very inadequate provisions of law for its security, and dependent mainly on Executive responsibility. They cannot do so without a virtual confession of that mere dishonest factiousness of opposition, which would revolt the blindest of the partisans they are yet able to delude.

And which of the two can they take? Is it to be expected that the main bulk of their party will yield to the handful of Conservatives whose importance has consisted solely in the ability which the peculiar relations of parties have given them, for a time, of casting the nicely suspended balance in favor of the Opposition? Can the former forget and unsay all their speeches of the last three or four years preceding the suspension? Can they take up the "Pet Bank” System after it has proved by experience the truth of the worst anticipations of evil, with which they themselves so long and loudly under other circumstances, denounced it? or can they again take it as they before offered, confessedly as a "half-way" gradation to a National Bank, for the express purpose of forcing the country upon the latter by a repetition of its own disastrous failure? They cannot take it at all. It would be too gross and too flagrant a contempt of all honesty and consistency. Or even if thus assumed, it will be plainly impossible to escape any longer the explicit and direct statement of the issue, as between the Independent Treasury and a National Bank.

To this complexion it must come at last. And yet on the other hand, how is that any more possible than the other alternative? A proposition of that character could scarcely command much more than one-third of either branch of Congress, when two-thirds of both would be requisite to carry it. The favor it would be likely to experience at the hands of the people may be sufficiently inferred from the pains which that party have recently taken to disavow its responsibility. Dare the Conservatives yet come out openly on this ground, before the spring elections, if previous to the late elections the Whig convention at Utica, New York, in sole reference to them felt itself compelled to disclaim it. They will not dare to do so, though that will not avail to arrest the ripening of the question, which must simplify itself, more and more plainly every day, down to the single leading issue already stated.

In the actual impossibility, then, which exists, of an union of the two sections of the Opposition upon any other measure,—and the equal impossibility of again adjourning without establishing some legalized system for the administration of the public finances, without openly forfeiting whatever portion of public respect or confidence yet remains to them as a party, we cannot see what the Whigs can or will do, but to suffer the Independent Treasury bill to pass. It is certainly an embarrassing and mortifying position for them to occupy, but what alternative is there open to them?

Something must be done-the Administration offers a positive measure-and they cannot choose but either to accept it, or offer a substitute; and bitter as may be the necessity of the former, it is less hard for them to bear, in the present state of things, than the onus of the latter. We cannot, therefore, but think it extremely probable that the Congress which has twice rejected the Executive propositions for the independence of the Treasury, will not terminate its political existence on the fourth of March next, without an acknowledgment of its own former error, by establishing the same as the law of the land, confining their opposition to the mere modification of some of its stronger features.

In their internal concerns they appear to be placed in circumstances of no less embarrassment than those already adverted to, in their open relations with the Democratic party and the country. Their Presidential convention is to assemble in September of next year, and the present session must be so managed as to restore some degree of harmony to their distracted counsels on this subject. Last year all appeared straight and smooth. The name of Mr. Clay then blazed on high, resplendent with triumph, and eclipsing all imaginable pretensions on the part of inferior competitors.

-Sicut inter ignes

Luna minores.

Mr. Clay's enjoyment of his palmy pride of place, in the ranks of his party, was manifest on a thousand occasions. It is still fresh in the memory of all who will now have to look upon him in the very different light of his present position. There was then a boldness in his bearing, a triumph in his eye, an exulting confidence in all his words and acts, which attested the intensity of his enjoyment of even that distant approach to the consummation of his long deferred and often baffled hopes. He seemed then nearer to that long coveted prize than he had ever been before-than he can ever be again. Alas, for the fleeting character of human enjoyments! Thus passeth away the glory of the earth! Confident in the position of his party, Mr. Clay, at the last session-by way of securing his prominence and ascendancy in it, by placing himself still more unequivocally than before at the very head of counter-revolution which he supposed triumphant in favor of a National Bank,—brought forth his great projet de loi, of a new one with enlarged capital and an altered location. Yet we have seen the Whig party, in the very State whose attachment was to be secured to himself by this magnificent bid, undertaking to disavow a National Bank! Mr. Clay has overleaped himself, and fallen on t'other side!' It is a bad combination, unprincipled ambition with too bold and sanguine a temperament. If he was an "unavailable" before, by this very move designed to perfect the fancied strength of his position, he has made himself still more so. Not only is it perfectly manifest

that the Whig candidate for the succession to the Presidency cannot have the slightest chance of success, but equally that Mr. Clay is no longer even the candidate of this party. It is plain that he must again bend his high-reaching spirit; and, still bitterer necessity! in favor either of the one he most despises, or the one he most hates!

But is so proud and soaring a spirit to be thus tamed and yoked, without a struggle? We confidently answer, no. If he cannot be the first in the nation, Henry Clay will not surrender the position of the first in his party, without an effort to retain it which will agitate and embarrass it in no inconsiderable degree. He cannot avert his fate, but he will not fall unresisting,—perhaps not unavenged; and, like the perishing strong man of old, we bid those beware who would mock him between the pillars of their gates!

