnard gave his attention mainly to the President's Exchequer plan, now again sent in, and which he opposed, and to another plan of his own which he prepared and presented to the House. He thought it the duty of Congress to do something on this subject. But nothing was done. His "Provisional Bill for supplying a National Currency" " was fully explained and discussed in a speech delivered near the close of this short session. This plan, leaving he deposit system to operate under the old law of 1789, proposed, by a simple ind perfectly safe process, involving the government in not the slightest risk, to dopt and nationalize a limited amount of ound convertible State bank currency for eneral uses. The plan met the decided nd warm approval of many of the best en of both branches of Congress. In the twenty-eighth Congress, power |

VOL. I. NO. V. NEW SERIES.

35

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had returned to Democratic hands. Members were present from four States, who had been elected by general ticket, in defiance of the law of Congress! The Whigs were too few in number to contend successfully with a determined and lawless majority. They resolved to content themselves with a formal Protest against the right of the general ticket members to their seats. This paper was prepared by Mr. Barnard. It received the signatures of fifty Whigs. It cost the Whigs a desperate and protracted struggle to get the Protest where they were resolved to have it-on the Journals of the House. In this effort the lead was in Mr. Barnard's hands, who offered the Protest. In this Congress, the efforts of Whigs were those of opposition to the party measures of the "Democracy." Such were Mr. Barnard's efforts. He spoke against the Report of the Committee on Elections in regard to elections by general ticket; against the bill to refund the fine imposed on Gen. Jackson; against a proposed substitute for the tariff of 1842; and against the Annexation of Texas. He prepared, also, and published, without having an opportunity to offer it to the House, a paper in "Review of the Report of the Committee of Ways and Means on the Finances and the Public Debt."

This paper was got up with very great labor and research. It unravelled the condition of the treasury and the finances, and, by a clear demonstration, placed the creation of the public debt, as it then existed, where it belonged, to the sole account of Mr. Van Buren's administration. It showed demonstrably that the twenty-seventh Congress had created no debt.

In July and August, 1844, Mr. Barnard addressed to his constituents, through the Albany Evening Journal, a series of political papers, five in number, on the leading public questions of the period, and on the true policy of the country in regard to new as well as old issues before the people. These papers were reprinted elsewhere in and out of the State. In March, 1845, Mr. Barnard's services in Congress were at an end.

In the winter of 1844-5, there was published in a Philadelphia paper, a series of skilfully executed Daguerreotype sketch

of members of Congress, one of which related to him, and runs thus:

“D. D. BARNARD, OF NEW YORK.—Mr. Barnard is the leader of the Whig party in the House, if it can be said to have any acknowledged head. He would occupy a prominent position in any legislative body. He is a sound, logical thinker, and a hard student. He possesses a fund of information upon politics, law and general knowledge, that could only have been attained by a life of long and patient application. He belongs to a class of men who are unfortunately diminishing in every successive Congress-men of practical views, profound minds, and strong common sense, who apply themselves to the duties of Congressional life, with the view of becoming useful and beneficent statesmen. He never sacrifices sense to sound, nor seeks éclat by displays of brilliant rhetoric.

"Armed at all points with constitutional learning, he is always ready to meet the champions of nullification, or of Locofocoism, who attack the tenets of the Whig party, or seek to palliate violations of law by crude and dangerous expositions of our National Charter. His powerful speeches on the general ticket question, and his firm and unflinching opposition to the admission of the illegally elected members, will not soon be forgotten. As an interpreter of the Constitution, Mr. Barnard, in common with the Whig party, belongs to the school of Marshall, Story, Madison, Hamilton and Washington, and those who framed that instrument. He looks upon the Constitution in the liberal spirit in which it was conceived, as the fundamental law of a great nation, adequate to all the exigencies and wants that may arise in the progress of our history. With these views, he is a friend of judicious internal improvements, the protective policy, and a bank of the United States, and a sturdy opponent of the narrow views of the race of Virginia hair-splitters and abstractionists, who, for all practical purposes, reduce the Constitution to a dead letter.

"As a speaker, Mr. Barnard is clear, convincing and argumentative. He wants a lively imagination, which takes from his speeches the attractions of rhetorical ornament and illustration. He speaks in a measured and deliberate tone, and occasionally throws out a lofty sentiment which shows the depth and dignity of his

intellect. His manner is earnest, but at the same time courteous and deferential to opponents. He never gives an insult in debate, and cannot be provoked to notice the blackguardisms which every gentleman encounters in such a body as the House of Representatives. The face of Mr. Barnard is that of a student pale, grave and thoughtful. In stature, he is tall; he is past the meridian of life. He refrom public life with this session of Con

gress. He leaves behind him an honorable reputation, both for public and private virtue."

Mr. Barnard's connection with the Amer ican Review, as an occasional contributor, began with its first year, and has been continued ever since. The readers of the Review can judge of him as a political writer for themselves.

Mr. Barnard has performed a good deal of There is another department in which severe labor, and which we should notice before concluding this sketch. Considering his other occupations, he has wrought up, first and last, a great deal of literary matter. For many years he has been often called upon to deliver addresses and lectures at our colleges, and before lyceums, literary societies, and mutual improvement associations. These addresses are generally elaborate, as if produced with much study, thought and research. Of these there have been printed enough. if collected, to make two large vol of the Colony of Rensselaerwick," preumes. In 1839 "An Historical Sketch pared by him, and read before the Albany Institute, was published. Shortly after this he was made an Honorary Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 1835 the degree of Doctor of Laws was ! conferred upon him by Geneva College and in 1845 the same honor was awarded¦ him by Columbia College in New York.

He is

In politics, Mr. Barnard's principles have the force and character of settle convictions, and are severely held. always anxious to have his party hold it principles in the same spirit.

He think

it the best policy to be honest in politie as in everything else. He has a stron aversion to demagogues and their tricks He has never solicited office. When calle to the performance of public duties, Þ has obeyed usually with all the signs e real reluctance, but we may believe without such feelings of gratified pride, e a man may justly indulge when he find himself trusted and honored by his fello men. He is evidently ambitious of sue: honors as flow from desert, but has nev sought political distinction except in sess field of useful and patriotic endear Those who know him best, will aver the his highest aim is the good of his cour try.

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HOGARTH'S MUSICAL HISTORY.*

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THIS is the best musical history we have | his intimate musical friends. There should in English, and its republication in a cheap be in it no parade of technicalities, none of form cannot but have a good influence in the concealments of quackery; yet there diffusing correct ideas of music and gene- should be free opinions and the reasons ral views of its past progress, where they for them, given in an artist-like manner, are much needed. Mr. Hogarth was for and as though the work were intended for many years connected with one of the artists. London papers as musical critic; he is, There is no art that suffers so much we believe, the father-in-law of Dickens. through the timidity of its professors, as Without making any pretension to techni- music. The artists are so fearful the pubcal knowledge, he has evidently a culti-lic will not understand the true, that they vated taste; he writes in a plain, simple style, and though he is neither so profound nor acute a critical writer as a thorough education and a more sensitive perception might have made him, yet he is one who understands himself, and whose judgments, if not authoritative, are always respectable. For those who are not so constituted that they are compelled to read and remember everything relating to music that comes within their reach, his history must be very interesting;-we can fancy conditions of being admitting such a supposition.

But for our own part, (we speak not personally, but in the name of all unfortunate amateurs,) Mr. Hogarth's history is as tedious as a twice-told tale. It is all very well, but the facts are as familiar as the events narrated in the Old Testament; and for the criticism, it is so far off, cold, and general, that though all very true, it s tiresome. It is to be regretted that some learned musician has not written a 'echnical work of this kind on music. A series of thorough examinations of the peuliarities of the styles of the great masers, and of different times and schools, would be the most interesting work on ausic that can be conceived; and it is to e hoped that some one who combines the are qualities of artist and critic will some ay devote himself to this task. The subtance of it should be such as we may fancy ich a man as Mendelssohn to have uttered familiar conversations with his pupils or