For our own part we regret it. There is a something bold and manly and dashing about Mr. Clay which awakens a certain sort of admiration even in the minds of those who most condemn both his principles and his want of principle. If he is a mere political gambler, he at least plays a gallant and gentlemanly game, "bragging" daringly, dexterously, and high. There is not much cant about him, comparatively with most of the politicians of his time and his party; and when he does assume it, to impose upon the "swinish multitude" at a distance the affectation is made so transparent to those about him, and the burlesque so open and broad, that it loses the effect of hypocrisy, and is half forgiven, as being rather a good joke, on the part of one not professing any other maxim than that "all is fair in politics," than as being a piece of personal dishonesty, to be reprobated in the same manner as in the case of any other man. We have therefore a certain kind of liking for Mr. Clay, and should regret to witness the mortification which must attend his dethronement from the place in his party that he occupied so proudly last year. And since the slight rally of encouragement afforded to the Whigs by the result of the New York Election, may still, it is to be presumed, induce them to attempt to contest the next Presidential Election (contrary to all the apparent probabilities before it took place) we should vastiy prefer to see it done under something more than a mere man of straw for a leader.

And moreover, we assure our friends the Whigs, in all sincerity, that Mr. Clay is still, after all, their strongest man; and if they feel confident of being a fourth time beaten under him, it is the misfortune and weakness of their cause, and no individual fault of his, relatively to the other members of his party. Destitute as he is of a chance at the South, weak as he has become at the West, in some portions of the North he does possess a certain kind of popularity with his party to which his humble competitor of North Bend can make no pretension; and for him they may yet be willing to make

a struggle, which, made in behalf of one for whom they themselves do not affect to dissemble their contempt, would be spiritless and feeble indeed. And certainly in the recent demonstration of the exact measure of his strength in Pennsylvania and Ohio, General Harrison has clearly forfeited all that claim on the Whig party which he before derived from his political insignificance, and his comparative freedom from personal objection. He was, before, the candidate of mere opposition,—the representative of nothing but of the mere negative prejudice against the Administration, on the part of a large proportion of the Whig party, growing out of the long and embittered political struggles of late years. But we have already seen that, from the progress of the contest and the development of the issues between the two parties, the Whigs can no longer occupy that mere negative ground. In the nature of things it is impossible. They must either virtually abandon the contest, which we have no doubt they would have done, but for the unexpected encouragement of the late New York election; or they must enter into it manfully on the strength of avowed principles and measures, of some sort or other. If they again shrink from that course, and again go through the campaign of another Presidential canvass not as a party, but as a mere opposition, which is clearly nothing more nor less than a mere faction, they cannot fail to encounter an overthrow still more easy, inglorious, and decisive of their political fate.

It would be difficult, then, to conceive a state of circumstances more embarrassing to a party than those under which the Whigs come to the Capitol at the present session, to meet their Democratic opponents face to face before the nation. All their old arguments exhausted or exploded-their charges repulsed and rebuked by a grand popular movement in favor of the Administration, too unequivocal to admit of serious question-the impossibility of longer postponing the adoption of some positive and decisive position, and the equal impossibility of agreeing upon one, or of venturing to assume it, if agreed upon,-dissension distracting their counsels.from within, from the simple want of any principle of union, and hopeless impractibility staring them in the face in every direction in which they might attempt a distinct movement-we again ask, unenlightened by the most candid reflections we can bestow on the subject, what can they say, what can they do? and must be content to await patiently the answer that time alone can bring to the question.

DIDIER'S YEAR IN SPAIN.

THERE is perhaps no country in the world whose national character has been so little understood as that of Spain. This very interesting work, which has recently been published in Paris, throws considerable light upon a subject of the highest interest, at a moment when this singular nation is convulsed by a civil war, marked by the most uncommon and opposite features of ferocity and heroism. It is a subject of much regret that the modern literature of France is so little known or appreciated in this country. Apart from the more cultivated natives of the country, resident among us, a very limited circle here, only, is acquainted with its richness and variety, and few indeed of the numerous important works which are continually appearing in Paris, in every branch of science and literature, ever reach our shores, much less become known to the mass of our population.

A few extracts, translated from the work of an intelligent and accurate observer, as we turn over its pages, will give to our readers, for instance, some new and interesting glimpses of Spanish history and politics, from a quarter where, we venture to say, a large proportion of them would not have become acquainted with them, and the touching details of the Young Napoleon's short and mournful destiny, which we gave in a late number from the well known work of Montbel, were found to possess as much freshness of interest and attraction, as if the palace doors of the child of destiny had then first been opened to the imagination of every reader. Again and again, we shall return to the stores of French literature.

The first volume contains a narrative of the author's arrival at Barcelona; an account of Saragossa, Madrid, and Toledo; portraits of the most distinguished members of the Spanish Ministry, during the last century, and a sketch of the events that have taken place since the marriage of Ferdinand VII. with Christina, now Regent. We will begin our extracts with the following remarks on the capital of Catalonia:

"Barcelona bears some resemblance to Palermo; but, as far as manners, customs, and civilization are concerned, is to Spain, what Milan is to Italy. Since the decay of Cadiz, it has been the principal commercial town of the peninsula. It surpasses the capital in wealth and elegance. It is, of all the Spanish towns, that in which the theatre is the most constantly attended. The opera is often well organized; but they have little national music. Rossini reigns as an absolute master over the hearts of the Catalonian dilettanti. The Barcelonian is essentially maritime. He is adventurous and loves the sea; the greater part of the emigrants, who, during the last century, went to seek their fortune in the Indies, were natives of Barcelona."

*Une année en Espagne, par Charles Didier, 2 Tomes.-Paris, 1838.