actually surfeit them with the false. Every one knows how it is at our concerts; the most distinguished performers who come among us dare not supply our audiences with anything but show music. We will mention in particular Herz and Sivori, because they were very successful here, and because it is time to say that there are a few lovers of music among us who felt aggrieved to think that artists of their rank should have been so little disposed to use their great skill for the love of truth. Henri Herz might have given now and then something much better than his own themes and variations, without doing himself any pecuniary injury. Louis Philippe, who, he said, was very fond of Sachini and the old Italians, must have grown very weary of his pianist unless he had the power to procure from him something other than his own writing, when he commanded him to the palace. Sivori, we have been informed by good authority, excels in solid music as much as he does in superficial; yet all he ever gave was a sonata of Beethoven on one occasion, and his way of doing that was not what it would have been before a discerning auditory. Whenever these players did give anything good, it was sure to be timidly and ineffectively done. Once they did advertise a classical concert; the result was the usual Campanella and Carnival, the everlasting Last Rose of Summer, with variations, and a few airs from Don Gio

Musical History, Biography, and Criticism, by GEORGE HOGARTH. New York: J. S. Redfield. 1818

vauch They thought that the word "classic" on the posters might increase for once the potency of these enormous blisters, but they did not dare to actually exhibit the article in the Tabernacle in any Appreciable quantity.

But we do not. for this blame them so ruch as if they were all that their personal triends would have it believed; for by their thus degrading the sacred art of musie to a mere trade, they, in so far, show a want of those qualities which mark the true artist, and are not to be reproved for not doing what they might have done for their art, because they set out with no end in view but to use it as a business. If Mendelssohn, in the midst of his great life, had stopped short, and made his fortune by show-playing, he would have deserved the most severe criticism that could be applied to an artist; though as a man of the world he would have acted very prudently. But when performers give themselves wholly to the trickery of the art, and for years make it their sole study, it has, of course, a retributive influence upon their minds; men cannot "go here and there and make themselves a motley to the view," and "look on truth askance and strangely," without becoming somewhat parti-colored in their minds, and incapable of looking at truth directly. They make their fortunes, and live and enjoy their well-earned wealth; but they do not grow into great artists; indeed, if they live long enough, and carry out their system purely enough, they degenerate into unmixed charlatanry. They do not deserve, therefore, to be criticised as true artists; for by their course they, in effect, disclaim the title. Or, since that phrase may seem to put it too roundly, we may admit them to be artists, but yet, in such a department of musical art that the same criticism which would apply to truly great artists must not be used towards

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our city, how much more gratifying to every true musician would have been the result! For we cannot conceive that Verdi, though there are many odd things in his pieces, and sometimes good ones, is really loved by those who have deemed it their duty to subject themselves to the nightly fatigue of hearing him. Whereas, if Mozart had been given the same number of times, and with a force equally capable of rendering him properly-at the worst he could but have failed, as Verdi has; but he would not have failed before thrilling many hearts with his tenderness and fire, and leading them thus upward to a wider sphere of enjoyment; we should, by this time, have heard his melodies in the streets; and they would, for that is their legitimate effect, have exerted a refining influence on our social life.

The writers on music for popular reading are also much troubled by this same timidity, or want of confidence in the power of truth; and that is probably the great reason why no learned musician has ever attempted such a work as we have above suggested. The truly learned prefer, with Mozart, to "show how it ought to be done," to writing on their art; or if they write, they are afraid of being too abstruse and technical. They are too ready to distrust the capacity of the unlearned. Hence we have so very little really satis factory and instructive musical criticism. Such works as this of Mr. Hogarth are doing much, however, we may hope, to lead the way to a more thorough mode of treating music than has been hitherte practiced by our writers. The histories of Burney and Hawkins are not books which an English musician can feel parti ularly proud; the "Music of Nature" probably the worst thing that was written on music in any language. T London Musical Review, published m years since, had a great many good ar cles, but in general it was very pondero The Musical Library, with its specimens the styles of the various masters, short critical notices of them, was excelle a reprint of the music given in it, with notices, would be one of the best thi that could be done for music in this count Holmes's Life of Mozart is a very interes ing work, but it would have been m better, if, in addition to the affect

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